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Otonokizaka High School is planning to close within three years. However, nine female students come together with one thing in mind—form a pop idol group to revive the school’s popularity and keep it from shutting down. ‘In order to protect our beloved school, there’s only one thing we can do...become idols!’

The Episodes

Looking at the cover artwork for Love Live! School Idol Project Season One, it’s easy to assume that it’s one of those stereotypical anime series shown on the news that’s guilty of oversexualizing young female characters.

While that certain type of anime series does exist (and is a lot less popular than most people think), it becomes apparent very quickly that Love Live! is not one of them and is in fact a series that’s very approachable, fun, and incredibly watchable on many levels.

There is a great sense of humor in Love Live!. From the funky background music to the over-the-top drama (would schoolchildren really care that much about their school closing?), each episode contains several laugh out loud moments that really adds life to the series and complements the bright character design perfectly.

With a cast of characters that grows with each subsequent episode, it’s a testament to the solid pacing and scripting when, by the end of the 13^th episode, almost all of the characters have been so well established. On the surface there are the usual “bossy”, “popular girl”, and “shy girl” personality types but each character is given enough depth and nuance to prevent them from becoming too generic. The show is even surprisingly progressive with the inclusion of one character in particular, Eri (strangely translated as “Eli” in the subtitles), who is from Russian descent and is treated, for the most part, as a completely normal Japanese schoolgirl character.

Eri is given her own unique personality of course and her relationship with her Russian grandmother influences her character arc but she is never treated as non-Japanese or an outsider and is looked up to by her classmates and written as a full character with more going for her beyond her racial diversity which most other series would use to define her.

The story is also unexpected at times and takes some exciting twists in its second half that few will see coming. Love Live! School Idol Project may look like a predictable “girls enter singing contest and become famous” series but it is anything but.

DVD and Special Features

Packaged in a reasonably sturdy cardboard slipcase featuring a fantastically colorful design, this set contains all 13 episodes of the first season of the Love Live! School Idol Project on two DVD disks packed in a normal plastic DVD case and comes with a Limited Edition Weiss Schwarz card, a download code for the Love Live! School Idol Festival iOS and Android smartphone game, and a very well-made booklet filled with high quality images, episode guides, and detailed character profiles.

All 13 episodes of the first season of Love Live! look and sound great for a DVD release and while all the audio and effects come through clear, it’s the lively music that’s the real standout. There is no English language dub unfortunately, however the Japanese cast sound completely fine with only Kotori’s Aya coming across as trying too hard to sound like a young Japanese schoolgirl (which is strange as Aya was only 26 years old or so at the time she recorded her lines for Love Live!). Lead character, Honoka’s voice actress, Emi Nitta on the other hand, knocks it out of the park with a truly solid performance.

The English subtitles on this release are a bit of a mixed bag. The English translation is fairly accurate but suffers from an overreliance on the inclusion of random Japanese words that will confuse anyone who doesn’t have a beginner level of Japanese. There are also some issues with the way the subtitles are programmed. Both the show’s dialogue and song lyrics are presented in the same color and font size and often overlap one another in a way that makes it impossible to tell which dialogue is being spoken by the characters on-screen and which are from a song playing in the background. This release would have received a much higher rating if the subtitles didn’t detract from the viewing experience to the degree that they do.

There aren’t any extras on the DVDs beyond the usual creditless opening and closing songs and trailers but with the bonus book, card, and box, it’s hard to complain.

Who Should Watch?

This is a series for viewers looking for something bright, energetic and fun. There are one or two shots of a young girl’s legs in one of the earlier episodes but they aren’t too gratuitous and in general the show isn’t too sexualized at all. None of the girls are ever placed in an uncomfortable situation and it’s interesting to note how unusual it is for a show consisting of an entirely female cast of characters to be completely void of any romantic subplot whatsoever. This is a show about girls being girls and would be highly recommended for 12-something viewers if not for the Japanese-only dialogue option and intimidating English subtitles.

Overall

Love Live! School Idol Project is a fun anime series that succeeds in the challenging task of making the viewer care about what is essentially a group of schoolgirls singing in their spare time. The animation and music are particularly impressive for an anime series as niche as this and the (almost) complete lack of sexualization of the young female characters is both a pleasant and welcome surprise.

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Disclosure: A review copy was provided by Madman. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy. The DVD featured in this review is the Region 4 DVD release by Madman. Alternate releases are available in other regions.