Love Live! - Character Discussion - µ's

[Kairin]

The purpose of this thread is to provide a place to discuss all things µ's related.
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[Triple_R]

I'm replying to this here since it's purely a counterargument to Pen3's criticisms of the original Love Live. I don't have much problem with the bulk of Pen3's assessment of Sunshine, but I think his arguments do a severe disservice to the original Love Live.

Originally Posted by Pen3

The original didn't have very good characterization at all, it was mainly the Honoka/Kotori/Umi trio and that was still fairly weak.

I completely disagree. The original had very good-to-excellent characterization across the board.

In addition to the three 2nd years, Eli, Maki, and Nico were all very well-developed in Season 1. Eli's characterization was very solid, and the anime did an excellent job of showing smooth seamless character development for Eli from her first appearance in Episode 1 to her joining μ's in Episode 8 to what Eli was like at the end of Season 1. Eli was initially a very stern and driven person, lacking much trust in others, and having become duty-bound to an excessive degree. In joining μ's, Eli allowed herself to embrace fun again, and to accept truly new experiences and ways of doing things. With this change, Eli demonstrated considerably maturity, and the beautiful irony is that she did so by becoming less of an edgelord and more happy/optimistic. This makes Eli a wondrous counterpoint to some of the more cynical notions of what it means to be an adult. With Episode 8, we get a strong sense of a great weight being lifted off of Eli's shoulders as she allows herself to truly embrace life itself again, and not merely the duties and obligations that often come along with life. And by the end of LL Season 1, we see an Eli that has embraced life and several new friends, realizing the considerable value in having other people in your life that you like and trust and share good experiences with.

Maki is one of the best tsunderes I've ever seen, and her own character development was also smooth and believable. Maki, like Eli, was overly stern and loner-esque early on, finding it difficult to connect much to other people for a variety of reasons. Maki, like Eli, learned to relax some and embrace fun and friends for their own sake. Maki never lost her considerable charm and wittiness, and in fact had that grow due to being more comfortable talking with other people. LL Season 1 Episode 10 did an excellent job of drawing parallels between Eli and Maki. In so doing, it nicely demonstrated Eli's character growth through the first 9 episodes, and similar growth that Maki should have. I found this a very clever approach to Eli and Maki, better enabling both characters to feel like individuals within the wider μ's.

Nico is consistently a good source of comedy. Love Live also did a good job of displaying the pros and cons to Nico's hardcore fan-based perfectionism. In this way, Nico can in fact be an interesting representation of detail-oriented hardcore fans in any fandom (it's not hard for me to imagine the superhero fan equivalent of Nico's school idol fan). One good point of Nico's perfectionism is how very knowledgeable she is about what she loves, enabling her to quickly bring the rest of μ's up-to-speed on school idols and what makes school idols special. On the other hand, her perfectionism previously chased people away, and it occasionally presents real difficulties for the rest of μ's to deal with. There's also considerable dynamism in Nico's relationships with other μ's members. Nico starts out wanting to be the clear leader of μ's, which played marvelously into a highly humorous Episode 6. But as time goes on, Nico is drawn to other μ's members, making deeper friendships with some of them. Nico's strongly implied friendship with Maki is a good example of this, and later on we see Nico take on an admirable mentor role towards Hanayo and Rin. Nico, Maki, Hanayo, and Rin in fact become like a subgroup within the wider μ's. It's interesting to see the many different ways that μ's can be seperated into different friendship dynamics, in a variety of different subgroups and one-to-one relationships.

To keep this from going overly long, I'll end things here for now. If other LL fans found this read interesting, perhaps I'll delve into other μ's characters like this sometime in the future, perhaps choosing to focus on 3 μ's characters per post.

[R.LocK]

I don't feel that OG did a very good job fleshing out girls by themselves. However, I feel that they shone as a group very very brightly, playing off each other's strengths and weaknesses alike. This is what made me pick the series right back up, a whole year after I initially disregarded it as just another idol franchise.

In my opinion, episodes dedicated to focus only on one girl out of the nine were by far the weakest, except for Rin and Nozomi. On the other hand, any episode which focused on the group dynamics, no matter how foolish it looked like, was undeniably strong.

[blakstealth]

If u's announced some random reunion performance 2-3 years from now, I'd make it my life mission to go see it.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by R.LocK

I don't feel that OG did a very good job fleshing out girls by themselves. However, I feel that they shone as a group very very brightly, playing off each other's strengths and weaknesses alike. This is what made me pick the series right back up, a whole year after I initially disregarded it as just another idol franchise.

In my opinion, episodes dedicated to focus only on one girl out of the nine were by far the weakest, except for Rin and Nozomi. On the other hand, any episode which focused on the group dynamics, no matter how foolish it looked like, was undeniably strong.

Hhhmm... there's probably some truth to this. The best OG episodes probably were the ones focusing on the full group. There was also a lot of good verbal chemistry throughout the full group - The best comedy episodes tended to be the ones where everybody played off of everybody else (the Halloween episode probably being the best example of this, in my opinion).

[judasmartel]

Originally Posted by blakstealth

If u's announced some random reunion performance 2-3 years from now, I'd make it my life mission to go see it.

I hereby vote for Muse to perform in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

[Windy]

Happy Birthday Hanayo Koizumi!

May the rice gods bless you with much white rice today!