The Internet is Vast and Infinite. Also full of streaming idol contests, apparently.

I was pondering whether or not, given some of the charts shown later in the episode, there were any internet hacking shenanigans going on in this episode, but whilst Nico has previously proven herself quite adept around a keyboard (at least whilst trolling idol groups on internet forums), I’m pretty sure that Arisa and Yukiho aren’t exactly the sorts to have a Love Live voting bot-net at their beck-and-call. Infact, given that half of our heroines active fanbase seemed to be at their concert, and didn’t seem to have their ‘phones out, I wonder who was actually voting for them.

But I’m digressing in an attempt to justify the silly post title.
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Lewder cuts of animation are available, but this is a family blog, you understand, and I therefore have standards to maintain.

(Also, not really much lewder, unless you find Honoka’s bare back particularly lewd. I probably wouldn’t judge you if you did)

Anyway, let’s keep this comparatively short this week, because aside from the fact that I don’t really fancy attempting to proof another four thousand words about a mere twenty minute cartoon, I don’t actually have much to say about this episode.
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Finally, at long last, Love Live is back, singlehandedly saving the anime season from being naught but three solid months of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure memes. What a terrific first episode it was, too.

It’s kind of funny going back and reading how strangely lukewarm I was on the first series of Love Live back when it first started – certainly, what I was writing doesn’t exactly match up with my memories of back then, and most assuredly don’t with the way I felt once the series concluded. It doesn’t really ring true with my reaction to re-watching the initial episodes either, though my re-watch has only progressed as far as the sixth episode at this point.

Still, I’ve been looking forward to this show, which rather awkwardly does nothing to denote it’s sequel status in it’s moniker, returning to our screens – pretty much increasingly so as the months have gone on. Maybe it’s just all the Love Live music I’ve been listening to in the interim bolstering my excitement (though still only the stuff actually used in the anime, for the most part – I’ve not listened to any of the subgroup or character singles or anything).
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For the fourth year running, I’m going to have to confess that I’ve still not watched Gundam Unicorn. Yes, I have all, what is it, six episodes that they’ve released thus far sitting on my bookcase, but that this point, I may as well wait until the last episode is released rather than struggle, as I did with the second episode of Code Geass Akito a couple of days back, to remember what happened in the previous instalment once the long wait for the finale is over.

As for how the rest of the year ended up panning out, at least anime-wise, I feel it’s gone pretty well. Maybe it’s just a warm afterglow of this last season of the year, with shows like Kill la Kill, Kyousougiga, Build Fighters and Yozakura Quartet, it’s been a really strong last quarter in terms of the kind of cartoons I enjoy watching, even if the New Years episode of Sword Art I’m subjecting myself to whilst trying to finalise this post leaves a bit of a bitter aftertaste.

Anyway, on with the usual Token End of Year Post format. Just bear in mind that this is in no-way an Anime of the Year post, more just a bunch of things I feel like writing about – otherwise this’d be a whole mess of words about Yamato 2199 or Gatchaman Crowds (looking forward to that BD-version final episode) or some other show that isn’t about Attacking Titans that I don’t really mention. There’s plenty of others out there expounding the virtues of their version of the best of the year if that’s what you really want to know.
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The second series of Love Live doesn’t start until April, which leaves them having to come up with some way of selling more CDs. Concert ticket application forms can only go so far, and that’s been milked as far as it can go for the time being elsewhere. Instead, throwing in a goofy short OAV (particularly given that they were going to have to animate a music video anyway) was the solution they came up with, then they doubled-down on it by throwing in a bunch of dumb extras in for the LE release (which was only just a little more expensive than the regular BD-coupled version), just to allow them to maximize the benefit of the fan-cash-extraction process. Also, continuing the same smart move they’ve been running with all along, they used fan voting to determine it’s characters focus, ensuring that the audience has some incentive to pick it up.
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