This week on Love Live… a bunch of largely inconsequential, but amusing, things happen. It probably couldn’t be any more different in terms of tone and gravitas than last weeks episode without being something unrecognizable as being Love Live.

But, hey, before that, there’s some news this week. Twitter this week has been all, well, a-twitter with the fact that the previously announced English translation of the Love Live mobile game, School Idol Festival, was actually unleashed on both iOS and Android. They actually released this one in the UK as well, unlike certain other iOS idol-themed anime music games. This one is free-to-play too, so you can at least amuse yourself for a while until you start to feel the need to throw money into unlocking the rare idol cards. I’ve been playing it, anyway. It’s pretty fun, and definitely not at all the reason why I didn’t get this blog post up earlier.

It is a little awkward to find – I don’t have an Android device to look for it on, but in terms of finding it on iOS, you need to resist the seemingly obvious desire to search for Love Live and instead go for School Idol Festival if you actually want it to turn up.

In other English territory news, NISA finally solicited their release of the first series of Love Live, which is due to land in September. It’s the usual NISA release format, so it’s one for you guys who have space on their extra-large shelving units.

On another note, I’m probably going to be way late in getting to next weeks episode, if not the week afters as well. Try not to spoil them too hard for me, OK?

Also my OP and ED singles turned up in the mail this week, and I got Rin and Hanayo cards with them. I feel somewhat trolled!

Anyway, on with the show!

1) Zenkai no Love Live?!?

This week on Love Live… they actually assumed that you remembered what happened in last weeks episode, by skipping the usual recap that the show kicks it’s episodes off with.

Well, more than likely, they probably figured it wasn’t particularly necessary to remind the audience of what happened last week – this episode wasn’t exactly something which was particularly rooted in continuity, neither really following on from specific previous events, nor really adding anything massively important bar perhaps dropping a cliffhanger at the very end.

Saying that, what this episode does do is actually set us a solid date as to what point in the year the show presently at, with Halloween being, you know, celebrated at the end of October. That’s probably a week or two earlier than what I’d been expecting given events thus far in the series, but it’s not too far off. I guess this leaves them with five or six weeks of in-universe time until the next round of the Love Live kicks off, though.

2) STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT

Weekly reminder.

3) This Is Halloween!

It seems like a slightly weird combination for the conversation (it seems like the kind of thing Rin would be into), but in this scene we have Honoka, Kotori, Nico and Maki discussing the meaning of the term impact in regards to making more of an impression that A-RISE at the upcoming Akiba Halloween event. They’re performing the conversation by proxy of various toys – the obvious one being that Nico is waving around an off-brand Jack Skellington (from Kingdom Hearts, of course). I’m a little more curious about the gargantuan that Maki is speaking through, though – it feels like it’s supposed to be a specific reference to something, and it feels real familiar, but I can’t really put my finger on it.

Of course, the other question is exactly why these toys were in the school in the first place, particularly that huge thing Maki is wielding. Is that Maki’s, and did she just randomly bring it to school with her, or is Eli the only one here with a peculiar sense of cute?

4) The Most Impact

The ending credits in this show aren’t always the most useful of things – in this case, there are two new voices listed as being in this particular episode, and they’re listed solely as being Akiba Reporter and Announcer. The voices are provided by Takamori Natsumi and Sarah Emi Bridcutt (I had a heck of a time parsing that, blasted Katakana) respectively, though I’m not particularly familiar with either of their past works.

That being said, I’m pretty sure this hyperactive lady right here is played by Takamori, Announcer probably being the one telling our heroines to report to the head mistress later in the episode. This is mostly notable because she’s been the voice of one of the Cinderella Girls in the tie-in CD series, and the upcoming telly anime, presenting us here with a potentially terrifying world were cartoon idol franchises collide.

Or maybe not.

(Someone correct me if I’m wrong, though!)

Anyway, entertaining character, even if she did interrupt Nico mid-NicoNi.

5) Little Witch Academ-Kira

Excruciating pun aside, I’m all moe for girls with witch hats. Whilst I prefer them a little more on the big and floppy side than Tsubasa’s sporting here, it’ll do for me in a pinch.

I do wonder if this is really that big of a shattering of their image, though – it’s not like we got to see them perform at the end of the episode, so we don’t actually know if they were doing anything that was really out of character. Although I guess it’s not like we actually know much about A-RISE’s stage personas, given how comparatively little of them we’ve actually seen in the series. It makes it hard to figure out if our heroines are actually getting all flustered about nothing.

Also, they’re totally taking advantage of only appearing on TV here by blowing their stage budget, and I’m pretty sure that mooo’s don’t have their own video effect department. Given that their school is actually in Akiba, rather than just in it’s general proximity, it’s a little surprising that they didn’t turn up in person, but I guess they’re really rather busy.

6) Nico-Nico-Nope?

I do like the transitional cut into this scene, with Rin pulling the book off the shelf interrupting a black screen.

it amuses me a little that the cast are starting to get on Nico’s case about her stage persona at this point – it’s a funny turn out from when she first appeared, and the girls were trying to use her knowledge of idols and her grasp of things like that as a method of coercion (and mild admiration) in order to draft her for their unit. At this point, I suppose they just see it as the kind of BS it actually probably is.

7) SCIENCE!

The girls first attempt at generating impact was to dress up and fashion personas based around other school clubs. Again, these costumes are really things that you’d assume were in reference to cards from School Idol Festival, the mobile game that people are probably too busy playing to read this post, but not so much. They don’t look to be from the Weiss Schwarz decks either, and Eli’s cheerleader uniform isn’t even the one from the promotional art from the School Idol Paradise promotion art that’s on the AmiAmi listing. If anyone knows any better, feel free to let me know.

Also, I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of meta-joke to be formulated using Umi, Chihaya from iM@S, Asami Imai and Makise from Steins;Gate as variables, but I’m failing to accurately construct such a thing right now.

(Although I do find it amusing that most of these daft ideas are coming out of Umi)

8) CHANGIN’ MY WORLD

I think this is the first time that Nozomi hasn’t drawn a major arcana card from her tarot deck, and as such it took me a while to figure out what the card she was pulling out actually was. The card is the Two of Pentacles – or Disks, given that Nozomi’s cards seem to be based upon the Thoth deck.

Not that there’s any particular meaning that can be pulled from a minor arcana card in isolation – it’s Change label is a little blunt, and it’s a bit odd given that it doesn’t really lead to anything beyond where the conversation is already going. You kind of have to wonder how this conversation actually went in order for them to get from the pre-adbreak to the post-adbreak scenes.

9) Who’d Want To Be RinHanayo Anyway?

I mean, seriously? Although at least Eli get’s Hanayo’s habit of saying that everything is terrible (even if it isn’t) right.

I do wonder how they determined who would be playing who, though, given this was determined off-screen. Did they agree on changing to whichever other unit member seemed most off-character for them, or did they just draw lots?

(Hanayo’s NicoNi was pretty cute, so I suppose I’ll give her that)

10) WHAT’S THE NAME OF THE COMIC OR SHOW?

Random bit of news Number One coming out of this episode was Gene Simmons questioning which show this scene, having no doubt been copied into screen cap tweets, was from, I guess. Hopefully that doesn’t lead to any action of a litigious nature!

The other thought, though, is where on Earth did they find time to make (or even just source) those costumes? Also, are chains like that wielded by Honoka easy to get ahold of for a Japanese schoolgirl?

Also, what’s up with the face of Eli’s belt?

11) I don’t really have the context for this…

I guess random bit of new Number Two from this episode is, at least on some of the more tabloid-like news sites, that this costume production scene is, apparently, reminiscent of a scene in the US TV show Glee, which was somewhat popular a couple of years back.

I can’t really say I’ve ever actually seen the episode in question (nor, infact, more than a few minutes of Glee when randomly channel-surfing), so I can in no way vouch for the accuracy of such claims, nor the degree of similarity. It seems to me that this is pretty much the way in which any sequence in which three characters produce clothing under slightly strained conditions would go in this direction at least somewhat.

But, hey, at least we see that Kotori actually get’s help making the costumes instead of doing them all herself. Maybe, as this also seems like it might just be a one-off exercise on Hanayo (who should really probably be wearing her glasses for this) and Nico’s part.

She probably needs the help given how much costume production time was probably wasted on producing those “punk rocker” costumes!

12) Yo Ho Fiddle-de-de!

There’s a new song this episode! It has really great set design, though the transition between Magic Song Land and actually performing in an Akiba street was a little awkward – they’ve always fudged the reality of the performances a little, as there were a couple back in the first episode which kind-of seemed implausible in set-up even when presented as reality as part of their in-universe YouTube/NicoNico channel.

I do note that Nico is wearing almost mitten-like cat-paws as part of her costume, which I’m pretty sure is simply to make her fingers look vague enough that she can’t pull a Nico-Nico-Ni pose part way through the song.

Best costumes are Honoka and Umi’s, though, because they look like pirates.

Curiously, there’s a few cuts of CG animation in here which are pretty much double the normal framerate they render these things in, and perhaps unsurprisingly, they end up looking way, way better as a result.

(Nozomi’s witches hat counts more as a Fascinator than an actual hat, before anyone calls me out as being a hypocrite!)

(Also probably my favourite new song of the series thus far, including the OP and ED. Good stuff!)

13) Sulu’s Letter

Because Chekhov’s dropped in the first series.

This show sure does like to throw in letters as a handy cliffhanger device, though. There’ very little clue given to what the actual content of the letter is, though – one ponders if it is, infact, due to the many STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT reminder moments that have surrounded Honoka’s character in previous episodes, causing the audience to constantly question what exactly the rest of the student body see in her. Or it could just be that her grades continue to be ass, I guess.

(I’m pretty sure Yukiho only exists as a means for funny faces and gratuitous ass-shots, by the way)