Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club

Episode 5

Okay Love Live!, we gotta talk for a minute. Don't worry, you're not in trouble, but today's episode has brought up some troubling possibilities with very significant implications, and we need to air this out. Now I had been operating under the assumption that the various performances we see each episode were non-diegetic. Yes, the characters are singing and dancing in-universe, but the sudden wardrobe changes and appearance of stages, props, and even pyrotechnics were meant to be visual flourishes for the audience. Until this shot right here revealed that Setsuna's “Dive!!” performance was real and even caught on tape – apparently there are rogue camera drone operators at Nijigasaki who forwarded all their footage to Rina afterwards. That brings up a lot of questions: is the power of song and dance truly capable of warping reality like this? Is that the actual standard way for School Idols to do things, and Kotori was just a chump for making all those costumes by hand? Does everyone in the LoveLiverse have music video powers or is it only the ones brave enough to don the title of School Idol? Do they lose this power after they graduate high school? I need answers, Love Live!, and I'm worried you're not prepared to give them to me.

Drastic existential implications notwithstanding, “Something I Can Only Do Right Now” is a perfectly fine episode focusing on Emma, the Swiss transfer student who traveled to Japan just to become a School Idol. Which, can I say? Bold move. I had a friend who basically begged their parents into letting them do an exchange program, and they mainly did it to pad their college applications, so convincing her family to send her overseas to be an amateur stage act must have taken a long time. But considering how stalwart Emma proves to be this episode, I can see why they'd agree. Emma's vision of a proper idol is to make people feel “warm and fuzzy” and for as vague as that can be, she's surprisingly astute in how to channel that idea when her girlfriend Karin starts acting distant. Being comforting and supportive can take a lot of different shapes, but oftentimes it means just being there to hear someone out and let them be honest about whatever is bothering them. In Karin's case it's that she's been itching to join the Idol Club since day one, but couldn't bring herself to make the first move when it goes against the cool, mature image she's crafted for herself as a model and student. I suspect there's a little more to it than that – she seems to have some baggage about crowds and groups in general – but that'll have to wait until she gets her own focus episode.

Overall it's a nice little story that showcases a side of Emma we've glimpsed during Ai's episode, but sharing the conflict with Karin also makes our central idol feel a little too dependent on others to really stand out, personality-wise. Kasumi, Ai, and Setsuna are all strong personalities that can draw the eye on their own, but Emma's gimmick may end up working better as part of a unit rather than carrying everything herself. Plus, just personally, her song is the least memorable of the bunch so far and the closest to the hyper-polished cotton candy of previous Love Live! performances. It's not bad, but feels a little too sanded down to stick in the brain, y'know? Still, seeing her drag Karin out on a date to cheer her up and confront what's bothering her is very sweet, and I'm rooting for these two to make it, since Yu seems to have stopped building up her harem for the moment. It continues Nijigasaki's trajectory of more grounded drama, and while that's mostly been a boon I do find myself missing some of the histrionics of the past. Part of what makes this franchise engaging is its willingness to crank the drama dial up to 11 every now and then, and I do hope that isn't totally missing from this entry now that Setsuna's returned from her Idol Exile.

I suppose we'll just have to see, especially since next episode promises to cover Rina, the character with the most cartoonish gimmick of the bunch. I'm hoping that it'll deliver on some of the same goofy, over-the-top fun Kasumi's introduction gave us, or at the very least an explanation for how Rina's face-plate works. Seriously, how does she see in that thing?

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Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club is currently streaming on Funimation.