English Dub Review: Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club “Choose Your ‘Love'”

Overview (Spoilers Ahead):

The school idol festival is over capacity and won’t be able to run as originally planned. Setsuna has to come up with a solution to this dilemma.

Our Take:

Preparations for the school idol festival are becoming more complicated. The festival is now over capacity due to other schools participating, so it won’t be able to run alongside the cultural festival. When Setsuna explains this to rest of the school idol club, Shioriko discovers that Setsuna is also Nana, the student council president. Setsuna wants to keep her two identities separate, so Shioriko promises not to tell.

Setsuna is struggling to figure out a solution to the festival issues, but she feels like she has already exhausted all of her options. That is, until the rest of the school idol club reminds her that she doesn’t have to do everything alone.

She has a meeting with all of the participating schools to come up with a solution. They decide to hold their respective culture and idol festivals at each of the schools’ campuses. This allows them to have the most space possible. Lanzhu even helps by convincing one more school to participate.

When the preshow rolls around, Setsuna does the unthinkable. She reveals her secret identity to everybody because she no longer feels the need to hide who she really is.

At the end of the episode, Shioriko’s sister Kaoruko talks to Shioriko. This is where we learn that Shioriko’s dream is to become a school idol. That’s why she’s been so willing to help out with the festival.

I’ve been waiting for Setsuna’s true identity to be revealed to everyone. I’m glad that she decides to do it herself. It really shows how comfortable she’s grown with both of her personas. I’m sure this will change how some people will see or treat her, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Kaoruko seems to be playing an interesting role. She’s a student teacher and interacts with Yuu a little bit. However, her main purpose right now seems to be pushing her sister towards her goals.

Lanzhu assisting with this festival solution didn’t really surprise me since she’s made it clear she wants the festival to happen. That being said, it’s nice to see her being a team player for once.

Overall, this is a solid episode. The school idol festival has hit some bumps in the road, but it’s still looking promising. It’s looking to be much bigger than the previous one and I’m looking forward to seeing how it’ll go.