English Dub Review: Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club “The Sky I Can’t Reach”

Overview:

Lanzhu decides to give up her school idol dream and go back to Hong Kong. Mia writes a new song for her and tries to convince her to stay.

Our Take:

The school idol festival is over now and Lanzhu no longer wants to pursue her dream to be a school idol. She thinks that she’s taken it as far as she could and her end goal is just out of reach.

Everyone wants Lanzhu to stay, but Mia seems to take this news the hardest. She writes the best song possible for Lanzhu. Unfortunately, Lanzhu doesn’t think the song suits her and doesn’t change her mind.

Rina tries to comfort Mia and she learns Mia’s backstory. Mia loved singing, but she felt so much pressure from her family legacy that she wasn’t able to do it anymore. That’s why she just composes music now and stays behind the scenes. However, Rina convinces her to pursue her singing dream. Mia changes the song to suit her and all of the other girls help her.

When it’s time for Lanzhu to leave, all of the other girls head her off at the airport. When Mia arrives, she tells Lanzhu she wants to sing too and performs her song. On a side note, hers is the only song that’s completely in English. This makes sense seeing how Mia is American, but since none of the other songs have been translated up to this point, it surprised me a little bit.

Afterwards, Lanzhu says everyone always abandons her no matter how hard she tries to be their friend. That’s why she wanted to be a solo idol and that’s why she wants to leave before that happens.

Shioriko reminds Lanzhu that she’s always been her friend. Mia tells Lanzhu that they’re no longer business partners, but rivals instead. The three friends all agree to become school idols together and officially join the club.

This episode is a great showing for Mia. I have been waiting for so long to find out her backstory and I think it’s executed well. I’m also happy to see that Lanzhu is joining the school idol club and I feel more for her now. The other girls take a bit of a step back to let Mia, Lanzhu, and to a lesser extent, Shioriko take center stage in this episode. I’m fine with that because as I’ve said before, there are a lot of characters in this show. This episode struggles with balancing them a bit, but it focuses on the characters that needed it the most. It’s a feel good episode and now that the club is even bigger, who knows where they’ll go from here?