How Nijigasaki PERFECTLY Continues the Love Live Legacy
Takasaki Yuu doesn’t have a dream. She’s just a normal girl like anybody else and just lives her life normally. But it’s not like she’s dissatisfied with it or that she wants to be more than who she is, she just doesn’t have anything she really wants to do. She’s content staying as she is with her best friend Ayumu, going through her school years and enjoying everyday peacefully is fun for her, but somewhere in her heart, she kept finding herself missing something. Yet…what was it? What was the thing that could change this emptiness in her heart? Well, on one fateful day, she encountered a shine that shattered the dull monotony and set her heart ablaze, calling her to run forward and chase her passion.
The Love Live! franchise is a series that built itself off of stories of individuals who longed for something that eluded their grasp. In School Idol Project, it told the story of Kousaka Honoka who chased after every light she saw, finding the one thing that intrigued her the most that allowed her to connect her feelings to the people that she loved; a story of how that group of nine changed the world. Sunshine that followed carried over those themes by having Takami Chika of Uchiura chase after that path to become someone she wasn’t, only to find that she was special all along and just needed others to help her realize that. Every iteration of this franchise carries over one theme to the next, advancing and developing the thematic core of what makes these stories and the power of school idols so great, and with it came the story of Nijigasaki Academy. Unlike Sunshine that was a direct sequel to the events of its previous series, Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai AKA NijiGaku was created as a side project that would run concurrently with the mainline franchise yet still be a part of the whole. As such, its anime tells a story that, while not necessarily continuing the legacy in the same way Sunshine did from School Idol Project, instead shows a different side of the core of what makes a school idol and what Love Live stands for, and as such makes itself a perfect addition to the franchise. I have previously talked at length about this series in review form as it was airing as well as Love Live as a whole, if you couldn’t tell from my channel, so if you’re interested in this type of content and like Love Live, maybe consider liking and subscribing so you don’t miss another one, and hopefully I’ll be able to show you how great this franchise can be.
Visual symbolism is something that Love Live as a series relies on quite frequently in every piece of media that it has, such as the white feather of μ’s. As I’ve shown at length, this feather as a symbol is not only brought up again in Sunshine, but expanded upon by giving it new meaning. Though, you can watch this video for a better explanation. Sunshine brought with it its own piece of visual symbolism in the form of the rainbow, and was so attached to it that the film that ended the story of Aqours was named after the action of seeing what lies beyond it. Within the context of Sunshine, the rainbow’s meaning is tied to the colors of each member lining up alongside each other to represent their experiences. It ties as well to the meaning behind the color of the feather and how each color represents the love that each person feels for what they do: their goals, passions and love being expressed within that color. But it also represents the fact that each experience is not always going to be a happy one. Every moment is filled with the joys but also the regrets that each of us face as we go through life, but still holds to the idea that each color, happy or sad, is still part of the rainbow. While Sunshine uses this theme amazingly, I feel NijiGaku takes this idea and shows a different aspect that ultimately fleshes out the meaning behind it. It’s fitting considering that the name of the group literally contains the word “rainbow.”
NijiGaku as a series is arguably far more slice of life than any other season of Love Live before it, as both School Idol Project and Sunshine had very goal oriented ways of telling their story and were focused on the goal of competing in the titular Love Live. I would go as far as to say that they are arguably far closer to a shounen sports series style of storytelling. By choosing to go for an episodic, overarching narrative in the same vein as something like K-On, NijiGaku chooses to do something interesting. Because unlike μ’s and Aqours, not only does this series have nothing to do with the Love Live itself, but they’re not even a group in the same sense that their predecessors are. Just take a look at the name: they don’t have a catchy group name but instead choose to call themselves the “Nijigasaki School Idol Club.” They are not a unified group choosing to work together towards a common goal, but instead a group of solo idols that work together and compete with each other. As such, the show opts to tell an episodic story that focuses on each girl as we learn their dreams and aspirations. The first of which being Uehara Ayumu, the best friend of our main character Takasaki Yuu.
While Yuu didn’t have a dream and was only inspired by that performance of CHASE to go and find one, Ayumu was also inspired and found her own. Her dream was to become more confident and embrace her real self step by step as Yuu watched her from the crowd and supported her. It was her request that Yuu helped her chase her dream as the two walked alongside one another. Ayumu wanted them to reach a common destination, but as they continued their journey, with Ayumu becoming a school idol and Yuu supporting her from the side, we see that every member of the club that joined differed from this goal.
Kasumin wanted to revive the club that was dissolved after their leader Setsuna tried to force her own ideals and ended up crushing those members who were trying their best but were burned by her overwhelming passion, with Kasumin desiring not to work as hard as she could to push her passion onto others, but instead to show the world how cute she was and raise the spirits of her fans. But the difference in those goals is really only wording. Both were working hard, but both simply had something different to portray to their audience, and thus Kasumin became the new president of the club with this knowledge in mind.
This then carried over into the following episode when Setsuna, whose real identity was the student council president Nakagawa Nana who was crushed by her family’s expectations and wanted to work as hard as she could, was disillusioned when she realized that all she did was hurt her friends. She wanted to be a school idol and thought the only way to achieve her goal was to win Love Live, not realizing that there was another path and that the problem wasn’t that she was pushing her ideals onto others, but that she wasn’t relying on them and trusting that even though they disagree that she should simply try to understand them, embracing both sides of herself.
Every girl that joined the club in their respective episodes joined after learning a lesson that was built upon by those that came before them.
Ai was only ever used to working with and helping others, so when Niji wanted to become solo idols, she didn’t understand the idea of working alone, viewing that as walking a lonely path. But she learned that just because she was performing alone, that didn’t mean the others weren’t beside her.
Emma saw that Karin was denying her real feelings and trying to hold back to maintain her image, but as Emma came to this country to achieve her dream while simultaneously retain that which made her who she is, she told her that she didn’t need to hide who she was because everyone else would be there to accept her feelings.
A lesson that was expanded upon by Rina, who was incapable of showing her emotions on her face, and desperately desired someone to understand her, viewing school idols as someone whose smile was shown front and center, and thus something she couldn’t be. But she already had people who were not only willing to understand her, but just wanted to see her smile, and found that there was another way to connect with people even if they couldn’t see her face because what’s important is really just the emotion.
Following this was Kanata who sacrificed herself in order to make her sister’s dream come true, not realizing that she wasn’t relying on her and needed to accept that help from others that wanted to share her burdens: to be honest with herself.
Shizuku who came after was afraid of having people turn away from her by being who she was, yet Kasumin and Rina who both learned their lessons prior came to her and told her that even though there would be people unwilling to accept her and that she might hurt people that it didn’t matter as long as they were there and loved her how she is.
And finally, Karin who was always the most mature and wanted to appear as such realized that she was weaker than she thought, and was given the encouragement to push forward by those girls who stood by her side. They all had different goals, but they were still walking alongside each other. They were friends, but they were rivals. They were rivals, but also precious friends.
A rainbow is a collection of colors that never intersect but instead run parallel with one another. Each of them shine with their own radiance, but just because they never cross doesn’t mean they aren’t together. To show the world how cute you are, to work hard and spread your burning passion, to warm the hearts of everyone you love, to be honest and support your friends, to show your real feelings, to fly towards a dream and make others’ dreams possible, to embrace your real self and to be strong so that others follow after are all wildly different, but they only work because there are others who sense that dream and want to support you. A rainbow is not just one color: it’s a collection of many and is only beautiful because of how wildly different each one is.
Yet the only one who didn’t have a dream is the one who supported all of their dreams from the start.
It was Yuu who sat there from the sidelines and gave each girl the support they needed to go towards their dream. It was Yuu who told Kasumin that her own view of what a school idol was was simply a different perspective, and that she wasn’t wrong but needed to see that other point of view. It was Yuu who brought back the passion in Setsuna’s heart that inspired Ai and Rina to go towards a new destination. It was Yuu who gave Emma the chance to bring her friend who was lying to herself into a collection of individuals who would support one another. It was Yuu who helped Rina realize that just because her face didn’t show her emotion that there was no way she hadn’t changed and that they all were ready to receive her feelings. It was Yuu who gave Kanata the chance to express her feelings to her little sister and save the dreams that both were about to throw away. It was Yuu who reunited the group that accepted Shizuku for who she was and it was Yuu who allowed Karin to accept that even though she’s weak she didn’t have to keep pretending she was strong. She helped each of them shine with their own vivid colors, yet the entire time still didn’t have one of her own. Every member of NijiGaku is given a color that represents who they are, but Yuu is given the color black. Often regarded as the absence of color and light, it’s therefore implied that unlike the others, she doesn’t have anything of her own: a shadow left behind by the light that radiates outward. But in that performance of VIVID WORLD in episode 9, hearing the support of all of these people who, just like her, had never heard of these school idols yet still came to love them through their honest feelings, she felt that maybe she had a chance to find something that she wanted to do.
Doing so would allow her to reach a new destination, but one that Ayumu who she was with from the beginning wasn’t going to be headed to.
What people need to understand about Ayumu and Yuu is how they function as dual protagonists in a way that wildly varies yet takes aspects from Kousaka Honoka and Takami Chika before them. Honoka’s defining trait, aside from her hyperactive love of those things she finds interesting, is how awkward she is. She’s unable to articulate how she really feels and ends up hurting those around her, realizing that she needs to listen to and rely on the feelings of others. Chika is the inverse, as she has no faith in herself yet is fully capable of understanding how she feels. She constantly feels as though others are more exceptional than her and believes that all she does is rely on the help of those much greater than her and achieved nothing on her own, not realizing that the one who was exceptional that entire time was no one but herself. Yuu carries that love of that which inspires her but is unable to properly express how she feels, instead choosing to support others so that she can one day feel something herself. Ayumu doesn’t have faith in herself and thinks that the only way she can do anything is if Yuu is by her side. The issue with both is that neither one believes in their own efforts nor do they realize how special they actually are: one believing she could never change and one who was afraid of the world around her changing and leaving her behind. So of course, the one person who is most essential to having them understand this is the one who lit the fire in their hearts from the beginning.
It was Setsuna’s call to run forwards into the future that shattered Yuu’s monotony and gave Ayumu the courage to run forward, but it was Yuu who gave Setsuna the realization that her own passion wasn’t something she should crush but instead be expressed with those she can rely upon: to find a new way. As such, it was Setsuna who helped Yuu on that journey to realize what it was she wanted to do: to support those she loves and to work hard to do something she had never done before. But Ayumu who was so dependent on that relationship because she had no faith that she could do anything if Yuu wasn’t there was simply holding herself back. There were people who believed in her already and saw her as greater than Ayumu ever saw herself, and it was Setsuna who gave her the push she needed. Not pulling her along or forcing her down her own path, but simply inviting her to take the first step, allowing Ayumu to express how she felt to Yuu who she was keeping her true feelings from out of her own fear.
The thing that I find most interesting about Yuu is how she functions as a character. Seeing as how she’s literally adapted from the player’s point of view in Love Live! SIF All Stars, she serves to show how we as the viewers have come to love this franchise. While School Idol Project and Sunshine both talked about how the audience and the fans are what push these school idols to do what they do, never have we seen what it’s like from the audience as we have with Yuu. It’s because of Love Live that so many of us are inspired to try and do things we haven’t before. I myself would even argue that, had I never wanted to make a video showing what it means to be a school idol, I would have never changed the direction of my channel for the better. So many fanartists and supporters were spawned from Love Live, something even celebrated by Niji itself, and in the season’s last two episodes, we see Yuu come into her own and realize the dream she wanted. By supporting her friends and by being inspired to chase her dreams, she realized the power of music and wanted to try herself to make something of her own. She wanted to change and do something herself yet she still didn’t realize that the moment she made that decision she had already changed, but also that she was the reason any of them were trying as hard as they did.
While black is technically the absence of color and can be argued to be a shadow that is cast by something much brighter, it could also be argued that it’s the combination of all of the colors at once. When you mix different paints together, you get the color black, and it was because of all of the experiences that Yuu helped those girls achieve that she was able to find her own: a dream found because of others she helped find theirs.
NijiGaku is a story of what lies within the rainbow. The name “Nijigasaki School Idol Club” might just be a name of their club, but there is a meaning that lies within that. It’s the place where all ten of those girls with different dreams are able to achieve their own goals while also supporting one another. It’s a place where each of them are able to make the other realize that they’re special. It’s a place where no one color shines more than the other, even that which is the combination of them all. A rainbow is multiple colors walking alongside each other and never intersecting, creating something beautiful in the process. It’s a light that shines because of the hardships that they face and the pain they might cause each other, for a rainbow only shows after the rain. And as these girls work towards their dreams, there are still new places for them to go. The rainbow only just bloomed, and there’s no telling where it will go.
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