Love Live! School Idol Project is a multimedia project comprised of two seasons of anime (plus a spin-off), CDs, manga and video games. The first season has 13 episodes and features how the idol group gets together. We're introduced to Kosaka Honoka, who is immediately shown to be an airhead. She finds out (in a dramatic fashion) that her high school is closing down due to a downturn of student applications. For reference, the third years has three classes, the second years has two classes and the first years have only one class, it just isn't economically viable to continue.
For family reasons, and also because Honoka doesn't want to study to take application tests for other schools, she doesn't want the school to close down. Along with her two best friends, Umi and Kotori, they brainstorm on what they can do to help save the school. Taking inspiration from a popular high school that her younger sister is looking to enroll in, Honoka decides to form a school idol group, get popular, and attract students that way. She drags her friends into it and thus begins their career.
It's not fun and games when Umi explains to Honoka that being an idol requires a high level of fitness and effort. The first few episodes follows the trio (once Honoka manages to convince ht other two to go along with her plan) as they train and prepare for their first live concert... in a month's time. Despite knowing that the group will eventually succeed, the anime showcases some of the tough challenges that they have to struggle through at the very beginning.
Before too long, their group grows as they start recruiting other members. We get a variety of additional characters but despite their different specialties such as singing and songwriting, they all end up becoming center stage. The common theme being each of those new members was always in two minds about joining. On the one hand, becoming an idol is their dream, on the other, they worry about other people's view on them. One thing with Love Live is that all the characters and the anime in genera, is quite sunny and rosy. It gets too cheerful to the point that it can be cheesy and cringe-worthy. Honoka can be a bit too hyperactive and positive that it gets sickening.
The stakes get higher as the pressure increases for the school to confirm its decision to close down. Not helping is the fact that the student council president is against using idols as a way to revitalize the school. Supposedly, she has a good reason but it feels weak in the end and doesn't truly justify her stubborn actions. Unfortunately, time skips are common and thus even though we are told that the team members have put in a lot of hard work, or that they have struggled significantly, as viewers, you never feel that.
As it takes a while before the team gets together, we lose a lot of the character interactions that would have allowed them to become endeared to the viewers. The worst part is when from the end of one episode to the start of the next, the group had jumped in rankings/popularity, and we just don't see the hard work behind it so it feels superficial. Due to the nature of the multimedia project, the anime pushes a lot of songs. Approximately each episode will have a song interjected in the midst of it, sometimes it works and sometimes it feels awkwardly placed. At least the songs are decent.
The group runs into a few typical problems from rare opportunities that might cause a member to back out to the stupidity of some characters (such as getting sick from overwork). These dramas make up the bulk of the final episodes and at one point, you do genuinely wonder if the group will come out the other side intact. The resolution isn't rock solid though and can feel lazy. Overall, Love Live! School Idol Project can feel very targeted towards its audience. The journey from a normal high school student to a school idol seemingly happens in the blink of an eye, with all this talk about hard work and struggles but glazes over them. The plot lacks substance although their song performances are enjoyable.
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