#8.8.20

Hell yeah baby, we’re doing one of these! Now obviously it’s news to nobody that Shioriko’s now in the group in JP so I could include her, but eh I’m only really familiar with her from EN where she’s not got loads going on just yet. I could technically include Yu as well since the title is just Nijigasaki Girls rather than Nijigasaki Idols but we’re ignoring her too. This is just my top 9 favourite of Nijigasaki’s normal idol members we’re all very familiar with. These rankings are based pretty much exclusively off of SIFAS’ EN server where I’ve read the entire main story and every bond episode so far, plus a good chunk of the side stories for individual cards, so I feel like I’ve got a solid enough idea of who each girl is to where I can make this list, right? Yeah. Also just as a fun aside, the picture I use for each girl is my favourite SIFAS card of theirs currently on the EN server also, since I thought that’d be a fun thing to do. Anyway that’s all my introductory text, let’s fuckin start.

9. Shizuku Osaka

Oh look at me, I’m Shizuku, I’m an actress, every single time I speak I always make it about how I do acting. My sole defining character trait is that I do acting. Yeah nah Shizuku doesn’t really do a lot for me. She has a really pretty design, sure, cute voice and good solo songs too, and like I know she has a bit more to her than being an actress, but it rarely feels like that’s come up so far, that one character trait is so pervasive that it’s hard to really think of anything else she is.

8. Emma Verde

Emma is a girl who I struggle to really find much to say about. She’s from Switzerland, and she’s a big sister, and I feel like those two end up being a good bit of what her character is, beyond the usual “nice” and “likes school idols” thing that kinda applies to most everyone anyway. She’s probably got my least favourite design of all the Niji girls even. She really just doesn’t do anything for me. But I mean, Shizuku’s acting focus can sometimes get annoying, whereas Emma’s never really annoying, so that’s why she’s not bottom.

7. Kanata Konoe

Oh look at me, I’m Kanata, I love sleeping and I’m a siscon. Kanata is a character that can get pretty tiring (HA) since she’s generally always talking about those same two things, but I actually put her above Shizuku and Emma because she has some pretty solid banter whenever she’s out to be snarky, which is fairly often, and also I like her design and especially her voice more, Akari Kito’s great.

6. Ayumu Uehara

Ayumu’s an interesting one. She’s the protagonist of a Love Live thing, the next Honoka if you will, but she’s not really anything like Honoka or Chika. She has an IQ above 80 for a start, and she’s a fair bit, I guess slower and less passionate about school idols than those two as well. And I do appreciate that change of pace, for what it’s worth. But Ayumu’s another girl where she doesn’t really do a whole lot for me. She’s nice, she wants to take one step at a time being a school idol or whatever, and she’s Yu’s childhood friend and is the most openly in love with her aside from maybe Kasumi. And she’s not much else. Unless you go to the fuckin Famitsu 4-koma baby!!! Ayumu has a snake called Sasuke and that fact alone fuckin carries her dude. Also I mean I really love her design and her voice is adorable and her solo songs are really nice and I mean Ayumu in general doesn’t really feel like there’s a lot to her but she is honestly really likeable anyway.

5. Kasumi Nakasu

Contemplated putting Nico Yazawa since they’re the same fucking character! Except oh wait Nico has depth and development. Okay so the thing about Kasumi is that I literally can’t convince myself she’s anything other than a discount Nico, with the only major difference being that she’s a 1st year rather than a 3rd year that looks like a 1st year, and also she’s even more pathetic than Nico is. Like, what else actually is there to her? I don’t even fuckin know dude, I really don’t. However – Nico’s already so amazing that if you’re a discount Nico that still shoots you up the list a lot – there are worse girls to be clones of. Kasumi also has the benefit of a great voice, great solo songs, and uh, uhm, yeah. She’s just a complete shitter and I bet she’s a plussy too. Idk, I like Kasumi.

4. Rina Tennoji

We’re at last at the point of the list where I just really adore every single character, and yo, I really adore Rina. Is Rina-chan board a dumb and unrealistic gimmick? Yeah. Is her saying “Rina-chan board says x” kind of annoying? Yeah. Is everything else about her perfect? Uh, fucking yeah! Rina’s cute, she’s got a great voice, the Rina-chan board may be a dumb and unrealistic gimmick but it’s also really cute and endearing and does a lot to differentiate her from the rest of the girls, I like her music a lot, she’s got a great design, her side stories are fun as hell, I love her fucking cat, I love her friendship with Ai, I just love like everything about Rina she’s a perfect mega cute angel.

3. Karin Asaka

Like I said, I adore everyone from this point forwards, and yeah Karin’s no exception. The cool and sexy Karin being this directionless idiot with such mature hobbies who also completely loses her shit when she sees a panda or something, it’s all wonderful. And I think she’s got a fair bit of depth compared to some of the others as well. Particularly in her side stories you see that that cool and sexy aura she has, that reputation she’s been upholding, it’s not really who she fully is. And I can appreciate that, anything that gives more to a character than just who they are on the surface is usually great, particularly with the Niji girls where we have like 3 girls defined by single character traits. Also her songs are fucking incredible, I’d put them as the second best set of all the solos so far, it’ll be obvious who number 1 is. Karin’s just great, and an unexpectedly well written character given how easy it would be to just make the cool and sexy character exactly that. Also though yeah she’s cool and sexy, her design captured those two elements really well and she’s got one of the best designs of this cast.

2. Ai Miyashita

I love Ai. Ai love I. I ai Ai. I love Love. Ai ai Ai. Ai-san aishiteru. I’m running out of boring unfunny jokes to make that nobody appreciates, not even myself. Anyway Ai’s great, she’s not really got as much depth as Karin and in fact she’s sorta that exact “single character trait” thing I was just talking about, but Ai’s single character trait is that she’s the most infectiously positive and humorous and friendly girl ever. Ai basically exists to just be the most extroverted people-person there ever was, capable of befriending everyone and spreading her cheer with the world. And that’s a type of character I’m finding more appealing these days, which is always great. And her energy is captured really well with her design, voice and especially her songs as well, Yuu & Ai and Meccha Going are both absolutely infectious bangers that are fun as fuck to listen to and then the DiverDiva songs both slap as well, forgot to say that with Karin but it applies here so. Ai’s just a really delightful character, also I love that she gets so many different hairstyles, that’s always a good thing for a Love Live girl to do.

1. Setsuna Yuki

Haha woah there’s a surprise, Setsuna’s number 1. And it’s her birthday no less! Happy birthday Setsuna. She’s not number 1 because it’s her birthday or anything, I just felt like if I’m making this list anyway then the fact that Setsuna’s number 1 is a good excuse to post it on her birthday. Anyway yeah, Setsuna. The absolute fucking weeaboo queen who named herself after two light novel characters. I love that a lot. She’s got an incredible design, I love her colour scheme so fucking much, Tomori Kusonoki’s voice is absolutely amazing for her, her songs are bar none the best solo songs with Niji, she’s got actual character development and like an arc across the main story and development in her bond stories and her side stories are also always fun as hell, she’s so passionate and enthusiastic about her hobbies and every time she talks about anything it makes me wish I could talk about them with her, she’s just incredible. Also because she’s Nana Nakagawa, Setsuna gets to be a glasses waifu as well, which we desperately need more of and I really hope the Niji anime lets her wear glasses a lot because Hanayo had hers removed too often, same with Hanamaru. Setsuna just makes me happy, plain and simple. I love her a lot. Everyone pray that I pull Fes Setsuna one day, it’s the only thing I want.

HOLY FUCK SAO

Anyway War of Underworld episode 5 was mostly meh, though that above image certainly caught my attention so that was really fun. 

Anyway we see the Laughing Coffin dude, whose name this episode reminded me is PoH, really just rip the shit out of Kirito and call him a vegetable and really literally kick him while he’s down and uh, somehow the American army working for him doesn’t see this as suspect. Nope, PoH’s the good guy, fighting back against those Japanese hackers. If I’ve not really drilled home at this point how dumb I think it is that he has any supporters at this point, well uh, I think it’s really dumb that he has any supporters at this point.

However, the show actually decides to have his voice basically inflict mind control on them from here on out. And I do think that’s really dumb, but it’s so much more believable than them actually taking him seriously that I prefer it. Wish he’d just done mind control earlier then. You can like sorta justify the mind control with Underworld’s fucking stupid as shit rules about imagination anyway, whereas thousands of people witnessing the actually disabled being tortured by their leader and thinking he’s the good guy still, that’s really really bad.

Now the mind control is briefly interrupted, and we get a cool fight, because Yuna and Eiji appear! Yuna’s singing stops the mind control because waifu-ism, and Eiji gets to have an honestly pretty cool fight with PoH - Eiji being a very physical fighter that goes for tackles and shit, it’s fun to watch. It ends up accomplishing very little - Eiji loses the fight and Yuna dies with him, and the mind control fight going on causes the American army to just have a civil war, but I think this was a cool scene anyway. They’d built up Eiji’s appearance plenty, and Alicization season 1 established Ordinal Scale as being canon very early on so it works here too. And I really do appreciate that - original anime movies based on anime with source material always cower away from being canon so it’s nice to see SAO actually embrace that.

Also speaking about PoH, we got his tragic backstory that explained how he became so twisted and comically racist, I didn’t give a shit at all, but one interesting detail we did learn from it is after the early days of SAO where people already knew it was a death game, the NerveGear and shit were being confiscated and recalled and whatever but people sold them on black markets and shit and joined the game late, I actually think that’s sick.

Another thing that happens is that the IRL traitor guy who pulled the gun on Higa falls from the ledge they’re on and possibly dies because the lady scientist dropped a wrench that scared him and he fell backwards and it was funny as fuck. Assuming he doesn’t return his entire purpose as a character was to be introduced to create tension for that one specific scene that we’d see resolved like the next episode anyway so that was a dumb fucking waste, but what else is new?

And anyway with him gone, Higa does the thing, and Kirito starts to wake up, including a voiced line from Eugeo which I popped off for. We don’t see Kirito actually wake up though, instead he’s in a dream-like place wearing a nice twinky school uniform and just, wondering if it was all a dream. We’ll see. I honestly thought they’d have Kirito wake up in like the last 2 or 3 episodes and save the day then - I’m happier with this though.

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