The second season of Love Live! Superstar!! felt like the kind of miracle the school idols of this franchise so frequently make happen. Classic Love Live! series writer Jukki Hanada and director Takahiko Kyōgoku built upon the smart foundation of Superstar's first season in a way that let the series grow into its potential. New characters were added to the cast to be freshly fleshed out alongside their still-developing senpai. The stakes were upped with the most openly antagonist rival in franchise history. They even revisited the idea behind the infamous ending to the original School Idol Project's first season and turned that around into a true winner of a storyline. Setting itself up for an unprecedented third season in a Love Live! entry, the question going into the third outing for Superstar was how it could top itself after all that.

In hindsight, how could it ever have?

Up front, I'll confirm that Love Live! Superstar!! Season 3 is not bad. It can stand on stage perfectly well alongside other "fine" entries like the original School Idol Project or the second season of Nijigasaki High School Idol Club. But there is a stinging sensation to the way it takes the superior setup and unique opportunity it was gifted only to utilize it all for what feels more like a victory lap than a showstopping finish. More superlative ideas occasionally break through, but overall, this is easily the weakest season of what had easily been the strongest series of Love Live! yet.

One driving idea in this entry seems to be the obvious meta-question of "What do you even do with a third season of a Love Live! anyway?" The girls of Liella returned to win the titular school idol competition, their school's future secured, and Kanon had even been freed to travel and pursue her greater musical ambitions. Characters like Kanon and Chisato muse several times throughout this season about how they could push themselves to strive for higher goals. To this end, Superstar's third season starts with its strongest shake-up: school idol civil war!

Wien Margarete puts the kibosh on Kanon's plans to travel abroad at the beginning of this season, the two instead find themselves drafted together into Margarete's anti-Liella rival idol team. Like the existence of the third season itself, the idea of two school idol groups co-leading a Love Live! season is unprecedented in the franchise. Kanon's willingness to join forces with Margarete against her former group mates speaks to the idea of striving for new goals—Kanon believes that working in competition with each other can allow her and the others in Liella to push each other and reach greater heights. The early episodes teasing this dynamic are exciting in their conception, and fit in with the convention-breaking approach that made Superstar such a delight from its beginning.

In practice, however, this is likely the most civilized civil war witnessed in the bloody annals of the idol world. It is telegraphed, as Kanon, alongside others like Chisato, makes no bones at the beginning that the endgame of this bifurcated plan is to bring the two groups together as an even stronger, more harmonized Liella. The competition aspect thus comes off as a formality most of the time, with the groups teaming up at multiple points even while still nominally in opposition, and the entire student body of the school itself eventually obligates them to unification. That resolution follows a musical number that's about one-half of what an effective "versus" performance could look like from this series before the girls change presentation halfway through to indicate that they always intended to merge regardless. Like the season itself, it's a wistful whiff of what could have been.

The sense of the edge being taken off of even direct idol opposition comes through in much of Superstar Season 3's handling, and it's apparent right from the start in aspects like Wien Margarete's character. Margarete had been an irascible refreshing force in the second season—a petty, openly antagonistic rival idol who sought to oppose the institution of school idols and the Love Live! itself. In the third season, she's immediately folded into that very school idol system and tasked with winning the competition to prove herself. It's foretold that she will come to love both as part of her prescribed character development. The most hostile thing she does in this season is to seemingly forget some of the characters' names sometimes. In a season supposedly built on escalation and competition, that sort of sanding down does neither the character nor her story any favors.

Part of the issue might be that Superstar has too many characters by this point to afford them truly dense dives of arcs. Having gradually built up its cast over the previous seasons, the third one wisely opts to add only one brand-new character: Tomari Onitsuka, the younger sister of the second season's irrepressible YouTube gremlin Natsumi. However, even with this minimal addition and the group split facilitating efficiency, there isn't enough space for the now eleven-strong main cast. Characters like Ren and Kinako seemingly lack anything to do until a late focus episode remembers to round back to them. Margarete's growth, already less perceptible under her softened exterior, can't be as apparent through the story when it's jockeying for position with all the other characters doing their bits.

This means that some characters do well even if others are shortchanged. Mei and Shiki get a strong focus episode early in the season, which works by somewhat flipping their dynamic from the previous season. It's probably the gayest thing in this series since Keke and Sumire's cathartic comforting of each other a season ago. Speaking of Keke, she also hits some high notes in her storyline, somewhat necessitated by being a character who's always had an ultimatum attached to her arc. While there's not as much space to fit in her romance with Sumire, this season still finds moments to reinforce their mutuality, and the ultimate resolution between the pair is probably the most heartwarming thing of the whole season. It's something that truly feels like a long-form payoff properly built up throughout all three seasons.

For being the sole brand-new addition to Superstar's third season, Tomari frustratingly comes up short. Her addition to what audiences already knew about Natsumi's backstory and motivation works without feeling like too much of an obvious retcon. There's a bit more pathos paid to the idea of how much Natsumi sucks at everything and the pain of a loved one who doesn't want to see her hurt anymore. However, there isn't enough build-up or even true conflict between the sisters to let the catharsis land when said conflict is wrapped up. Natsumi resolves to keep trying so her sister won't worry about her and a few episodes later, she's wailing at Tomari about knowing she needs to open up so they can properly communicate, then viewers are tearfully told things are okay now. Tomari does build up a solid supporting dynamic with Margarete, and there's some strong symbology for the whole series between her and Kanon by the end, so she's hardly wasted among everything else going on this season. It's just that, like everything else, it feels like she isn't given the space to reach her full potential.

That's the irony of Love Live! Superstar!!'s third season. In a story all about the group pushing past its limits to reach untold heights, the show never feels like it's being all it can be. It has nominally cathartic moments but they don't reach the levels of emotional terrorism that the previous seasons did. With Margarete won over to the side of school idols, the anime can't even find space to construct opposition to Liella's quest for two Love Live! victories in a row. That task itself becomes the opponent, and success is thus perfunctory.

Reaching graduation for the characters originally seen enrolling in Yuigaoka as first-years back in the first season, Superstar's third season does find a place of finality for those first five founding members of Liella. As with the aforementioned resolution for Keke and Sumire, it can make your heart swell to see someone like Kanon come so far and continue to run toward her future. There are effective torch-passing moments between individuals like Ren and Kinako and in broader ways like the five third-years singing a send-off to their kouhai. It's in this spirit that this third season finds its strongest sense of satisfaction, where it reaches and achieves something previous Love Live!s weren't able to do in their time. It resonates just enough to argue for needing this third season to get here, but in the process, perhaps proves why all the previous Love Live!s worked perfectly well with just two.