WARNING: This whole article is filled with spoilers, obviously.

As the people who are going to be reading this are probably fully aware, I really, really like Love Live! School Idol Project. It’s probably one of my three favorite anime, but what makes it great is that the anime is just one part. Between the game, the seiyuus, and of course the dozens and dozens of songs that weren’t shown in the TV series, it’s a franchise that I’ve become the most engrossed in in a pretty decently long time.

So earlier today somebody said they thought most of the characters in Love Live weren’t developed well, and that gave me an excellent excuse to write this big long thing that nobody asked for. The music in Love Live is terrific, but even in a music-oriented anime the songs can’t totally carry it. The characters really make the show what it is, and while some certainly get more spotlight than others (sorry, Rin and Hanayo), almost all of them are developed well, in my opinion.

First Years

Hanayo Koizumi

I just joked that Hanayo gets kind of screwed in terms of screen time, and that’s true. Every other character except for possibly Rin is just simply more relevant throughout both seasons. Hanayo is even the only member of μ’s that doesn’t get to be the center once in the anime. She’s the center on a few μ’s and Printemps tracks, but none of those ones are used in the anime.

But while Hanayo might be frequently off-screen, she actually gets some of the best development out of the main cast in the time that she does get.

Put simply, from the beginning of the show to the end Hanayo transitions from this:

to this:

Hanayo is the shy archetype taken to the extreme in season 1, episode 1. She has basically no self-esteem. We learn that she’s wanted to be an idol longer than anyone except for perhaps Nico, but she just totally lacks confidence in herself.

Rin is her only real friend, and not to mention that she’s also basically the only character that Hanayo can even talk to. She also kind of lets Rin boss her around early on because she can’t even speak up for herself. Let’s not forget that she shows up late to μ’s (μ’s’? μ’s’s?!) first concert because of this.

However, all of that starts to change after she’s finally pushed to join μ’s by Rin and Maki. It’s not an overnight transformation and she still struggles at times, like the scene when she has to speak on the intercom at school, but her strong desire of wanting to be an idol is what caused her to change as a person.

Rin Hoshizora

Much like Hanayo, Rin is mostly out of the spotlight, but still manages to get some very nice development. Rin starts out as the sort of stereotypical energetic tomboy character, and she stays that way throughout the anime.

What changes with Rin is the way that she views herself. Again similar to Hanayo, Rin has some serious self-esteem issues. Not as bad as Hanayo’s, but they clearly affect her. In the Love Wing Bell episode in season 2 (which is one of my favorites, although I actually don’t like the song that much), we see that she was regularly teased and bullied about her tomboyishness at an early age.

It affected her so much that she’s never seen in a skirt outside of her school uniform, because wearing skirts and dresses was the source of the bullying, since apparently she was too “boyish” to be wearing those types of clothes.

In the Love Wing Bell episode she even tries to push the center position for the concert onto Hanayo, because she believed that a boyish girl like her wasn’t suited for it. In fact, it’s shown as early as the first couple of episodes of the first season that she has these self-confidence issues. She didn’t want to be an idol at all for these same reasons.

But regardless, she’s able to overcome this with the help of Hanayo and the rest of μ’s, and later on in the show she is seen ditching her pants for dresses, showing that it’s left a lasting impact and she’s truly changed.

Maki Nishikino

Hanayo and Rin have set a really high bar, so Maki’s development isn’t going to look nearly as impressive, but everybody’s favorite tsundere definitely does change throughout the show.

Unlike her fellow first years, Maki’s problem isn’t self-confidence, but rather that she’s afraid of letting people see the real her.

Have you ever been dragged into doing something you didn’t want to do (let’s say watch a movie), go in with the mindset that you’ll hate it, end up liking it, get caught laughing at a funny scene, been told “See, I told you it was a funny movie!” and then instantly stifled the laugh and started to act defensive and come up with some lame excuse?

Imagine that, but all the time and not just during a movie, and that is Maki.

Maki loves music, but is hesitant about the whole idol thing. Additionally, she doesn’t see the point in really continuing with music since she’s expected to take over her family’s hospital one day. Like Hanayo, she also doesn’t really have friends. When Hanayo visits Maki at her house in season 1, Maki’s mom comments that this was the first time anybody had come over to visit since Maki started high school.

After joining μ’s, Maki can still frequently be standoffish because that’s just her nature, but she starts to warm up to everyone, and by the end of the show she can let them see her real emotions. Go back and watch the beach scene in season 2, episode 11 and tell me Maki hasn’t changed dramatically.

She also takes care of her friend problem, befriending the entire group, but especially Nico (Do your thing, NicoMaki shippers).

Second Years

Kotori Minami

At the beginning of all this I said that “almost” all of the characters are well developed. Why did I say almost? Enter: Kotori.

Kotori’s development is, in my opinion, the worst part of Love Live.

She appears to be pretty much the exact same character at the end of the show, and while this would normally be disappointing, it’s upgraded to borderline infuriating due to the pseudo-development that she gets in the Wonder Zone episode in the first season.

Wonder Zone might be my personal favorite episode in the first season. I won’t spend hundreds of words gushing over it, but in a nutshell it’s about how Kotori has sort of found a home in Akiba and how that district has become a special place for her and helped her to really discover herself.

Fast forward literally two episodes, and Kotori has not only reverted to her old self, but actually become even worse. All of the study abroad drama stems from how she cannot bring herself to talk to Honoka, her best friend, about it.

In the span of two episodes she went from discovering herself to not being able to talk to the one person in the entire world she knows better than anybody else. It gets so bad that even when it’s too late (or not, because anime logic in the last episode of season 1), she still can’t say anything and Umi actually has to speak for her. Honoka certainly deserves a decent chunk of the blame for reasons that I’m going to get into in the next section, but if Kotori was truly the person that she supposedly becomes in Wonder Zone then all of this drama should’ve been avoided.

Honoka Kousaka

What makes Honoka likable is her determination. If not for Honoka there would be no μ’s, and she’s always the one that’s pushing the group forward. The rest of the members admit this in the first season when deciding who should be the leader of μ’s.

If there’s one problem with Honoka, it’s that she can actually get too determined. In season 1 she has her eyes so fixed on the Love Live that she doesn’t even notice when her best friend Kotori needs her. She also begins to act recklessly, overworking herself to the point of sickness, ultimately ruining the group’s rooftop concert at the school festival.

Finally, it all reaches a climax when Honoka realizes her mistakes and ultimately quits μ’s (and then gets an epic slap from Umi).

It’s really quite sad to see her break, since she’s the group’s driving force and pushing forward until she finally snaps. However, Honoka learns from her mistakes and doesn’t do the same things in the second season. While in the first season Honoka has set saving the school and then winning the Love Live above everything, in the second she transitions towards trying to have fun with the group in their final months together as school idols, with winning the Love Live as more of a secondary objective.

Umi Sonoda

Umi’s development is some of the easiest to see, and it’s very similar to Hanayo’s. While not as extreme as Hanayo at the beginning of the series, Umi is very shy. She does have two long-time friends in Honoka and Kotori, but she’s very nervous around unfamiliar people.

Initially Umi tells herself that she doesn’t want to be an idol because it doesn’t fit her personality, but then…

After finally accepting that she wants to be an idol, she still had severe stage fright issues because of her shy personality. Ahead of μ’s first concert she doesn’t know how she’ll be able to perform in front of other people, and she’s even too nervous just to pass out flyers to strangers. But after seeing how hard Honoka and Kotori worked to get to where they are, she knew that it wasn’t right for her stage fright to be what held them back, and that’s what finally pushed her to change.

She continues to get better about her nervousness, and by the end of the series you could probably look at her and not even guess that it was ever a problem to begin with.

Third Years

Nico Yazawa

We’ve finally arrived at Nico, who just might be my favorite character in anime.

Among Love Live fans Nico seems to be quite the polarizing figure. You either adore her or absolutely hate her and the words “Nico Nico nii” bring your ears pain and suffering.

Regardless of where you fall on the Nico spectrum, she’s one of the most well-developed characters in the cast.

Nico’s story starts before most of the μ’s members even arrive at Otonokizaka High. Nico’s love for idols is rivaled only by Hanayo, and as a first year she started a school idol group at the school. Except unlike μ’s, it was a failure because the other girls weren’t as motivated and Nico pushed them too hard until eventually she was the only one left.

Her memories from this and her feelings about how it all unfolded are what cause Nico to hate μ’s when they first form, and she goes so far as to try to break the group up. The girls really have to earn Nico’s trust, and eventually μ’s becomes the idol home that she had been searching for since her first year.

Nico gets yet another episode in the second season, this one focusing on her life at home. Nico is seen as a sort of superhero to her younger siblings, and as a result she’s been afraid to tell them about how her first idol group was a failure. The girls in μ’s help her out by putting on last Nico show for her siblings with the rest of the group as the “backup dancers” they think the group has been the whole time.

The episode really makes you appreciate Nico, since everything she does is for her siblings, even if her methods are a little out there.

It’s also pretty amazing to see how close Nico has gotten to μ’s after how hostile she was to them at the start.

Nozomi Tojo

Unlike most of the other characters, I don’t really feel that Nozomi changes too much throughout the series. Instead, we do get to see the impact that μ’s has had on her, and we get a really cool perspective on it considering her personality.

Nozomi acts almost like the mother of the group (or at least that’s how I’ve always thought of it). She’s more mature than anybody else, and she’s always shown helping others out, especially in the first season when she gives μ’s their name and really helps them in their early stages before finally joining.

What we don’t learn until much later is how μ’s has helped Nozomi as much as she’s helped them.

In what’s becoming somewhat of a common theme, Nozomi never really had any friends except for Eli. Nozomi might have it the worst though, since she also lives alone in an apartment. I can’t remember if this is ever specifically stated, but she was probably pretty lonely as a result.

Of course, she then becomes friends with the members of μ’s, and they’re really like her family. In season 2 episode 8 there was a really cool little detail where Nozomi embarrassingly grabs a framed photo of μ’s after the other members of the group see it, and I think that really shows how she thinks of them.

Also, while some might think that it’s lazy how there’s several characters with the “no friends” background, I actually see it as a positive thing, since it makes the bonds between those characters even stronger now that they do have friends and are together in μ’s.

Eli Ayase

Eli joins Umi and Hanayo as having development that’s pretty easy to see. You don’t exactly need to put Eli under a microscope to see how she changes.

She starts in somewhat of an antagonist type role, not supporting and even making things harder for μ’s as they’re starting out. Nozomi helps to bridge the gap between Eli and μ’s, and it’s revealed that Eli’s background as a ballet dancer in Russia is why she sees μ’s and all school idols as amateurs.

After being confronted by Nozomi and Umi, Eli finally joins the group after realizing that she needs to lower her strict facade and do what she wants to do rather than let only her ballet background and her duties as student council president shape how she views the world and especially idols.

Eli then assumes a leader-type role in μ’s, using her dance experience to push the group further, and also keeping the group in line in practices along with Umi. I think it’s also fair to say that in terms of how much μ’s means to them, Eli is right there with Nozomi and Nico, and you can really see how closely she views μ’s towards the end of the second season. It’s a complete 180 from her views starting out.