Okay, Shiki and Mika but Shiki is doubling down on her ADHD. Nice.

Oh, this is wonderful! The back-and-forth, with Karin getting herself worked up while flirting to get Setsuna flustered — good stuff.

I had noticed the Niji first years in the backgrounds — as well as some other cameos (at least RinPana, KuuKaa, and ChiRen) — so it was a real delight to see that pay off. (Also gotta praise the number of cameos/gags/references in the gift shop.)

last edited at Dec 19, 2022 4:41AM

So it's (from left to right) Shioriko, Nozomi, and Chika, huh.

Ooh, I like this.

The lead-up to them going to Karin's dorm room — the bit where Setsuna is wary of having a pass made at her — does feel like we're missing some context, though. Or maybe it's just meant to have her hyperaware of Karin's flirting, to emphasize her emotional state towards the payoff. Hmm.

Oh my!

(Ayumu and Rina isn't a very common ship at all, but they are awfully cute together.)

"Ayumu has two hands," after all. (Which just means Setsuna and Kasumi can still be jealous.)

Man, Yu makes us look good. (Certainly, Ayumu agrees.)

The crossover status of any given Love Live meeting is confusing, particularly when it comes to Nijigasaki and Liella. The three main-line anime installments — SIP, Sunshine, and Superstar — seem to take place around five years apart (explicitly stated for SIP and Sunrise, and conjectured in Superstar from the fact that Ren's mom, ten years before the present, seemed to be contemporary with A-Rise), but the Nijigasaki anime is completely unmoored from anything that would indicate where in the timeline it is.

Meanwhile, SIFAS takes place in an alternate universe where at least μ's, Aqours, and Nijigasaki are all operating simultaneously, and I think everyone is co-active in SIF and probably will be so in the upcoming SIF 2.
Tl;dr: A meeting between Superstar and Nijigasaki characters feels like it's a crossover right now, but one between SIP and Sunshine ones doesn't; this feeling is subject to change when new material comes out.

There's a real painful sting in the middle of this cute fluffiness.

Yeah. Just the tip.

The joke's probably already been made, but that kind of stream doesn't go on L-Tube, it goes on OniFans.

Mm, good stuff.

For a moment there, it looked like Kyouko was gonna throw her soda in the guy's face — but of course, this is Kyouko, so she'd never do something like that with food. (Her cola not even drop.).

That's a very unusual sunburn she got, though. Fantastic punchline.

Thanks for that! I've a lot sketchier knowledge of the direct canon than I think sometimes.

As usual, Kitaku does a marvelous job. Long live the NijiGaku polycule.

Oh, my heart.
I love so much the way that Rina just knifes through Mia's tough front, and the way that Mia gets excited about things despite herself. They're so good together. They're so cute together.

Wow, this is terrific. Some gorgeous art and design here, and some great pairings. The "magazine" conceit is a particularly nice bit, and I'm terribly disappointed that I can't win a giant Sasuke pool toy.

EDIT: I realize I also have to completely cosign Zako's author's note for "RinaAi Rendezvous 2", particularly about how Rina went from zero friends to one, and how Ai picked her one friend out of a hundred. Yes. Zako gets it.

last edited at Dec 7, 2022 4:21AM

Very nicely done. (Heck, I think my sole quibble is that Yuu has a bed at all, instead of the sofa she had as a high schooler. I suppose you don't always get to furnish your college apartment exactly how you want.) I particularly loved the quiet moment afterwards in the bath, when Yuu admits recognizing that Shizuku had gotten too into a role — but without any judgement there. Just "this is a thing that you, who I love, do" and "yes, you know me really well".

I am always here for a) secret identity shenanigans, and b) SetsuPomu.

Yeah, "devolution" is a bit of a surprising term. I'd figure "regifting" would be the more idiomatic term?

After two and a half years of playing SIFAS, I for the first time had a plain white feather turn into a rainbow UR feather on a roll. I thought it was just this author making that up, but apparently it can really happen.

Ah, Minazuki Juuzou — gorgeous, almost engraving-like artwork, and some of the most depraved sex you can have with all the participants still being happy about it.

And of course it turned out she was saving it for stage use. Aww.

I should mention that a TV anime series of Nijiyon shorts has been announced for early 2023. It's unclear how it's going to be structured, since Yu, Shioriko, Lanzhu, and Mia are on the promo picture we've gotten — it may be an adaptation of scattered existing strips or a complete new season.

But in other news, I just realized that Season 1 #43, "Old Maid", is a reference to a streamed event from before the game even launched, where Kasumi, Setsuna, and Karin's actors had to play a bluffing game called "Little Red Riding Hood Does Not Sleep"; in particular, Tomoriru (Setsuna) kept saying "Who knows?" with a perfect poker face whenever asked for information.

Were that what anyone was saying, I'd agree with you. Instead, they're saying things like "the artist draws het, therefore male" and "a drawing not done from a character's perspective must necessarily be the male gaze". I just find it odd.