Happy (belated) birthday, Lanzhu Zhong!
Your hard-working attitude and ceaseless self-confidence make you a formidable idol!
Hoo boy. I don’t think there’s ever been a more controversial character in the Love Live! franchise than you. You took the fandom by storm when you were introduced in the second season of the All Stars story as the primary antagonist. Many went on about how the second season of the game was trash, how you had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and how you were literally Satan in the guise of a teenage girl. Naturally, all of this buzz made me curious about you as a character since the global server was behind the JP server in new content at that point. Eventually, I got to experience the second season myself, see more of you, and form my own opinion on everything that went down.
Of course, it wasn’t a good look when you tried to barge into Nijigasaki High and take over all school idol activities so your newly formed idol group would be in the spotlight. That said, despite feeling sorry for the NHSIC members for having their activities shut down, I also found myself feeling sorry for the members of the Association – especially you. You grew up with many adults in your life pushing an “all-or-nothing” mindset, so you always felt that you weren’t allowed to make any mistakes in anything that you did.
You tried to build up an idol club that was the best of the best because you figured that having such resources would help you better connect with the Club members, and you genuinely thought that you were helping out by having high-quality resources available for use. In the past, attempts at befriending others failed because excelling at everything drove others away. History repeated itself, and you felt discouraged as a result, disbanding the Association. After a heart-to-heart, you ended up joining the Club, and everyone grew to appreciate your for your talents.
I love that while serious about being a school idol, you still have a bit of a naïve side. Even though your self-confidence is inspiring, you can be prideful to a fault at times. You aren’t the truly perfect being that almost everyone in-universe initially made you out to be, and that makes you more likeable in my eyes. Also, even though you may seem full of yourself at times, you always go out of your way to help out your friends, so you’re not entirely conceited.
Seeing different idols from different backgrounds is a nice touch, so it was pretty cool having a Chinese-Japanese idol added to the mix. It was also pretty hype having a new group show up in the form of R3BIRTH. I can’t wait to see what comes from you music-wise and in the second season of the Nijigaku anime!
