It opens with a girl who literally cannot sing in front of people, and then makes you watch her do it anyway. Kanon Shibuya bombing her music school audition because her throat locks up is not the usual Love Live starting gun, and Superstar!! knows it. Yuigaoka has no upperclassmen, no history, and no idol club, so Liella! gets built one member at a time, from Keke Tang dragging Kanon onto the stairs to Chisato finally admitting why she quit dancing, to Sumire's endless campaign for the center spot, to Ren singing alone in an empty hall for a school her father built. Yes, the beats are standard franchise construction and nobody's pretending otherwise. It still lands, because five members means every single voice is audible in the chorus, and you can hear exactly which one used to be too scared to open her mouth.

Yuigaoka Girls' High School has just opened in Tokyo, between Omotesando, Harajuku and Aoyama, so its first students have no past, no older classmates and no name to live up to. Kanon Shibuya loves to sing, but stage fright keeps her out of the music program and puts her in the general course, and she decides to give up music. Her classmate Tang Keke rekindles that passion by sharing her own love of school idols. When the pair try to start an idol group, Ren Hazuki, the director's daughter, firmly objects. The director agrees to allow a club only if they win first place at the Yoyogi School Idol Festival. Along the way the group grows to five girls led by Kanon, launching their School Idol Project from a blank slate in this music and slice of life series.