Three seasons ago Yuigaoka had no history, no upperclassmen, and Kanon Shibuya couldn't sing in front of one person without freezing. Now she's a third-year, the club she founded with Keke, Chisato, Sumire and Ren has swelled past a dozen, and the show turns its attention to what happens when the person who started from nothing has to hand the whole thing over. That's the quiet ache under all the sparkle here: Liella!'s founding five aging out of their own project, and a season built around the last Love Live they'll ever compete in. No villains, no manufactured misery, just rehearsal rooms and a stage that keeps getting bigger. And the songs still carry it, because this franchise's insert tracks have always done the emotional heavy lifting the dialogue is too shy to say out loud. Watch it, then go cry about a school that didn't exist four years ago.

Kanon and her friends have built Yuigaoka's school idol scene from nothing into something real. As the Love Live! competition nears its end, Kanon accepts a chance to study overseas and says goodbye to her fellow members of Liella!, with everyone set on continuing their idol work across the distance. Her departure is halted, however, when Wien Margarete's parents ask her to stay in Japan one more year so their daughter can learn from her. Stuck in limbo, Kanon watches Wien refuse to join Liella!, her former rival, and set out to form a group of her own. Kanon signs on to help, bringing in Tomari Onitsuka, the sister of a former bandmate. While the new unit works to move past Wien's troubled history, the remaining Liella! members struggle to carry on without their center. The result is a music-driven slice-of-life story about change and moving forward.