Part 8: In which The Cutest Idol in the Universe brings a smile to her choreographer

In which The Cutest Idol in the Universe brings a smile to her choreographer

ACTUALLY THIS IS CALLED: SHALL WE TAKE A DETOUR?
Greetings and salutations, everyone. Let’s wrap up our bandmate’s dreams, shall we?


More floors, more dangerous enemies(?), and a (former) student council president that’s more permissive!


Let’s just get this over with already.

MUSIC: WHAT ELI WANTS TO DO (STAGE)

A fresh new level, and a fresh new start as Japan’s finest IDOL!

Our final partner of μ's is Eli Ayase, fellow third year and formerly the strait-laced Student Council President.
Oh, and she’s quarter Russian (on her grandmother’s side), former ballerina and the choreographer of μ's. She and Maki make up the rest of BiBi, Nico’s subgroup in μ's.
Facts copied from the wiki aside, she and Nico have been friend-of-a-friends (friends-in-law?) since their first year of high school through Non-non-Nozomi, even though they butted heads often.
Nico butts heads with others a lot, actually. Could it be the super-special bestest finest in Japan IDOL’s fault?
……Nah.


Same old chirpies, day in and day out.
Oh, by the way, you can tell which year said student is in by their ribbons:
First-years like Maki had blue,
Second-years like Kotori had red,
And third-years like Nico and Eli have green.


Nico interacts with Eli a lot more genuinely and less guarded than either Kotori or Maki. Know someone for three years and you start keeping it real, huh?


Anyway, our first new enemy is I won’t Slime it, riffing on Eli’s response to the second-years at the start of Love Live petitioning for an Idol Research Club.
It’s also what the tagline of the dungeon is referencing, in case you were curious.


This line is referencing this panel of the manga. Even by female idol standards, Eli’s been a part of a lot of gaybaiting,
like that one song where she sings about falling in forbidden love in a garden of lilies with her vice-president whose likes are ‘looking at cute girls’.

I’m sure they’re just really good friends.


Anyway, Eli’s stat spreads as a partner are 3/2/3, which initially sounds worse than any of the others. And it is.


However, the main thing is that you can buy mirrors for only 1 Nico point, and unlike the other partners that cost never goes up.
This means you’re allowed to play a lot more fast and loose with health and leveling.


The ending quote is it finally allowing ‘it’. What is ‘it’?
In the source material, the idol group. In this case, Japan’s finest IDOL’s activities.

Later? Who knows…?

_{Let’s just go on to the next-} Hey, WAIT! We’ve already done this joke before!


How?
Being like this, walking side by side with you.
Just a year ago, I would have never expected this to ever happen.


Same here.


The Chika fish is here because Eli’s nickname is Elichika. It’s appearance is based off of a japanese meme of a fish about to be cut.


If for whatever reason you’re playing along, make sure to be around level 3~4 before heading down to floor 2 or you’ll get clobbered.


Suppose so. I also thought the same.


D’awww


A fungus!


A garbage hit rate!


A level up! Man, I could really go for hot pot right now.


This is a deer. It’s name kinda sounds like Chika if you squint your ears, so it’s here. Our hit rate on this thing is 34%, sooo…


We make a classy retreat.


I just love Eli’s reaction here.


And the last new enemy is an Amazon(wait, are we allowed to say brand names out loud?) Chunslime!
400 yen is around $2.8 USD, and is a whole 100 more yen than the soundtrack for this game that they’re selling for an equivalent of $2 USD, an absolute steal!


In this dystopic hellscape, merely smiling at an ad signs you up for their associate program.
Truly, we live in Jorjor Well’s 1969.


...That so.
Well, I also didn’t exactly dislike you either.
...Nozomi told me a lot about you too.


She did?
She would make a face every time I talked bad about you.




This is the Matrichunka, a matryoshka doll and also part of the reason I’m not the biggest fan of this dungeon.

You see, both when I was first playing this and when I was recording for the LP I was nursing a wrist injury.


It’s emblematic of the issues I had because it has 15(!!) dancing squares and is the primary source of EXP you’ll be grinding. It’s Not Great, tbh


It’s also a doll of russian make unsure of itself. I wonder what that could mean…?


Why?


Huh? She did that because she wanted to, why should I care?
Heh, guess so.


...I guess, I don’t mind.
Heheh, it’s a promise.


By, the by, this is the statline you need if you want to reliably one-turn these.


There’s also a new enemy, but if you can handle Matrichunkas you can sweep them pretty reliably.

You can actually beat the dungeon with these stats if you just stock up on like 15 mirrors, but I didn’t do that because I value my wrist. Ish.


Spit it out.


Huuh? Why would I?


So I worried I might have been too harsh on you…
......Pfft.


Hmm, I wonder?
Ha, who would’ve thought you cared so much about little Nico?
Ngh…


This is the Bluebird of Happiness, a common symbol of how actively searching for happiness causes it to slip from our fingers.


A trick in this game is to give a new enemy one Nico Nico Nii to see whether you should fight it or not.


To validate the story of the bird landing on your shoulder when you stop chasing it, we immediately choose to then run away. We do this for the entire floor.


...Huh?


Me? I would never do that.


...Well, can’t say I had many positive thoughts about you either.


There’s nothing but bluebirds in this floor too moving on


We both fell into that trap.
......Guess so.


Huh?
Can you do it now? Accepting others… Accepting us.


......I see.
...What?


This floor also has more deer and…


A new enemy! Katchunsha is referencing the Russian folk song Katyusha, and it also speaks lyrics from said song.


We are no match for the immortal science and we continue to move swiftly to the next floor.


Counting on you, Nico!
............


But thrice is a pattern.

A Russian doll, unable to think for herself.


It’s a shame that even the most skilled puppeteers can’t quite replicate the elegance and grace of a ballerina, no?

MUSIC:A STRONG PERSON

Regardless, this is our final encounter for this dream.
If you’ll take a look at the left there, that’s 40(!!) squares.


While I just rawdogged it with these stats, you’re better off with a little bit higher stat curve as being able to reliably 2 cycle a Nico Nico Nii saves you a ton of wrist pain.


It’s a rather large amount of mashing.


Since that was 1/7th of the bar, please imagine me doing that 7 more times while healing in between for the full experience.


While we merely dance for the random encounters, Nico always sings to her bandmate’s hearts.
Accepted them a long time ago, huh?

MUSIC:WHAT ELI WANTS TO DO

But it’s not “our” hand that she takes, is it?

Our last exit to stage right, taking her outstretched hand.


...What do you mean?


She sighs.
...Hey.
Since when did you start wanting to be an idol?


You completely had it out for us, got in our way a ton and yet…
You actually wanted to do it too. What, were you just being jealous all this time?
Good grief, you do know you’re not a kid, right?


...Yeah, since when, huh? I have to wonder.
Back then… I wasn’t thinking of what I wanted to do at all.
It was during that moment that I realized how I actually felt.


And I just wanted to be like that since a long time ago.
...Mhm, yeah, that sounds like you.


......Of course not.
...I gave up on mine once, way in the past..


But you know, Nico? I’m not sure when it started, but…
Even after that, I still began to want to be an idol…
And it was thanks to you all that I could change.




I mean, just think about it.


It’s almost like…


If you manage to get past that…

SFX: CYMBAL ROLL

MUSIC: SHALL WE TAKE A DETOUR?

But we’re still here, and we’re still stuck.


Ahaha, good work out there.
...So what was the deal with all this, anyway? What did you guys want?


...Ah, whatever, it’s all over now, right?


.........
Hm?


Huh?

The music cuts.


.....................


Ha.
Ha………


Ha, so that’s it, huh? This whole time.


What a stupid joke.


.........Tch.