Writing for their new home at Wordpress, the Bros Before Shows open the Love Live:

Oto. I came into this show thinking it was gonna be terrible. Half joking and half because of what you told me about it. You’re wrong. I love this episode. The fuck is wrong with you? Do you hate joy? This episode made me feel so refreshed. It’s just nice to watch.

Pon. It’s different now that I can view it in the context of im@s. Now that I’m not daring this idol shit to win me over, testing how many of my defenses it can overcome.

Oto. Now I just feel bad. You don’t hate joy. You just don’t want to admit you actually like joy.

Pon. There are these areas in which I feel like im@s dropped the ball. Now it seems like maybe Love Live came along behind it and picked up the ball.

And so on and so forth. Now I can't wait to see what they think about Idol Stalingrad.

Pon. I dunno. But I do know one thing. Nico still sucks.

He's obviously going from spoilers; Nico wasn't in the LL 01. Still, Nico, Nico, Nico is always popping up. Remember how she was the Hikago's main question "i actually want to hear your reaction to nico". People don't ask me such questions for nothing. When Omo wanted my reaction for Initial D, he asked what I thought of Iketani's love story.

Since I never answered Hikago properly, and in view of Pon's focus above, what about Nico?

My views of Nico sustained a big change (mind, I did not watch LL S2). In the beginning, I wasn't a fan. At the introduction she was too much of clown (the only positive thing I noted was how Nico sat in a protagonist's seat in the class (Eli was in "Haruhi" seat)). But as soon as things settled down and poor Nico became an agreed-upon figurehead, I became displeased how she was a definite ballast. Even her otaku sense was not used productively. It was painful, really. She only came into her own at the very end, when her dogged determination and unyielding love of idols remained after Honoka's idiocy exploded. Too bad that she did not have Honoka's charisma and could not carry the group. Still, she is better than plain "sucks" (as in, you know who actually sucks? Aina Sakhalin).

Oto always wins over Pon's insecurities, preconceptions, and rush to judgement, and Nico isn't going to be different, even if he continues to cling to the hate of Haruka officially.

(she didn't add "and obeyed", like Takamina)