Love Live! Sunshine!! – 09
It’s like the Ghost of Idols Past, you just can’t get away from it
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Let’s ramp up the angst this week for Love Live! Sunshine!! |
Seriously, How Much Angst Could There Be?
Chika lays the smack down on the senpais
But really not that much. I mean, it’s Love Live!, not Wake Up! Girls. But we finally deal with the last three members of Aquors… or is that the first three members? We knew that Mari, Kanan, and Dia had been an idol group before, but they hadn’t said what the name was. Nor did we know who wrote the name on the beach when it was obvious it wasn’t any of Riko, Chika, or You. So we got answers to both of those things when we saw it was Dia who wrote “Aquors” in the sand, although I wonder what motivation she had for doing it. Was she hoping that she could be in the group? Was she hoping that the group would go on to bigger things than they achieved? We knew they had a short run before, but it seems weird to want to pass your own group’s name willingly.
Yohane 2, Kurosawa Gems 0
We also found out the main reasons behind the failure of the seniors’ idol group. Yes, they got to Tokyo and apparently couldn’t sing, but it comes out that Kanan was faking that to cover for Mari who had twisted her ankle. But that’s not the REAL reason for breaking up the first Aquors. That goes to the Gift of the Magi-esque Japanese sentiment of “I just want the person I love to be happy,” which all too often adds on a rider of “even if it’s not what they really want, I don’t want to be a bother to what I think is better for them, even if they’re happy now.” Mari had offers to go to school overseas and go to better schools, and she continually turned them down, sometimes stating the main reason as being in a school idol group. So Kanan and Dia “fixed” that problem for her, sabotaging the group on purpose so that Mari would have no reason to stay. But of course, you can’t just talk this stuff out, you have to dance around it for years, and everyone has to have bad feelings about it. Finally, it takes Mari understanding the reason that Kanan torpedoed the group and continues to rebuff Mari about it. And now all 9 of the expected girls are in Aquors, with their first performance at the big town’s fireworks festival, a nice slower song that we don’t usually get from groups like this.
Mari has the Faceplant of Realization
And the Hug of Reconciliation
Finally a group of 9
This is another one of those situations of what could almost be described as Competitive Altruism that crops up in Japanese society. Everyone is trying so hard to not be a bother to someone else with their ‘selfish’ wishes that everyone ends up unhappy. So it’s like the opposite of Gift of the Magi, because everyone ends up sabotaging their own happiness but of course you can’t let on that the reason you’re being so obstinate is that you don’t want to hurt the other person. So they end up hurt by your obstinacy and you end up hurt by not getting what you want. Yay? Anyway, now the group’s all together, and we’ll see where they can go from here. I’m certainly not predicting any Love Live! success, although I wouldn’t be particularly surprised to see some sort of happening that prevents them from competing in this first season (cue collapsing Chika…).
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Cue Collapsing Chika…that does seem rather apt.
I can’t help but think that Mari might be a bit dim? I mean, not by a huge margin, or not totally a stupid person. But when it comes to her friends it looks like she has idealization on her mind more than reality? Still, nice to know the Final/First Three aren’t rusty…I do love that song…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I think that Love Live! in general makes a good choice by not ever being about the struggle of practice. So they could have been rusty, they just blitzed past that, did all the practice and training and got good, and we didn’t see that. Basically it’s “Take as given that the group will prepare adequately”. I’ve always liked that since they went that route early in the first season.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…and when they did go into a “on screen” practice, it doubled up with plot and/or character development…
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
I still don’t really have a firm grip on Kanan’s personality yet, but at least the show has gotten everyone together now. I’m sure I’ll understand in time.
…And I’d like to think that Dia wrote Aqours in the sand because she wanted Chika’s group to achieve what the original group didn’t (but kind of in the same spirit, thus the same name). I dunno.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
We’ll have to see what their personalities are. So much of Dia, Mari, and Kanan’s time has been taken up by what seems to be an out-of-character antagonism that we can’t really have too much to go on.
There is some interaction between the three in some of the drama CD’s with the first couple singles, but I get too caught up in laughing at Mari’s repeated “WHAT?!?!” statements to really get a handle on personalities.