First Impressions / Love Live!

「残された時間」 (Nokosareta Jikan)
“Remaining Time”

Everything I’ve watched today has been a god damn emotional rollercoaster.

General Impressions

Can I just start off with just how much I love Sunshine for not giving our girls everything they want? As much as I would love a “happily ever after” ending, there’s definitely a lot more satisfaction involved when some work is required to get the things you want. Seeing how we already watched our girls fail to make the cut for the Love Live competition once, I can let it slide that they’re having a rather easy time making it through all the qualifiers. When it comes to saving their school though, I’m glad (in a bittersweet kind of way) that they weren’t able to find exactly what they were looking for. Thinking about their school closing from a logical and financial perspective, it feels like they were already asking for a miracle with the powers-at-be being okay with only one hundred perspective students. Besides the mere fact that prospective students doesn’t equal actual enrolled student, I can’t imagine what else our girls would have to do to actually keep things going even if they were able to win the entire Love Live competition.

But in true Sunshine fashion, we got to watch Chika fall down to lowest I think we’ve ever seen her — and it was so good it almost felt therapeutic. Unlike another leader of another popular School Idol group, I love it that the story takes the time to show us that Chika is just like all of us. Not invincible, not impervious to failure, and sometimes is unable to keep her composure when things get a little too depressing. If I’m being honest with you guys, I was so happy when Chika started lashing out at the rest of our girls because the reality of the situation was just too heavy.

At the end of the day though, Sunshine pulls through and gives us a solution to all of our problems without undoing any of the problems that our girls have to face. And honestly, I thought it was a pretty creative solution to their problems. If anything, I’m a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to think of it. But, as things stand, it looks like our girls have something amazing to fight for as they move on to the Love Live Finals. In any case, I’ll catch you guys next week!

 

Preview

12 Comments

  3. This season has definitely been showing just how different things are for Aqours than they were for Muse not just for each member individually, but now their overall situation.

    So now winning Love Live! is no longer about saving their school, but merely preserving its name in peoples’ memory. Though I wouldn’t be surprised that, if they win (and how much of a punch in the gut would it be if they didn’t win after this?, winning somehow does manage to keep their school from closing.

    HalfDemonInuyasha
    Reply

      1. Depends. If it’s a reputable school, they keep the name of that reputable school. If not they rename it.

        There have been several school mergers in my country and they tend to rename it. Thus far it’s been the primary and secondary schools.

        Come 2019, it’ll be the biggest merger exercise in Singapore. A lot of primary and secondary schools and junior colleges will be merged.

        The school I’m teaching in right now will be merged come 2019. It may be an unwelcomed change to students but a necessary one no less. We didn’t even have Primary 1 registration this year.

        “The merger process would have started by now”. Kanan Matsura, 2019

        Velvet Scarlantina
        Reply

    2. Now we wait for Girls und Panzer der Finale to see if Ōarai remains open or closed upon the insistence of MEXT. Once the education board decides to close the school, its a definite thing.

      Velvet Scarlantina
      Reply

  4. The one thing Love Live! Sunshine!! is good at is proving that just because you have an epiphany doesn’t mean night and day solution. Also seeing how much work the girls had to put in, made me shutter.

    RenaSayers
    Reply

  5. I found the small first-year scene in the middle of the episode to be quite interesting. Their sense of responsibility and hence investment to this entire situation differs from the second and third years. I have a suspicion that we are building up to a first-year arc, where the first years decide within themselves that they will continue to be school-idols into their new school, of their own accord, even after Aqours.

    The school shutting down does not change the dynamics of graduation. But it changes the dynamics of what the first years decide to do, regarding the sport of School Idols in the future. I think we are going to get some focus on the first year development in the coming episodes of Sunshine, though a different kind from Rin being put temporarily in charge of Muse.

    But the Aqours name is almost certainly going to be retired because it is bound to Uranahoshi.

    Andmeuths
    Reply

  6. I did suspected that they might not be able to save the school, but the results still surprised me anyway.
    If I was Chika, I would probably react the same way she did. What’s the use of performing LL if the things that compel you to do your best wasn’t there anymore?
    I also liked how their school classmates came up to cheer the Aqours members at the end and gave them a new drive. It’s obviously the only option that could save the school. In a world of school idols, who would be crazy to close down a school that won a Love Live competition, right?
    Another thing for me is.. I kind of felt sad for Mari. I’m sure she did a lot to save the school. Just thinking that she used her second year and early third year trying makes me feel sad for her that it didn’t work out the way she wanted to be.

    Seorori
    Reply

  8. “Everything I’ve watched today has been a god damn emotional rollercoaster.”

    Man, I had to switch gears from watching a gritty show (Netflix’s The Punisher) to watching this episode, so things feel a bit more topsy-turvy for me. *sweatdrops*

    Story-wise, I guess it’s for the best that while Aqours are on their way to the Love Live finals, they weren’t able to save their school, otherwise it’s just a replay of the original series.

    That being said, as the heart of the group, it’s Chika who took the heartbreak of being unable to save their school the hardest. I empathize with Chika getting that feeling of fulfillment and happiness in obtaining a newfound purpose (starting a school idol group to save their school, just like the school idols she admired–μ’s), then having that newfound purpose suddenly being yanked out from under her due to uncontrollable (and different) circumstances. If it weren’t for the remaining students of Uranohoshi urging Aqours to go and win Love Live, this would be a totally depressing episode, so thank God for them.

    What matters now is Aqours leaving a legacy to remember in Love Live and working toward that, much like Project D setting new street racing records in the Kanto region within the short span of a year. Well, if you’re gonna go, might as well go out with a bang, right?

    https://randomc.net/image/Love%20Live/Love%20Live%20Sunshine%20S2%20-%2007%20-%20Large%2013.jpg
    D’awwww…

    Incognito
    Reply

  9. https://randomc.net/image/Love%20Live/Love%20Live%20Sunshine%20S2%20-%2007%20-%20Large%2028.jpg

    A lot is stacked against the girls. If this was reality the girls won’t get a minute chance to save their school. Yet the faculty are willing to give out a fighting chance which it seems like the adults make decision without any understanding of consequences. Let’s put up a road block shut down a school and miggrate the students to another educational facility with out knowing if the alternative can support that many students.

    RenaSayers
    Reply

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