Love Live! Superstar!! – 09

「君たちの名は？」 (Kimitachi no Na wa?)
“What’s Your Name?”

Finally! I can say the name without fearing spoiling anyone, even though it’s right there in the opening, a staple of Love Live of ruining the name before the cast has a chance to even think about it. This time around the group decided to pin it all on Kanon. Everyone had names for what the group should be named, but none of them were really good. I found especially funny Chisato’s Maru naming, everything begins in a circle and ends in a circle. Even though it was practical it didn’t have that oomph a school idol name needs. So the group sort of just ignored her. Ren had some ideas written in her note pad but she was too shy to share them, if it was up to Sumire the group would be named Galaxy! I’m glad they brought that back. And then, Keke just wanted to mash everyone’s names and have the group name be Chikerekasu as you can see, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. And even if we already knew what the final name was going to be, it’s always fun to see the creative process behind naming it.

In the end, Kanon decided to name the group Liella, which comes from an amalgamation of the French word lier which can be translated as Bind or Bond, and the Spanish world brillante which means shining. So the translation ends up being Shining Bond or something similar. And if you ask me it’s sort of the perfect name for this group. Since their goal; Now that their school is closing, like every other school idol group out there, thanks to Keke for mentioning that. They show the world they can shine through the bonds they have developed throughout their formation. The bond with Chisato and her dancing, the bond Ren has to the school, the bond Sumire has to show business, the bond Keke has to other school idols, and the bond Kanon has to the group. It’s all very touching, and a perfect sentiment towards Liella as a whole. I’m glad they have a proper name now. By the way, how did Keke know that the group was going to be that and had a banner prepared? Let’s just chuck that one up to movie magic I suppose.

The episode itself dealt with the exploration of this name and the questions that followed through, Kanon even had to consult with Sunny Pa to really understand what goes into a name. But Sunny Pa got it from their fans so they weren’t much help either. This discussion with Sunny delve into how the Sunny girls put their stuff online so that people can stream it, and so Liella decides to start a live video with Ren as a focus, but it ends in tragedy because Ren gets in her head and can’t continue to do the live anymore. They try to do a live with the whole group, but that just descends into madness. Later that day after practice, Ren and Kanon find out they were both waiting on each other to finish what they started. Kanon isn’t going to write the lyrics unless there’s music and Ren isn’t going to compose the music unless there are lyrics. Instead Kanon just sort of comes up with the names and lyrics for the group and their upcoming Love Live audition.

Overall a pretty funny episode this week, deepening the characters the girls are built around, and finally giving a name to the school idol project these girls are concocting. What will become of their exploits as we reach the end of Act II? Actually, this episode could technically be considered the beginning of Act III, even though it didn’t feel like it. But no song this week, except for that background BGM song that played during Kanon’s eureka moment. Personally, I like to see how storytellers divide their stories, how they plan for resolution and plot out a story over several episodes. The third act structure is in equal beauty say to something like the golden ratio. 12 episodes series should be hitting that mark every 4 episodes. For a 13 episode series, it’s around every 4.5 episodes. A nice even number works best as it’s divisible by 3. Every act should have a rise; action; and falling action. And the cycle starts again until the conclusion of the story is reached. So this episode could technically be the rise of the action, the next two episodes would be the action and the season finale, the falling action where we meet the resolution to the story.

Anyway, whatever, right? You probably don’t care about any of that, I honestly just try to look at media as an opportunity to learn more about writing theory and techniques. If a show impresses me it’s usually because of how they handled the aforementioned topic.

Nevertheless – I’ve rambled enough, let me know if you’re interested in hearing more about this particular topic I’ve discussed today, and I’ll think of more snippets for you. As always thanks for reading and I hope you come back next week for another episode of Love Live! Superstar!!

P.S. What’s going on with Ren next episode?! (xD)

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