#I'm like level 70 and those are still the only horses I've got because I'm attached to both of them

[tearlessrain]

well the screenshot function suddenly started working for me with RDO so that's something you're all gonna have to deal with now

[akiyama-san]

I've noticed your comments about Love Live Sunshine and don't get me wrong, we all have our own opinions and I'm not telling you stop posting your negative thoughts about it, but why do you hate Love Live Sunshine so much? And if you hate it that much, why are you even watching it?

I suppose it comes off as hate doesn’t it? Well despite how it appears, it’s not entirely hate, it’s mostly disappointment, and while that might not sound much better i’ll try to explain what I mean, hopefully to a degree that it can be understood. 

Spose I should start at the top shouldn’t I? 

I think it goes without saying that this point that I didn’t like the original show at all, it had its moments, and 2 or 3 good characters, which isn’t saying much I realize but these casts are fucking bloated of course only a handful will be likeable. The concept seemed really fucking stupid from the outset, and it is, but I’ve seen worst, and as a first attempt by SunRise for an Idol show, to my knowledge, the idea to give it an actual plot to follow was in theory a noble one. It failed completely, but the thought was there. More to the point, almost everyone was completely flat, incredibly stupid, and beyond insufferable. 

I’ll be honest, I can put up with a lot, and if I had chosen to watch it of my own volition I’d probably have been more forgiving of the writers dancing on active fault lines, but at the time some years back, I had several people breathing down my neck to watch the fucking show so I went in pissed off. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t change the fact that these characters say and do things that would make me want to hurt a small child, but I would still have been more kind to it in the long run. 

Then the movie happened, and well.... Lets just say the series needed the fucking soft reboot that was Sunshine after that abysmal travesty of a movie that completely deficated on a third of the casts character development. I’m still trying to work out the quantum fucking mechanics of how Honoka could receive her microphone from her future fucking self BTW. 

I openly admitted this at the time, and this is important because this is often overlooked by the crowd. I said that after the failure of the movie, and knowing that a new series was coming, if SunRise could learn from their mistakes, then I would gladly and open-mindedly go into Sunshine with a positive attitude and be kinder to it if the series was able to escape its charred charcoal burned roots. 

Needless to say I was absolutely blown away by how incredibly Sunshine could be at times, and how baffling disgusting and incompetent it could be as well. I stress that Sunshine is wholly the better property I was able to enjoy more than whole episodes and character arcs completely this time around, as opposed to the original where I enjoyed maybe 10 minutes of its total 700 minute run from episode 1 to movie credits. 

The series had incredible characters to start, those already good characters ACTUALLY GREW INTO EVEN BETTER CHARACTERS, THESE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY GROW AND MATURE AND THAT’S INCREDIBLE. I’ll say openly that the second years are some of the best characters I’ve seen in any anime in the past several years, and I would never hope to take away from that. Better was that we actually had rivals that we could see and understand, that weren’t placed on a pedestal for no discernable reason, one that stood on relatively even ground that could be combatted in real time, force growth and change upon both groups. 

At the same time, while the series had heights and feats that rivaled Everest, it also had lows that would put the Mariana Trench to shame. No, I don’t care what anyone says, I will never get over all the bullshit that happened between Mari and Kanan, and how absolutely disgusting Kanan is, even now, refusing to grow up or stop being a cunt or do anything of value to the group you so claim to love. I’ll be generous and say I was fucking disgusted by SunRise repeating what happened with Honoka and Kotori in the first season here with Mari and Kanan, almost beat for beat. It was terrible the first time, and suicidally bad the second time. 

To regain the focus, by then end of it while my opinions were of the mixed nuts variety with plenty of roasted salt, I still gave it a hearty recommendation because I thought it was genuinely pretty good, blue cuntveats notwithstanding. 

NOW

Where my problem overall with Season 2 lies. If it disappointment and wasted potential were a physical force this series could level mountains. 

From the beginning we’re told that we’re on an incredibly strict time crunch and that we need to focus all our efforts hardcore in the second round. 

Only for almost literally all of the first 6 or 7 episodes to be nothing but filler and padding to waste time, where no growth or progression of any kind took place at all, and such wonderful gems as 

Dia: Please call me Dia-Chan.

Chka: No!

and the omnipresent 

Chika: Teach how to do a backflip

Kanan: Not on your fucking life!

Kanan: Oh shit she learned how to do the backflip... 

Where it all came to a head however was with the reveal of just how many students the school actually had, because that was something that was never brought up. The total number of students is 68 when all are accounted for. And the is beyond miserable. 100 fucking students isn’t enough, to maintain the school you need at least 200, but closer to 300. With 68 students the school should’ve closed fucking years ago. The revelation of that number killed the entire fucking show, it made moot the efforts and development of every single fucking character, because no matter what, even if they had gotten 100 students, this same predicament would still inevitably rear its head once again next year or the year fuckin after. 

I want to make clear, more than anyone else on this site, I have authority to speak on this matter, and no one can refute this, hell I’d barely even listen to them if they did because I severely fucking doubt they ever dealt with this sort of thing, if they did they would totally agree with me.

I have come face to face with a school closure myself. 15 years ago the district announced that my Elementary school would be closing, this school with 700 students that churned out some of the best results in the city might I add. It was a hard and long fought battle, it lasted 3 years, but eventually the parents won that war, and it’s still open now. How did they do that? By actually getting involved, going to meetings, talking directly to superintendents and comptrollers, explaining things like how some of them go to work really early or work late, they can’t send their kids anywhere else because they’d never be able to make it to other schools in the morning on time or pick up on time because of how far away they are, how different schools offer different programs, and not all schools offer the same accommodations for special needs children as this one did, ETC. The point is, the parents got active in the fight, the people that might have been able to affect the outcome did, and while it was no easy task, they did it, they actually fucking one that battle. 

I don’t expect even a fraction of that to occur, but to at the same time tell me that the parents don’t know or care at all, much less any of the other fucking 59 students are powerless to help in any meaningful capacity is an absolute load of horse shit. 

Where it started to bring my blood to a boil, nay to a bursting point, was what happened in the last to episodes with Saint Snow. The best song the franchise ever gave us was Self Control, followed by Shocking Party. This is a fact. From a single interaction some of the most intriguing and likeable characters we got were also Saint Snow. For them to be all but ignored in season 2 until 8 fucking episodes in is ludicrous, but for their first appearance in over 10 episodes to be them failing a concert and us not even getting to hear any of the fucking song, is insulting, it’s infuriating, it’s domestic abuse. This isn’t a slap in the face, this is Studio SunRise forcefully shoving their cock in your mouth against your will and punching you in the eyes with brass knuckles for crying about the cock in your mouth. 

Honest to God, if I wasn’t committed to seeing this through, these last two episodes would be my first set my merchandise on fire moment, and that is saying a lot. It might sound like i’m being overdramatic, but honestly there are a lot of people that agree with me on this matter. 

I did a lot of thinking in writing this post and it took me the better part of an hour to write it. I still hold fast on my thoughts about the original, 2/10 garbage. 

I still hold to my opinions of season 1 Sunshine, 7/10 very good. 

But this season? Well let me put it this way, I score every episode and tally the scores at the end, if season one got a 70 percent

Season 2 probably wouldn’t even reach a combined 20/130 

I will still recommend newcomers to Sunshine season 1 absolutely, but I will also absolutely tell them to pretend season 2 never happened, do not watch it because it will make you commit homicide in the aftermath. 

Why do I hate Sunshine Season 2? 

Because SunRise finds new and exciting ways to fail at absolutely everything on every single level every week. I infamously gave the movie a 1/10, in the long run, I think I would sooner rewatch that movie on loop than ever rewatch this season of Sunshine ever again.