#sunrise why you gotta do Kanan like that

[xtreme-icecream]

lls2 ep 1 meta recap post?

Intro: last night (oct 7, 2017, around 10pm PHT) i was pseudo-liveblogging on the first episode of love live sunshine season 2, posting caps and spouting dirt-tier memes when my good ol pal @sabraee (y’all know her as miki also check out her metapost) dropped into my dm’s, also in the middle of digesting the ep, and said to me something to the effect of “hey dude you should totally make some meta posts”

like a day later, here i am, trying my hand at the whole LLS meta talk business

yea this is a screencap from the ep and this is what my irrelevant captions look like. also, sunrise visual pun! symbolic? uh yea

I’m crap at intros! hi im xtreme-icecream, known by some as nick, my only background in metanalysis posting is that one post i made last year about ep 9. join me for some serious dang nerd talk about LLS: Lyrical Lesbian Saga!

Before we begin the season I think it would be useful to bring up Sunshine’s big themes, what the story is supposed to make you think about and what drives it. From season 1 we can glean, roughly and in my crude, breezy language:

This is very important: There’s Nothing In The Country. City Folk Have It All. (Fight For Your Folks In The Boonies. No One Else Will.)

You can’t follow the footsteps of your idols if the roads have changed. Chika took a beating (in her heart) to get in her head that five years of competitive evolution and their own circumstances mean Aqours can never be μ's 2.0.

“Shining” (and what it means)

something zero to one. something out of nothing.

Sunshine is going to come back to these concepts again and again because that’s what the story is about, and we gotta keep that in mind when we analyze a storyline. What’s it trying to show us bout This Thing? What aspect of This Thing are we talking about this episode? etc. Season 2 may have new themes, probs does, and if they’re woven in well we’ll be able to figure out what they are.

Ok cool we are equipped to Dig In. The episode opens with Chika.

this paper plane is a new thing. we’ll be seeing it a lot. it means something, but a sloppy caption isn’t the place to talk about that so just remember it

Spoiler alert: It’s a dream sequence. She’s wondering what makes people shine. As if picking up right where the last season left off, Chika’s in her Mirai Ticket outfit. She’s running toward either the paper plane or the light, and as the former disappears into the latter, she laments how close she was to reaching it. Real-world Chika is crying at this point, and as a teardrop falls, it destroys the fragile glass footing of the Chika in her dream.

The fall shakes her awake, and after she catches her breath, Shiitake barks at her and... wakes her up again?

Anomaly: This is the first episode of the season. Studios typically devote a good chunk of their budget relative to the rest of the season on the first and last episodes. That said, Shiitake is not there at all when Chika falls off her bed, and I doubt that they’d make a scene transition error like that right in the start of the season. A subtle blur effect also frames the above shot with Shiitake. Maybe she was dreaming half-awake, maybe dreaming of dreaming will mean something later down the line, just. This was odd.

Shiitake aside, Chika’s dream is a very visual scene, especially remembering that the closing shot of Mirai Ticket last season was Chika running and reaching a light in the distance. Aside from the costume and the light, her outstretched hand and the paper plane will also be recurring motif shots, in this episode at least.

And the atmosphere of the dream is just the beginning.

More importantly, she’s late. 

Also in a first episode, and especially for a character-driven story like Sunshine, Sunrise wants everyone to get a feel of these girls’ characters. I will say right now that not much really happens in the first episode this time around, and if I’m right, it will because the plot was right up there with character establishment when it came to their first episode goals.

In a nice example of this, right off the bat we can see Mari, Dia and Kanan’s dynamic as Fiery Responsible StuCo President, Prime Memer Director, and the Godsent Voice of Calm and Reason, respectively. This is easy mode, though, cause it’s one of the most vivid, natural... organic... free-range character dynamics in Aqours.

Also exposited in this scene are the following: new season (term), chika’s Still late, and they lost the regional prelims (the participation prizes were ridiculous i love it). Mari overhears the first years talking about this and tells everyone to shut up in English because the next Love Live is now right around the corner!

And then Chika arrives and answers the question on everyone’s minds: Are they up for the next one?

Heck Yeah Boi

this shot is a fav of mine because not only did they dedicate time and effort into designing 6 classes’ worth of girls to keep the consistency when they strike this cute formation, but also because you can see the symptoms of Uranohoshi’s fatal and terminal disease right there. Aqours is about a fifth of the whole student body, and there’s a steep, steady decline in new students when you look at how many first, second, and third years we have here.

Back to the story, note that Chika’s idea of the future sounds like this right now: enter Love Live, do awesome, save the school and then Shine the best they can. Oh Chika.

And now, the fresh new OP.

Okay as visual I am when it comes to these things, there’s not much to pick apart here. I could gush plenty about how Sunrise has evolved with their production and talk about the choreo, but that’s not what the post is about. The two caps above are the only two really (immediately) noteworthy things there that might have more meaning than ‘damn does this look cool or what’

The girls running to the light and the paper plane, and the third years’ fountain. (The latter strikes me as an ‘aw look that’s their Spot look how they’ve grown’ kind of thing.)

Don’t ask me about the song lyrics, i dont know

Back to Plot

can i just say!! i loved it when she said ‘that was perfect, zura’. idk why i cant even tell if she was sarcastic or not but ruby is cheering! her! on!!

Practice time! We see Yoshiko make her first chuuni excuse of the season and that Hanamaru is not really that athletic. Ruby is an angel. Character establishment enough.

While discussing the future of Aqours’ course, Dia brings up, in a very smart and opportunistic way (inspired by μ's? maybe), that the open house is coming up soon and it would be a great place to have a little performance. Chika is totally behind this, and now that’s the plan, team.

Meanwhile, Mari gets an ominous phone call...

no one even Looks at this. no one at all.

Aqours hangs out at the bus stop and find their newest dilemma: the open house is fast approaching and the season is cutting their already short practice times even shorter. they don’t mull over it very long because Chika has Got this guys.

Also in this scene, there’s a pretty notable chunk of time devoted to Riko explaining her mom’s newfound friendship with Yoshiko’s mom and teasing Yoshiko over Her Dark Past as a Young Fiendling. I haven’t figured out the purpose of this scene, because we get a split-second look at Yoshiko’s room later in the episode anyway if that’s what they want to show, and her streaming thing doesn’t need this much time to bring up. I suspect they’re setting up for a future plot development (cool), but either way, this is a good piece of character development.

Another thing that took an unusually big amount of time is the shot of Kanan noticing something wrong with Mari. I swear it’s five seconds longer than it needs to be, and five seconds for an anime reaction shot is A Lot.

Dia, for some reason, notices much later. Not in this scene.

What comes of all this is a little later. First, the Beach

Motha Fokin Parallelism

Yeah, parallelism. Riko wild introductory scene in LLS1 gets plenty of echoes here that I doubt I really need to provide pics for. Do the events in the scene and the dialogue do the same, though?

(It can’t, because in Riko’s version the dialogue was “oh my god she’s going to die” “*determined yelling” and “stop, you’ll die”)

Here Chika discusses with Riko how, even if it was just for a second, singing with everyone (in their last performance last season, I take it) helped her understand what it means to shine. (This is odd because last episode they had a whole play? about figuring that out. Did she forget or something? More on that later.) After this she does the baffling thing of running down the pear and jumping off it.

Now it’s not exact, but this I believe counts as parallelism, too.

top: chika in this scene | bottom: chika in the dream earlier this episode

Here’s where I, too, reach, trying to figure out why Chika even did that. The shot above is meant to bring to mind that same motion in Chika’s dream, and lights in this episode Mean something. Her goal, I guess. Shining again. The distance of the hand to the camera in the above shot and the softer lighting makes the goal seem much closer, and Chika is talking about when she started to understand what shining was all about.

When Chika runs off the pier this scene, she’s remembering and trying to relive what she did in the dream (which is totally a Chika thing, imo). She runs off the pier for inspiration, trying to understand a bit more, which is just the same reason Riko ran off the pier when she did it last season.

So yeah! Dialogue Does Not echo, but the uhh cinematography and the reasons behind the characters actions Do. In this scene we see the parts of Riko that Chika has adopted. Another scene later shows the other half.

Also of note, this is just a thing I personally enjoyed, but if you try to match up parts of the dream and this pier scene with each other, Riko catching Chika more or less matches up with where the glass floor breaking was.

Not all of this really comes to the casual viewer, though. If I had to do mental gymnastics to make sense of everything then it lacks flow and cohesiveness. In fact, my interpretation might even be wrong, and in that case, I really don’t understand what all these odd shot decisions mean. 

Speaking of decisions...

For the first time in Love Live history, a dude has some major bearing on the plot! Whatever Mari hears, it’s bad, probably has to do with the school (because what else does she have) and she’s just feeling Awful about it.

(Wonder why her dad, a hotel+resort guy, calling the shots for some school. His money i guess)

Just in time, a familiar light glints off the end of the pier. Kanan, who apparently is afraid of dropping her phone in the water while jetskiing, would like a word with Mari.

She cuts to the chase. What happened?

Mari tries to avoid answering the question. This happens.

Which is totally unnecessary and very extra of Kanan tbh but im quite sure it was appreciated. They needed a hook for their first trailer. Also apparently Kanan does something like this often enough to know how much Mari weighs. (Sunrise thinks theyre so slick with what ships they back. No this is probably the gayest thing ever.) Also, she threatens to sue Mari again. I really wonder why her go-to threat is with lawsuits.

Now that Mari can’t escape, Kanan pries the answer out of her, and Mari kind of just. Crumbles right there. 

We don’t learn yet what was wrong.

The next day, they’re still figuring out where to practice. While we see Maru do a spook and the mess in Yoshiko’s room (the numazu gamers mascot, whom i love, cameos), Dia finally notices something suspicious about Mari (and Kanan). It’s really so weird how the student council president, Mari’s other best friend, the other thoughtful mom friend in the team, takes a hint so late isn’t immediately told about the open campus issue. On one hand, Mari really doesn’t want to break it to her, but on the other, I don’t think Dia’s this slow about things like this. 

When she learns about what’s going on, she gives a very gentle buu-buu, though and her expression is really soft. There’s lots of kinds of love and this is one of them. She seems to understand.

All that said, though, to be blunt, when it comes to things like this, Sunrise constantly gives Dia the short end of the stick when it comes to serious third-year matters, and even their relationship. Her learning about the open house cancellation feels like a formality. Aside from an upset that can be resolved in like two lines, we'd have lost no development had Dia not been informed. It becomes more and more difficult to believe that Kanan and Dia have equal footing as Mari’s friend as they keep this up.

look at the in the background all sad and blurry. dam

The scene cuts to their new practice area, probably also based on a real-world location in Numazu. You’s dad’s friend rented it out, but it’s not being used right now so they’re free to practice there (and it’s really awesome because uh Mirrors dude). In the process, we are reminded that Yo’s dad is a sailor.

After some totally appropriate gushing over the new practice area, and before they can waste their time on a performance they’re not even going to do, The Truth Come Out: Uranohoshi’s open campus is canceled on the grounds that they won’t be accepting any new applicants next year. It’s dead.

Miki’s post mentioned the impact this news could’ve had is dampened because the info that matters here (no future applicants ever) is stated second, and after a commercial break at that. I agree. Just a few seconds could’ve been spared to say the whole thing.

Despite Chika’s best and most daring efforts, it’s just made out that it’s final. Mari’s efforts as Director, their efforts as idols, everything they’ve done -- it didn’t change anything. Mari, understandably, having given up her future for this, is the most sorry.

I have a lot of thoughts about Mari but i’ll get to them some other time maybe

When you compare how μ's and Aqours started, there might not have been a chance from the beginning. It’s been said time and time again: μ's had people, the city, and less competition. Akiba was right next door. Aqours had none of that, and their threat of school closure had been looming overhead much longer. You could say not that they’ve just had it coming. 

Here’s the thing: Last season, last episode, shining was all about enjoying yourself no matter what crap comes along. Aqours (Chika’s) wasn’t even founded to save the school at first, and we already know they’ve ditched following μ's way of doing things. Why is this a failure? This wasn’t even on the agenda.

It all wraps around in the next few scenes.

One Billion CG Cranes Are In This Tower. not really

In the short scene following this, the paper cranes Chika gets in her room from Mu and the other ura girls drive home who she failed.

Last episode, I noticed it was kind of a Thing that Uranohoshi backed Aqours and was part of them in a way Otonokizaka wasn’t for μ's. 9 was μ's number -- μ's was the nine of them, even when Otonoki students shoveled snow out of their path and countless other idols came together to perform behind their lead.

Aqours was 3, then 9, then 9 and Uchiura, who were the 10 in their count-off. Uchiura and Uranohoshi had more presence in the narrative of Aqours than Akiba and Otonokizaka did with μ's. All of them, alongside Aqours, wanted and tried to save the school they loved and help their town.

Simply but dramatically put, μ's were leaders. Aqours are champions. That’s their big functional difference.

The scene after this reiterates how much Uranohoshi is looking to Aqours for help. What do the students think when Mari breaks the news to everyone?

They want to do something, too, of course, but they know that Aqours is their best shot. And if that failed, they don’t have anything to fall back on.

The following ChikaRiko scene is a lot like the last. The discussion is of the same topic as the S1 version; the standing party gives some words of encouragement to the sitting party, they act like a kaiju (they’re both monsters of normalcy huh), and then they talk about the future.

The end of the conversation is much more sullen, though. At S1 the kaiju ended on a hopeful note -- Chika helped pick up Riko’s mood and they talked about who they were and what drove them. A white feather was there.

Here, they both end up sitting down. They both wanted Aqours to go one, but now neither of them know what to do.

Later, Chika’s too depressed for dinner. She’s still mulling over what’s next for her.

As she reflects, we see the images that come to her mind: the Mirai Ticket performance, Mari delivering the news about Ura High, the other students, and Riko.

hey you know that thing in japanese culture where if you fold a thousand paper cranes you can make a wish? that is absolutely relevant.

She gives the tower of cranes one last, meaningful look before turning over and falling asleep.

She returns to her dream in the beginning, where she’s alone in her Mirai Ticket outfit with a paper plane and a single, distant light. The plane flies into the light one more, and Chika suddenly awakes.

And bolts out the inn, straight to school.

Where she stops in the middle of the sports field and roars her biggest, proudest normal monster roar. 

She’s going to work some damn Miracles. She has to, for everyone.

What happens after this point is pretty straight forward. Aqours is so Squad they know when their leader is going out in the asscrack of dawn to do their best inspirational godzilla impression.

And they’re All gonna make miracles happen. None of them are going to give up. It’s the most zero to one thing ever.

Sunrise! First light of the day, last light of this episode, and a great image to close on. It’s the go-to symbol for hope and beginnings, and even more relevant here after all the light-chasing Chika’s done.

Chika’s not done, though. 

She get up on the bars, states her plans loud and clear, and catches a paper plane fly past her into the sky.

Then the credits roll.

...Hm! I’m done! I’m not touching the ED right now because I got a nice closing mood just now.

My picking it apart had to do with it, because I’m slow to absorb some things really unless I look, but I liked the episode. It’s a 6/10 as a first episode, but as a part of Aqours story and their collective character development, I liked it. It set the bar for the scale of their goal this time around and, destroying math, made the zero even bigger.

Main qualms i have: S1 ep13′s definition of shining is nowhere to be seen despite “shining” appearing so much this ep, scene timing could’ve been a little tighter, You and Ruby didn’t really get moments, they still need to treat Dia right, and some things, idk maybe it’s just me, but they’re kinda convoluted in their execution. I needed to pay some serious attention to connect some dots this time.

As for me, though, I don’t know how often I’ll make posts like these, I’m a very slow worker. Maybe some episodes I really want to talk about, or some topics, like uhhhh Mari.

Anyway guys if you read all this, thanks, let’s have a good one! We’re in Sunrise’s questionably capable hands. No doubt there’s more angst on the way.

Feedback is 👍 and I’ll see y’all around!

(Also if fsr u got someth to say to be abt my words on ep 9 that’s 👍 too)