After hinting at it in the last episode, we find that Aqours does not win the idol event in Tokyo. In fact, they rank last out of thirty groups and with zero votes to their name. I find that to be comically harsh, especially the latter part, but I get the point it’s trying to make: Aqours may be good but they still got a long way to go if they want to be at the top. One decision I question here is not showing Aqours’ performance. It makes sense in terms of brevity though you could argue that showing the performance will make the results hit a lot harder. The girls even view as their best work yet so it’s a bit of shame we don’t actually get to see it.
As I expected, Saint Snow is set up as the rival faction in Sunshine!!. The duo does acknowledge Aqours’ talent and skill but they nevertheless leave some harsh comments, telling Aqours to give up on performing at Love Live and to not treat it as some game. An interesting detail is the fact that Saint Snow don’t even win the event themselves, let alone the top five. It sounds to me that they’ve been through this cutthroat business before and they’ve grown jaded as a result, hence them looking down on the naïve members of Aqours. I don’t know if Saint Snow’s performance necessarily conveys the gap between them and Aqours but I do think it’s a solid insert song. Compared to other Love Live! songs, this leans more towards rock than the usual J-Pop and I think that helps in differentiating the duo from the main group. I particularly like how Sarah and Leah constantly bounce off of each with their singing, something which you can’t often do with Aqours’ much larger roster.
Upon returning to Uchiura, the girls meet up with Dia, who helps them come to terms with the event result and the reality of the school idol business. Parallel to that, Kanan confronts Mari about sending Aqours to Tokyo. It’s here that we finally learn what the deal is with the third years. The three of them were school idols in the past, only to then disband after they saw the competition in an event, similar to what has just happened to Aqours. I have to hand it to Dia. As stern as she is with Aqours, she shows up and gives them some support in their lowest point so far. She has their back more than she lets on. Meanwhile, I don’t know what to make of Mari. She’s putting Aqours through the wringer to prove to Dia and Kanan that they can succeed as school idols and save their school but I do think she’s pushing it, especially given the Tokyo event. I can’t say blame Dia or Kanan for taking issue with that. Maybe if Mari was actually a part of Aqours, her pushing the group would come across as less irksome.
Out of everyone in Aqours, Chika takes the low ranking the hardest. Being the de facto leader of the group, she naturally feels the most responsible for the bad news. Likewise, she tries to hide her feelings as best as she can to keep morale up. It’s only at the end of the episode that she finally lets out all of her frustrations. Oddly enough, it’s only when Chika is alone with Riko that she begins to vent. Considering Riko’s backstory, she’d relate with Chika’s situation more than anyone else and even putting that aside, these two have confided their insecurities with each other a couple times before. If there’s anyone Chika would feel comfortable around to drop her façade and let out how she truly feels, it’d most certainly be Riko. Also appropriate is the choice of location as Chika and Riko meet up at the beach, right where the two first met. You even have Chika diving in the water to hear the sound of the ocean, trying to get out of her funk, much like Riko tried to do in the first episode.
So where does Sunshine!! go from here? For starters, Aqours resolves to keep working as school idols. The one flipside to being at the bottom is that they can only go up from there. Other than that, I expect the show to finally have the third years join the club. It finally revealed their backstory and the tension between all three of them has been going on for eight episodes. I say it’s about time that Aqours settles this matter.
Watch Love Live! Sunshine!! on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Tubi
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