Having decided to go for broke, Aqours begins the second episode of Season 2 by asking Mari’s father one more time to hold off on shutting down Uranohoshi. I’m not exactly sure what Mari and the others do differently here. They certainly don’t fly to America as Chika suggested last episode. But sure enough, Mari’s father gives them a chance, assigning them the task of gaining one hundred prospective students by the end of the school year. If Aqours can do that, the school will stay open. As of right now, the girls have ten applications so the school idol strategy is going to have succeed big time. I wonder if Mari’s father is aware of the whole school idol thing. It must sound ridiculous to him. Then again, this strategy currently has a 100% success rate so who knows.
Speaking of school idols, the next qualifiers for Love Live are fast approaching so the girls need to create some new material ASAP. Funnily enough, Kanan asks why they can’t just use songs they’ve already performed and Dia explains that it’s against the rules. School idols have to perform new songs or at least songs that they haven’t used for Love Live. It is totally not because this show has a bunch of singles to sell to its audience. Aside from Love Live, the girls have their school’s open house in the cards again and they’re planning to perform there as well.
Initially, you have Chika, Riko (Rikako Aida), and You working on a new song as per usual. However, due to the potential workload, Mari proposes that Aqours split off into two groups. The second years will continue working together and produce a song for the open house while the rest form a second group to work on a song for Love Live. This appears to be the first time we explicitly see anyone besides the second years work on a song. I’m sure everyone has pitched in at some point or another offscreen but it is funny to assume that Chika, Riko, and You have been carrying this part of Aqours this whole time and everyone else has been mooching off of them.
The episode implies that it’s smooth sailing for Chika, Riko, and You. They’ve been creating songs longer than anyone else so I buy it. As such, the episode entirely revolves around the other six main characters. In stark contrast with the original trio, things quickly get dysfunctional as the first years and the third years show different interests in music and neither group is able to agree on a vision for their song. The only ones in the middle are Dia and Ruby (Ai Furihata). After talking it over with the second years, Dia leads her group into a series of icebreakers. The girls play a game of kickball, lounge in a library, and bathe together in a hot spring (I guess nothing breaks barriers like showing your naked body to everyone?). Results vary between each one though none of the icebreakers seem to succeed in lessening the divide within the group. Oddly enough, the hot spring scene isn’t terribly heavy with fan service. It’s instead full of a lot of convenient censorship which I’ll admit is pretty funny.
I find it interesting that Dia is the one leading the icebreakers. I suppose it plays into her leadership skills as the student council president but with how overzealous she can get, I can also picture her being more heated in the feud and acting less as the mediator. That said, an advantage to having Dia take a neutral stance is that the show can reasonably justify the silliness of the icebreakers. Case in point, Dia is the only one I can imagine pitching the hot spring scene with a completely straight face. Between this and the beach episode in Season 1, I think Dia might be one of the show’s most versatile assets. She works pretty darn well in a variety of situations.
Towards the end of the episode, rain falls and Dia’s group takes shelter in a Buddhist temple run by a family friend of Hanamaru’s (Kanako Takatsuki). There’s some banter here, the most amusing being the revelation that Kanan is more of a scaredy cat than she lets on. The girls then run into a leaky ceiling, prompting them to find anything that can hold the rainwater. Once that gets taken care of, the girls are taken aback as they hear the raindrops fall into the containers and create an asynchronous yet captivating melody. Inspired by this moment, the girls resolve to work together. It’s a really solid metaphor for the lesson of the day. I also love how the episode transitions from the ambient sound effects of the rain into the more orchestral soundtrack.
The next morning, both groups have successfully created a song for them to use in the upcoming events. While everyone is celebrating, Mari receives an incoming call on her phone. Talk about a cliffhanger. I really hope the one calling Mari is her father and he has once again changed his mind about keeping Uranohoshi open; just have the poor school director running in circles. That would be hilarious.
Watch Love Live! Sunshine!! on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Tubi
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