English Dub Review: Love Live Sunshine “HAKODATE”

A sisterly bond.

Overview:

Upon Saint Snow failing and seeing the sisters fighting, Ruby begins to search into her own doubts.

Our Take:

While she’s happy that she advanced, she’s less comfortable about the future than she makes clear. When they win Love Live, or when Love Live is over, she can no longer perform with her sister. Dia is in her third year, and since the competition is restricted to high school teams only, she’d lose the ability to participate. She’s doubtful of whether she wants to continue because it won’t be the same without Dia around.

However, Dia is content with leaving. She is happy that they got this far, and being able to perform in Love Live makes her happy. She can leave without regrets and tries to tell Ruby the same thing. She’s happy with how things turned out, and Ruby has shown that she’s able to take action on her own. Dia’s year will end well, and she’s confident that her sister can move on— that’s enough for her.

The weaker link of the show was with Saint Snow. Ruby projected her own feelings onto Leah, and it turns out she was right. Her going out of her way to cheer Leah up by singing a duet for the holidays was cute, but it’s kind of baffling that she was right. From the other perspective, Leah messed up during her performance and is incredibly torn up about it, not just for her sister, but for herself. She gets angry with seeing Aqours show up at the family restaurant and threatens Ruby to not say anything. That she’s not more resistant seems oddly convenient. The two sisters of Saint Snow knew Aquors, but they were by no means close enough that one motivating speech can get someone to stop being upset about their failure. ‘All she needed was someone who could encourage and understand her and now she can be an idol again’ is too positive. It would have honestly been a lot better had Ruby offered empathy as an endgame instead of a career revitalization because her empathy was sincere.  Positivity is great, but this is uncomfortably so.

That being said, Dia and Ruby’s portions of the episode together were the highlights.

Score
7.0/10