English Dub Review: Love Live Sunshine “Finding a Way to Shine”

Find a shooting star.

Overview:

The girls think of the future.

Our Take:

More of Saint Snow, as they make the trip to toughen Aqours up for Love Live. It’s nice to see that Saint Snow wasn’t just a one-off thing for Ruby’s character development and that they are around to be genuinely helpful. It makes it feel more real in a way, that Saint Snow was so moved that they want to help out their former competitors. It adds value to the story while increasing the girls’ chances to be stronger in the competition.

Mari announces that she’s going to be studying abroad after graduation and that she won’t be taking the position at the new school. This effectively makes clear that once Love Live is over, the current Aqours will be dissolved. Dia and Kanan also reveal their plans to Mari, showing that they all decided to make plans on their own. They’re growing up, little by little.

Love Live straddles this weird boundary of being genuinely optimistic and bending fate entirely that has really muddled results. Fantasy flying van sequence aside, most of the episode centers on the fact that the girls want to make a wish on a shooting star. Because the first time failed with Mari, Dia, and Kanan as children, they’re determined to see the stars once again. To do this, they take a van with Mari at the wheel and drive far away from the rain clouds to see the stars. And in the end, what gives them a view of the stars isn’t Mari’s driving but… praying. By wishing really hard, the heavy rain clouds manage to clear up in seconds.

The writers’ constantly back and forth over whether they should show the girls getting rewarded through their hard work or through plot devices. Half of the time, it feels like the plot spawns whatever it takes for Aqours to get forward somehow, which shouldn’t be the case. They’re the underdogs, so it should be all about optimism with their hard work, with a miracle here and there. Now it feels strangely unbalanced, so, unfortunately, all that optimism loses its veneer.