Love Live! Sunshine!! Episode 7: TOKYO

Nothing of too great importance happened, depending how you looked at this episode. You can look at this episode and say the girls went to Tokyo and met a rival idol group. Or, you can look at it like they found a rival idol group and the girls are probably going to get their asses handed to them.

Most of the episode wasn’t that important. The girls found that their school idol ranking jumped up to 99th place after their PV got them some attention, and really that’s a huge leap from where they were before. They’re ecstatic, and they become even more so when they get an email from the School Idol Association inviting them to perform at an event where other school idol groups will be present. It’s a huge opportunity that they don’t want to pass up, but they need the funds and the permission.

Damn it. I said Dia was a bitch, but she’s actually a pretty sweet sister to Ruby. Dia seems like she’s actually looking out for Aquors because she doesn’t want them to fail like she and Mari and Kanan did. Ruby went to ask Dia if it was okay for her to go to Tokyo, even though Mari said it was fine. Dia went to Mari’s place to speak with her, and these two have different viewpoints. Dia doesn’t want them to fail, because it could potentially traumatize them and that memory will always stay with them, probably like with Dia and definitely Kanan. But Mari thinks they need to go for it, and that they can’t let that stop them. And the idea of potential failure keeps being talked about and I feel like it’s foreshadowing what’ll happen later.

So the girls get to go to Tokyo. We see them be silly and inexperienced, with some of the girls wearing ridiculous outfits because they’ve never been to Tokyo and have no idea what to expect. It’s Riko’s job to look after them, since she used to live there. When they arrive the girls split up and do their own thing and later come together when it’s the evening. They reach the infamous stairs Muse used to practice on and they run up and arrive at the shrine, since they wanted to visit. But then all of a sudden Chika hears two beautiful voices singing in front of the shrine and she runs to them. The girls recognize them from Aquors and said they watched their PV. Then with a sharp glare, they ask if they’ll be at the event taking place the next day, and then leave, one of the girls literally flipping over them. So basically that said you need to watch out for these girls.

This episode we mainly saw the girls be silly before they got to Tokyo, when they got to Tokyo, and in their inn. But when Chika mentioned wanting to visit Otonokizaka, Riko gets upset and leaves. We still don’t really know what happened to Riko, but she mentioned how she had so many expectations she had to live up to when she continued playing music after a middle school recital. I’m guessing the expectations were too much pressure for her and she just stopped, like we saw in that flashback. She was probably known for being a great pianist, and after that her reputation must have been ruined in Otonokizaka after that, which is probably why she left. So going back there would bring bad memories for her, and she’ll see people that she knows. I still want to know more about Riko, this is all just speculation but it sounds like the best bet. Also, wasn’t it hilarious that Riko is into romance books and fanfiction? She’s supposed to be the Umi character, but Umi finds that stuff shameless. You’re shameless, Riko!

The next morning, Chika wakes up early and goes out for a run and she ends up in front of ATX. The others girls arrive, and then the screen starts playing and it displays that the next Love Live is accepting entries, and that it’ll be in the Tokyo Dome. Of course, just like Muse, so they can save their school, they’re going to enter. But next is the event they were invited to. They’re going to be the openers, but at least it’s better than nothing. The girls put on the same dresses from last episode, but some of them are kind of falling apart and getting nervous. When their group is called, they see the two girls from the shrine.

As expected, they’re school idols, and they’re called Saint Snow. I’m already interested in them. With A-RISE, they were rivals, but they weren’t mean or anything. They were just a group that Muse had to surpass to win. Saint Snow, on the other hand, look mean. They’re overly confident and look to kick ass. With all this talk of failure, I’m actually hoping that Aquors flops on stage. With Muse, they always succeeded, the only time they really messed up was when they performed No Brand Girls and Honoka passed out, but that was all Honoka’s fault, not because they were unprepared. Aquors I feel like is unprepared. They’re all very new to school idols, maybe except for Ruby. But they don’t know how talented the pool of idols are in Tokyo, where most of them are. I feel like it would be more realistic if Aquors did mess up. I feel like they came into this too fast. Plus, they kept foreshadowing potential failure by Dia, and by Chika mentioning getting expectations from her friends wanting them to represent their little town in a big city. I want these girls to fail, to feel discouraged, and to feel embarrassed. But they can grow from that, and that would actually be a lot more interesting than what happened with Muse, where they did wonderful in every performance. I don’t want them to be perfect! I want them to be real.

I predict Saint Snow is going to give one hell of a performance and make Aquors uneasy, where they’ll go on stage and mess up their own performance, or if not that way, they won’t get the same reception from the crowd and they’ll feel disheartened. The preview suggests something serious, especially with the episode title, so I’m hoping to see something like that.

Also, did anyone else to see a grown Nozomeme at the shrine? I thought I would see a miko Nozomom there, but she’s probably somewhere else doing her own thing. *sigh* I miss her.