How the HELL is Anchan going to do that cartwheel-backflip live?! Like yeah Chika did it, cool whatever, but that really isn’t an easy thing to do! Anchan could really hurt herself when they have their future 3rd live and she’ll have to do that. Apparently she knows karate so maybe? But now I just worry. And here I thought Shukashuu doing You’s leapfrog-like jump over Anchan was crazy. Ayyy…
We’re going back to plot-related issues and so far the school has only gotten 57 prospective students and they now have less than a month to get the 100 they need. Their last chance is the regional prelims for Love Live that’ll be at the end of the month. And it turns out the the regional prelims will take place again in the same spot where they performed MIRAI TICKET but didn’t move on. So now with all this pressure, the girls try their best to practice and work towards getting more students. But another problem with them is the low number of students from their school that can vote for them. Bigger schools with a large number of students can guarantee a large number of votes from them, while Uranohoshi can’t. The pressures and issues just keep piling up when Mari and Dia convince Kanangst (haha) to share a special dance routine they had come up with when they were a trio years ago. Kanan knows it’s a bad idea because of how difficult and dangerous it is, but she caves and they tell Chika and the others the next day. Wanting to put on a good performance, Chika practices this move which turns out to be a cartwheel and backflip. It really is eyecatching and exciting, but difficult, and we see over and over that Chika has trouble with it. My critique is why Chika had to do this. I think when it comes to something like this, the more athletic person should do the move which either should have been Kanan or You, or even Mari. Chika isn’t exactly super athletic so of course she was going to struggle with it. But since Chika is the main character that means she gets the most screentime, and that means she has to be the center of another song. To which I find a little annoying. I don’t like hating on Chika all the time because I do understand her. She’s a normal girl that doesn’t wish to be normal anymore, she wants to reach out and touch her dreams and shine for everyone and make them happy. I actually really like that about her but the thing is that I already know all this!
I know this is Chika’s character. I know she’s normal. I know she feels like she’s on the sidelines. I know that she wants to do something special, and shine. But I feel like that’s all we get from her. And when we spend time on getting a repeat about how “normal” Chika is, it takes away from the rest of the characters. To be honest, I think Kanan doing the cartwheel/backflip would have done a lot for her character. She showed obvious guilt and anxiety towards the dance formation and the stunt, going so far as to run away from it all and toss the notebook into the water. I think this episode maybe would have been a little stronger if it were about Kanan instead. Where, Kanan gives the job to Chika but then Chika understands how important it is to Kanan and that she sort of has unresolved issues, so she then gives the stunt role to Kanan instead so she could acknowledge Mari’s feelings. Considering Kanan and Chika are childhood friends, we’ve gotten very little interaction between them that reminds us of this, so I think a scene like that would have been a great choice. Of course, this would continue the Kanan/Mari drama and ship that I’ve seen many people not care for. I would also throw Dia into the mix since she was on Mari’s side and because of course Dia was part of the drama, no matter how much the anime doesn’t want to show that. We did see Kanan shed a little tear of joy during the performance, so that’s that.
Speaking of the performance…
I’m sorry, but I didn’t care for it. 🙁
I didn’t really like the song. Even though it has a good message, it’s too genki and pop-y. I think after MY Mai TONIGHT, my standards for Aqours’ songs have gone much higher, because that song is god-tier. So Miracle Wave just didn’t do it for me. I also was not a fan of their 50’s-cheerleader type outfits. Personally I just thought they looked a little silly and ugly, and it sort of took away from the performance for me. The choreography was cute and fun, though the girls dropping on the floor as Chika walked by them was strange and hilarious. However, the animation still looked just as amazing. The scene in the dance I just mentioned, though it was weird, was animated well with fantastic camera work. As usual the colors are vibrant and pretty, the CG looks flawless so it was at least fun to watch even though I didn’t like the song or outfits. Also, to nitpick one more time (sorry), isn’t anyone else tired of the year groups singing together all the time? :/
It was an okay episode, I think they could have executed it differently. The song was a let down, and I also was excited if we were going to see Saint Snow perform. Maybe next episode? Will the regional performance bring in enough students and save Uranohoshi?! If you ask me, to get 43 students overnight is a little unrealistic, so no. But! We’ll see next week!
I personally really loved the song but I agree with you that this should have focused more on Kanan (and the third years) and that Kanan should have been given that stunt role. Something tells me the reason why she didn’t get to do it is because Suwawa probably couldn’t do it or didn’t want to do it. That’s the only reason why I could think of Chika/Anchan taking the role.
Like you I am sick of the year groups always singing together. At least in My Mai Tonight, they gave us new trio groups to hear sing together (minus the second years), but oh well that’s Aqours. Maybe future songs will do a MMT and let us hear different trio groups besides sub unit and year groups.
“Minus the second years” it’s like they’re stuck at the hip, geez.
Oh hmm. I didn’t consider the fact that they would check with the girls before with the stunt (duh, i’m a dummy). That could be a reason.