With Liella making it to the semi-finals, they celebrate their win. However, when they checked the results, the unexpected happened.
As celebrations happen as Liella makes it to the next round, shocking news comes as Keke sees the results. She finds out that her favorite school idol, Sunny Passion, didn’t make it to the next round. That is a big shocker but not a surprise since there is a certain purple-haired middle schooler, Margarete Wien defeated them.
After a Zoom call with Mao and Yuuna, they are in absolute shock. This can make it harder for Liella to win, given that Wien is probably like another Lanzhu but ten times more arrogant. She shows up in front of Kanon’s house to taunt her a day after Liella’s celebration party. Still, I find Shiki’s idea of poisoning Wien silly but also probably illegal. Also, Natsumi’s idea of slandering her opponent is an option but not sportsmanship-like.
Of course, most of the drama comes from the most expected place. Yes, from Sumire and Keke, who torments each other at every moment. Keke would rather have fun being a school idol, while Sumire wants to win so Keke can stay in Japan.
After all, she knows about Keke’s secret: if Liella doesn’t win, she must return to China. As expected, Keke brushes it off as Sumire butting into her personal life. That is probably the worst fate given Winnie the Pooh’s insane and authoritarian zero-covid policy has no scientific basis with effective vaccines and treatments being available. Even so, Sumire can’t help but become separated from the person she doesn’t get along with, or instead, she has feelings for her but won’t admit it.
With that, Sumire comes up with a plan to convince the first years to leave everything to the second years. This causes significant disagreements, and the first years get upset for the 2nd years getting the spotlight. Yes, Sumire is scared of Wien, as if she wins, Keke will be taken away.
Of course, she doesn’t mention that fact and says it’s just to further advance her career. Kanon gets so upset over leaving the first years out that she almost slaps Sumire. Thankfully, Keke stopped her before Kanon did it. Still, it’s surprising to see Kanon this upset. This seems out of character for someone who looks out for all her members. While Sumire runs away, this will give Kanon time to discuss things.
Eventually, the first years found Sumire and agreed to Sumire’s proposal. This causes Sumire to become upset. She realized that she didn’t mean it. Eventually, Keke shows up, trying to convince her otherwise and tells her not to worry about her. Sumire finally reveals that she wants to be with her and wants to return the favor as she offers the tiara.
Despite their many disagreements, Sumire sees Keke as someone special. That is why she is so worried about Keke being forced to go back home. Sure, Keke says so many times that she hates Keke after spilling the beans, but she admits that she loves her. Yes, this is what happens when they like tsunderes to each other. But at least they finally defrosted, and perhaps they won’t torment each other so often. After all, some viewers find their antics a bit tiring and mean-spirited after a while.
With that, everyone finally realizes they shouldn’t become afraid of Wien but strive to surpass her. But, of course, that means more practicing as the first years see the return of intense training. After all, they got to win for everyone’s sake and prove Wien’s ideology wrong.
Note: I noticed some readers didn’t like how I added political views to my reviews. Note that they are part of my analysis and opinion, and they are not meant to offend people. If you are offended by this, my apologizes.
De Shiki is a treasure.
SumiKeke are all set. Very nice. Great moment between them.
Wien’s mind games with Kanon are hilarious.
Poor SunnyPa.
She really knows how to get a good reaction from Mei. Still, seeing the Sumire and Keke developments here was nice, hopefully it will stick.
Obviously, Wien is out to get Kanon, but hopefully she will show her, although Sunny Passion are the casualty here. After all, Wien will probably remain a torn in Liella’s back, unless they beat her.
Something I don’t get about these reviews is that there’s always a need to insert politics/world events into them. I get that this is your blog and I’m not telling you to change anything, but the point of anime like Love Live is escapism from how sucky the world is. People watch anime to chill out and NOT think about China’s covid lockdown, Xi Jinping, or “late-stage capitalism” (your words not mine). So I don’t really get what the purpose of inserting this stuff into a review is. If you think that there’s a good reason that it should be inserted in a review you are more than welcome to correct me, I hold no issue with your disagreement.
If you disagree with my opinions, that is fine. If you don’t like these reviews, simply don’t read it or skip it. At the end of the day, reviewers are free to express their opinions as long it’s not hate speech or harassment, which are some areas I don’t view as free speech. While I disagree with your complaint since I am making a point of these aspects as part of my analysis, I wouldn’t complain about it. After all, there are anime that has political themes and people don’t complain about them.
At the end of the day, I am a believer of free speech, although great power comes great responsibility. Mentioning them will of course upset a few readers and that is okay as long the discussion is civil. That said, there probably won’t be anything political in the next two episodes mentioned, but this is the first time this happened as I mentioned political stuff in my analysis as part of my reviews for other series and some editorials focuses on stuff that are political in nature and not to many complained about it.
In short I apologize that adding political stuff into my analysis offended you, this is not the intended effect.