[novalysis]

Apologies for the delay in the reply.

Originally Posted by OZ7UP

Haha, I know exactly how you feel. That said, I think a bit of a backstory is in order...

I first got into Love Live sometime after the second season of the original series finished, so I ended up going on a bit of an anime and music binge to get caught up with everything. Naturally, when LLSunshine was announced, I was a bit hesitant to become interested in it because, face it, we can be pretty resistant to change.

I had a slightly different path - I watched both seasons of the anime but didn't really dip deeply into the music beyond what was featured in the anime (oh boy, the anime is just the tip of a massive iceberg), until close to the end of the lifespan of Muse. I think it was ironically the announcement of Sunshine that actually got me to look up the larger discography of Muse.

That resistance started to crack as I started to watch LLSunshine from start to finish, and even more so as they introduced more songs throughout the series. The first time I heard the ending "Yume Kataru yori Yume Utaou", the first thought that came to my mind was that I could actually detect two ABBA songs in there: "Mamma Mia" and "Under Attack". The cracks grew upon listening to "Yume de Yozora o Terashitai" since I was pretty sure I could detect the Bee Gees in there somehow (used to listen to my dad's music collection as a kid during road trips), and as a sucker for music harmonies (whether it's dual lead guitar stuff in heavy metal or vocal melodies), any resistance that I had against LLSunshine was finally broken upon listening to "Omoi yo Hitotsu ni Nare".

The first Aqours songs that really caught my attention was Strawberry Trapper and Mujuku Dreamers. To me, both songs represent the point Aqours really begins to distinguish themselves from Muse. I remembered in the earlier episodes, listening to songs like "Kimeta yo Hand in Hand" and thinking two things to myself - firstly, the Love Live anime is a musical disguised as an anime, and secondly, while Hand in Hand was recognizably Love Live, it didn't noticeably felt distinct from the works of Muse.

I really enjoyed looking up all those various versions of "Yume"Yume Kataru yori Yume Utaou" with different combinations of singers as Love Live Sunshine aired. It is definitely a catchy song, but comparing the various combinations of singers in each version was a fun experience allowing comparisons to the uniqueness of the different voices in Aqours. I think this song really informed my decisions as to which singers in Aqours I enjoy more, and which singers I subjectively think are weaker.

That being said, I think I was quite warm to the concept of Love Live, because the entire premise of the story itself is inherently interesting. In some ways, I regard Love Live as a cross between elements of the Sports anime genre, and the Idol Genre - a musical sport that fuses the Eurovision, modern dance competitions, with original compositions and the idea behind American Idol, all into one package and constructed into a team sport. It was the idea of School Idols as a fantasy team sport that led me to be quite warm to the idea of Sunshine.

Tying everything back together in response to you, and to keep things on track, I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that the decision to incorporate a wider range of influences into Aqours' songs has definitely given Aqours a unique feel compared to µ's. If they do choose to carry on with the franchise after Aqours' story is wrapped up, I'm looking forward to seeing how this will affect all future songs for future groups.

I think they will continue the franchise after the Aqours story is wrapped up - Love Live is probably going to be for the Idol-anime genre, what the Gundam is for the mecha genre. It's a premise that can be easily reused, with many different scenarios run while following the rules of the same sport and existing in the same world. So long as it is successful, it will be a powerful branding exercise for Lantis to give new singers a massive headstart and early public exposure into the wider J-pop scene.

I wouldn't be surprised that each new group would first play around the same range and dispersion of influences and genre pieces as their predecessor, before drifting towards their own unique distributions of influences and genres. Each group will probably encompass a slightly different range and concentration of genres and musical influences. Nevertheless, I think the irony is that every new group in Love Live is going to be judged on how well they answer the question that Aqours seems to be set out to answer - how to ensure each generation of Love Live is unique on it's own while remaining noticeably part of Love Live. In a way, successors will likely be judged in the same manner as Aqours rather than Muse.

I suspect in future Love Live iterations, there will be a grace period before the anime where the successor group can closely resemble it's predecessor in style and spirit - but that grace period runs out once the anime promises or explores the variant of the idea of Aqours cannot be Muse (and like wise, Group X cannot be Aqours and so on).

It might be too early to make conclusions, but if Happy Party Train is an EDM or Rock piece rather than a Ballad or Idol-pop (which Aquarium and Is your Heart Shining belongs to), I'd say it's quite clear as to the ranges of genres the producers intend Aqours to concentrate in. Personally, I think Aqours can pull off heavy music and EDM in a way Muse can't.

Random thought is random: if the heavier songs from the original Love Live series were influenced by Judas Priest, will the heavier songs from LLSunshine be influenced by Iron Maiden, or will they stick to the bluesy hard rock of Guns-N-Roses?

I suspect that it will depend on whether we are talking about the sub-units, year-group songs or Aqours-wide songs. I think Guilty Kiss will lean towards the heavier influences on the scale of Metal music, while Aqours wouldn't deep too deeply into metal. I'd like to think that the producers aren't completely joking when they had the younger six members of Aqours dressed in gothic outfits in episode 5 - we will get a Single down the line which would exceed Loveless world and After School Navigators in "heaviness", and the cover art would put Aqours in Episode 5 style gothic outfits

Speaking of which, I find the name Guilty Kiss to be quite hilarious in the light of a certain scene in the second season of the original Love Live. In that scene, Muse dressed themselves up in a manner reminiscent of KISS in an attempt to change their image. Guilty Kiss might be what you'd get if such an image-change was executed on a sub-unit, and a sub-unit really wanted to craft themselves in the image of Metal and Hard Rock bands.

Mari being a metal-head in the side materials is probably partly an out for Love Live Sunshine to justify either plunging Guilty Kiss or Aqours deeper into hard music, past the level of Hard Rock in-story.

Heh, this has been a pretty good discussion. I'm definitely glad to be posting on the forums again after years of inactivity, and what better way to do so than to talk about music in the Love Live sub-section?

At the end of the day, the story of Love Live itself is tied up with the music, and I imagine that the music will also be partly tied to the story of Love Live. The songs that are coming up with the later BDs, I suspect is a direct answer to the question raised towards the end of Love Live Sunshine - how can Aqours distinguish themselves from Muse?

G Senjou Cinderella, Daydream Warriors and Thrilling One Way all provides potential answers - these songs are noticeable by their move away from the traditional ballad and pop style genre ranges that Idol Music normally confines itself to. And I hope those aren't aberrations, but permanent fixtures that carry over into the second season of Love Live Sunshine itself.

I've also enjoyed this discussion. I think it's quite different from the normal "who are your favorite and least favourite Aqours singers" or is "Aqours better than Muse" debates that unfortunately dominate a lot of Love Live Music discussion. That's not to say they aren't valid questions of course, it's just that discussions can be richer than this.

For the record with regards to Sunshine, I think King (Hanamaru), Aikyan (Yohane) and Shuukashuu (You) are the best singers in Sunshine. King and Shuukashuu have a very noticeably rich texture to their voice that makes them unique, which becomes clear when their singing part comes before one of Aqours weaker singers. Aikyan, on the other hand, has a very wide vocal range, one of the most powerful voices in either Muse or Aqours and a very rich voice when she sings in deeper octaves. On higher notes, Aikyan is average among Aqours, but on lower notes, she's one of the best singers in the franchise yet.

As for the weakest singers in Aqours, I think Anju (Chika) and Furirin (Ruby) are unfortunately the weaker links in Aqours. While they are competent singers, their voices just don't really stand out and are far less richer than the likes of King, and I suspect that Furirin being forced to sing in a cutesy high voice really limits her.

And Aqours v Muse is increasingly a matter of comparing Apples to Orange, and wasn't a fair question earlier on in any case, since the singers of Muse are far more experienced than Aqours.