Quote:
Originally Posted by Pen3
You's episode better have Koi ni Naritai AQUARIUM as an insert song or else the episode would somewhat fail.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Seihai
You's most significant scene was when she stared at her childhood photo of her and Chika. I think we're onto something here. Maybe she has some kind of complex or something happened in their childhood or she simply thinks about their current friendship versus back then. Whatever it may be, I'm hoping that that wasn't just a random scene but foreshadowing of something deeper. Honestly I'm not sure how much You story/character developemt/character exposition they can still fit till the end of this cour. Maybe next to none, and then they plan it for the next season or something. But we'll see.
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My thoughts on the You situation:
Have you noticed that, in this episode, Chika is reminded that each of the members of Aqours have their own reasons for joining the club? In truth, Chika offered every member she personally recruited, something for joining Aqours. For Riko, a chance to reawaken her lost muse. For Ruby, the opportunity to pursue her dreams and love for the Sport of School Idols. For Hanamaru, the chance to become a protagonist rather than a background tree. For Yohane, a sanctuary that accepts her as she is, and a stage for the showmanship that Yohane loves.
Chika offered You nothing. You simply joined out of friendship to support Chika. And the hilarious thing is, Riko is providing the emotional support that I am sure You, the childhood friend thinks she should be providing, as this episode makes it clear. It must sting for Chika to open up to Riko, to cry on Riko's shoulder - I am sure a dark corner of You's mind might be thinking: wait a minute, shouldn't it be I, the childhood friend who knew Chika so well, my best friend, that my best friend pours her heart and soul upon? Somewhere, You has lost the position of Chika's confidante, and I have no doubt that the issue of You drifting apart is going to result in a reckoning.
If Mari indeed joins last of all, in a scene similar to the first PV, I'm calling it. You's character arc is slowly being built in the background, and will culminate in Aquarium, which will be the first full 9 Music Video (not just PV) that Aqours produces together. And the great character dramatic arc is how You fears that she is becoming a third wheel between Chika and Riko. Which illustrates the fundamental difference between the different second year trios. Honoka had her trio, with its compromises and closeness to one another delivered for her, a static, largely settled friendship circle, that Muse merely expands and strengthen.
Chika does not get her trio ready made delivered to her, Riko will not simply move into Chika's life and a new, happy equilibrium is established between the second years. No, Chika, You and Riko would have to work out how the newcomer coming into Chika's life figures into Chika's pre-existing relations with her best friend. Aqours has fundamentally disrupted the dynamic between Chika and You, in contrast, it strengthened and extended the dynamic between Honoka, Kotori and Umi.
In other words, Honoka has things freely delivered to her. Chika is not Honoka, will face trials Honoka will never, has a higher degree of self-reflection and awareness than Honoka, and feels the mantle of leadership much heavier than Honoka ever did and will, and puts on the mask of leadership to rally a group together, unlike Honoka who just had to be herself. Their outward arch-typical similarity aside, Chika is probably a masterful case of how you can take an arch-type that is so similar to the original, and spin it so refreshingly differently that new character feels truly different from the original. It was probably from the end of Episode 3 on that we really see how the Honoka archtype is executed so differently that Chika truly feels to be her own person. I dare even the most rabid genwunners of Love Live to call Chika a Honoka clone; sadly, I feel most of them probably dropped this series dismissing Chika as a Honoka clone without understanding how this was a very premature judgement.
I wouldn't even touch on the third year drama - all I can say is that if you are desperate to see Sunshine as a rehash, you'd make the argument it's a repeat of the Nico is a failed idol plot, if Nozomi and Eli were the two companions Nico drove away with her demanding status. Except Nico as a failed idol never had any real impact on the evolution of Muse, and was never a big plot point in the original LL outside Nico episodes, partly because the fractured relations with her two companions on that first failed journey never figured into the plot. The third years as failed idols on the other hand, has an outsized impact on the evolution of Aqours, and I suspect a persistent one. At worse, you could argue that Sunshine is exploring what the original series did not: taking the failed idol plot point brushed away awfully quickly in the original series and making it very critical to the cast and a very critical world-building point. Taking up a plot thread that was never ever executed, merely raised and dropped in the original.
In a sense, I imagine Guilty Kiss is in part an exploration of certain plot threads the original series raised, played for laughs and dismissed as a one episode weirdness. Guilty Kiss is an answer to what happens if an Idol Group choose to play in the genre of KISS as their focus, the metal/hard rock genre. In a sense, Muse dressing Goth Loli shifts from a one episode joke, to the founding premise of a sub-unit that shows it does not have to be a gimmick but a surprising driver of innovation and creativity when done well. I wonder whether (and this is going abit off point) this is the last we'd see of the Gothic costumes that appeared in the Yohane arc, but whether or not Aqours will bring up Sub-units and run with it is a question that will have to await the Third Years joining and if Aquarium indeed is a future arc, for You's issues to be solved. I do have to note that I wouldn't be surprised if Saint Snow is actually a sub-unit of a larger Idol Club, and what Aqours faced was actually sub-units from seeded, veteran Tokyo Idol Clubs, many of whom have won a championship. In a sense, Aqours are a Novice Group in a competition with no Novice bracket.
We only have five episodes left, and I have a suspicion we might not even have the full Aqours group until very close to the end. I don't foresee, and I hope the third year issues are not conveniently resolved next episode. I think with the ending of the Recruitment arc and the Tokyo Arc, we are now moving onto the Third Year arc. And this is is where Sunshine really diverges narrative from it's predecessors - I sense a more arc based approach to story-telling than LL which tended (with exceptions) to be episodic in nature.
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