Love Live! Sunshine!!

Episode 4

The first three episode of Love Live! Sunshine!! may have been about Chika's motivations to start the group, as well as Riko's own insecurities about her musical future, but episode four is almost entirely about fandom: more specifically, school idol fandom.

It's also the most μ's-reliant episode we've seen so far, with the show providing fan service not only through magazine clippings and art books, but also a very Rin-specific reference that requires viewers to remember the episode from season two of Love Live!, when she's asked to take on the center role for a performance of "Love wing bell" and don a wedding dress. The adage of a picture being worth a thousand words is very relevant here—even though the writers of Sunshine!! toss in a throwaway line about how Rin was able to believe in herself and try, it's not quite the same as the rush of background information that fans get simply from seeing that photo of Rin. In that episode (season 2, episode 5), Rin confesses that she doesn't feel cute enough to wear the wedding dress and have the spotlight on her as the leader. But with some encouragement from the other girls, she gathers up her courage and tries—ultimately realizing that she can do anything she sets her mind to.

All of this is packaged into the photo of Rin that Hanamaru keeps looking at, even though it doesn't carry the same meaning to her as it does viewers. For her, it's just a photo of a shining girl in a pretty dress, something that she, a shy and un-athletic bookworm, doesn't think she could ever be. But school idol fan Ruby tells her about Rin's own journey to self-confidence, and just like that, this revelation nudges Hanamaru to join Aqours.

This moment carries some pros and cons. On the one hand, it's great that Sunshine!! pays its due respect to Love Live! (and does maybe too much fan pandering along the way), but on the other hand, scenes like this make the show much more inaccessible to new viewers who haven't seen the original Love Live! or only played the mobile game. Considering how hard Sunshine!! is trying to come into its own as a new project, any heavy reliance on the original Love Live! feels a little unfair. Some references here and there are great, but having a character's entire turning point be inspired by another character's turning point feels a little weak (even if Rin's episode was one of the best in the series) and uninspired.

It's a delicate balance between using a μ's homage as a source of inspiration versus just a narrative crutch, and we can't be entirely surprised that Sunshine!! is having a hard time letting go of its safety net. We see once again that sisters Ruby and Dia were both once big fans of μ's, although something happened with Dia that made her outwardly resent school idols. This in turn made her ban school idol magazines from their home, even though previous episodes make it pretty clear she was a serious school idol otaku at some point. Despite Dia's disapproval, after some uplifting words from Hanamaru, Ruby decides to chase after her own dreams and join Aqours anyway. Spoiler: Dia probably isn't too far behind.

Between Ruby and Chika's fandom, and Riko's research of μ's, it is kind of nice to see all the name dropping for one reason—it's lovely to have a series where a group of girls have another group of successful girls that they look up to. And yes, it's a little cute that in the world of school idols, the only thing holding anyone back from becoming one themselves is how hard they're willing to work.

Episode four is a little weaker than the ones preceding it. It's all over the place with scrambling to add more girls to Aqours, especially in trying to shoe-horn in screen time for Mari (and the shlocky breast-grabbing that the franchise should've gotten out of its system by now), Kanan, and Yoshiko. And the Rin-spiration for Hanamaru, while making me smile as a μ's fan, made me wary both of the shortcut the writers took with Hanamaru and how un-newcomer friendly scenes like that tend to be. It's hard to not appreciate Love Live! Sunshine!! for the cute candy that it is, but I can only hope that the next episode will be better.

Rating: B+

Love Live! Sunshine!! is currently streaming on Funimation.

Bamboo resides in Southern California, and is an unabashed idol fan. Follow her on Twitter.