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<\/center>\nBecause even Sailor Moon knows that NicoNicoNi-ing is serious business<\/a>. Also, Moon Princess Halataion.<\/p>\n
Also, Love Live doesn’t have toast either.<\/p>\n
How are you guys doing in the first English School Idol Festival event, anyway? I guess I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not doing too badly – there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still a ways to go, and who knows that is going to happen when people potentially start getting desperate in the last few hours before it concludes, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m floating around the mid-500s for the event overall, and the 40s in the Event Song rankings. It puts me a reasonable position to get that second Kotori SR card for idolisation, but there continues to be a lot of churn below that rank 200 mark, so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see. Maybe I’ll get desperate and burn through my last four stones!
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<\/center>\nAnyway, this (or lasts, at this point) weeks Love Live eschews a lot of it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s usual humour and hyperactivity for something rather more sedate in pace, displaying such remarkable concepts as a linear and clearly defined timeline. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting in so much as, even when things were building up to a dramatic moment in the first season, for as (arguably over-)earnest as it tended to get, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another episode of the show which displays quite<\/i> the same kind of tone as this one. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a bad thing, and I certainly don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to sound derogatory in what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m about to say, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly a brave move to put aside a lot of what makes your show entertaining and amusing on a week-to-week basis in favour of building a more somber and anticipatory tone.<\/p>\n
The side effect of this, I guess, is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a somewhat less of a content-dense episode than we normally get, despite them dropping the usual recap and end credits in order to cram more in. One of the things I like about the show, and one of the reasons I can actually find enough to say about it each week to actually bother writing about it, is that as thin and inconsequential as the events happening on screen often seem, they blow through a lot of individual scenes, and if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re into characters or animation and directorial\/storyboarding technique, there tends to be an awful lot you can unpack from each of them. Maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just the advantage of having had such a long, public gestation period, but they manage to pack an awful lot of character<\/i> into every scene – I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much of a surprise that the popularity of the franchise ballooned as much as it did once the TV anime hit the airwaves, as it provides the attentive audience an awful lot to latch onto.<\/p>\n
As a result, when they pull things back as they did in this episode, it just ends up giving events that bit more gravitas, but it does mean that I have rather less to write about!<\/p>\n
And speaking of which, the usual…
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<\/center><\/p>\n1) Zenkai no Love Live?<\/b>
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<\/center>\nOnce again, we are plunged into confusion and chaos by the lack of an episode recap. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even worse given that we are introduced to this episode by some of the shows little-seen-this-season characters – I mean, seriously, how am I even supposed to realise that is Yukiho when the scene doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start with – or even contain – a gratuitous arse shot? She’s not even wearing shorts!<\/p>\n
2) STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT<\/b>
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<\/center>\nBecause the thing to do on the most important day of your life is to sleep in for an indeterminate amount of time past when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re supposed to be getting up, obviously.<\/p>\n
3) Now in low definition!<\/b>
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<\/center>\nSlightly weird cut of Eli here, in that, the further away from the screen her face is, the fewer detail lines there are. I guess it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed to add to the sense of a lack of focus over part of the image or something, or at least soften this slightly scowly-looking expression.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m vaguely amused that Alisa seems to be getting up-to-the minute notifications on Honoka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s movements – in so much as she knows she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on the move already – via Yukiho. Those two sure are close… or maybe Yukiho is just on KiraKiratter and the information is second hand. I’m pretty sure that Aikatsu<\/i> is just the logical conclusion of all this school-idol nonsense another ten or twenty years into the future, anyhow.<\/p>\n
Actually, come to think of it, does the Love Live universe even have<\/i> non-school idols? Also, do the boys-only schools have their own school idol contests? It feels like Sunrise should be concocting a spin-off to compete with UtaPri<\/i> or something…<\/p>\n
4) TAIHEN!?!<\/b>
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<\/center>\nFor once, it would appear that Hanayo has had an attack of the sensibles, at least in comparison to the rest of the girls. I mean, given that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clearly rather cold, given all the, you know, snow<\/i>, it’s odd that Hanayo is the only one sensible enough to be wearing tights. Infact, it seems a little brutal that, on a day in which the girls don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even seem to have<\/i> to be attending school – everyone other than the second years head straight to the venue – they have to make the entire journey there in their school dress, rather than something more casual. I guess it’s this kind of adherence to school dress that lead Kakyoin in Jojo to sunbathe in his uniform in Jojo<\/i> a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n
I do wonder how many of Hanayo’s precious Alpaca\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had to be torn asunder from their fluffy coats in order to produce her warm, warm scarf, though.<\/p>\n
Also, on a random note – I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a little colour blind, but haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Hanayo and Rin swapped image colours here, as far as their umbrellas go at least? How lewd!<\/p>\n
5) But Snow won’t turn informer.<\/b>
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<\/center>\nThe snowmen, by my reckoning at least, are from left to right Umi, Honoka, Nozomi, Eli, Nico, Maki, Rin, Hanayo and Kotori. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m willing to admit I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m wrong if someone can come up with a good argument as to why one of those is incorrect, though!<\/p>\n
6) As if it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t obvious already…<\/b>
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<\/center>\nGeez, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m wondering what they are foreshadowing here, eh?<\/p>\n
Though what exactly they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing filing the lyric sheet to Snow Halation in with the rest of the student council paperwork is anyones guess. I suppose it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have made a curious school open day if Honoka had started reading those off instead of the speech that she was supposed to be doing, and I probably wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t put doing so it past her, honestly.<\/p>\n
7) This week animation error<\/b>
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<\/center>\nThey forgot to colour part of Nozomi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scarf the right colour. Whoops.<\/p>\n
As a side note, pretty much every character ties their scarf in a different fashion (and unlike, say, Vividred Operation, the scarves are tied in a fashion that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d probably actually work). The exception is that Kotori and Nozomi are pretty much wearing theirs in the same fashion, though the scarf designs are different enough to distract you from the fact. I guess there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply a limit to how many different ways you can tie neckwear sensibly.<\/p>\n
8) Superior Japanese Umbrella Technology<\/b>
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<\/center>\nSeriously, though, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard owned a brolly that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d cope with the kind of punishment these girls have here. Frankly, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m rather astonished they hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t turned inside-out the moment they stepped outside.<\/p>\n
Alternatively, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also surprised that, given the umbrellas were coping with a rather furious breeze quite adequately, they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just take to the skies like Mary Poppins, flying their way to the event stage. I guess that’d be a stretch even for Love Live, though.<\/p>\n
(Also, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m disappointed that Honoka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s umbrella doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have Ho<\/i> written all over it)<\/p>\n
(Also also, the whole walk across the across the schoolyard was hilariously overwrought. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost some kind of Solid-Snake-In-The-Microwave-Corridor level stuff – it made my button-mashing finger sore just thinking about it…)<\/p>\n