{"id":4153,"date":"2014-06-14T19:42:19","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T18:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/?p=4153"},"modified":"2020-10-11T21:05:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T20:05:03","slug":"the-casefile-of-young-tsubasa-returns-love-live-series-2-episode-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/?p=4153","title":{"rendered":"The Casefile of Young Tsubasa Returns – Love Live series 2, episode 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nThis week in Love Live… don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell me you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see this cut of Tsubasa<\/a> and didn’t think she looked like she should have been in a detective drama.<\/p>\n

Which, forget all this moooo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nonsense, is the real gist of this episode – how the heck in A-RISE even lose in the first place? Clearly, Tsubasa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s little grey cells are working on it overtime, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s elementary that she isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to let things rest without asking just one more thing.<\/p>\n

*ahem*<\/i><\/p>\n

It does leave me pondering the validity of a detective spin-off from Love Live starring the members of A-RISE, just to contemplate something other than the Xenoglossia-esque robot show many folks joke about. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve probably got the cast down at least – Tsubasa is obviously the private dick, which I guess makes Anju the plucky secretary who gets involved deep enough to be well out of her depth, and Erena the femme-fatale with a pistol hidden in her fishnets. Well, something like that, anyway.<\/p>\n

But I digress, this weeks episode was very much a transitional thing, in so much as not a whole lot of consequence happened beyond an extended decompression of the tension of last weeks episode.<\/p>\n

In other digressional news, however, aside from the end of the LLSIF event this week (yeah, I got Sheep Kotori<\/a>, not that the last couple of hours of watching those tables fluctuate wildly whilst I paid half-attention to the E3 press conferences weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stressful), a bunch of stuff turned up in the mail this week. Mainly my English Love Live Weiss Schwarz cards.
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\nI grabbed a box of boosters as well as a trial deck, so I got a set of PR cards – I got the third years (so chibi-Nico, chibi-Eli and chibi-Nozomi), though I gather that is boxes PR cards are random between first, second and third years sets. Third years works for me, unsurprisingly – I guess a lot of people probably want the cihib-Maki card, but that does mean you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be saddled with Hanayo and Rin. Is the trade-off worth it?<\/p>\n

Otherwise… I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve still not actually managed to actually play a game of WS, so I have no idea how good or bad a deck I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve actually ended up with. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably go through it and arrange a workable deck (at least as far as I can ascertain from the rules) based largely around Nico cards, usefulness be damned. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re mostly after a deck with goofy faces in it<\/a>, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pretty good set, though.<\/p>\n

My copies of the first couple of insert song CDs turned up today as well (alongside some Puchimas stuff and that last volume of Gundam Unicorn, reminding me that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve still not actually watched the first episode). I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t noticed previously how hilariously serious-business Honoka<\/a> was looking on the front cover of the Yume no Tobira CD cover. If anyone is curious, I got the Rin card from Yume, and Nico from Love Wing Bell\/Dancing Stars on Me<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back to the cartoon…
\n1) PINK!?<\/b>
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\nThis week in telling my readers how to suck eggs, when Honoka asks who won between \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Red and White\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, she is referring to the annual Kohaku Uta Gassen<\/a>, the new years NHK spectacular song contest in which the red team (female vocalists) compete against the white team (male vocalists) in a musical popularity contest.<\/p>\n

Yukiho\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pink\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a bit odd, in so much as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really not sure if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m missing a really dumb joke, or if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just as blatantly obvious as her combining the two colours – presumably Yukiho also fell asleep and actually has absolutely no idea who won herself.<\/p>\n

(Of course, once again, we now know exactly what date the show is on this episode!)<\/p>\n

2) STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT<\/b>
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\nWho is completely unprepared as New Year rolls around.<\/p>\n

Also, she totally looks plumper in this scene than in the episode where was supposed to be looking fat.<\/p>\n

3) PiyoPiyo<\/b>
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\nKotori roughly translates to Small Bird<\/i>, hence her telephones wallpaper. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little on the mark in a fashion that someone probably wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t utilise in real life, but whatever, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cute. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m mostly just pointing this out because someone recently asked me why AmiMami sometimes call Kotori Piyo in iM@S (not to mention that the Kotori puchidoll is call PiyoPiyo), and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s essentially the same thing – PiyoPiyo is an onomatapedia for bird song.<\/p>\n

4) Like an Old Man<\/b>
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\nIs it just me, or does Rin have her skirt pulled up real, real high here? Like, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hitched all the way up to her oh-so-flat chest. As a result, when she is lifting the hem of her skirt, as she is here, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s showing off way-thigh (and probably pants, in some sense at least).<\/p>\n

5) Magnanimous in Defeat<\/b>
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\nThis is kind of an interesting way to reveal the results of the events of the previous episode – the Love Live qualifier back in episode 9 was cut away from the second that Snow Halation ended, and this episode opens without, beyond the now semi-usual Zenkai no Love Live<\/i> moment, really making much acknowledgement of what was going on there.<\/p>\n

The revelation is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s our heroines, rather than A-RISE, that are progressing to the finals of the Love Live. A-RISE are, of course, perfectly pleasant about the fact, at least at this juncture – everyone in this show is a really nice person<\/i> after all.<\/p>\n

That said, it does kind of leave the question as to where the show goes from here. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be, what, two or three episodes of the show left to go, and, if were are really stretching the term, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve barely \u00e2\u20ac\u0153seen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d maybe two or three other named idol groups. Our heroines have already jumped over what has been portrayed as being the biggest hurdle, and nothing has been suggested as a replacement, even if we do see a couple of units in passing this week.<\/p>\n

It rather makes me wonder how they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll actually cover the Love Live. I mean, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another insert song CD out in a few weeks, at the beginning of July, so there needs to be the opportunity for them to jam another song into the show, otherwise I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d suggest that they may even skip the event as being unimportant to the general tone of things going forward – that, at this stage, the building melancholia surrounding the graduation of the third year students is more important.<\/p>\n

Probably not, though, which does cause me to ponder how they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll actually choose to cover the Love Live given that they may only have a single episode to devote to it. Unless we just end up getting a Love Live – The Nationals<\/i> series next year.<\/p>\n

6) I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but notice that…<\/b>
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\n…the trophy for the Love Live qualifier just happens to have nine<\/i> stars on it. Nine stars… does that remind you of anything? You know, the number nine? As in a collection of nine things<\/i>?<\/p>\n

It sounds like a case for Kira Tsubasa, Private IdolVestigator, to me – an epic and sordid tale of corruption and bribery within the organisation responsible for organising the Love Live, as someone with a vendetta against the old-guard of A-RISE plot to humiliate them by ousting them from the Love Live at such an early stage. Little do they know…A-RISE are throughly nice people, and their opponents were at least moderately talented, so it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that shameful a loss. Whoops.<\/p>\n

Although this does have me wondering who, exactly, it is who is organising the Love Live event in the first place. Probably a bunch of pervy old men.<\/p>\n

(Also amused that Honoka has her manga volumes completely out of order, unless it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just Rin or Yukiho having disrupted their order whilst reading them…)<\/p>\n

7) Miko-Miko-Mi!<\/b>
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\nNot that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s anything particularly interesting about it, other than, as pointed out, Nico looks cute as a Miko. Which also kind of rhymes, I guess.<\/p>\n

8) Most Passionate Algebra<\/b>
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\nRin suggests, upon matching Nico in her miko costume with Maki in her Kimono, that they form a Japanese-styled unit, which then crash-cuts to the scene above. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but notice, though, that if it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t for the background, the costumes are way more like spanish Flamenco costumes than anything you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d necessarily associate with Japan.<\/p>\n

With Maki dressed in Red here, that probably makes her the Red Comet of this cartoon. So, as suggested by the Build Fights OST, does that mean her Flamenco is three times the passion of an ordinary flamenco, or is it six times the passion?<\/p>\n

9) Before anyone get\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s excited about a sequel…<\/b>
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\nBear in mind that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s versions of the Love Live franchise in which Alisa doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even exist, as weird as that sounds.<\/p>\n

As much as the property boomed in popularity once the TV anime started, in a certain sense, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still a periphery product, or at least a promotional part of a media-mix production. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s purpose is to promote and sell merchandise and events centring around the nine members – both as characters and personalities – of m\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. Aside from the fact that the name of the group doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make sense if they only have eight members (though I guess, aside from Yukiho, they could rope in some other random rookie first year were they to continue the show), I kind of just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see it as a thing that would actually happen.<\/p>\n

But, hey, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been super-wrong about this kind of thing before, and honestly, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to be wrong, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d love to see a third series of Love Live, although I would worry about it feeling K-On sequel manga levels of unnecessary, and given we live in a world where they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve not only failed to merchandise A-RISE, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve stuck their songs on the OSTs almost as an afterthought, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really confident in them doing anything interesting with the secondary cast of the show.<\/p>\n

10) It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a short-arse<\/b>
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\nThe whole conversation whilst they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing their stretches in kind of weird, in an almost pornographic fashion. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably a fetish of someone, somewhere on the shows production staff. That being said, it does show at least some sense of progression – remember all that talk from back in the first season about how difficult it was to so much as smile whilst exercising, or how inflexible and pained they were when Eli pointed out how bad they were at this kind of thing? Not so much of an issue at this point, given they can now hold casual discussion simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Also, no, it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t escape my notice that Nico was the only one warming up on her own. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what happens when your unit has an odd number of members, I guess. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absolutely nothing to do with a lack of popularity, and everything to do with the fact that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s half a foot shorter than the rest of the girls, right? RIGHT?<\/p>\n

11) Another thing Hanayo sucks at, apparently…<\/b>
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\nYou know, ever since Hanayo took over the exposition duties, as well as the use of the computer in the Idol Research Club room, that second monitor looks to have been disabled. Clearly, there are limits to Hanayo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s computer literacy, in that she probably can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fathom the fashion in which a mouse pointer can and will move from one screen to another.<\/p>\n

12) Totally robbed, right?<\/b>
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\nSo, Tsubasa collars Honoka to try and pin down what, exactly, lead to A-RISE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defeat in the Love Live preliminaries. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that entirely down to our heroines choice of song resonating with the poor saps who trudged through the snow in order to attend the event (which, as I was reminded earlier in the week, was not unlike the journey many in Japan made to get to the Love Live SSA show back in February).<\/p>\n

Well, either that, or mooooo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had the advantage of having members which appeal specifically to far more fetishes than A-RISE do, given that they have three times the number of members. The only things which A-RISE have covered that our heroines don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t is that forehead moe, and I guess Erina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mole.<\/p>\n

Also, I guess that they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t somehow manage to summon a completely produced song out of the hat they have just dropped at a moments notice.<\/p>\n

13) STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT<\/b>
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\nI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m less sure that Yukiho is talking about how she sees moooooo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, more that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talking about how specifically she sees her sister, though I guess that, being the units leader, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one in the same to an extent.<\/p>\n

Also, hey, it looks like Yukiho has found Hanayo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discarded glasses lying around somewhere.<\/p>\n

14) Hungry, Hungry Hippo<\/b>
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\nI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m kind of wondering if Hanayo has brought her own plate and chopsticks with her here, given that none of the other girls seem to be sporting eating utensils at this moment in time.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure that all you guys who watched Tamako Market will be well aware of the existence of Mochi and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relevance at New Years<\/a> already.<\/p>\n

(I feel like I should make a comment about the varying translations of Nico\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really lame pun here, but aside from it feeling like the Crunchy translation wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t particularly trying, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really have anything amusing to say about it)<\/p>\n

15) DYNAMIC ACTION!<\/b>
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\nI do kind of wonder where Alisa suddenly appeared from here, whether or not she is stalking Umi, and why she only (literally) leapt into action when Rin took hold of the mochi-pounding mallet. I mean, what, exactly, does she think Rin is going to do with the thing? Does she know something about Rin having a vendetta against Umi that us, as the audience, are unaware of? Or did she just happen to be randomly passing by, perhaps on her way to see Yukiho, as this series of events was transpiring? Would she have even bothered leaping to the rescue if it was, let’s say, Hanayo taking up the rice-turning duties?<\/p>\n

16) Two Girls, One Cut (of wood)<\/b>
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\nAwww, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sharing a board, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that cute?<\/p>\n

Also, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but notice that this one on the left makes it look like<\/a> our heroines are about to be on the receiving end of Cure Honey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s super attack. Whelp.<\/p>\n

The shrine in Love Live is, I gather, based on Kanda-Myoujin<\/a>, a real-life shrine near Akihabara. Of course, Love Live themed Ema<\/a> aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an uncommon sight there, apparently, as tends to be the case with any anime featuring a shrine based on a real-life location (infact, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen a couple of shows announced<\/i> through such things in the past). Whilst the Kanda shrine being close to Akiba means Love Live mingles with other shows on the rack, I do wonder if any of these Ema that we see in the show are based off those that fans, or even the shows staff, have hung in the location previously.<\/p>\n

17) Look at what Mr Chips is doing, and Say what you See<\/b>
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\nUp until this point, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve completely forgotten to mention the fact that this episode was about Honoka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s struggling to come up with a catchphrase to describe the unit. I kind of feel like I should have some kind of witty comment regarding it, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m mostly concerned as to whether or not george<\/i> made it into the seven finalist spots we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see. I also wonder if our heroines are starting to get a complex about the fact that they always seem to be listed last<\/i> whenever a list of Love Live entrants is on display, but I guess that’s what happens when you have a name which starts with a character outside of the usual alphabetic range.<\/p>\n

Also, Lemon Milk\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Sweet and Sour Chemical Reaction<\/i> catchphrase was amusingly and cutely blunt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week in Love Live… don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell me you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see this cut of Tsubasa and didn’t think she looked like she should have been in a detective drama. Which, forget all this moooo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nonsense, is the real gist of this episode – how the heck in A-RISE even lose in the first place? Clearly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-love-live"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4153"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4167,"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4153\/revisions\/4167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beta-waffle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}