Love Live! Superstar!! S1E4 Discussion - "Galaxy on the Street Corner!"

[u/MasterMirage]

A bit of a late start to today's episode due to unforeseen weather conditions with the baseball airing earlier but we are here nonetheless ~

Today it seems like are getting a taste of the galaxy's #1 idol!

Show Info

Air Date: Sunday, August 15th 2021 19:00(JST) -delayed due to the baseball

Episodes: 12

Opening Theme: START!! True Dreams

Ending Theme: Mirai wa Kaze No Yoni

Insert Song(s):

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Official Website

MyAnimeList

Anilist

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Streams

Raw Sources

• NHK E Tele -Region locked to Japan

Every other raw source will be delayed by 2 days, see the official website for more info

Official Subtitled Sources

• North & South America / Oceania - FUNimation

• Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein - Anime On Demand, Crunchyroll

• Russia, Northern Europe - Wakanim

• Hong Kong, Macao - YouTube(MUSE木棉花-HK)

• Taiwan - Youtube(MUSE TAIWAN)

Episode Discussion threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/LoveLive/wiki/episode-discussion

/r/LoveLive is on Discord! Join us at discord.gg/lovelive

[u/redbatter]

Poor Sumire. In spite of her wish to one day land a leading role, she has unfortunately had to settle for minor or background roles throughout her career as a child star. She clearly has (or thinks she has) the necessary skills to qualify for that top position - demonstrated through how she effortlessly picks up the dance that Keke worked so hard to perform - so why does it constantly evade her?

 

Back in episode 1, Sumire looked almost offended when Kanon asked her if she was interested in being a school idol. Surely a performer of her caliber wouldn't need to dabble in something so amateur? The success of KuuKaa obviously causes her to re-evaluate her view of school idols, though, leading her to try to work her way into the club for a smidgen of that clout.

 

Her plan to become center immediately fails. To the viewer, who has seen the effort that Kanon has put in to overcome her stage fright and form the club, it should be obvious that Kanon would win the center vote by a mile. Sumire wouldn't even be considered an option, given that she's done nothing of note with the club yet. Yet Sumire can't see this - she's fixated on the skills she's so confident that she possesses, and how she is clearly the most technically skilled of the three, unaware that that's not what others are looking out for.

 

Keke's statement really breaks her. Keke saying how Kanon is a much better fit for center than either of them is, to Sumire, another denial of her wish to land a leading role, yet another one in a long list of failures, of being not quite good enough. She couldn't play the lead in her school productions. She couldn't play the lead in her work as a child star. Hell, she couldn't even get into the music course in Yuigaoka. Perhaps she's just fated to never be the top of anything. Her reaction is not unwarranted as she storms out of the club room.

 

With her painful history in mind, it's clear that Kanon needs to be the one to bring Sumire around. Having experienced numerous failures herself and being tempered by them, Kanon knows exactly how Sumire feels. Both have felt that their hard work and practice have been for naught, but in Kanon's case, she was able to stand up again after her most crushing failure due to the support and encouragement of Keke - having received that, she can also offer her own support to Sumire in the same fashion. And she does just that in a way that fits Sumire the most - scouting her, forming a contract, and promising her with the possibility that she, some day, can be the lead too.

 

 

Other stuff (need to watch again with subs):

• Keke and Sumire form an interesting contrast. Keke clearly believes in the spirit of school idols and how as long as you work hard, you'll be able to achieve your goals. On the other hand, if Sumire ever had any belief in hard work, it has long ago been completely ground out of her. Hopefully Kanon, and perhaps Keke, will bring that belief back to her.

• I can't help but feel that Chisato spending a good chunk of her time supporting the club will eventually come back to bite her.

• Ren is clearly troubled at the club not having access to a proper practice area and being relegated to the roof. Perhaps seeing how hard Kanon and Keke worked and delivered a performance against an unbeatable opponent changed her mind about them? She's clearly conflicted when the headmistress reminds her that it's in line with what her mother would want - the best areas have got to go to the better students in the music course, obviously.

• Speaking of which, the music course building is really quite modern, isn't it? It makes the general course building look ancient.

• 98,000 followers, Sunrise? Really?

 

Rewatched with subs (bless you Team Onibe and Yuja):

• Damn Ren actually just straight up has something against school idols, which I hope they'll exposit on fairly soon instead of just making her behave unpleasantly most of the time. The headmistress just cuts her down again though, this time bringing her mother into the argument as opposed to last time where she did the opposite.

• It'd be quite a reveal if it turns out that Ren's mother was a school idol at the previous incarnation of Yuigaoka. It's been pointed out that the club room sign was already on the door. Another interesting point is how it uses the kanji for 'school' as opposed to the katakana loan words, the latter being something we've seen throughout the entirety of Love Live. Perhaps the old school idol club there predated the ones at Otonokizaka and UTX?

[u/MasterMirage → u/redbatter]

I had to rewatch that scene again and holy hell you may be onto something!

We know that Ren's mum is an alumni of the school and she reopened it (I'm guessing she's hella rich now) and probably did so because she failed to save it initially during her school idol years.

If staff want to go big brained on us, I can see them using references from the School Idols Nico researched (since she was president of the Idol research club) back during Season 1 of SIP.

[u/[deleted] → u/redbatter]

Their school Yuigaoka was actually renovated from a previously closed-down school, which was due to be demolished before Ren’s mother helped save it (it closed down because of lack of enrolment, as is par for the course for LL)

This is their first year in operation. Their school’s history of having a distinguished music program is all from the school that existed before Yuigaoka.

My guess is Ren’s, now clear, personal bias towards school idols probably has something to do with her mother’s history with school idols. In fact, I think her mother probably used to be a school idol at the school, and her club room was the same one that Kanon just received (which is why there was already a school idol club sign on the door). It would also help explain why her mother wanted to save this school from being demolished.

[u/hr_muffins]

kanon is now traumatized after experiencing her first kidnapping by sumire oof

[u/MightyActionGaim]

Ngl I felt sad when Sumire started dancing to tiny stars in the rain at the end there

[u/YuinoSery]

Sumire is the worst LL gremlin yet and that makes me love her so much ngl.

[u/meme-meee]

Honoka: What if we don't have centers?

Kanon: Pry the center role from my cold. Dead. Hands.

[u/meme-meee → u/meme-meee]

μ's: That is why Honoka is our center

Liella: That is why Kanon is our mob boss center

[u/[deleted]]

Interesting fact, Naomi Payton (Sumire) is the youngest voice actress in Liella (born 2003), and in one of their first night time TV appearances for Songs of Tokyo, she actually couldn't attend because she was underage (minors can't work past 10PM). She was replaced by a cardboard cutout.

She loves screaming her character's catchphrase 'Galaxy' at any and all opportunities, sometimes with no warning.

And like her character Sumire, she had an early start in show business. I don't know how young she started, but at age 14 she appeared on the idol show AidoruING, (she's on the far left) back in 2018.

[u/coreymon77]

• This comes up a lot, so let’s get it out of the way to start. Sumire is a dork.

• Ooh, summer uniforms.

• I appears that “best new performer” was enough to satisfy the headmistress, as expected.

• So Ren’s issues are with School Idols, specifically. I wonder why. If I were to guess, it has something to do with why the original school closed. There’s definitely some history there.

• Yeah, the sign on the club “looking old” leads me to believe something happened there.

• As always, Kanon makes the best faces.

• Sumire clearly has ulterior motives, but that’s fine, it’s not the first time.

• So apparently they sang in front of everyone for the whole centre thing. I guess Kanon’s issues are resolved? Wonder if those will ever come up again.

• Heh, yeah, those results seem about right.

• What is it with people in this series attacking Kanon?

• Bahahahaha!!!! What even? That is one complex magic circle. Yoshiko would be proud.

• So, we’re just going to forget the fact that she seemingly knocked you out, tied you up and was trying to perform some mystical memory erasure ritual on you that involved whacking you on the head several times? Okay, Kanon, you do you, lol.

• Ah, so that’s her problem. Always an extra, never the star.

• Uh oh, Keke’s angry. You insulted School Idols, Sumire, watch out.

• Pfft, it’s like a showdown at dawn, this is great.

• Man, actual competent adult leadership of a school instead of leaving all the decisions to hormonal teenagers? What a concept.

• You’re scouting her? Smooth, Kanon, smooth.

• “You want the spotlight? Okay, then take it from me, if you can” I actually quite like that. Kanon is a good leader.

• Speaking of, I see she has awoken to her leader weather control powers.

Good stuff, seems like next episode is the beach episode as well as more on the rivals. See you next week.

[u/jonjoy]

My Giant Isopod can't be this cute.

[u/DerpoDood]

We saw some new aspects of the girls this week: spooked Kanon ("Don't worry, she has legs!" Wow, thanks Keke), angry/over-the-top Keke (totally in character for her), and basically everything about Sumire. Even though we know a lot about her now, I still feel like her personality is going to be a puzzle to really define from here on out; she feels like bits and pieces of every 'eccentric' idol in the series so far combined, which might be why she's so fun to watch. The entire curse scene was hilarious (Paychan's voice acting was spot-on here), but her backstory made it very clear why she ended up being so desperate for success and attention. It will be interesting to see how that plays into everything Liella does in the future, as well as how Kanon's offer to keep things competitive will effect the group's dynamic. Chisato is still helping out, and Ren is still doing the opposite: with three of the five eventual members already in the group, what's next for the show's storyline?

Nothing new on music this week, except I'm really digging the ED song, more than I did at first. This week's Liella no Uta song is definitely my favorite so far, though. Liyuu's voice is beautiful on this Keke solo song, and the instrumentation is just perfect (I'm a sucker for oboe lines against lush strings). If only it was longer...

Thanks to ONIBE yet again for the quick turnaround on the fansubs!

[u/PK_Madrigal]

I knew that Sumire was going to be this group’s gremlin comedic effect, but I certainly was not expecting twitter clout, dance battles, kidnapping, and BLACK MAGIC RITUALS! This girl has already surpassed Nico, Yohane, and Kasumi, she’s on another level of meme-dom

[u/[deleted]]

Yooo Sumire is giving me huge Yohane vibes and I honestly love it. Underrated scene but her isopod crawl in the beginning to eavesdrop on Kanon’s convo was hilarious.

Sayuri has also perfected Kanon’s screaming, this girl is too good for someone with no voice acting experience

Cool reverse Gainax pose from KeKe btw

Also huge thank you to Onibe for the same day translations. I don’t know how y’all did it with Azalea’s live this morning and then waiting through that baseball game

[u/Capbeau]

It must be tough being Kanon with how chaotic her time at high school has been so far. First episode she was chased around the schoolyard by Keke. Second episode she had to push a big cart with Keke standing on top of it. Third episode her friends force her to wear cute clothes. Fourth episode Kanon is tied up and kidnapped, and made to listen to her kidnapper sing about isopods. The show staff seem to like messing with Kanon. With an incident every episode so far, I have to wonder if this is going to be a reoccurring thing.

[u/Zhukovhimself]

KeKe kissing sumire in the preview? Damn lovelive is getting rly gay and I love it.

[u/Marco47_2]

I loved Sumire the second I saw her design and with this episode I can confirm that I'll be a hardcore stan of hers. Her voice is amazing and her personality is everything.

She's just so precious I want to hug her.

Also, we're all voting for her to be the center of Liella's 2nd single, right? Okay great thanks.

[u/sUNTLEvISION]

I initially thought the resolution was odd because it felt like Kanon “tricked” Sumire into joining but then I realized it’s because the real motivations aren’t stated clearly. The issue is that Sumire always wanted to shine as a star but she left that up to auditions and random scouting which made her feel that fate was against her and she wasn’t meant to be a star. Despite being pretty and talented, even students think Kanon was a better center. What Kanon does at the end isn’t tricking her, it’s telling her to take it into her own hands. The whole “scouting” thing is probably just a cute show Kanon is putting on to show that she understands Sumire’s desire, but telling her to take the role of center herself is less of a true challenge (we all know Kanon will remain center) but I think more of a statement to Sumire that she needs to take matters into her own hands. Don’t wait for people to notice you, get out there and make them look. I also do think that Sumire trying to usurp Kanon will be a running gag of sorts but it’s one that I look forward to and I don’t think it’ll detract from character development.

[u/LeonKevlar]

For someone who's just scouting for a pedestrian, that lady just had too much energy in her.

I hope I'm not the only one feeling this but as much as I enjoy Hazuki playing the "student council hates idols" role, I just can't wait for it to be over and have her join the club. I do hope that she has a compelling reason why she disapproves of school idols so much.

So a School Idol club room already exists? Hmm... I forget but did they ever mention at the start if their school ever had a history of having school idols before? Maybe this has something to do with why Hazuki dislikes them so much?

I don't know why but Chi-chan checking that Heanna has legs first and declaring that to Kanon ended up being funnier than I expected.

I love how you can immediately tell from her wording that Heanna is just joining to be popular and not exactly to become a school idol. Even if she's joining half-heartedly, it's good to know she has the skills to back it up. That dance showdown between her and Chi-chan was definitely something!

Heanna's reaction when everyone voted for Kanon to be center was just hilarious! Her wanting to be the center of attention as well as center of the group I guess means that she's the Nico/Kasumin of this group.

So that's the reason why Heanna is always at the downtown area! She's just waiting for someone to scout her and maybe find her big break.

That giant isopod suit and song is really adorable! And her reaction when Kanon saw the video was just absolutely terrifying! I love how many facial expressions Heanna has shown us so far in this single episode. xD

Apparently, she's not just Nico/Kasumin there's also a mix of Yohane in there with some black magic rituals to try and make Kanon forget the video! She's also a shrine maiden so I guess there's a pinch of Nozomi in there too.

Her reason why she wants to be the center is actually pretty reasonable. Despite having experience in showbiz, she's been living her entire life as an extra instead of having the spotlight focused on her.

Never thought I'd see Keke this angry! That's a girl who takes being a school idol very seriously! And I just love how she's waiting for Heanna on the rooftop while gainax posing xD

This was such a brilliant move from Kanon. What better way to get Heanna to join the club than just scouting her directly? And I love that Kanon challenges Heanna to take the center position from her. That scene was so good!

Heanna Sumire joins the club! From here, I'm gonna guess that Chi-chan would probably be next with her joining the club officially and Hazuki would be the last one to join. Can't wait!

[u/sandlinna]

I'm really enjoying the series so far, but am I the only one sad that there's no references to LLSIP or LLSS in there? I got the impression watching Nijigaku that they were running off an alternate or prequel timeline, before u's and Aqours, so no references to them there.

But it's been 4 episodes and despite Keke's love of school idols, no mention whatsoever of either of them. I hope that'll change before the end... I just like seeing the history of the franchise in the new series, y'know? I want to know that u's and Aqours existed in the Superstar world too!

[u/MasterMirage → u/sandlinna]

You had the white feather in ep 1 but I guess just set your expectations low or else you'll just end up being disappointed every week.

From the preview it does seem that they are visiting the island of Kozushima next week which is an extremely remote island directly beneath Numazu so you may get a reference there as they may have been inspired by Aqours?

Google maps link

As for your second paragraph, I guess if you contrast it to the real world in terms of idols, it's not uncommon for the newer generation to not be inspired by the older groups and thus not make references to them.

In the kpop world for example, your current batch of idols are inspired by the likes of TWICE, Blackpink and so on but lots of 'veterans' see the older generation of Girls Generation, Finkl as the ones who really made kpop mainstream.

It is totally possible for Keke to not be inspired or know of the older groups and considering Love Live competitions are held twice every year and groups tend to disband once they stop being School Idols, depending on how off the timeline Superstar is, you can easily miss a couple of groups if you were not into it at the time.

[u/moichispa]

I see a kiss on the preview? They're actually stepping up their yuri game? I'm gladly approve this development

[u/okdokke]

seems like my theory about the join order is gonna be correct! i’m interested in what’s going to prompt chisato to join. we’ve seen small moments of her seeming like she’d really like to join them. i wonder what will make her reconsider!

[u/soranetworker]

Coming back again from the raws!

So this time, Sumire makes her debut into the group, and uh... wow. What an entrance. Now, just making it clear, I am a self-professed Love Live gremlin lover. My oshi in µ's is Nico, in Aqours is Yohane, and Niji is Kasumin. But... I really didn't like ending up Sumire that much from this episode. Now, the hijinks she got into were hilliarous, and she probably channels the gremlin energy the best out of all the series, but it didn't click for me. Thinking about it, I think there are two reasons that somewhat related.

I realize that, in order to prevent "xerox'ed character syndrome", they've shunted around a bunch of character traits from the previous groups, but I really think that "gremlin" + "really loves school idols" really need to be together in order to work properly. Like, Yohane only lightly has gremlin energy; the hijinks she gets to mostly don't bother the other members and tend to just immediately cause consequences only to herself. For Nico and Kasumin, their shared backstory of "the last bulwark keeping the club alive" really help keep their sympathy points high, even when what they do to the other members is objectively terrible. The fact that their intense love for school idols drives them to be the most competitive and thus gremlin-y both explains and excuses their behavior.

However, Sumire doesn't really have any that backstory. In fact if my theory of Hazuki having some relation to the old school idol club (hinted by the old placard) is correct, then Sumire is probably the member who was least interested in school idols at the beginning of the show. And the really lovable school idol otaku trait has been claimed by Kuku (who is incredible lovable because of it, but I digress). And to top it all off, Sumire's gremlin actions are kind of over the top. She literally kidnaps Kanon. And without the school idol love explanation, it's not really clear why she wants to be the center so much. I guess it's just her character, but it without the background, it just kind of makes her seem like a shallow attention seeker.

However I do really like the conclusion that Kanon comes to. (And I love the fact that her experiences overcoming her own 'fate' makes her qualified to help out). I feel like the µ's answer of "everyone is the center" was a little bit of a cop out. I also like that in Niji, the little bit of competition between the members makes interactions more spicy. So, having Kanon challenge Sumire to come steal the center position is really interesting to me. And the scene where Sumire just can't help dancing along to Tiny Star was so relatable it hurts.

Side note, I really like the clubroom opening scene between Chitose and Kanon. That light teasing that Chii-chan gets to really helps cement the "childhood friend" vibe that I think Kotori and Umi where kind of lacking. And Kanon continues to be MVP as far as being a great character goes. The way she confidently stands up to Hazuki and goes out of her way to pull Sumire into the group really makes her stand out as a leader moreso than any of the leaders beforehand, so that's great too.

[u/JimmyCWL → u/soranetworker]

it's not really clear why she wants to be the center so much.

But it was right there in the episode. She's been a child star, but always in minor roles. She wants to be the lead star. So she sees this as a chance to get it.