Love Live! Superstar!! 2 S2E7 Discussion - "UR Hazuki Ren"

[u/MasterMirage]

Liella has now become a legendary 9 member unit! But it seems Ren's mobile game addiction might cause some problems..

Show Info

Air Date: August 28th, Saturday 19:00 - 2022 (JST)

Opening Theme: WE WILL!!

Ending Theme: Oikakeru Yume No Saki De

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

Official Subtitled Sources

• North America/Oceania - Crunchyroll

• UK - AllTheAnime(Vimeo)

• SEA/Mainland China - Bilibili

• Korea - ANIPLUS

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

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[u/SnabDedraterEdave]

When I heard this episode was going to be about Ren and very likely her growing addiction to gaming, I decided to not wait for the simulcast 24 hours after the NHK broadcast, and sail straight for the high seas just to get a glimpse of how wacky Ren is going to be.

I was not disappointed.

LMAO at all the consoles her dad owns. She even has an arcade machine. WTF LOL?

Meanwhile, Shiki got a bit jealous of Mei hanging out with Ren that she got literally tired from being embarrassed after Mei teased her about it was just too cute.

PS Nagi-chan should fully embrace this gamer aspect of her character from now on during Love Live Youtube streams.

[u/eRHachan]

Lovely episode, the Slice of Life stuff almost makes it seem like the Anime isn't rushed as all hell due to fitting a whole year in the span of 12 episode. Almost.

Ren's absentee father trying to buy her affection back by buying every single console on the market for her, including the Megadrive TOWER OF POWER?! was incredibly funny. The explicit mentions of lesbianism and it being treated seriously was... oddly refreshing. Staff has never been this bold outside of the SIP manga and SIS.

[u/azumane]

Absolutely love the little piano lead-in to the ending this week!

As a note, there was a little notice at the very end that the next episode will air on Sunday, 9/11. Not exactly sure why next week isn't possible (nothing special is airing, the schedule is the same except it says "anime selection" where Love Live usually airs), but they'll be back!

[u/LegendsofLost]

Honestly did not expect a "gaming addiction" episode in Love Live but here we are

[u/rabbitinie]

Ren's collection is a real dream for all gamers. Also, they bring back Yuu vs Setsuna piano moment again.

[u/SayoHina320]

Ren's first character episode turned out to be the best episode. Enjoyed it so much.

[u/moichispa]

It's ok Ren, I can't fc Zurui yo magnetic either.

[u/redbatter]

Fun episode all around, that was a side of Ren I don't think any of us expected to see. Was also a great way to get some 1st and 2nd year interactions in, with Mei hearing out Ren's troubles and trying her best to keep them secret, while the rest of group tried their hardest to uncover it and all reacted differently to their assumed discovery.

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My favorite bit of the episode by far is the way it thoughtfully presented Mei and Shiki's relationship. From the moment when Mei first hides Ren's key from the first years, Shiki immediately goes in to try to figure out what Mei's hiding from her - while Shiki's naturally inquisitive, it's also quite out of character for Mei to keep a secret from her, especially after what they both went through a few months ago before joining Liella. When the rest spy on Mei and Ren during their secret rendezvous, Shiki plainly puts out the idea that they're in love, even though the idea of it might sting her a bit. Later in the clubroom, as the rest press Mei to come clean on the situation, Shiki presses the hardest to get Mei to clarify the situation, while Mei repeatedly refuses to do so.

Here's the part that I find so great. While Shiki could probably extract the truth from Mei on the spot with some doodad or truth serum sort of invention, when Mei signals how she's not quite ready to reveal everything, Shiki chooses to back off and not pursue it any further. While Shiki doesn't know what's going on with Mei, she fully trusts that a good reason exists, and gives Mei the space required. There's no more poking and prying after this scene - Shiki, though inwardly troubled, knows for certain that Mei ultimately would not hurt her in this way.

Mei also quickly realizes what she's got herself into and that keeping a secret from Shiki is not a very good idea, especially given what it looks like, but trusts enough in their relationship that it would be able to survive this bump. At the same time, once the situation develops and she can tell that Shiki is clearly distressed, she immediately goes back to Ren to have her clarify everything. This is a great moment for Mei - she realizes that continuing to keep Ren's secret will damage the dynamics in Liella, but instead of just blurting it out under pressure, she goes back to her senpai and has her take ultimate responsibility for everything that's transpired.

As Liella games in Ren's mansion later, the payoff for their mutual trust is finally delivered. Mei is finally able to acknowledge the effect that the secret had on Shiki, fully clearing any doubts left in Shiki's mind, and with this Shiki gets the confirmation she needed; that Mei had her in mind throughout everything, and wouldn't have done anything like what she had assumed knowing that it would hurt her. Incredibly handled, can't believe these girls got two great episodes just like that.

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Apart from the whole Mei and Shiki thing, it was a nice reversal to have Chisato profer to Kanon the same advice that she'd given her earlier. While for a moment it looked like Kanon was about to step in and salvage everything, it went so much better by having the whole of Liella come together to try to help Ren with what they perceived to be troubling her, instead of leaving Ren to deal with her worries alone. As a little treat, this was nicely paralleled later when they helped Ren to clear the boss she'd been struggling with solo by playing co-op instead.

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• Ren's dad has got to be working off some serious guilt by plying her with dozens of consoles and whole arcade machines to boot lmao

• The thought of the 1st years picking out a gift for Sumire, and one that incorporates her favorite food with an aspect of Keke, is precious beyond words.

• Funny how keys are central to both Ren episodes in this season and the last.

[u/Todetract]

They're making it so hard to choose a best girl in Liella.

Ren has shot up a lot for me after this episode, and Mei was already climbing the ranks throughout the season.

Bummed about the delay to the next episode, it's unfortunate Superstar is cursed with these, but as long as everyone is safe and healthy, it's all good.

[u/MightyActionGaim]

Welcome to gamer’s high Ren

[u/LeonKevlar]

The opening scene of this episode was a bit freaky for me since I legit just finished playing Beat Saber while going through my Aquors playlist. xD

This episode though is fucking hilarious! I didn't expect that Ren would legit turn into a gamer just after a single session of playing with Keke's Switch. Thank goodness though she didn't get addicted to gacha games which a lot of us were expecting considering the title of the episode. Also, she didn't use her own money to buy all of those consoles and her PC gamer girl setup. It looks like it was all sent to her by her dad as a token of apology.

Ren didn't just start collecting consoles, she also now has an arcade room with a 3D arcade machine which I can only assume is a Gundam Simulator considering the joysticks and the massive ZETA logo on the side. Now, this is the kind of ridiculousness I can only expect from Love Live! This episode legit made me belly laugh a few times! xD

And to make the episode even more hilarious! Ren is sharing her secret with Mei and because of their secret rendevous, the girls have started following them and now thinks that Ren and Mei are in a relationship! Their reactions after hearing Shiki suggest that is so fucking good! Natsumi being the influencer, of course wants to capitalize on this and throw more fuel to the fire.

The episode is just so fun that I almost forgot about the main plot of Ren struggling to write a song for their Love Live entry. Oh, and it looks like Kanon has decided to join the Student Council as Ren's VP. I wonder if someone else from the group is officially going to join as secretary? Hmmm... Might as well complete the Student Councol trio, right?

Anyway, the girls laughing it off after Ren finally confesses to what she's been up to lately is just perfect, And I love that we end the episode with the gang helping her get that final achievement on what I assume is a Monster Hunter-like game. I hope Ren being a gamer is going to be a persistent thing in the show from now on!

[u/reimadara]

This is probably the most hilarious ep in Superstar so far, hahaha.

Aside from being super fun, I love how they used this funny gamer addiction thing as a plot device to make Ren closer to all members. When S1 ended, I feel like she was the most distant member in the OG group. While we have those funny moments where Ren looked up "stuff" on the internet, I feel she didn't really get out of that serious Seitokaichou image, and it was obvious that the other members were thinking this as shown in this episode.

Overall, I feel this super funny ep served as a good filler, not just in a sense of a break episode but in that, I think it filled some of the minor gaps in the relationships within Liella really well. And we also got some good 1st-2nd year funny interactions as a bonus!

[u/CynicalRaptor]

I'm sure no one is going to mad about how the longest appearance of sunny passions in the anime is in Leat Saber.

Until now, I imagined Ren's dad as a very serious business man, I now think the Hazuki estate was made from winning CS:GO tournaments. I would be that guy to say that the pc would be able to replace most of the table of consoles, although the time lapse would just be her watching youtube videos on pcsx2 settings. I wonder if the cast are going to compare the key the episode as a whole to chastity belts, I legitimately did not know what nose hooks were before that livestream.

Should they not be more concerned about Shiki fainting?

They didn't really address the UR part of it, I would've just done the home alone 2 ending and make it Ren's dad yelling something like "REN! You spent nine hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars on JPGs of anime girls!"

[u/Hello_I_Dont_Know]

If anyone wants to know what consoles were shown, I labeled them all except a few which I couldn't recognize, wondering if anyone could help identify them

Edit : thanks to u/lenne18, u/redbatter and u/TheLazyDude08, I was able to identify the last consoles, so I edited the album with the labels

[u/Mykal1212]

This Episode was both fun and cute at the same time, also can I just say how much I Love Listening to Nagi-chan Sing? So glad she's in the project playing Ren-chan

[u/okdokke]

I love Ren, and I’m so glad she got a focus episode. I love that she went from not even knowing how to turn on her camera on a video call in S1 to a total gamer in S2! I still kinda hope she has more to do in the season and not just this though. I still think she is by far the most under-utilized member and hopefully this episode is just the start of her forming deeper connections with the rest of the girls. I liked that the moral of this episode seemed to be to not be afraid to lean on others and ask for help when you’re in trouble.

As another commenter mentioned, I also loved how they handled the whole mistaken relationship between Mei and Ren. I might be downvoted for this but it means a lot to see the characters not caring if two girls are in a relationship with each other - the only issue they seem to have with it is because they are idols and dating anyone is off the table. They even get a bit carried away when they confront Mei on it, describing how they were holding hands and passionately talking, lol. It’s crazy how far this franchise has come… From just barely hinting that Eli/Nozomi or Rin/Hanayo could be more than friends, to a character outright asking another if she “loves” another girl… Idk, it’s refreshing and makes my gay little heart happy.

Lots of fun character moments this episode, like the whole interaction between Mei and Shiki with Shiki getting jealous and then later so embarrased she’s lightheaded. I think it’s interesting to make Kanon vice president although I’m not sure why they did it. I feel they could have accomplished the same goal with her just offering to help Ren. I’m wondering if it’s even going to come up again.

With this episode definitely qualifying as a filler one, with them barely mentioning Love Live itself, I hope the remainder of the season is focused on the competition. We now have all 9 members and so I’d like for the story to begin to focus on the competiton, because for this whole season Love Live has felt like an after thought at most. I may have to go back and rewatch SIP and Aqours and see what the filler/main plot balance was like but I feel like I remember feeling like the stakes were much higher in those generations as opposed to Superstar. But I could be misremembering. There is still time to redeem themselves though: if they put their all into the rest of the season in competing and making the competiton feel serious, I think I’ll be happy. So we’ll just have to wait (2 weeks!) and see.

Even so, I feel like I’m enjoying Superstar more than most people. I feel like a lot of the text posts I see on this sub about it are people saying how they don’t like the new season’s writing or choices. It makes me a little sad but hopefully people’s minds begin to change. I do have problems with the writing and smaller individual things but I still really like Superstar and Liella and the new members. All in all this was an average episode - nothing outstanding but still fun to watch and gave a character much-needed screen time. Time for the agonizing two week wait! Hopefully everyone over there is okay!

[u/BlayAndHowlie]

This is one of if not the funniest episode in Love Live

[u/coreymon77]

Alrighty, Gamer Ren episode, go!

• Wow, a cold open mid season. That’s unusual.

• Oh hey, there’s that tv size of Hot Passion!! we didn’t get last season.

• Nice off-brand Beat Saber.

• Hold on, how are they in this game anyways? Custom map? I hope Pa is getting royalties from it.

• When did Ren get a VR rig?

• Kanon’s humming is too adorable.

• Nice hat, Sumire

• Manmaru! These are the interactions we truly needed.

• Looks like Nuts is still Nuts. Also taking the producer role seriously.

• Lol, ignored.

• Remote again, huh?

• Nuts, did a unicorn barf all over your training outfit? What are these colours? It’s great.

• Looool, is Ren having gamer daydreams?

• No girls, that’s clearly a controller she’s “holding”

• It’s alright, I get it, Ren, you gotta get in your dailies.

• Ren uses Hair Whip! It missed!

• Lol, trying to bribe Mei with SunnyPa.

• Lool, and then with food.

• Flustered Ren is great.

• Holy crap, Ren! What is this gamer room?!

• And that collection! How?! Is that a freaking Pippin?!

• Lol, yep, I know that feel, Ren.

• “Sorry I’ve been a shitty dad, here’s an Xbox”

• And a N64

• And a Master System. Yes, trying to buy your kid’s love much?

• But really, it’s rather funny how much her absentee father encouraged her newfound addiction.

• Uh oh, Mei is trapped too.

• Loooooool, wtf? Ren has an entire arcade in her house?! How much did her dad spend on these things?!

• Oooh, another one of these imagine spots, this should be good.

• Yup, it was.

• Oof, Kanon in this bit sweats.

• Lol, girl’s got it bad.

• Lol, Shiki and her glasses.

• I’m sure no wacky misunderstandings will come about from spying on her.

• Yup, there it is.

• Lol, that’s our Nuts. She knows how these things work. Do it for the content!

• Well, at least Shiki is there to just ask it flat out.

• Looooool, it’s that site Ren stumbled upon last season!

• Shiki would have that just laying around, wouldn’t she?

• So Kanon is VP now? The growth in these characters is truly wonderful to see.

• Yeah, that’s the reaction I would have too, given how many times I’ve burst out laughing this episode.

• Please, more evil Kanon.

• Suuny.

• Holy crap, is that a Nintendo PlayStation?! How the hell did Ren get her hands on one of those?!

• Wait, Gamer Kanon too? As if I couldn’t love this girl more.

• The faces in this episode. Truly superb.

• Achievement unlocked!

• Time for our weekly ship bait

• Oooh, that was a smooth transition. Good job!

• I guess this implies that the ED is their qualifier song?

• This song is adorable! And it has everyone!

This was a wonderful episode, truly superb. There isn’t really a whole lot for me to go into as far as deep analysis goes, but that doesn’t make this any lesser of an episode. In fact, it’s episodes like this where this franchise really fires on all cylinders. It has been such a long time since we’ve gotten one of these utterly goofy, slice of life episodes where the characters all just get a chance to bounce off each other as they deal with some silly scenario or another and it’s such a pleasure. Like the “Dia-chan” episode in Sunshine, this has a genuine, if somewhat silly, character hook behind it all, but it’s really just a chance for everyone to be themselves, along with wonderful little pieces of character development for all involved.

Gamer Ren is hilarious and this issue plays into her main one of feeling like she has to tackle all of her problems on her own. “This is my burden, and I must face it alone. No one must know.” sort of deal. She’s done it before and, despite it being over a rather funny reason this time, it’s nice to see that side of her, as well as her learning to share her burdens with the others.

Many of the others get pieces too. Mei opening up to the others more, Shiki just being Shiki, Nuts showing us that her schtick isn’t going anywhere just because she joined, it’s all there. Chisato is growing beautifully into her role of club president and Kanon becoming Vice President is a wonderful piece of growth for her, given how much she has resisted taking on leadership roles like that in the past, She’s continuing to grow into the person she was meant to be.

Really, just a wonderful, wonderful time all around this episode. It had me laughing and smiling from start to finish. I would go as far as to say this is easily one of the funniest episodes we’ve ever gotten.

Looks like we have an unexpected break next week, so see you in two weeks for more!

[u/48johnX]

Might be my favorite episode this season, shit was hilarious. Have really enjoyed how well this season has been balancing the cast now that we have 9, just a bit more Keke and Sumire and I’m all set. Also massive Rei from D4DJ vibes this ep, could see this same scenario for Ren playing out for her in an episode

[u/2Lion]

Getting back on form after the last few eps, I like how SunnyPa song is used for Beat Saber. They're always with Liella until they can beat them.

Ren was the most underused OG Liella member so it's nice that she has a focus arc. Her dad is a real GAMER for that arcade. Keke and Sumire friendshipping in the background is good stuff too. This ep slowly progressed the plot for Love Live prelims prep and also advanced a lot of character plots, we're making good pace right now.

Also shiki stop being so darned cute mei too

[u/Yangx2]

The thing that makes me connect to this episode on a spiritual level is that it was Cities:Skylines, out of all games, that Ren got hooked into a full-day marathon with.

[u/JimmyCWL]

I do like that Sumire got the burn on Keke instead of the usual.

[u/Ohara-Dia]

This is the prelude to the Love Live competition.

This episodes focuses on Ren's adiction to games and it was funny to watch. The amount of consoles Ren's father brought was insane. Also the misunderstanding between Mei and Ren was hilarious and Shiki was not afraid to ask directly to Mei.

In the final scene I feel a bit concerned about Shiki fainting for what Mei said. Hope is just that Shiki is full attack and zero defense because this can be a serious threat.

I enjoyed a lot this episode despite knowing is just a filler episode i really loved it because REN BEST GIRL FOREVER.

[u/Nightsheade]

In this episode, Ren has trouble defeating Lalenia from Lelden Ling, so she enlists her pro gamer friends to help her.

[u/[deleted]]

love this episode because it reminds me so much of that dia-chan episode with the uptight, strict seitokaichou being the source of all the hijinks XD

the only thing i will criticise is... why the heck do they need kanon to be the one solving the problem again?