In which Sunrise blow through as many of their media partner obligations as possible in one episode?

Well, not really. It’s a slightly odd feeling episode of Love Live this week. I mean, the overwhelming character Love Live exudes is one of almost oppressive earnesty – aside from the Nico stuff the show plays almost purely for comedic effect, it doesn’t have a cynical bone in it’s figurative body. It’s a pretty strange contrast to something like AKB0048 which, despite being sponsored by a genuine idol conglomerate, has a tendency to feel like the production staff are fully acknowledging how dumb this whole idol thing is.

What’s kind of odd is how much of this particular episode ends up coming across as being product placement – even when upon further investigation a lot of it actually isn’t. It’s something that you wouldn’t bat an eyelid at were it not something which comes across as being so cynical in an otherwise so, well, uncynical show.

Not that almost all anime shows aren’t trying to sell at least something, obviously, and the frequent PVs already suggest this show had more of such an agenda than most, but those at least feel organically integrated into the proceedings.

Anyway, on with the usual.

1. Change of Shipping Lanes

Is it just me, or was there a marked increase in the amount of Maki x Nico shipping in this episode? I mean, I’ve discounted it in previous episodes simply because Maki has had far clearer a chemistry with Rin, but the screencap above isn’t even the most blatant display of such efforts in this installment.

I was wondering if there was any clear reason for this, from a staff perspective. The whole Maki-Nico thing was played up sporadically in the original Love Live PVs, particularly in Mogyutto `LOVE` de sekkin chuu!, but it’s not really been all that apparent in the TV anime outside of one cut in the OP. Saying that, even whilst he isn’t doing episode directing himself, Love Live series director Takahiko Kyogoku is storyboarding the vast majority of episodes – including this one – as well as having done the same for the PVs.

Which is to say, it looks like this was pretty much just a whim. Will be curious to see if it continues on an upswing in future episodes.

2. Nothing say Russian like…

A giant, backwards “R” on your shirt! It’s possible disappearance between cuts of animation is something which will remain unmentioned.

It’s a slightly peculiar scene in as much as Honoka mentions here that they’ve gotten some female fans since Eri joined. It’s a bit of an odd statement because, for all intents and purposes, men don’t seem to exist in the Love Live universe. They’re figures who exist in theory, but in practice seem to have a ghost-like appearance in the actual show, invisible to all. At the very least, every single fan who has actually appeared in the show thus far has actually been female.

Still, it’s nice to see that we’re actually being shown in the current ranking of Moooo’s, though the fact that they’re being placed 50th makes me wonder how many schools in Japan are supposed to have idol units, particularly given that 50th place seems to be something they take pride in, having taken some considerable effort to reach.

3. [*]Ability to speak to Alpaca’s not guaranteed.

You, too, can own your very own Hanayo badge, or even one with a good character on it! That said, someone has clearly missed a trick here, not making the badges in the anime match up with those which are actually on sale to the real-life public. Suppose they can fix that later with more meat-space product, though.

Still, the whole idol shop scene is curious for a few reasons. I mean, how could they have not previously noticed the store when every single time they’ve been to Akihabara in the past they’ve been at the same location (right infront of that giant Gamers sign-nyo, fans of product-placement-nyo). Then there’s Nico being unable to see her own merchandise when it’s pretty much the most prominent on display.

Mostly, though, it’s just the weird mixed-message the scene can be read as promoting. All the merchandise – or at least all the Moooo’s merchandise – on display is bootlegged. Our heroines are, strangely, pretty happy at the flagrant disregard of their image rights on display here, as it show’s that they’re attaining some degree of popularity.

It’s hardly the shows only example of playing loose with copyright, but whilst I realise Akiba and fan-culture in Japan tends to be at least a little looser in these regards in at least some situations, it seems odd that a show that’s created to ship merchandising is essentially glamorising counterfeit product. I can’t imagine that the involved companies would be particularly happy if I started selling glorious Nico pin-badges, anyway.

4. I think Kotori is hiding something else here…

The whole Minalinsky thing doesn’t actually hold up to that much scrutiny, just because most of us have some idea of how Internet fan culture works – it’s really, really hard to believe that someone didn’t make the necessary connections the second the first videos of Mooo’s performing in the school auditorium went online, and that the information didn’t saturate the internet immediately. Given how much time that Honoka has professed that she spends watching idol videos online, it’s a bit of a stretch of belief to think that she wouldn’t have heard of Kotori’s maid-escapades somewhere prior to this point.

Forgetting that for a moment, though, Kotori’s story doesn’t seem to entirely match-up – if the photograph was taken without her consent, how come it’s signed?

What is also a bit odd is that, whilst she asks her friends to keep quiet about her part-time job at school, she seems content to carry a photograph around with her – occasionally poking half-visible out of her bags side-pocket – whilst there herself. Not exactly being subtle, are we Minalinsky?

5. BUY OUR BOOK!

This actually drove me nuts for a good half-hour. See that poster in the background of this high-octane Kotori chase scene? You’d think that’d actually be for an actual light novel. One of the partners in the Love Live franchise is Dengeki, after all, who have their Dengeki Bunko novel imprint. The very same Sunrise sub-studio working on Love Live (Studio 8) used background art in Accel World to promote Dengeki novel Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei, so it’s also something they’ve had prior history of.

The work being promoted in the background here is 水平線の向こう側, or Suiheisen no Mukougawa (The Other Side of the Horizon, I guess?). The thing is, unless someone cares to prove me wrong, I’m pretty sure that this specific thing isn’t actually something that exists. If that’s actually the case, it’s an alarmingly detailed poster for something they seem to have made up purely for background art in a relatively brief cut.

Mostly, though, it’s just something that kind-of propagates the feeling of product placement in the episode, even when it’s for something that doesn’t actually exist.

(The Tonkatsu place in the following cut is apparently a real place, by the way).

6. PRECOGNITION POWERS, ACTIVATE!

I realise that the show has never been particularly… consistent in a geographical sense, but my theory that Nozomi is genuinely possessing precognitive abilities comes back into play here, in so much as that it’d be pretty much impossible for her to catch Kotori were she not fully aware of where she was going to end up running. Just saying.

7. Okaerinasai, Goshujinsama!

It’s probably worth pointing out, at this point, that Cure Maid, the store were Kotori is shown as working, is actually a real, well-known Akihabara maid cafe. The maid uniforms they wear in the show are modelled after those used in the actual store, which probably explains why they’re so chaste in comparison to the fetish-store maid costumes you often see in anime episodes with a similar concept to this one.

You can see some footage from inside the actual store on Youtube, if you’re particularly interested – the shows replication of it looks to be pretty accurate. The actual store has run some Love Live events in recent times, so I guess it’s inclusion in the show is well-planned payback.

8. I can’t help but notice…

That, getting back to the comments earlier in the episode, a good 75% of those who turn up to the maid cafe, not to mention the live performance, are female – I’d like to take the fact that the idol merchandise store has sold out of small t-shirts as implying much the same about Mooooo’s fandom, given there’s no way most idol otaku would fit into such a thing. It’s probably a good thing that they have a predominantly female fanbase, given the groups stated aim in forming!

Not that a huge part of this episode isn’t about glamorising parts of fan-culture which are often which are often villainised – it’s not like Akiba tends to be painted in a particularly positive light these days. It’s hard to imagine that, in reality, Cure Maid wouldn’t be immediately swarmed by nerds the second it became known that an idol group of even minor popularity were working there.

Coincidentally, the reason why you don’t see A-RISE taking immediate retaliatory action to having their home territory invaded is because they prefer to keep their wars private.

Sorry.

9. And finally, a note for Vividred Operation

This is how you tie a scarf. Maybe. Or at the very least, it’s less wrong.