Because that’s about how far they were likely off a call from Kakifly’s legal team, regardless of Umi’s present proximity to a left-handed bass guitar.

Before I get onto this weeks episode of Love Live, I’m going to revisit last weeks briefly. Firstly, given the content of last weeks episode, it was a little funny to notice, not to mention difficult not to miss, the new series merchandising that was solicited this week. Whilst I’m pretty sure that Nozomi is the only character truly deserving a Big Can Badge (fnar fnar), there are things like character fans and messenger bags up for order as well.

Onto other matters, I’m really struggling reconcile Kotori’s time.

I mean, I mentioned a couple of episodes ago that it was pretty crazy that Kotori had managed to make nine stage costumes in less than two weeks for the Open Campus, and that was before we actually had all the information on the situation. Last weeks episode makes things seem even more bonkers – essentially, we were being asked to believe that Kotori was simultaneously attending school (and being a good student!), practicing as a member of Mooooo’s and was working part-time in a maid cafe – frequently enough that she was famous enough for both Nico and Hanayo to know her by reputation – whilst simultaneously being able to make custom costumes for their performance.

I’m not really sure how to make the ends meet on this one. There’s numerous options one could put forth. It could well be that, following the Nico ESPer Theory, Kotori has the ability to dilate time around herself, and formed a time-space bubble to allow her more time to fabricate the costumes. This would also allow us to posit that, when she froze up when caught in maid-costume outside of the idol store in the previous episode, it was because she was flustered enough to lose control of her power and swung her personal time in the other direction – she hadn’t frozen up, she was just moving really, really slowly.

Alternatively, it may well just be that Kotori is some kind of mutant that requires very little sleep. Clearly she has to sleep on occasion – though a lack of sleep may explain the occasional bout of scatterbrain from which she suffers – but maybe she only has to crash hard once every two or three days. Costume production would have been carried out during the hours in which normal people sleep.

Or maybe she just bought Evangeline’s pocket-universe resort after Negima concluded. If the series ends with her, inexplicably, looking two or three years older than even the (not-Nico) third years, I’m going to take it as being evidence that this is the case.

As a final note regarding episode nine, what was up with that letter to Kotori at the end of the episode anyway? Was it just a cute endcap between the episode and the credit sequence, or are we supposed to take it as some kind of ticking time-bomb that’ll become relevant as the show continues? Given it’s complete non-appearance in this weeks installment, and it being air-mail in nature, I half expected the ending credits this week to start with two puzzled employees of the British mailing service pondering if Tokyo is somewhere in the backwaters of Wales.

Anyway, let’s get on with this weeks episode.

1. I hate to bring this up, but…

The opening premise of this episode is that the roof is too hot to practice on. That’s fine, except I can’t help but remember that last weeks episode started with Honoka pointing out that they now have an entire empty and probably air-conditioned classroom situated right next to their clubroom that looked to be plenty big for what they do. I’m not imagining that, right?

2. The Ultimate 2D Waifu Show

Because the show clearly pays no attention to extra-dimensional concepts such as space or time. By which I mean to say, Eri says something to the effect of “Perhaps we should take care of this now“, only for the next scene with Eri explaining what she meant to be in a completely different location, presumably days later given it’s after they’ve finished arranging their trip. This isn’t what now means, Eri! It’s the almost the opposite of now! It’s actually being kind-of jerk-ish, leaving all of your colleagues wondering what on Earth you were thinking about for possibly days!

I guess that Mascot is a pretty accurate description of Nico at this point. It’s pretty funny to compare everyones current attitude towards her to how they were trying to butter her up at the end of episode five. I presume, at this point, everybody has realised that Hanayo likely knows more about all this idol malarkey, and Nico is just around for comic relief.

(It’s also funny to see Nico increasingly dig herself into a hole in this episode, albeit not in the Yukiho sense. It’s definitely a charm point!)

3. Clearly in her element

Nico mentions later in the episode that they’re filming a PV whilst they’re here, or at least I presume that’s what Nozomi is using as a cover to not only film the proceedings herself, but to get the others to handle the camera for her as well. It’s a little difficult to tell if this is her being savvy enough to figure out that posting videos of the group prancing around in swimwear is a good way quickly increase their profile (assuming they don’t get pulled, Prism Nana-style), or if she’s collating footage purely for her own, more nefarious personal usage.

Also, that was a pretty gratuitous Eri ass-shot at the beginning of the scene, particularly for a show which has been relatively service-light thus far.

4. Obvious shipping aside…

Does anyone know what’s actually happening in this scene, as in, what is Nico actually trying to do? I’m having difficulty parsing it.

If it’s just her trying to assume the same posture as Maki, I’d have to be extremely worried about the effectiveness of Eri’s training sessions if she can’t so much as cross her legs. Otherwise, her stretching is really just bringing into sharp contrast the inconsistency in Nico’s portrayed comparative height throughout the episode.

5. This episodes biggest fanservice moment!

Hey, Kotori has her pillow from the Wonderful Rush video! That’s a cute throwback. If I was to continue with a line of speculation from earlier in this post, I’d suggest that the pillow is a necessity for Kotori’s hyper-sleep that allows her to function for several days in a row without sleeping.

It’s a bit of a peculiar scene, really. Honoka’s sleepwear is pretty ludicrously designed, presumably due to them having to go to such extremes to differentiate what all of the girls are wearing in this scene. I do wonder where she suddenly pulled the rice crackers she starts eating from – she makes it sound like a spur-of-the-moment thing to help her try to get to sleep, but surely the fact she has access to them means she already had them in her bed? Does she always sleep with Senbei, or is this just a one-off occasion due to being on a trip? What happens to them once they start the pillow fight?

Speaking of the pillow fight, I can’t say I’m kosher with will the Nico-abuse which ensued.

6. Khorosho…

Is this the first time that Eri has said this in the series? I mean, her sister Arisa said it at one point earlier in the series, but I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that it’s slipped from Eri’s mouth. Well, first three times by the time you get to the end of the episode.

This can be taken a couple of different ways – if I wanted to be cynical, I’d say that it’s a sudden attempt at them to give the character an additional moe-moe character trait, but I think that’d be a touch unfair. Really, whilst I think it could have been handled in a slightly less blunt-feeling fashion, it’s a cute, subtle attempt to play into the intended theme of the episode, in as much as it’s supposed to display the character feeling more comfortable and open around her fellow idols. It’s likely a habit of the character which she’s been carefully keeping herself from slipping out around school, and her sister doing the same earlier in the series was supposed to be an early sign-post of such.

(By “slightly less-blunt”, I tend to mean that I’m typically dense enough to such matters that anything I pick up on I classify as being blunt)

7. Errr, yeah, you don’t say…

Obvious statement of the year? It’s not like we haven’t seen her manipulate everyone around her into joining the group, is it? She certainly hasn’t been doing anything that’d land her in prison, or at least serious legal trouble, were anyone to speak up about it either, oh-no.

At the very least, I’m pretty sure that she didn’t need to tell Maki to not tell anyone else about her scheming affection, because it’s likely pretty transparently obvious to everyone involved.