Today I rewatched season 1 of Love Live Sunshine! And I had fun, still stand by pretty much every opinion I have of it.
Riko’s the best written character in Love Live, Chika’s already a really great character, the 3 first years are fairly simple but all quite likeable. You’s actually a weaker character than I remember, and I already didn’t hold her in the highest regard since her cuck arc in episode 11 feels undercooked as hell. The 3rd year drama feels similarly undercooked and the 3 of them suffer for it, Kanan especially who has no character outside of it, but they're otherwise pretty cool.
The overall narrative of Aqours is pretty cool though, that thematic thing of them trying to be like μ's but having to learn to chase their own path is pretty cool. It resulted in lots of people - regrettably including myself once upon a time - accusing the group of just being μ's again, but I don’t really agree with that, I feel like even in this season they carve out their own role well enough.
Also their music’s fucking great, Omoi yo Hitotsu ni Nare being the standout of the season, and also this is when Love Live starts to look like, fucking amazing most of the time. Sunshine season 1 has remarkably consistent visuals, with high quality artwork and animation being constants throughout, I took 387 screenshots lol.
Having said all of that though, I don’t think it’s, I guess as emotionally gripping a narrative as what μ's had? I don’t even know how to explain that one, I guess Aqours just feel more like part of the crowd at this point than μ's did. Before I started this rewatch I wouldn’t have been able to tell you whether I think SIP season 2 or Sunshine season 1 is better, but now I’m feeling like the former is just pure bliss for its entire runtime while the latter is a very respectable slice of life that has a lot of room for improvement with its more plot-heavy moments. After changing SIP season 2 and the movie from 8s to 10s, I went into Sunshine season 1 thinking I’d change it to like, 9 minimum, but at no point while going through did anything actually happen that made me felt like I should do that.
So I mean, I haven’t changed the score. But it’s still an 8/10, that’s pretty fucking great. I don’t know what group I like more between μ's and Aqours, and ultimately I clearly like School Idol Project more than Sunshine, but then I also like Riko more than every μ's girl put together, and Chika’s pretty fucking poggers too. God uh, I don’t really know what the conclusion is. Uhm, yeah.
Sunshine season 2 and its movie coming soon-ish, I mean definitely before this Saturday because I want them done before Niji airs, but I don’t know when specifically I’ll knock them out since I have shit to do to wrap up the season. We’ll see I suppose.
