Love Live! Sunshine!! Episode 2 Review

Chika continues her quest to establish a School Idol club!

Three phrases that summarize episode 2 in a nutshell:

• multiple time skips (the trend continues from episode 1)
• a secret idol otaku
• Chika/Riko ship tease.

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The Love Live tradition of having episode recaps continue, showing why Chika keeps asking Riko to join the School Idol club. After that’s done, Riko is shown recollecting a concert in which she was too nervous to actually play the piano. After she steps out into the veranda to ponder, the OP plays.

Chika remains convinced that Riko is very close to joining, but You says otherwise.

Putting Chika’s pursuit of Riko aside for now, You shows Chika some of her sketches of idol uniforms. It’s great that she uses Chika as her model, but does that mean You doesn’t actually see herself as part of the School Idol club? At any rate, some major trolling ensues.

Chika gets really excited and visits the student council president, who still says no. They still only have 2 members when an official club requires 5 members, after all. Chika then runs her mouth, saying it was probably hard for “U’s” since they only started with 3 members. Dia gets angry and corrects Chika’s pronunciation before yelling at her to be quiet.

Then the scene jumps to You and Chika chilling by the ocean, thinking back about what happened in the student council room. Chika claims there’s too many hurdles to clear, but decides not to give up.

From here there’s multiple flashbacks and returns to present-time. The present-time scenes show Chika first greeting Hanamaru and then luring Ruby out from behind a tree with a lollipop.

The flashbacks show Dia grilling Chika with questions about μ‘s. With her aggressive questioning, Dia inadvertently reveals to the whole school that she’s an idol otaku. However, she denies being a μ‘s fan and says she won’t allow a School Idol club.

While the scenes jump between the past and present, You, Chika, Ruby, and Hanamaru are shown riding a bus. Chika asks Hanamaru if she can join the School Idol club, but she is too busy working as a library helper. Chika then asks Ruby, who turns out to be Dia’s little sister. As such, Ruby mutters that her onee-san is against it. Everyone seems to think Dia hates school idols despite evidence pointing to the contrary.

As a result, Ruby looks distressed, which leads to You saying they should focus on writing a song first. Chika, the natural yuri pimp, asks if Hanamaru is busy today. She replies that she has to drop off a notebook in Numazu. Another flashback happens, showing Yoshiko YOHANE doing a chuuni class introduction before running out of the classroom like she was an anime ninja. YOHANE never returned to school after that, which leads to Hanamaru’s errand for the day. Did YOHANE just make a Star Driver reference?

Chika gets off the bus, saying goodbye to everyone else still on the bus. She then greets Riko, who’s staring off into the ocean. Riko sighs. Chika then does the unthinkable.

Riko reaffirms that her answer won’t change even if Chika follows her all the way out here, but Chika says she was just passing by. Chika then asks if Riko has managed to hear the sound of the ocean. After seeing Riko’s downcast face, Chika invites her to a Sunday date by the harbor.

She asks if Chika will force her to become an idol if Riko does hear the sounds of the ocean. Chika replies that would be swell, but she’d rather Riko hear school idol songs first in order to learn more about school idols (which is funny coming from Chika after her encounter with Dia). Riko starts talking about her piano skills hitting a plateau. In response, Chika encourages Riko and says that they can listen to the sound of the ocean together and it’ll have nothing to do with school idols.

You, Chika, Riko, and Kanan go scuba diving on Sunday. Kanan advises Riko to use her imagination when underwater since the human ear can’t really hear sounds down there. Riko gets discouraged and thinks back to her concert. Riko sure is pretty.

However, Chika and You lead Riko to an underwater sunspot and all three girls hear the sounds of the ocean. Cue group hug after rising to above water.

The scene then jumps to school. Chika is overjoyed at Riko saying she’ll help. However, Riko then clarifies by saying she’ll help write songs but she won’t be an idol.

Riko chooses this time to ask Chika for the lines. As a result, Chika starts looking for lines.

The two girls take Riko to Chika’s family inn. So they can concentrate on writing lyrics. Turns out the two older girls seen in episode 1 are Chika’s older sisters. Riko is really distracted by the dog. I think she’s scared? Once inside, Riko gets fed up with You and Chika getting distracted and urges them to get to work.

Chika attempts to write a love song despite having no love experience. As she laments about intentionally choosing hard mode, Riko and You realize that Chika could write a song about her feelings for school idols.

While Chika gets to work with her pen, Riko stares at her with sparkling eyes (while thinking of her love of piano as a young child). Chika hands her the lyrics of Yume no Tobira, saying it was the song that inspired her to seriously become a school idol. She then talks about normal girls can become radiant and shining as school idols once again.

Later in her room, Riko watches and listens to Yume no Tobira. Sitting in the dark and watching videos? She’s one of us!

Thinking back on Chika’s words and her failed concert, Riko sings a few lines while playing the piano before finding out Chika is her next-door neighbor.

Riko confesses that nothing’s fun for her anymore, including piano. Chika chooses this time to offer being an idol again. Riko says she can’t quit piano, but Chika replies that if Riko can smile and change, then she can go back to playing piano which means she wouldn’t be quitting piano. Riko responds it’d be rude to Chika to become an idol with that kind of motivation and reason. Chika proclaims that isn’t true and if Riko can change, she’ll be happy.

The two then basically risk their lives in order to touch hands. Riko also finally starts calling Chika “Chika-chan” instead of “Takami-san.”

Then the ED plays. It gives us some cute photos (shipping material).

The ED also features the traditional group shots and more shipping material.

In my heart, I’m rooting for Chika x Riko, Hanamaru x Ruby, Mari x Dia x Kanan, and Yoshiko x You.

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The next episode is called First Step. See you next week!