Reviews of anime are SUBJECTIVE. If you cannot come to the table on why people have differing opinions of anime please reset expectations when reading this review and please be more openminded. There tends to be people who immediately dislike anime unfairly based on first impression due to the contents or its fanbase and associate them together. Dont knock something until you try it. No matter the opinion you should try to form your own. This is particularly true of Idols. There seems to be an unfair vehement disgust towards it and I think thats really unfortunate because theyre creating unfair impressions on something they havent experienced. Kind of ironic because anime is unfairly discriminated against by people not familiar with the hobby/medium and some anime experience the same treatment. Again dont knock something until you try it seriously. Setting expectations: This review is being written under a subjective lens and mainly enjoyment. If you come to expect opinions from a very critical sense wrong place. A lot of people online come to expect reviews as such this review aint gonna be like that. I just like to talk about anime I enjoy. And so this review is about such things. Sorry if this aint what youre looking for. Ill try to keep spoilers to a minimum Also sorry for the amount of notices beforehand its just to cover my bases because a lot of people like objective reviews online and considering idols is so popular plus gets a really bad rep I want people to properly read my review with an open mind. My background when going into Love Live Sunshine: Ive already seen: Love Live School Idol Project LL SIP Season 1 Rating = 7 Season 2 Rating = 8 and the Movie Rating = 9. Im a fan of this series and of the Muse School Idol group but Ive had some issues with its production story and presentation at points. Theyve clearly improved as they went along so you see it trending upwards. There will be people who go into this review and havent watched the previous Love Lives. Let me tell you that is a mistake. Youre skipping out on important background episodes that help flesh out the world more in Sunshine. Its like skipping JoJo Part 1 2 and then going into JoJo Part 3 asking why certain characters are so significant and brought up so much. The characters from the original Love Live series and how they impacted the world is essential before going into Love Live Sunshine. Ive seen multiple people skip into Sunshine and I think it doesnt allow you gain the intended enjoyment from the creators. Its very clear that they assume youve seen it and if you havent you wont get why certain characters behave like they do. Hell youll probably never understand why the Muse School Idol Group is such a main point in the show at all. Now for my overall series rating: 8.5/10 If you disagree well have to agree to disagree fam. People hold certain points as negative and I hold them as positive. Why did I like it? I related A LOT: I think in my case Ive related to a lot of the scenarios placed among the characters and the group throughout the show. Anime is subjective after all. I personally felt understood and related to the characters throughout the show. Almost every single one. This influences my rating majorly if you cannot get invested or relate I think this show wont work for you. Some missteps the last 2 episodes: It was set to a 9 9.5/10 actually from Episode 1 11. I genuinely felt like they were a very very strong representation of the topics and themes displayed. It felt close to the home in terms of the way they presented it. What made it drop was Episode 12 and 13. The way they presented the messages and themes was actually confusing. I wasnt sure if the translations were able to convey it correctly from the FFF fansub group but assuming it was there was clear confusion in what they were trying to say. This confusion can make or break you to be honest. The way this show treads upon the past and Muse from SIP can be a benefit or negative. Its quite thin ice on how they do things and that might be the reason why the ending of this season is not looked fondly on by certain individuals. Regardless for me I was able to finally understand what they were trying to say and do by the end but it ruined some enjoyment despite the huge highs it had. And the ending it was good. I liked how it ended and felt it was appropriate for how it went. SIP TVs ending execution didnt make me happy so seeing how Sunshine Season 1 ended I was satisfied with how it went. The final performance and song was genuinely great and entertaining. Chasing Muse: This was handled really well. I was very impressed from Episode 1 11 in terms of how they retread the same steps as Muse in SIP and refined their messaging while also showcasing subtle differences. Theyve paid a lot of close attention to detail to the world characters and the effects of the world on the respective societies. My attention was more focused on the world mainly. From Episode 1 youll see theyve reimplemented the formula from SIP. In Sunshine you see the formula on fulldisplay but they learned from their past mistakes and refined it much better this time. You see how much they take and put in elements from before into Sunshine plus added in their own fresh spin to it. Aqours is like the spiritual successor to Muse and you can feel that every step of the way. And this is honestly a storytelling offense for a lot of people. Why talk about their legacy when its not necessary? Because its like real life. People follow their heroes and follow in their footsteps. People mimic their heroes/the top dogs and what worked its more common than you think. To Aquors Muse are heroes to them and its natural they want to be like them. If Aqours was set in a similar environment like Muse I dont think this show wouldve been as strong. The subtle differences in rural vs. urban society sold it for me personally. Naive teenagers and characters: Ever since episode 1 Ive sort of felt that underlying tension of seeing these teenagers out in the sticks wanting to win Love Live. While it was played up as jokes it was still seen as Chikas character motivation. This naivety in behaviour I understood and sort of forgave when they made mistakes that most people would question. Theyre teenagers and I sort of saw them as unreliable narrators sometimes. When their educational standards are lower than the average and heavy nepotism because of being in the rural area it would make sense why certain things happened. The rural vs. urban difference is a huge issue in society. I think the show displays a realistic portrayal of its differences in the idol context quite well. Though the issue could clearly be explored more succinctly but theyre teenagers trying to save a school. The adult supervision is very minimal and in comparison to SIP the missing pieces are apparent. In SIP ARISE and Kotoris mom are the voices of adult reasoning. For Sunshine they just have themselves and so thats why Ive given it a pass. Music was really great and the performances were excellent The transition between 3D to 2D was seamless at times. It didnt feel jarring to me like it did in SIP which was a plus. Also the music was great and I really liked the camera work. Theyve really upped the performance scalability and how it looks in general. The voice actors were great I was convinced by a lot of their performances and were sold by what they delivered. Nothing felt out of the ordinary to me excusing Episode 12 13. Animation was consistent and landed a good final finish My main gripe with SIP Season 2 was where the quality of animation started to dip really fast by the end. With Sunshine I was completely satisfied with how it looked from Episode 1 to the end. Sunrise did a great job of animating this production. And that concludes my review of it thanks for reading