Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR

Episode 11

Narrative tension can be a funny thing. There is very often a difference between what the characters know and what we know as the Audience, and that disparity can play out in awkward ways that sometimes require us to meet a story halfway. While I did feel some frustration at the turn this episode took with Yohane's emotional journey, it's important to remind myself that everything happening here makes sense for our characters, and within the frame of this franchise, that's always going to be more important.

Of course, Yohane, faced with her seeming failure to stop the prophesied Calamity and a repudiation of her status as the idol of destiny, would hole up in her bed to hide from the shame of it all – even if that shame is only in her head. From her perspective, she's just gotten cosmic confirmation that all her dreams of being special and important were delusions, and she's doomed her hometown and friends in the process, all because she was too foolish to realize she was kidding herself. It's exactly the kind of self-loathing response you'd expect from her, and on its own, it's an effective turn that's executed with the right amount of seriousness, without tumbling over into absurd melodrama. Though it does tickle me that Depressed! Yohane's key visual distinction is not having her signature hair orb. I guess when you live in the Love Live! universe, where everyone looks like a shampoo commercial at all times, that's the best way to express depressed dishevelment.

The issue I had, as the viewer, is that I'm more immediately concerned with Lailaps not dying, so it was rather frustrating to see our heroine collapse in on herself for the first half of this episode. Which, I admit, isn't fair. Yohane doesn't know that the bastards producing this show are conspiring to murder her dog to make me sad. It was still rather maddening to see in action, and that frustration wasn't helped by some visibly struggling production values. While Sunshine in the Mirror has been a comparatively modest production to the mainline series, this is the only episode so far that's struggling to hold itself together. It looks fine in close-up shots, but whenever things need to move, or a shot needs to render all of these busy character designs together, it starts to melt. Despite that, there's some relatively novel and clever direction at points, like having actual spotlights for the stage scene to frame Yohane in the shadows, but it's by far the roughest entry in this series, and seeing it happen so close to the end – while adding relatively little to the story – packs worry on top of frustration.

Thankfully, the show manages to pick itself up in the back half, thanks to that good ol' fashioned Love Live! sentimentality. Yohane may have tied up all her self-worth in being the town's magical savior, but that was never what brought her friends to her side to begin with, and it's affirming to have them rally around her regardless of any prophecy or magical destiny. The episode stops just short of saying Yohane's true magic was friendship, if only because it's probably saving that for the end, but that's the kind of starry-eyed treacle I come to this franchise for. The other girls care about Yohane because she's a compassionate friend in her own right, magical singing be damned. So, while their impromptu party goes off with several hitches, that's exactly the type of earnest tomfoolery that makes them great friends to have. It's also pretty neat that Chika takes the lead on this – it fits with her established sense of welcoming hospitality, but on a meta-level, it echoes how she was the one who brought Aqours together in the original series.

All that – and finding out that next week won't be the finale – was enough to carry me through my frustrations with stretching out the Lailaps plotline. Knowing that we won't have to wrap up the central mystery and character of this season's story in less than an episode made me a lot more forgiving of this sweet but somewhat redundant character focus, but I need this show to drop the veil and show us the secrets this big fluffy dog is hiding.

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Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.