Love Live Sunshine's 2nd Season by the by gives us the conclusion to Aquors journey to the Love Live stage with all the hijinks and heartbreak all under the banner of fixing the mistakes of the original Love Live series and doing it well.
LA first thought that Sunshine's spinoff series was nothing but a pale imitation and meta joke to the original series, however by this second season, this season utterly changed what LA thought of Aquors and their goal.
The second season left off from the first, but this time more character development from the characters that "kinda" needed it. Let's start off with Dia essentially getting way more screentime and meme worthy scenes than ever before making her LA's second favorite character by the end of it. Riko and Yohane got a joint character development together and though LA liked Riko and Yohane's friendship and everything, their development was slightly off executed in terms of themes, but nonetheless Yohane continued to be LA's favorite character even through it all. Now the more interesting character developments came from RUBY of all people as well as their rival Saint Snow's Ria Kazuno. This is one of the first things LA noticed Sunshine's second season did better than the original series, that of showing that even rival idols have their own problems of their own in comparison to aRISE who were already famous and popular and knows how to solve everything. Together with Ruby, we get some great double sister sibling character development from Dia, Ruby, Ria and her older sister Seira at the same time. Lastly would be Chika herself and how she develops as both a leader and how she handles everything and trying to be the best to save her school.
-sigh- and even the second season won't give You a PROPER CHARACTER FOCUSED EPISODE...
Sunshine's 2nd season for LA at least showed that it wasn't trying to be a pale imitation of the original, this time, it was gonna fix the mistakes of the original.
From the aforementioned rivals being looked at a different light to the finale and eventual change of goal that Aqours goes through was a welcoming change even if this second season by in large was going at a slightly slower pace but the same flavour and personality it always had in the first season.
The animation done once again by Sunrise was typically of great quality, from the shiny character designs and beautiful backgrounds. The concert scenes by in large though it has Love lIve's typical CGI, like in the first season, it looked polished for the most part in terms of CGI, but the choreography and backgroundings for some of the concerts were GORGEOUS to look at some times. Seriously this might have been Sunrise trying to outdo themselves in the animation department.
In terms of voice acting, it was pretty much the same from the first season, with some highlights of Ai Furihata getting some limelight as Ruby to Aika Kobayashi doing her chunni thing as Yohane. However for LA, the best voice actor goes to Dia's voice actor, Arisa Komiya. Nonetheless the same old voice cast, but for LA, they honed in their character even more this season.
Sunshine's second season because of how it dealt with Aqours' problem head on with a few hijinks here and there, it was serious for the most part as to what kinds of leaps and bounds, constant trials and tribulations Aqours went through to the point, you can't help but root for these underdogs and maybe even make them want to win Love Live! after everything they have been through.
If Love Live Sunshine's 2nd Season did anything for it's finale was give a fulfilling conclusion that we all wanted and Sunshine gave it to us in spades. Yes something this second season outdid or something the original series never did give us was "closure". From giving us what the 9 members of Aqours is gonna do in the future to resolving all plot threads, making us root for these character and maybe Aqours might win and giving us actual closure on what happens to Aqours and the school, something not even the Love Live Movie or the original's second season never did.
From pale imitation of the original, to fixing the mistakes and improving of the original series' formula, Sunshine's Second Season was a great sendoff to the series with no loose plot threads, giving us characters to root for, character development *cough* cept You, seriously no You episode C'MON *cough* that help flesh out the majority of Aqours all under the typical Love Live personality and spunk it had in the original series.
Aqours really did shine by the end of it all...
