The Summer 2023 Anime Preview Guide

Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR

The "story no one knows about a girl everyone knows" reimagines Yoshiko Tsushima, the school idol afflicted with chūnibyō (adolescent delusions of grandeur), as a fortune-telling girl. The story is set in Numazu, a scenic harbor town surrounded by the sea and mountains. Since she was a little girl, Yohane has never fit in and has always felt apart from everyone in town. Her aspirations and proper place in this world lie elsewhere.

Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR is based on Love Live! Sunshine!! school idol project's Genjitsu no Yohane -Sunshine in the Mirror- magazine illustration series by Taira Akitsu. It streams on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

While this is a spin-off of Love Live! Sunshine!!, the first episode is accessible to newcomers. There are a few in-jokes laced through the background for established fans, and having a pre-existing attachment to these girls certainly doesn't hurt, but the writer doesn't assume you're familiar with the regular version of this show's cast. You could wander into this premiere without ever having heard of Love Live! and still come away understanding and probably enjoying it, especially if you're into idol anime. This is both a strength and a weakness of the premiere, honestly.

The weakness stems from how standard many of the plot beats are here. While it's different for a Love Live! entry since there's no central school or larger idol group, it still treads on familiar ground. You have the aspiring musical star protagonist, the rural town she's trying to escape for a life of show business, and an inevitable lesson about cherishing one's friends waiting for her. The fantasy setting adds a bit of spice, but it's mainly in the aesthetics. The setting is just Japan with some magical accouterments tacked on, and there hasn't been much worldbuilding so far. So while you don't need to already like the franchise to get into this, you do need a taste for idol fare because this is more of a musical than a fairy tale adventure.

That said, if you're down for an idol show where the complicated costumes are made by magic, this premiere is genuinely engrossing. Yohane was never my favorite character in the original Sunshine!!, but the writing here does a great job of shaping her into a likable, funny, and emotionally compelling lead. Perhaps because it assumes we know this cast already, the show takes its time doling out character introductions, allowing Yohane and her talking dog companion, Laelaps, to build a rapport all their own rather than immediately bringing in the rest of Aqours' fantasy counterparts. We see them banter, argue, and pick apart why Yohane is so set on leaving her hometown. She's prickly and prideful but also a lovable loser who's compensating for her insecurities. It's a surprisingly grounded way to translate her Chuunibyou gimmick into an actual fantasy world while maintaining what made her work in the first place. When she started talking about feeling like a failure no matter where she went, I did feel for her in a way disconnected from her original incarnation.

The show also looks excellent. The softer, squishier designs may take a bit of getting used to, but they complement a lushly illustrated world filled with beautiful vistas. The animation carries a lot of charm but remains restrained to match the more laidback comedy and pacing while still delivering some classic Love Live! comedy in key moments. The central musical number is solid, but I particularly love the return of the music video-style visuals introduced in the Nijigasaki anime. It works well to get us into Yohane's head while providing more striking and abstract imagery than a more straightforward stage performance. It's also a great way to showcase that Aika Kobayashi has the pipes to be the show's central songstress.

While perhaps not as significant a genre shift as some might have hoped, this premiere accomplishes the more important task of being a good episode in its own right. This is a laidback and welcoming return with their personalities intact if you're a longtime fan looking to revisit the Aqours crew. But this might be a more inviting entry point if you're a total Love Live! neophyte or someone put off by the main franchise's signature high energy.

You don't need familiarity with the Love Live! franchise of girl idol shows to jump into this one. However, I still find myself a little disappointed that it doesn't wear its idol anime influence more interestingly. Spun off from Love Live! Sunshine!! (of which I only watched the first episode); this first episode feels very much like a generic fantasy anime filled with cute girls and inexplicably talking fluffy dogs. Yes, there's singing from Yohane, the main heroine presumptive, but not much else distinguishes it. Even the fantasy setting and outfits are mostly generic, which is impressive given that we see a totally-not-fantasy-Tokyo alongside Yohane's remote hometown. The episode can't seem to figure out what it wants to do with its setting, considering we have magic, modern transportation, and old-school payphones all coexisting. Just making your public phones pink doesn't count as doing enough to turn a modern city into a fantasy one.

The other glaring issue, which might be more of an obstacle, is that Yohane is utterly obnoxious. While it's great that she has aspirations and goals, she is so sure of herself that she comes across as being very bratty. I understand that she's disappointed that she failed to make it in the big city, even after two years of what sounds like patchy auditions and busking, but that's no reason to act the way she does as if she's too good for her hometown, parents, and former friends. It may be that she's hiding her embarrassment under a snooty veneer, which would be a perfectly acceptable thing to do, especially at sixteen. But if that's what's going on, we need to see more of her personality or at least a bit more human kindness. Hanamaru wants to connect with Yohane, but Yohane's attitude is keeping that from happening, and that's something that the series will need to resolve or at least work with, sooner rather than later, if Yohane is going to become someone to root for.

I admit to being surprised when the giant fluffy dog Lailaps started talking, but that may be one of the episode's strengths. Yohane is a bit on the outs with her parents, either because of her actions or because her mom is flaky and thinks sixteen equals adulthood. However, Lailaps provides a sense of family for Yohane, which I believe she desperately needs. It's not easy having your dreams crushed the way hers have been, and having someone to reassure her that it's okay while calling her out on her less desirable behavior is important. I wish Lailaps' mouth was animated differently – or she communicated entirely psychically – but that's my chief visual issue here. I generally feel that you'll probably enjoy this more if you know the characters because this episode isn't doing them any favors.

I have never watched more than maybe two or three episodes of LOVE LIVE in my life, so this preview will be coming from a newbie that has absolutely no context for any of the references/callbacks/inside jokes that Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR. All I know is that the titular Yohane is a snappily dressed little witch-idol who seems to live in a Kiki's Delivery Service kind of world where the magic more powerful than the art of carefully choreographed song and dance routines set to Japanese pop music is…well, magic. Also, Yohane's "little sister" is a snarky talking wolf, which means this anime automatically gets a bonus half-star from me for featuring such a good fluffy queen. Truth be told, while I've yet to catch the Love Live! bug, my biggest impression going into Yohane the Parhelion was that the injection of some cozy fantasy elements might just transform me into a bona fide idol anime convert. My expectations weren't sky-high, but I wanted to become a fan.

I'll start with the positives first. This is a beautiful and overwhelmingly sweet little cartoon, and I imagine that fans of the franchise (and the idol anime genre in general) will gobble it up like so much pumpkin pie on a warm autumn night. Yohane is an endearing protagonist, and you feel for the girl who has managed to go an entire two years without breaking into Japan's idol industry (despite having a voice that is, again, capable of performing literal feats of magic). Her banter with Lailaps is fun, and I'm sure she'll get into all sorts of fun shenanigans with the other girls she is bound to become BFFs with after a couple of episodes.

Still, I won't lie: This premiere was boring for me. I often struggle with these kinds of extremely low-key slice-of-life style shows, and this one wasn't any different. The direction of the episode is quite plain for the most part, aside from the music video that injects a bit of life into proceedings at the very end, and the highly repetitive plunks and doots of the soundtrack ended up grating on my nerves more than anything else. It also didn't help that we don't have any translated lyrics for the musical numbers as of this writing, which makes it harder to get into the music even when it finally starts to kick things up a notch. I get why this show might appeal to many folks out there, but alas, Yohane the Parhelion did not provide me with the understanding and appreciation of LOVE LIVE that I've been searching for. Maybe next time.

First, I think it's important to mention that I've never seen a single episode of Love Live!—be it the original, Sunshine, or any other spin-offs. However, I don't think it's necessary to understand what is going on here. I'm sure there are a ton of little in-jokes and character interactions that will excite hardcore fans, but even as a complete outsider, the story and themes of this first episode were easy enough to follow.

While there is more than a bit of fantasy world set-dressing, what we have here is an anime built around an important issue in modern Japan: the depopulation of the countryside. Every year, more and more people come of age and move to Tokyo—leaving the numerous small towns and villages across Japan with an aging population and little hope of revival. But while this problem forms the backdrop for the anime, the real focus is on how the situation affects our heroine, Yohane, on a personal level.

Yohane hasn't found a home in her small town or the big city. Her hometown is a tight-knit community. You can't go anywhere without bumping into someone you know. So when she was shamed for singing alone in the woods, everyone knew about it. However, while escaping to Tokyo freed her from local gossip, it also robbed her of the strengths such a community provides. No one in Tokyo cared about her singing in the woods, but that's mainly because no one in Tokyo cared about her. This is doubly true on a professional level.

While undoubtedly a talented singer, Yohane went from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big one. The music industry in Tokyo is a buyers' market. They can afford to wait and find the perfect singer. They don't need to deal with a self-proclaimed diva. To them, attitude and being easy to work with are as important as singing talent. Yohane fundamentally doesn't understand this, so she is ultimately forced to return to her hometown. The majority of the episode is about her starting to realize the fact that she's the one holding herself down. The world isn't out to get her and through hard work and a bit of kindness, she can still obtain her dreams.

Despite the fantasy trappings and real-world commentary, Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR is nothing to write home about. It's got cute girls, equally cute animal mascots, a high-production music video, and a pretty standard moral about getting out of your own way to find success. I'm sure Love Live! fans will enjoy this one but as for me, there wasn't enough here to pull me back in for a second episode.

My dear colleague and friend, Nicholas Dupree, assured me that Yohane the Parhelion could stand on its own for people unfamiliar with the Love Live! franchise. He loves to live the Love Live! life; I prefer to respect it and its fans from a healthy distance—ideally one where I won't get whacked in the head by an errant glowstick. Although I haven't seen his score, I'm guessing that, as a fan, he liked the show, but as a non-fan, I must say I found it utterly tedious.

Like many spinoffs, Yohane banks on its audience already having an affection for the characters. Whenever someone shows up, you're supposed to point at the screen and say, “Hey! I know her!” I'm sure that if you're someone with that level of familiarity, you had a grand old time. This writeup is not for you. This writeup is for those of us who have no bloody clue who Yohane is and want to know if, by the end of the episode, they cared if she lived or died.

Spoiler: I did not.

Instead, watching this episode felt a lot like reading an AU fanfic for a series I knew nothing about. I got no little bursts of serotonin at familiar faces and no satisfaction from Yohane's magical girl idol wand appearing on a stump when she sings in the forest. And I found the song mediocre (not to mention the weird, semi-diegetic song and dance sequence carried over from the various mainline Love Live! series). The art is pretty, but the world feels no different from your average pseudo-medieval European setting—except that apparently huge modern metropolises exist? Whatever.

The point is, I got absolutely nothing out of this episode. While the visual direction is competent, the script leaves a lot to be desired. Removed from her chuunibyou origins, as I understand her original role, Yohane is just another small town girl moving back after being unable to hack it in the big city and acting all tsundere toward her hometown; her voice actor's tropey, by-the-book performance does little to dispel that impression. Hanamura's perkiness has an insincerity that, compounded with her little vocal tic of adding “zura” to the end of her sentences, grated my nerves down to bloody little nubs by the end of the episode.

So yeah, even if you can understand the story, Yohane the Parhelion is a fans-only affair. Or maybe that's just my grumpy, idol anime-hating ass. But then, if you like idol anime, you probably have already watched Love Live! Sunshine!! and know these characters anyway.