Very rarely does a meme turn into something as good as the Yohane spin-off. Originally created as an April Fool’s Day joke, Sunrise saw the reception and decided to make it a real anime. I’m glad they did. Yohane has been my favourite Aquors member and 2nd favourite Love Live girl for a long time and the story in this one really did her justice.Allowing her to shine in a way she just couldn’t get in the main anime due to sharing the spotlight with the other girls. The show manages to keep the feeling of the original Sunshine series, while mixing in a modernfantasy element. The fantasy aspect is a little underwhelming. It does feel like the story is very self-contained to the small town in which it takes place, however, as with all Love Live titles, the show really shines with the character interactions. Yohane and her faithful companion Lailaps have a very nice, almost sibling relationship. Over the course of the show we see the two of them bond and come to understand each other. Despite being an original creation for this anime, I quickly got attached and fell in love with Lailaps. The struggles that she and Yohane go through over the course of the show, how she comforts Yohane in her times of need.. Just really resonated with me. It’s a simple yet poignant relationship. While the other girls do feature in the show heavily, it’s very much a Lailaps and Yohane story at its core. Yohane growing into her own person is a very sweet story and I loved every moment of it. As I said, the rest of the Aquors cast are in the show as side characters. Some more than others. They basically act as a plot device for Yohane to become more independent and leave her childhood behind. There’s some cute moments with the cast as they try to help Yohane through some emotional trauma she’s had, but this is very much her story. So don’t expect too much in terms of substance and development from the other girls. The fantasy elements like I said are kind of weak. The whole overarching plot of the calamity ended up being somewhat underwhelming, but the characters are the main selling point in this one. I think if you are at all interested in Yohane from the Sunshine anime this is a must watch as it really shows who she is at her core. A lot of times she was used as comic relief during the main anime, and while she is definitely funny, there is a lot more to her than memes. So this was a welcome development. Of course, you can’t talk about Love Live without the musical performances. As expected based on the series’ recent form, the songs in GNY are all great. There’s a couple group performances and some solos and they’re all bangers. I swear the songwriters are just getting better and better with these. They’re going from more anime-y songs to legit bops.The CGI continues to improve to a point where it’s almost indistinguishable from 2D animation in these performances. The future is certainly bright for idol shows. I thoroughly enjoyed Genjitsu no Yohane and thought it was one of the most underrated shows of the season. It went from an April Fool’s meme to a genuinely heartwarming and moving experience for one of my favourite characters that had me in tears for a couple episodes. If you’re a Love Live fan it goes without saying this is a much watch, but it’s also an enjoyable slice of life fantasy watch for casual fans. It’s cute, simple, but effective. Genjitsu no Yohane gets 9, out of 10.

After finishing this show, I only have one thing to say... I need a second season bro. Genjitsu no Yohane started out as an April's Joke from the sunrise staff surprisingly became an actual anime with deep messages and gripping character development. They could've made this anime as a joke, but they didn't. The staff went above and beyond with this anime, and I praise them for that. This is a spin-off with a lot of heart put into it. The story - I'm gonna keep this review spoiler-free so do not worry. The story of this anime is more of a character-driven story focused on Yohane,rather than LL Sunshine where the focus is on everybody. Every episode focuses entirely on Yohane, tackling each and every one of her flaws., and by the end of this season, she grew so much to the point that I could honestly say that she's a better written and developed character compared to her LL Sunshine counterpart. The characters - as you can expect from a spin-off, the characters here are the same characters that we know and love from LL Sunshine. Not entirely the same because it's a spin-off, and they need to at least alter one or two traits of the characters in order to fit in to a new setting. They are all well-written and competent characters that amplifies the enjoyment I watch from the show. Yohane, of course, is the best written character here as expected of the main character, but the other characters also gets better and get development. I won't say who they are to keep this spoiler-free. I'd say though, my favorite character in this show is Chika, because she heightens up Yohane's character, she felt like a mentor-figure, like once a main character before, so she teaches the knowledge that she has to Yohane, which in turn makes Yohane develop. The animation - even as a spin-off, the main selling point of Love Live is still the songs and the dance that comes with them. And let me tell you, the dance animation here is on another level. Sunrise really is the Best in the industry when it comes to human CGI. I've praised them a lot before, but I really feel like they reached another Peak here. The action scenes are also amazing as well. It's not ufotable level of course, but it's not lacking for an anime made in 2023. The art of course is beautiful. The art of Love Live has always been top-notch since Sunshine, and I'm happy to say that they've continued to be Peak here as well. The music - It's originally a music anime. So do you really expect me to give this category any less than 10? Overall, I'm really happy with my conclusion with this review. It's unbiased and really tells you the actual quality of the show.

Directionless: The anime starts off strong with introductions to Yohane and friends, beautiful artstyle for the animation, and great music. Then comes the middle of the show where each episode just felt like time filler for the next song that will be performed and the main antagonistic force at play is completely forgotten about so much so that the show felt like it was dragging. Fantasy setting? Very underutilized. World building? Not much of it. What danger is there? Just a few deer in 2 eps... While the final episodes finally turned the gears for something to happen in the show, the emotional parts fallflat due to the dragging of those middle episodes but at least the ending is a bit middle of the road. The anime could've been better if it didn't introduce an antagonistic force and focused on being a pure slice of life but they chose to try to do both and somehow sacrificed the plot and made a muddy sol. In conclusion, if you're an Aqours fan you can find some moments that can make you excited Aqours is back animated if you ignore everything else...while for others new to this franchise looking for something not idoly I'd say it's safe to skip.

This anime is a long awaited spin off of Aqours. Aqours is my favorite group out of all the Love Live franchise, and its a real pleasure to see them got animated again after all this time. This anime is what I expected it to be if Love Live become a fantasy magical girl anime. Focusing on the same genre as the main series. Such as friendship, trust, relationship, hardwork. And how can we forget the most important one, songs. They slip the idol genre a little in here. Not as heavy as the main series but I'm glad they keep it. Story is very great,neatly packed. If the story is some kind of painting, it would be very beautiful to look at. Heartwarming feeling every episode makes the viewer comfy watching it. Don't expect a lot of fighting animation. They do have some action scene, but its not really the focus. The story is slow paced so they give us the time to immerse inside the world they build. It feels like you are there yourself inside the small village of Numazu. I always like countryside without all the busyness of a city. People help each other, people know each other, and that's what this anime portray perfectly. Small fantasy village with a wholesome vibe around it. Every villager personality is very nice. There are no villain, or maybe there is. The villain in this anime isn't clear. They can't see what the villain is, but they can feel it existence. For me tho, I just call it a problem. Because in the end they manage to solve the problem in a very Love Live way. A lot of Love Live reference is here of course. But that doesn't mean this anime is only for Love Live fans. You can enjoy watching as long as you like this kind of thing. I said that because I personally feel this anime is not for everyone. Magical girl thingy, fight with love, not fist. Animation is unbelievably great. Definitely looks disctinctly different from the original Love Live series. Everyone get a slightly different color pallete design and I love it. I always welcome subtle changes like this. Isn't really obvious but I can feel something is different. The bright lighting also a match with the themes this show bring. Sadly there are no serafuku which I dearly love from LLS. There's barely any action scene. When there is one, they did not let it flop, eyes just glued to the screen because how awesome it is. I swear the studio is just flexing their Gundam animation skills. All the main characters VA is a top tier of course. Sometimes I even think about how they all can consistently make their anime counterpart voice after all this time. I have already listen to Aqours music and they can't stop to produce catchy songs. I love the OP, the ED, and insert song inside this anime, never skip them. BGM also enhance the mood of the scenes. Not much on I can comment about because I'm speechless its all perfect. So should you watch this? Well like I said above its not for everyone. Its too girly, yeah I can safely say that. But again, anime like this always reach outside of their target audience. Especially since it have such a big name plus fantasy genre. Little fun fact this anime is originally an April Fools back in 2021. Love Live always give it their all on every April Fools. And this anime is one of them. Everyone wishing it was real and here we are. There's also 2 games plan to be released in the same universe as this anime. Again, these 2 games is a very different genre compared to the usual rhythm games. I think its a good thing that Love Live franchise will grow out of the box with experiment like this. Thank you for reading my review.

Genjitsu no Yohane is a visually appealing spin-off, that boasts some of the best songs in the franchise, but at the same time fails to tell an interesting story and does a huge disservice to the original cast. Being a Love Live fan, the announcement of this spin-off came as a pleasant surprise. An alternative setting with our favorite LL girls, which could be filled with fantasy and adventure. Each girl had her own shtick, with Kanan being an engineer or Mari being a demon queen, and these things had a lot of potential to tell an interesting story. But unfortunately, none of these came to be.The story revolves around a certain mystery that happens in Numazu which makes animals go berserk once in a while, and is therefore limited pretty much only to that place. The idea in itself isn't so bad, but it was never executed properly. Half of the episodes in the anime are purely SoL episodes with no relevance to the story, which later on, when the story actually progresses, it fails to actually be interesting. The characters themselves also lose most of their personality and are reduced to a one-off shtick (as mentioned above), while all previous relationships established in Sunshine! are entirely gone. Kanan/Mari for example, or Chika/You/Riko feel like practically strangers in this show. Everyone focuses just on one single character - Yohane. Every sentence they utter is about her and regarding her. Yohane makes the world there go round. Unfortunately, Yohane's character was another disappointment, as she never convinced me why she deserves to be a main character. For most of the anime's time, Yohane is spent moping, crying, being depressed or making drama. She can't do that, she doesn't deserve to do that, etc. are regular motifs in here. Every time, without fail, she'll be pushed up and supported by Lailaps, or the other girls from Aqours. Not long after, Yohane becomes a celebrity in town and everyone focuses on her and supporting her, despite the fact that she has never shown us she's done anything exceptional. From an outsider's perspective, she's basically just a random teenager who does random errands for people and likes to sing. She cannot fight, and she cannot support anyone else. Because of that, it's bizarre seeing how everyone revolves around her. Meanwhile, Yohane's development is a very mixed bag. At the end of the day, she did develop quite a lot, but the process was extremely tiring with one step forward one step back for a long time. Yohane tries to do something, fails or succeeds, then for whatever reason she goes back to moping in her bed. Lailaps comes to cheer her up, they argue a little, and then another chance comes to repeat this process. Luckily for the anime, I think that the songs are definitely the stronger ones in the franchise (coming second after the series of bangers NijiGaku has released), and with the songs themselves and CGI lives being so great, it elevates the show by a lot. The quick succession of songs in the first half of the anime lulls the viewers into a false sense of security, forgetting completely that there's a story to be told (that is being skipped). The anime also looks great. The new character designs feel really "soft" and nice, and the anime is very colorful and vibrant. Ultimately, Genjitsu no Yohane is an eye candy and a treat with its songs for Love Live fans, but as a standalone anime, it's a huge disappointment, failing to have a proper story, and butchering the personalities of the characters we love.

Let me preface this by stating I have not watched Love Live! Sunshine!!, but I am at least familiar with the original Love Live series and the concept of idol shows as a whole. At least from its advertising, Genjitsu no Yohane didn’t seem to require any prior knowledge of said series, so I will be predominantly reviewing it as such. ☆ Story: 4/10 Genjitsu no Yohane is- definitely interesting. While it had a good premise at the beginning, the show does fall short on fully explaining its lore and narrative as a whole. For the most part, the storyline was either disjointed or rushed, the whole“calamity” aspect feeling clunky at best and downright confusing at worst. I am providing a little leeway here, given that this is clearly the work of those who have never had to write high fantasy (or likely anything with supernatural twists) before, but it is still important to note that this series isn’t exactly competent in the way it handles its fantastical elements. The Lailaps subplot was essentially the only aspect which felt properly constructed in my opinion, with the twist in episode 12 being the sole reason this ‘story’ section of my review was bumped from a 2/10 to a more tolerable 4/10. ☆ Characters: 4/10 The problem with having a show like this and being expected to include nine main characters (plus Lailaps, to make ten) is that there simply isn’t enough to time really flesh any of them out in a single cour (~11-13 eps) anime. Yohane is pretty much the only one to see anything even resembling character development, with the others pretty much just shoved in for the sake of retaining the original LLS cast. In short, I believe it boils down to the fact that a school-based idol anime has a greater advantage in terms of having its protagonists interact with each other in a believable manner - After all, they’re all around the same age, and likely in many of the same classes, so getting them to naturally form an idol group together isn’t a huge stretch. Compare this to the fantasy world of GnY, wherein the nine main girls + Lailaps all have separate jobs, subsequently having little (if any) reason to interact with each other aside from “because the plot demands it” or “ because we’re all friends with Yohane”. ☆ Music: 8/10 This is by far the show’s strongest aspect, with each of the songs and their accompanying music videos being beautifully written, performed, and overall just fun to listen to. ☆ Animation: 8/10 For the most part, this show’s animation is pretty average, although I am bumping the overall score up due to how fluid and dynamic the music videos were. Additionally, I have to give praise for their decision to do this mostly in 2D, with the LL franchise otherwise seeming to love their (somewhat uncanny, in my opinion) 3D animations even for non-music video scenes. ☆ Enjoyment: 6/10 Not much to say here, really. I’m sure I would have liked this more had I already been a LLS fan, but as things stand now, I found myself either bored or confused for the majority of my watching. ☆ Overall: 6/10 Again, I am being generous here in assuming some jokes or references went over my head as a new viewer, but I cannot fully ignore the fact that, at least in a vacuum, Genjitsu no Yohane simply didn’t have enough time to accomplish what it originates set out to do. Perhaps if it had been double or even triple the length, this show could have proved an engaging and unique standalone fantasy+idol series, but as is, I believe the only people who will enjoy this are those who have already seen the original Love Live! Sunshine!! saga.

I don't want to be harsh on this, cause I'm very happy to have a Love Live Sunshine spinoff at all, but I feel like Sunshine in the Mirror could've been a lot better than it was. Specifically it seems pretty halfhearted in a lot of what people want from something like this. It doesn't get rid of singing and performances, but there's less singing than one would expect from Love Live. It's set in a fantasy world, but with plenty of modern amenities (and some tokusatsu elements?) and it never leaves the single town of Numazu. It has everyone from Aqours, but other thanthe eponymous Yohane, Lailaps gets more focus than all of them combined. And as far as I remember from Love Live Sunshine, Lailaps is a completely new character for this, and one I don't find all that likeable. As for the Aqours members themselves, their personalities only vaguely resemble how we know them, if at all. Mari's case is especially egregious, with the loveable, bubbly troublemaker becoming a secluded, depressed demon lord. All that said, while the lack of adventure and relation to Love Live proper I expected is disappointing, I still think Sunshine in the Mirror is a good anime and a good addition to the Love Live series. Visually, it's beautiful, with intricate lighting, beautiful colors, and great attention to detail. All the Aqours girls, despite their differences, are still loveable, especially Yohane. What songs the girls do sing are very good. I would very much appreciate more content like this from studio Sunrise.