Awaken the power (Episode)

“Awaken the Power” is the ninth episode of the second season of Love Live! Sunshine!!, and the twenty-second episode of the television series overall. Produced by Sunrise, it was first broadcast in Japan on 2 December 2017. The episode follows Aqours after the elimination of Saint Snow from the Love Live! regional competition, concentrating on the relationship between the younger sisters of the two groups’ sibling pairs.

The episode introduces “Awaken the Power”, an insert song performed by the combined eleven-member ensemble Saint Aqours Snow. Its narrative connects the competitive structure of the Love Live! tournament with the impending graduation of the third-year students at Uranohoshi Girls’ High School and Hakodate Seisen Girls’ Academy.

Plot

Aqours learns that Saint Snow has been eliminated during the regional stage of Love Live! after Leah Kazuno falls during the group’s performance. The result ends Saint Snow’s final opportunity to compete while Sarah Kazuno, Leah’s older sister and the group’s senior member, remains enrolled at Hakodate Seisen Girls’ Academy. Leah treats the failure as a personal error that invalidates the work she and Sarah invested in the competition.

The members of Aqours travel to Hakodate, where they meet Sarah and Leah. Dia Kurosawa recognizes that Leah’s distress is connected not only to the failed performance but also to Sarah’s approaching graduation. Ruby Kurosawa identifies with this concern because her own participation in Aqours has developed alongside Dia, whose graduation will similarly alter the group’s composition.

Ruby attempts to speak with Leah, but their initial conversations expose differences in how they respond to their older sisters. Leah expresses her attachment through competitive discipline and has difficulty discussing the end of Saint Snow in its existing form. Ruby is less confrontational, although she shares Leah’s anxiety about continuing as a school idol without an older sibling in the same group. Their exchange shifts the episode’s focus from the regional result to the question of whether their musical activity can continue independently of Sarah and Dia.

Ruby and Leah decide to prepare a performance for a local Christmas event. They develop the presentation separately from their older sisters so that the completed work will demonstrate their ability to organize and perform without relying on them. Chika Takami and Riko Sakurauchi assist with the preparation through Aqours, while Sarah supports the event without taking control of Leah’s work.

You Watanabe participates with the other visiting members of Aqours in the rehearsal process and the final stage presentation. Yoshiko Tsushima and Hanamaru Kunikida likewise support the younger pair while remaining outside the central sibling conflict. These activities place the surrounding members in an enabling role, leaving Ruby and Leah responsible for the conception and emotional purpose of the performance.

At the Christmas event, Ruby and Leah begin “Awaken the Power” as a two-person presentation. Dia and Sarah subsequently join them, followed by the remaining members of Aqours. The resulting eleven-person formation combines Aqours and Saint Snow under the name Saint Aqours Snow. The performance allows Leah to sing with Sarah after their elimination while establishing that Leah can continue her school-idol activity after Sarah’s graduation.

Narrative structure

The episode functions as a continuation of Saint Snow’s earlier role as Aqours’ principal competitive counterpart. Previous appearances emphasized differences in experience and performance discipline between the groups. “Awaken the Power” instead examines a shared institutional constraint: school-idol groups are temporary organizations whose membership changes as students graduate.

Ruby and Leah form the episode’s central parallel. Both are younger sisters whose initial entry into school-idol activity was influenced by an older sibling, but the episode does not present them as interchangeable. Ruby’s development concerns her willingness to initiate a project and communicate its purpose publicly. Leah’s development concerns her separation of a single performance failure from her broader capacity to continue singing.

Dia and Sarah occupy corresponding senior positions without resolving the conflict for their sisters. Their limited intervention permits the younger pair to complete the project through their own decisions. The final expansion from a duet into an eleven-member performance therefore does not replace Ruby and Leah’s work; it places that work within the relationships that motivated it.

The Hakodate setting distinguishes the episode from the series’ usual setting in Numazu. Winter streets, seasonal illumination and the Christmas-stage setting establish a visual environment associated with Saint Snow rather than Aqours. This relocation also reverses the groups’ usual relationship, as Aqours enters Saint Snow’s local and institutional context instead of encountering the pair primarily as visiting competitors.

Characters and performance

Ruby Kurosawa is voiced by Ai Furihata, while Leah Kazuno is voiced by Hinata Satō. Their dialogue and singing carry most of the episode’s dramatic progression. Arisa Komiya performs Dia Kurosawa, and Asami Tano performs Sarah Kazuno, creating the corresponding older-sister roles within the two groups.

You Watanabe appears as a second-year member of Aqours and takes part in the collective preparation and performance in Hakodate. Her position is comparable to those of Chika Takami, voiced by Anju Inami, and Riko Sakurauchi, voiced by Rikako Aida: all three participate in the supporting ensemble while Ruby and Leah remain the principal characters of the episode.

The concluding performance includes all nine members of Aqours together with Sarah and Leah. This configuration is distinct from an ordinary collaboration between two complete groups because Saint Snow contains two members, producing an eleven-member ensemble rather than the eighteen-member arrangement that would result from combining two standard nine-member school-idol groups.

Music

“Awaken the Power” serves as the episode’s principal insert song. The lyrics were written by Aki Hata, who also wrote the principal songs associated with the Love Live! franchise. The composition is structured around alternating passages for Ruby and Leah before expanding to include their sisters and the full ensemble.

The song was commercially released on 20 December 2017 as a single credited to Saint Aqours Snow. The recording formalized the temporary group name used for the collaboration and preserved the episode’s eleven-member vocal arrangement. Its placement within the episode differs from a tournament performance because the Christmas event has no competitive result and does not affect qualification for Love Live!.

The performance also supplies the episode’s dramatic resolution. Leah’s earlier fall remains part of the chronology and is not revised by a subsequent victory. Instead, the new song transfers the narrative emphasis from qualification to continuation, linking Saint Snow’s elimination with the approaching changes in both groups’ membership.

Position within the series

“Awaken the Power” occurs after Aqours has advanced beyond the stage at which Saint Snow is eliminated. It temporarily suspends the main qualification narrative in order to examine the consequences of the competition for a group that can no longer advance. The episode subsequently returns Aqours to the second season’s continuing concerns regarding Uranohoshi Girls’ High School, graduation and the group’s remaining performances.