Umi Sonoda

Umi Sonoda is a main character in Love Live!. She was a second year student at Otonokizaka High School until she graduated at the end of Love Live! The School Idol Movie. She is the leader of Lily white, a sub-unit under µ's. Her image color is deep blue. Her solo album is called Umiiro Shoujo ni Miserarete (海色少女に魅せられて).

Background
Since she was young, Umi has been Honoka Kosaka and Kotori Minami's childhood friend, thanks to Honoka inviting her to play a game of hide-and-seek. She is also a member of the school's archery club, which she is quite good at. She believes Honoka is bossy and pushy, but also realizes the perks of having an adventurous friend. Among the members of μ's, Umi takes the role of being their physical trainer.

Umi has a far older sister who has already moved out. Her father is a martial-arts trainer while her mother teaches traditional Japanese dance; as a result, Umi is expected to inherit the combined dojo of both. As the heiress to her line age's legacy, she is burdened with the responsibility of carrying on her family's traditional Japanese practices and techniques. She also is highly skilled in kyūdō (弓道), or the Japanese martial art of archery. Predictably, Umi's traditional upbringing is reflected in her personality and behavior.

Personality
Umi has the qualities of a yamato nadeshiko, or a proper and traditional Japanese lady. As such, she is generally shy when having to interact with unfamiliar people. Even with those she is comfortable with, she seems to act reserved by default unless provoked. She is highly intelligent and a very logical solution-seeker. Above all, she is extremely disciplined--nearly to a fault-- and as a result can often be hard on others. This is exemplified in Season 2 Episode 7 when she forces Honoka and Hanayo to do long training hours after they gain a bit of weight. However, this is never motivated by feelings of malice or dislike aimed at her friends. Umi is often overly strict towards her friends, but is the most unforgiving with/hardest on herself. She despises laziness, shortcuts, and/or cheating; she instead places a lot of value in hard work and perseverance.

As self-destructive as this may be, these qualities combined with Umi's strong will makes her well-suited to leadership, which she often utilizes by being one of the main organizers of logistical or business-related action items for µ's. Where her leadership skills lack in sociability, she makes up in organizational excellence. This, in tandem with Umi's inclination to stay in the background when she can, makes Umi the perfect second-in-command to Honoka's leadership in µ's. In this manner, the two operate perfectly as the primary leaders in µ's. Honoka establishes and maintains µ's core of friendship and love for both members and fans alike through her ability to unify, inspire, and motivate. Umi facilitates the less enjoyable, yet arguably more vital, aspects of their idol work.

The foil between Honoka and Umi's personalities affect areas outside of leading µ's. Honoka is more of a happy-go-lucky, modern day schoolgirl, which lead to her impulsive goal of becoming a school idol. Due to Umi's traditional values of proper ladylike behavior, Umi resisted Honoka's pleas for Umi to join her. Umi's strict moral compass made nearly all aspects of being an idol highly inappropriate and embarrassing for her. However, she is shown at times to entertain intrusive thoughts in which she acts entirely contrary to her code of proper behavior. One example of this is when in the middle of practicing archery, she imagines herself as a cheery and energetic idol saying (what will later become) her signature catchphrase "Love arrow, shoot!" (ラブアローシュート); Umi is greatly flustered and ashamed of even having such a thought. When she does eventually agree to becoming a school idol, she is at first uncomfortable with wearing short skirts and opts for pant shorts. However, she learns to get used to skirts as time goes on.

Despite her overall calm and collected personality, there are a few exceptions. In Season 1 Episode 10, the rest of µ's learns (the hard way) that Umi gets very grumpy and angry if she is woken up in the middle of sleeping. Season 2 Episode 5 reveals that Umi's moral aversion to dishonesty is also actually just a literal inability to lie: when playing Old Maid, Umi is painfully unable to keep a poker face. Any emotion she feels is immediately obvious by her facial expressions. In this way, Umi continually loses every game, which frustrates her, because she is entirely unaware of this behavior. Her persistence and determination causes her to repeatedly ask to play another game, but her unawareness of her emotive reactions does not relent.

Ultimately, although Umi is rather strict, especially towards Honoka, she is a genuinely kind person and a very loyal friend who does the best she can to help her friends. She's also well-mannered and always speaks politely, using "です" (desu), "ます" (masu), and other polite forms of speaking in her speech.

Clubs and Hobbies
As the daughter of an Iemoto (家元, Head of Music & Arts School) mother and a Shihan (師範, Martial Arts Inspector) father, Umi excels in Kendo,, archery, calligraphy, and traditional dance. Starting in the second season, she becomes Otonokizaka High School's new student-council vice president, taking over the role from Nozomi Tojo. She likes reading as well.

Umi becomes the group's main lyricist, and writes the song "START:DASH!!", along with most of the rest of their songs. She also trained the members of the group before Eli Ayase took over the role. She either created the dance steps for START:DASH!! or aided Kotori in coming up with the choreography.

Appearance
Umi has a slim build. She has long dark blue hair that she splits into three bangs and hazel eyes.

Audio

 * Does not work on iPad, or any medium that does not support the .ogg audio format.

Songs
The songs featuring Umi are: Solo = Watashitachi wa Mirai no Hana Yuuki no Reason NEURON,NEURON!! µ's= Bokura no LIVE Kimi to no LIFE Yuujou No Change Snow halation Baby maybe Koi no Button Natsuiro Egao de 1,2,Jump! Mermaid festa vol.1 Mogyutto "love" de Sekkin Chuu! Aishiteru Banzai! Wonderful Rush Oh,Love&Peace! Bokura wa Ima no Naka de WILD STARS Kitto Seishun ga Kikoeru Kaguya no Shiro de Odoritai START:DASH!! Korekara no Someday Wonder zone No brand girls LONELIEST BABY Music S.T.A.R.T!! LOVELESS WORLD Takaramonozu Paradise Live ENDLESS PARADE Koremade no Love Live! Sore wa Bokutachi no Kiseki Datte Datte Aa Mujou Donna Toki mo Zutto COLORFUL VOICE Yume no Tobira SENTIMENTAL StepS Dancing stars on me! KiRa-KiRa Sensation! Happy maker! Soshite Saigo no Page ni wa Shangri-La Shower Ruteshi Kisuki Shiteru Dreamin' Go! Go!! Mi wa µ'sic no Mi Super LOVE=Super LIVE! Angelic Angel SUNNY DAY SONG Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari HEART to HEART! Arashi no Naka no Koi dakara Korekara MOMENT RING Sayounara e Sayonara! A song for You! You? You!! Natte Shimatta! lily white = Shiranai Love*Oshiete Love A-NO-NE-GA-N-BA-RE! Binetsu Kara Mystery Kimi no Kuse ni! Aki no Anata no Sora Tooku Futari Happiness Onaji Hoshi ga Mitai Otohime Heart de Love Kyuuden Omoide Ijou ni Naritakute Shunjou Romantic Duo & Trio = Soldier game Susume→Tomorrow Anemone heart Storm in Lover Future style

Chronology
NOTE: Due to its separate continuities, Both the Anime and Manga's stories are not canon to each other unless otherwise specified. Season I = Season II = Manga =

Etymology

 * The name Umi means "sea, ocean" (海) (u) and "un-, not yet, hitherto, still, even now, sign of the ram, 1-3PM, eighth sign of Chinese zodiac" (未) (mi).
 * Umi's surname Sonoda means "garden, park, plantation" (園) (sono) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (ta/da).

Trivia

 * Umi fulfills the cool attribute of the µ's second years.
 * Umi originally had an additional younger brother before it was written off.
 * Umi didn't like to eat sticky food when she was in elementary school.
 * In the manga, which was published prior to the anime, both Umi and Honoka were portrayed to be members of the kendo club.
 * The various media in the project disagree on the relationships between the second years. In the manga which was published earlier, Honoka is closer to Umi as the two of them are childhood friends and not with Kotori, but in the anime and other newer media, the three of them are all childhood friends.
 * Umi wears her summer uniform's vest under her blazer. However, this is not shown in Season 2's ending credits.

Gallery

 * Please refer to this character's Image Gallery.