Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-24187738-20180225155956/@comment-34825207-20180226095713

My best girl is Dia (Buu Buu Desu Wa!!)

Twitter: @MiggyMeenyMiny

I will now present a college anecdote of how LL! Sunshine!! got me out of the biggest rut I've been in for quite a while.

This may seem like a tall tale, but with all the sincerity my being can muster, I can easily say, LL! Sunshine!! brought direction back to my life.

I only watched the series on the exact day the series ended (December 30, 2017) so I'm pretty much a newbie, but I played SIF around 3 years ago, but stopped because of school work piling up and I was gonna start college soon, so I thought, I had to focus more on academics and I dropped SIF and anime along with it.

I didn't think too much of it, until the roller coaster known as 2017 rolled along and turned me into a wallowing mess. I had no clear direction in life, I engaged in things that, in retrospect, I shouldn't even have thought about. The stress of university, a failed relationship, the fear of mediocrity amidst excellence from my peers, alcoholism, everything just seemed like it was crumbling down. Until a faithful day appeared before me. A friend told me he had a copy of LLSIP and it brought back good memories from when I watched, so I thought, why not? Let's go watch. That was probably the best decision I made at the latter part of 2017. I felt abnormally happy after we marathoned through it.

I decided to watch LL!Sunshine!! right after that, because I knew absolutely nothing about it. Watching the whole series, I felt as though it was a journey that showed me direction, Riko trying to find the drive to play the piano again, Dia's resistance as a facade from the past of the 3rd years and not to mention, my two favorite plot points, Mari's undying love for Uranohoshi and especially her best friends and Chika's search for her own radiance. Through the journey of watching the series, I couldn't help but be filled with the emotions that I craved for. For what felt like an eternity, I actually felt happy, I felt determined, I felt like I could do more. Although I haven't been part of the community for a long time and I haven't been active in getting to know more people, there's a lot more time and seeing how LL!Sunshine!! impacted the lives of others? It makes me feel right at home.

I couldn't help but cry when I rewatched their performance of WATER BLUE NEW WORLD, but I didn't understand why. Then I realized, it was, in my opinion, their best performance (and song) in the series and as I read through the lyrics, I felt like it was ironic that I connected so much to a song that I couldn't even understand, everything just resonated with me; the college student who has only been involved with LL!Sunshine for 2 and a half months. But here I am now, a proud college student, head held up high because of 9 girls that made their dream a reality.

I haven't voiced this out to anyone yet and even if I don't win, I feel like it's only right to give credit where credit is due and if anyone takes the time to read through this lengthy anecdote and feels the same or just now, understands how impactful an anime series can be, that's alright with me. Thank you LL! Sunshine!! Thank you Aqours. You made this once heaping mess genuinely happy and you gave me direction in my life, and that direction's forward. Now back to studying for my test that's in 2 days.