Ai Love Triangle

Ai Love Triangle (アイ Love Triangle) is the fourth episode of the ''Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2'' anime series. It aired on April 23, 2022.

Summary
Ai Miyashita invites Karin Asaka to shop with her. Misato joins them, and she tells Karin about her illness. Ai explains how Misato and her began to bond. Karin asks Misato to explain to Ai how she feels, which in response she denies into say anything. Ai asks Karin if she saw Misato with a strange attitude. She goes to Misato and askes her what's wrong. Misato explains that ever since Ai became a school idol, she felt lonely. Ai tells Karin she wants to make a sub-unit, and Karin agrees when she thinks it's a competition. Together, they preform Eternal Light and Misato gets cheered up.

Cast

 * Hinaki Yano as Yu Takasaki
 * Aguri Onishi as Ayumu Uehara
 * Mayu Sagara as Kasumi Nakasu
 * Kaori Maeda as Shizuku Osaka
 * Miyu Kubota as Karin Asaka
 * Natsumi Murakami as Ai Miyashita
 * Akari Kito as Kanata Konoe
 * Tomori Kusunoki as Setsuna Yuki
 * Maria Sashide as Emma Verde
 * Chiemi Tanaka as Rina Tennoji
 * Moeka Koizumi as Shioriko Mifune
 * Shu Uchida as Mia Taylor
 * Akina Homoto as Lanzhu Zhong

Trivia

 * Despite both girls making a cameo appearance in the opening, the episode marks the first animated appearance of Misato Kawamoto and Kaoruko Mifune, with Yui Ishikawa and Yoko Hikasa reprising their respective roles from Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS.
 * The episode serves as the anime's origin story for DiverDiva.
 * Unlike previous episodes, this unit focused arc only lasted for one episode.
 * During DiverDiva's performance, some frames in the MV referenced the girls' cards and outfits in Love Live! ALL STARS.
 * Like most contact photos on their phones, Ai's photo is also taken from Muteki-kyuu*Believer MV.
 * A scene of Yu holding her camcorder could be a reference to a recurring skit in anime's pre-show program.
 * The matching panda straps was released as a real-life item.

Callbacks to previous Love Live! Series

 * The episode also serves as the third time a dark blue-haired (Karin) and a blonde-haired (Ai) character interact with each other in the franchise after Nozomi Tojo/Eli Ayase and Kanan Matsuura/Mari Ohara.

Differences from the ALL STARS game

 * As seen on one of Ai's bond episodes, her blonde hair is dyed. In the anime continuity, her blonde hair is natural.

Continuity Notes

 * Lanzhu performs Eutopia for the third time (she performed for the second time off-screen in Overlapping Colors).
 * Touou Academy's Himeno Ayanokoji and Misaki Shido showed up and attended DiverDiva's live show.

Errors & Goofs

 * 06:44 Utensil on Ai's side pops out of nowhere.
 * 09:50 Color saturation is different, making surroundings appears to be overcast.
 * This episode is notable for having oversaturations all over the scenes in contrast to the previous episodes.