Bubble Rise:

Love Live! Superstar! S3 had a lot of great songs, among them 'Bubble Rise.'  I've now added it to my music hall of fame, taking out 'Exterior' from World of Warcraft to make room.  Bubble Rise is probably a 5-star quality song, but it's stuck at 1-star for now to preserve symmetry.  I've almost finished my rewatch of Love Live! Superstar! S3, and it really is a valuable season of an already very long franchise.  The best part of every Love Live season is its song and dance sequences, and this season also delivers.  But the Shanghai visit was also valuable as a contribution to world peace -- I'm so tired of people demonizing China when all they do is provide a middle-class lifestyle for over 1 billion of their own people by building cheap, high quality products for the other 7 billion people on Earth.  What more could you want out of a group of people?

Taiwan was awarded to China at the end of World War II, in 1945.  The treaty was signed and the whole world recognized Taiwan as part of China.  Afterwards, the Chinese Communist Party won the civil war with the Kuomintang, a vicious dictatorship that had slaughtered millions of their fellow Chinese in their quest for power, that finally 'died by the sword' in the same way they had crushed all their previous rival warlords for power, by the sword, in a war that stretches all the way back to 1912.  The new government inherited all the rights of the old government, including the same territorial boundaries as the old government had, which is what happens every time a government changes all across the world.  It didn't matter if France was a monarchy or a republic, the outside world still believed France had the exact same borders as before.  Winning or losing an election doesn't redraw the world map every time.  So why does Taiwan suddenly not belong to China when the government switches from nationalist to communist?

The North didn't let the South rebel and breakaway into the Confederate States of America, so I don't understand why China is so evil for refusing to let Taiwan breakaway and become an independent country.  Maybe if people support Dixie they would have a right to support Taiwan, but the same people attacking Dixie also attack China for not allowing Dixie to secede.  It makes no sense.

It's obvious that China cannot permit Taiwan to be an unsinkable aircraft carrier right off their coast full of American drones, missiles, planes and possibly nukes for the same reason the United States did not permit Cuba to be used in the same manner by the U.S.S.R. right off the coast of Florida.  If we can understand JFK's position in the Cuban Missile Crisis then we should be able to understand China's position as well.  As Russia has learned, allowing a hostile proxy power to be right across your border is impermissible.  Sooner or later that proxy starts launching drones, rockets, artillery shells or missiles at you, all obviously provided to them by foreign superpowers, while hiding under the fig leaf that it's just 'Taiwan doing it' so you can't strike back.

This is actually the same complaint Israel has towards Yemen, Hamas and Hezbollah.  These terrorist organizations can't possibly field the military might they do on their own, they're obviously Iran's proxy army, shooting missiles into Israel of Iranian origin, while Iran whistles and smirks nearby, saying an attack on Iran would be an act of aggression, and Iran hasn't done anything to Israel all this time.  It doesn't matter that this argument is stupid and insane -- there is no moral difference between shooting someone yourself or handing a gun to a subordinate and ordering them to shoot someone -- realistically, in the real world, this argument has succeeded over and over again.  In fact Iran has not been retaliated against by Israel, and Russia has not retaliated against America, Britain and France, even though it's so obvious who the real perpetrators are.  China does not want to be put into the same hapless geopolitical position as Israel and Russia have been.  It doesn't want this point of vulnerability where it can be bombed by Taiwan and unable to respond against the real enemy.  It does not want this point of vulnerability to be used as leverage against them so that they must yield all sorts of other concessions to avoid a proxy war -- like say freeing Tibet, or no longer fighting radical Islamist terrorism in East Turkistan, or holding democratic elections, or granting perverts the right to gay marriage or conduct transgender surgery on children, or paying unfair tariffs, or abandoning their Russian allies, or whatever the malevolent west has plans for.

The argument that the big bully China is so mean for bullying their little neighbor Taiwan has it all backwards.  It's actually China being bullied, via Taiwan, with U.S., NATO, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc. all ganging up on them by hosting all their weapons right off China's coast and threatening China with them constantly.  We've seen this all before and we've already seen how it ends -- Moscow getting bombed by American missiles.  The argument that Taiwan is just sitting around, minding its own business, and arming itself with American weapons to the teeth does not fly because we already saw what happened when Ukraine was 'minding its own business' getting armed to the teeth right across Russia's border.

No superpower can allow another superpower to attack it via a convenient nearby proxy while pretending they didn't do it so they can't be retaliated against.  Therefore no convenient nearby proxy can be allowed to exist, period.  Taiwan has elected to be a convenient nearby proxy, instead of a demilitarized neutral territory, just like Ukraine, so obviously it will be treated the same as Ukraine -- as a real threat that needs to be eliminated.  Anyone in China's position would do the same.

The point Love Live! makes is Shanghai is full of normal human beings just like you or I.  They have feelings, they care about others, they want to be happy and make people happy, and they have created a beautiful, sophisticated civilization where they can make that happen for which they can be proud.  These aren't demon-rats to be exterminated or a menace to mankind.  They're human beings.  In fact, as far as human beings go, they're paragons, well ahead of the pack.

Other mini-arcs of the story are also effective.  The story of Oninatsu (or whatever her name is) wanting to be all these prestigious things and then slowly realizing real human beings don't ever get to be those prestigious things (celebrities, Nobel prize winners, supermodels, etc.), is edifying.  I'm so tired of the 'achieve your dreams' culture that encourages every kid to plan on becoming an astronaut.  We should be preparing our kids to become truck drivers, because that's all they'll ever be.  Except AI will master truck driving soon, so actually all we should prepare our kids to be is welfare addicts, because soon robots will be doing all the work in the entire world.

I also rewatched Oshi no Ko S2.  It was really good, just like I remembered it being.  The Tokyo Blade curtain call where all the actors come onto the stage and bow to the crowd which is applauding them is such an emotional crescendo.  Peerless.  Even after the Tokyo Blade play ends, there are lots of heartwarming and heartchilling moments with Ruby, as we explore the depths of both her love and hate.  I would uprank Oshi no Ko to, like, 47th in my anime hall of fame, except I'm still not sure the whole story will be adapted.  Oshi no Ko S3 is going to be covering a rather boring patch of the story, and if viewer interest fades (like what happened to Kanojo mo Kanojo), there won't be a season 4 that covers the wonderful ending to the tale.  Without an ending Oshi no Ko isn't actually worth much.  I'll give Oshi no Ko an accurate rating in 2027, when it becomes clear whether the anime will actually be a masterpiece or not.

I really like how Aqua treats Akane.  He relies on her for intelligent counsel and emotional support, while completely forgoing sex with her, despite her beauty and stated willingness.  That's going above and beyond the call of duty.  Girls, even romantic partners, should be treated first and foremost as fellow sentient, feeling minds, and only secondarily as sex objects.  Aqua, like Riki from Little Busters!, understands that.  He trusts her so much that he even admits he's plotting murder to her, knowing she won't betray him to the police.  He's reached a spiritual union with her of unbounded strength.