Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror
Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror is a Japanese multimedia spin-off project from the Love Live! fantasy musical anime series. It is a fantasy re-imagining of Love Live! Sunshine!!, and follows Yohane, a failed idol turned fortune teller in the quiet city of Numazu, and her exploits with the other members of the community and her talking wolf, Lailaps.
Yohane the Parhelion originated as a series of fantasy illustrations included in the monthly Love Live! Days magazine starting in October 2020. In February 2022, these were adapted into Genjitsu no Yohane Unpolarized Reflexion, a manga published in Love Live! Days. On April Fools' Day 2022, the Yohane the Parhelion anime series was teased, ostensibly as an April Fools' joke, before eventually being confirmed as a real production and airing for 13 episodes from July to September 2023 on Tokyo MX and other channels. The anime was produced by Sunrise, directed by Asami Nakatani, and written by Toshiya Ono, with Yumiko Yamamoto designing the characters and Tatsuya Kato composing the music. In 2023, two video games were released based on the series: Yohane the Parhelion: Blaze in the Deepblue, a Metroidvania action-adventure game; and Yohane the Parhelion: Numazu in the Mirage, a roguelike deck-building game.
Premise
Yohane the Parhelion is a re-imagining of Love Live! Sunshine!!, featuring characters and settings based on their counterparts in Sunshine!!. The exact period the series is set in is vague, with the depicted technology and styling alternating between the 20th and 21st centuries. Magic exists, but its prominence varies throughout the project; in Unpolarized Reflexion and the video games, it is a significant factor, while in the anime, its role is fairly limited. Malevolent entities such as miasma, resonance, or Loveca Gems are recurring plot elements, typically depicted as affecting sentient beings such as wildlife and making them aggressive.The project follows Yohane who, after failing at becoming an idol in Tokai, is reluctantly called back to her hometown of Numazu, where she becomes a fortune teller and lives alongside her pet and familiar, a talking wolf named Lailaps. Though she views her situation with disdain, unbeknownst to her, she wields magical powers associated with her singing that usually manage to resolve her problems and help the wider community. Throughout her life in Numazu, Yohane interacts with her friends.
Characters
;Yohane;Lailaps
;Hanamaru
;Dia
;Ruby
;Chika
;You
;Kanan
;Riko
;Mari
Supporting
;Yohane's mother;Chika's mother
;Shima
;Mito
;Tsuki
;Kohaku
;Tonosama
Production and release
In October 2020, the Genjitsu no Yohane: Sunshine in the Mirror fantasy illustration series, drawn by Taira Akitsu, first appeared in the Love Live! Days magazine. It inspired the Genjitsu no Yohane: Unpolarized Reflexion manga series, launched by Kōta Matsuda in the same magazine in February 2022, both of which featured Yoshiko as the main character. The Love Live! franchise posted an April Fools' Day video in 2022 hinting at the series, though it was not officially announced until June 26, 2022. The series has Asami Nakatani as the director and Toshiya Ono as show writer. It features music by Tatsuya Kato, who composed the music for Love Live! Sunshine!!, and Yumiko Yamamoto as the character designer. Aqours sings the opening and ending songs, "Genjitsu Mysterium" and "Kimi no Tame Boku no Tame".The series was picked up by Crunchyroll, an American streaming service, where the first episode premiered on June 25, and by Abema, a Japanese streaming service, the same day. It premiered on Crunchyroll India on June 26. The series later premiered on July 2 on Tokyo MX, Nippon BS Broadcasting, Sun Television, KBS Kyoto, and TV Aichi, and on Shizuoka Broadcasting System on July 3.
In June 2023, it was announced that a short video would be posted on YouTube to commemorate the anime, and the Yohane no Uranai Koheya internet radio program would be launched, which would accept submissions from fans. The same month, Inti Creates revealed that a game entitled Yohane the Parhelion: Blaze in the Deepblue based on the anime would be launched on various platforms on November 16. On June 21, a crossover chibi short premiered using characters from the Genjitsu no Yohane: Sunshine in the Mirror illustrated series and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.
A compilation film of the series was announced on June 30, 2024. The film premiered in Japanese theaters on November 29, 2024.