ラブライブ！スーパースター!! | 明治神宮外苑いちょう並木 — Sumire Runs Toward the Center

Sumire runs alone beneath the long rows of ginkgo trees in episode 10. She has been placed at the center of “Nonfiction!!,” the position she has demanded since the beginning, and now she trains where nobody is applauding. The scene strips away her poses. Each stride is an answer to the trust the others have placed in her. The real avenue is almost severe in its symmetry. Four rows of trees pull the eye toward the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery, while the straight pavement offers nowhere for a runner to hide. In autumn the leaves turn the road theatrical, but Sumire’s practice gives the location its sharper meaning: a center is not the person who occupies the brightest point. It is the person willing to carry the performance when the bright point becomes pressure. Walk the avenue from the Aoyama end and watch the vanishing lines close around you. The road resembles a runway, yet Sumire’s memory here is not her entrance. It is the work she does before anyone sees her arrive. Photo source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jingu_Gaien_Ginkgo_Street_in_Autumn.jpg — Kakidai, CC BY-SA 4.0. Location and scene cross-checked against public pilgrimage maps.