Part 9: Love & Live

Up to this point, things have followed a pretty simple order: a new member is teased, they release a solo album, and then music videos are released for both the main solo and the b-side(s).

However, this is the point when things get shaken up a bit. Love & Live gives us our first subunit — a smaller group within the overall group of LOONA.

The first teaser for this subunit came in the form of a tweet posted on January 31st, 2017.

An image of a cake decorated with strawberries, with one third of it taken out and decorated with candles. Underneath it is text reading "LOONA 1/3: Coming Soon." The caption said the same thing, along with two additional hashtags reading (via auto-translate): "#FirstBroadcastReady" "WhoAreTheMembers"

This would mark the first mention of LOONA's first subunit: LOONA 1/3. As the name implies, it consists of four members out of the eventual twelve.

Now, if you guessed that these four members are Heejin, Hyunjin, Haseul, and Yeojin, you would be... wrong, actually!

Rather than simply having the four existing members make up this subunit, it was teased that instead, three of the existing members would be chosen, plus one brand new member.

On February 5th, 2017, the first video teaser for LOONA 1/3 was posted, simply titled "[Teaser] 이달의소녀 1/3 (LOONA 1/3) 'New Project.'"

Although the teaser made it seem like fans would get to vote on who they wanted in the subunit, in reality this was actually just a front. (As far as I know, there wasn't even anywhere to vote at all lol...)

Behind the scenes, it was decided that Yeojin would not be a part of 1/3, as she was still in school and her parents wanted her to focus on her studies. (At least that's the story I've always heard — I can't actually find a source for this anywhere. If anyone has one, please let me know.)

Thus, Heejin, Hyunjin, and Haseul plus one currently unrevealed member would make up LOONA 1/3.

The next teaser for the subunit would come on February 11th, 2017, titled "[Teaser] 이달의소녀 1/3 (LOONA 1/3) '???'" The tweet promoting the video prompted viewers to try and guess who the members were.

There isn't really any lore to discuss here so in short, we see various details about the members of 1/3 such as their handwriting, eyes, how far they can jump, etc. We see Heejin, Hyunjin, and Haseul, with a fourth spot to represent the last member always following with just question marks, usually on a light pink background.

The next day, the identity of the fourth 1/3 girl, and the fifth member overall, would be revealed on Twitter: Vivi! Her representative animal is a deer, and her representative color is light pink. She is associated with Hong Kong.

This first teaser image shows Vivi with light pink hair, sitting and looking at the viewer. She wears a red sweater, blue denim shorts, and black socks.

Her name is written in red.

Later that same day, the official Twitter would tease something being released at midnight on the 14th for Valentine's Day. This would end up being a sneak peak of Valentine Girl, one of the b-sides on LOONA 1/3's first album.

However, there's a subtle hint in the song's title. The original Korean title is "3월을 기다려" which translates to "Waiting for March." Within the context of the song, it's a reference to White Day, a holiday celebrated in many East Asian countries on March 14th, one month after Valentine's Day. Traditionally, girls give boys gifts on Valentine's Day, and then the boys reciprocate by giving gifts to the girls on White Day.

However outside of this context, it's a hint that LOONA 1/3 would debut in March.

Sure enough, at the beginning of March another teaser image was posted to the official Twitter account with the caption "Finally! March!!"

The teaser is simply of four yellow juice boxes lined up in a row, with the LOONA 1/3 logo in the corner. They're Vita Ceylon Lemon Tea, a popular drink in Hong Kong, the location Vivi is associated with.

The next day, another Vivi teaser image would be posted.

This second teaser image shows Vivi staring at the viewer. She wears a white shirt with a thin red ribbon bow, and a black skirt with white outlines and a red star.

Her name is written in red.

In the following days, the other members of 1/3 would get solo teaser images as well to promote the subunit's debut. These were all shot in Hong Kong.

Next is Haseul, who sits in front of some kind of shop. She wears a blue dress over a white button-up shirt with a blue ribbon bow, along with white shoes and socks.

Her name is written in a shade of salmon pink, distinct from Heejin's vivid pink and Vivi's light pink.

Next is Hyunjin, who leans against a pole on a city street. She wears a yellow turtleneck and white skirt, along with white earrings.

Her name is written in the same shade of salmon pink.

On March 4th, the official Twitter announced that a TV commercial for the upcoming music video would be airing the next day. Alongside this announcement, this photo of a running track was posted.

After it aired, the commercial was posted to the official YouTube account.

It doesn't contain anything that isn't in the music video itself, so we'll wait to talk about it until later.

The next day, Heejin's teaser image was released.

In hers, Heejin leans against a wall and looks back to smile at the viewer. She wears a blue denim jacket over a white shirt.

Her name is written in salmon pink.

The next day, we'd get our first look at the subunit all together. From left to right, Vivi, Hyunjin, Heejin, and Haseul all pose together, looking at the viewer.

They all wear variations on the same basic outfit: a blue dress/jacket and skirt over a white button-up with a blue ribbon bow, and white socks and shoes. Vivi and Heejin wear jackets and skirts, while Hyunjin and Haseul wear sleeveless dresses.

Everyone stands except for Heejin, who is sat on what I think is a fire hydrant? Haseul rests her hand on her shoulder.

Two more teaser videos were released, titled "New Zealand" and "Hong Kong" after the two locations where Love & Live's MV was filmed. Like the rest of the location teasers, these are purely behind the scenes footage and don't have lore relevance, so we can skip them.

After them, the official MV teaser for Love & Live was released.

Once again, it doesn't contain anything not in the MV itself, so we'll save discussion of its contents for later.

There was also a preview of the album, showcasing snippets of each song, but once again it doesn't contain any lore relevance so we can skip it as well.

Finally, on March 12th, 2017, the music video for LOONA 1/3's debut song Love & Live would be released.

The song has a different title in Korean, "지금, 좋아해," which translates to "Now, I Like You." The album description describes it as "[defining] the color of LOONA 1/3" and "illustrating a girl who runs in order to meet you." The track itself is described as "[gaining] in rhythm as in spring that awakens, and [presenting] a pleasant fluttering to the listener."

The description also mentions details about the MV itself, saying that the four girls "play the part of a track team" and show off their individual charms: "Heejin as a girl well-rounded in talent, ability, effort, and looks, Hyunjin as a girl who's clumsy unlike her delicate features, Haseul as a girl with wisdom and thoughtfulness as the leader of 1/3, and Vivi as a girl adapting to the world of LOONA after arriving from an unfamiliar world." That last bit is especially important.

With all that being said, there's nothing left to do but go ahead and watch the MV!

This MV is quite important, so let's dive right into the analysis.

The video begins with a few different shots of passing scenery, as we hear the sound of someone running and breathing heavily.

One shot of someone's feet running through grass stands out, as it's actually a sneak peek at a scene from much later in the MV.

We see the same track from the teasers, with the LOONA 1/3 logo. All the track scenes were filmed in New Zealand, with everything else being filmed in Hong Kong.

As the music starts, we get our first real shot. Hyunjin, Haseul, Vivi, and Heejin all stand around the track, clearly resting after having just run. They wear identical track uniforms comprised of white jackets with navy ribbons on the sleeves and the LOONA logo on the front, along with navy shorts, white shoes, and white socks.

Hyunjin sits on the ground, with a water bottle and towels beside her. Haseul is to the right of her, bending over out of exhaustion. On the far right, Heejin stands and leans over as she catches her breath. Singled out in the middle is Vivi, who stands perfectly still and straight, blankly staring forward.

We then briefly see someone holding a clipboard which lists each of the girls' times. The others have varied times across the 13 rows, while Vivi has a perfectly consistent time of exactly 12.94.

The camera zooms in on Vivi and we get a blurry look at one of the girls running with a baton, before we get this shot. Vivi stands with her eyes closed behind a chain link fence, one hand on the fence.

The camera fully zooms in on Vivi from the initial shot, still blankly staring at the camera.

Afterwards right as the intro ends, we go back to the fence shot and get a close-up of Vivi's left eye opening. It resembles a galaxy, a shade of indigo with lots of twinkling white stars within it. Obviously unnatural.

As the song proper starts, we see one of the main choreography scenes. The girls wear the blue uniforms we saw in the teaser images. They dance on a green basketball court.

In between close-up shots of the girls getting ready to run, Heejin sings on top of a rooftop, wearing a white flowy top and yellow skirt.

The collar has writing on it which I'm pretty sure says "bounce finger." (??? lol?)

On the track, Heejin positions herself and looks up towards the camera, ready to run.

As Hyunjin starts to sing, we see her sitting on a rooftop as well. She wears a yellow top, white skirt, and white shoes and socks. Right next to her is a satellite dish.

Haseul starts to sing, also wearing a yellow outfit. She also appears to be on a rooftop, standing next to a run-down brick wall.

We see a stopwatch and someone (Haseul) preparing to blow a whistle, indicating they're about to start practice.

As Vivi sings her part right before the chorus, we see her behind the fence again, only this time she's smiling and singing along.

As the chorus starts, Heejin starts to run. The baton she holds is half yellow, half purple.

We see Haseul on that same rooftop as the other two, and can get a better look at her outfit here.

We get a first-person perspective shot of Heejin as she runs, holding the baton in her right hand.

She passes the baton to Hyunjin, who begins to run with it as Heejin stops.

We now also get a good look at the second major choreography scene, which takes place on a brightly-colored tennis court. The girls wear different uniforms here: white shirts with navy ribbon bows, yellow skirts, and white shoes and socks.

Hyunjin passes the baton to Haseul, who runs with it.

She then passes it to Vivi. They've gone in debut order, starting with Heejin and ending with Vivi.

Compared to the others' more natural-looking running, Vivi is again stiff and emotionless as she runs, seemingly unphased by the physical exertion.

The stopwatch is stopped at 49.93, and then we see 49.75 on the board. I don't know much about relay races, but it seems like times are slightly adjusted to account for various things, so this difference seems like standard procedure and not anything actually noteworthy.

Later, we see Vivi looking through a window, watching Hyunjin and Haseul talking to each other. She's standing in an empty classroom with the lights off, wearing yet another uniform. This one consists of a red vest with the LOONA logo, a white shirt, white skirt, and white shoes and socks. We can also see that she wears a large clunky-looking backpack.

It's a painfully lonely scene, the brightness and laughter of the girls outside directly contrasted with Vivi alone in this dark room. Her expression is still mostly blank, but it looks a bit sad to me too.

As she looks at them, the lyric "I wonder if you're like me in some ways" (via official captions) / "You and me, I wonder what about me and you are similar?" (via ColorCodedLyrics) is sung, which I take to be reflective of Vivi's thoughts in this moment. She's wondering about how different she is from the other girls.

Vivi sits down at one of the desks, reaching behind her head, and that's when we find out something quite surprising — she's a robot!

She plugs in a wire from her backpack into her neck, and a small light above goes from red to glowing blue. A screen on the backpack lights up reading "CHARGING" with a little bar that fills up.

Vivi is officially referred to as an android, so that's what I'll be calling her from now on.

(The term "android" generally refers to human-like robots, while the term "cyborg" refers to a human/organic creature with robotic parts. Vivi has only ever been referred to as an android, which implies that she lacks any organic parts whatsoever.)

This backpack was confirmed to be some form of battery which Vivi charges from in Idol Radio Episode 11.

Heejin passes by the classroom and sees Vivi through the window. We don't really get to see much of her reaction, so it's unknown if she's shocked by what she sees or if this is something she already knows.

We see all four girls walking together, dressed in their red uniforms. Heejin, Hyunjin, Haseul all chat and laugh together, while Vivi trails behind separate from them, emotionless as usual. She wears her backpack here, which we can now assume is some kind of power source/portable charging station for herself.

We see them on the basketball court, where Vivi makes a perfect shot from a considerable distance.

The other girls watch it go in and then turn to Vivi, seemingly confused/surprised.

Next we see the girls drinking those Vita Ceylon Lemon Tea juice boxes we saw in one of the initial teasers. Vivi however just holds hers and looks at the others, once again standing apart from them.

In the next shot, we realize why — as an android, she presumably can't drink them. Instead, she just takes them and stores them in her locker. We can see from the sheer amount of them that this has happened many times. Do the other girls wonder why Vivi never drinks hers? Or have they not even noticed?

The fact that Vivi keeps them is very telling it and of itself. She wants to participate and feel like she's part of the group, but she can't do what the other girls do.

Her keeping the boxes rather than throwing them away indicates two possibilities to me: Vivi keeps them as mementos, and/or she keeps them in case maybe one day she's able to actually drink them. Both are possible, but it's left ambiguous. The first indicates that Vivi cares about the other girls even if she doesn't show it, and the second indicates that Vivi wishes to be human. I think both are likely.

After some singing shots, Vivi closes the locker.

Vivi walks through a hallway towards where her backpack is sitting on the ground. (I suppose she left it there while she did something? We've seen her without it before when she was running track, so we know she doesn't need it at all times.)

Her expression is once again blank, but the way she stares at the backpack appears contemplative.

She bends down and unplugs it from the outlet on the wall.

The screen on the backpack flashes the word "DISCONNECTED," before a timer for 5 minutes appears and starts counting down.

On the tennis court, Hyunjin in her track uniform pops a balloon over her head. Immediately afterward, we see Heejin running on the track again like in the beginning.

As she runs, we see the timer again, which is now at a little under 4 minutes.

Immediately afterward, we get the shot of Vivi opening her galaxy-looking left eye behind the fence again.

The baton gets passed to Hyunjin and we see her running again as well.

Vivi watches, presumably from her waiting spot further along the track, her hair blowing in the wind. Her expression is still fairly blank, but her parted lips make her look like she's almost smiling. She looks contemplative, just like in the hallway, but this time it feels less negative and more positive. Wistful.

Right afterward, we get quick flashes of previous scenes: Vivi watching the others drink the juice boxes, Vivi trailing behind the group, Vivi watching Hyunjin and Haseul talk through the window of the empty classroom. It comes across as memories flashing through Vivi's mind in this moment.

We see the timer again, which now displays less than 3 minutes.

The baton is passed to Haseul, who then passes it to Vivi. We get flashes of Vivi unplugging the wire from her neck, then unplugging the backpack from the wall.

The timer flashes at around 2 minutes left, and then we see Vivi run out of the hallway, after she unplugged the backpack.

As that high note hits, we see Vivi start running off the track and out past a playground towards a road. (And more specifically, right into the yellow warning indicators on the road.) The timer flashes again, now under 2 minutes.

Next we see her, she's all the way out in a field. There's a forest ahead of her, though it's blocked off by a fence.

She then makes it onto a street, seemingly in the middle of a neighborhood somewhere.

The timer finally reaches zero and flashes.

Right as this happens, we see Vivi's left eye glow again.

The screen displays the words "LOW BATTERY" before shutting off.

Immediately afterwards, Vivi's eye stops glowing and she stops running. In contrast to before, she now bends over to catch her breath. It seems that for the first time, she's actually gotten tired.

We see the screen on her backpack one more time, now displaying the words "LOVE & LIVE."

At the very end during the credits, we get an additional scene of the four girls in their red uniforms. They run in place and practice passing the baton to each other at the command of a man off-screen. Once again, Vivi wears her backpack.

(From what I've seen in my research, their form is actually pretty bad lol... the one receiving the baton generally is supposed to have their arm much higher in the air.)

And that's the end of Love & Live. Not only is it a more story-heavy MV, but it's also our first introduction to Vivi's character, so there's quite a lot to discuss.

Obviously one of the biggest points is the ending, but let's save that for a little later, as I want to discuss Vivi's general character and motivations before we get to what it all culminates in.

From the moment we first see her, Vivi is marked separate from the other girls. As an android, she doesn't get tired like they do. Throughout the MV, we see instances of Vivi not fitting in with the others. Even when they're just walking or talking, she's always distant from them.

Even their appearances indicate this separation. Heejin, Hyunjin, and Haseul all have natural black and brown hair colors, while Vivi has unnatural pink hair. In fact, she's the first member to be seen with a completely unnatural hair color.

(Birdseul has blonde hair in Let Me In which is a hair color humans can have, though it's unnatural for someone of Korean descent which also marks him as being different from regular people.)

This is also represented by LOONA 1/3's name. In "1/3" the "3" represents Heejin, Hyunjin, and Haseul, while the "1" represents Vivi — literally separating her from the others. (The slash represents Yeojin, who is not a part of the subunit — or any subunit, for that matter — but is usually associated with 1/3.)

(Fun fact: Fractions in Korean are read the other way around, so "1/3" is read as "3/1" which makes this parallel clearer by having them be in debut order.)

She's also separated from them in member debut order, as Yeojin is in between them. Vivi being the first member to appear in an MV before her solo MV also distinguishes her as different from the others.

However, it's clear that Vivi isn't content living like this. Her longing stares at the other girls, her attempts to fit in with them, her keeping the juice boxes in her locker... and of course, the entire last part of the MV. It all points to Vivi wanting to be like the others.

Luckily, this isn't just speculation — it's one of the few things that's been explicitly confirmed. In an Instagram post later that year titled "Vivi's Story," (translated here) the MV's director (and the director of many of LOONA's music videos), Moon Seokho, shared several details about Vivi's character. One section specifically addresses the plot of Love & Live:

"Love & Live's music video is about the android Vivi searching for her identity and love. Seeing the other girls who run out of breath after running, she thinks 'Why do I not get tired? Why doesn't my heart beat faster? I want my heart to pound too.'"

This culminates in the ending of the MV, which Moon Seokho also comments on:

"Vivi, who runs and runs until her heart starts pounding, ultimately stops in the middle of an unfamiliar new road."

This lines up with what we see at the end: when Vivi finally stops running, she appears to actually get tired just like the others. Why is that?

Well again, thankfully, this is one of the things that's been explicitly confirmed. (Courtesy again of Idol Radio Episode 11.)

At the end of Love & Live, Vivi becomes a human being. This is why she starts getting tired at the end — she is no longer an android.

Now you may ask: how does that work? The answer is... who knows. Canonically, we have no actual reasoning for Vivi becoming human, nor an indication of what that exactly means.

We already established that the term "android" implies a lack of organic parts, so what does "becoming human" in this context actually mean? Did her body magically turn organic? Or is it merely psychological, like her breaking free from her programming or something? We may never know.

The only thing we know for sure is that it seems to be directly caused by running. Moon Seokho's post specifically phrases it as her running "until her heart starts pounding."

While we haven't seen it enough to really nail it in as a common motif at this point, LOONA music videos are sort of famous for their running scenes, and it's actually a fairly important concept within the Loonaverse. I won't say anything specific for now, but this isn't the only instance of running seemingly having magical properties.

While I personally prefer to think of it as sort of fairy tale logic — Vivi ran so fast with so much emotion and desire in her heart to become human that it actually happened — I still want to break down exactly what happens in this final sequence.

We see that Vivi has this backpack, which functions as a battery. We see it both plugged into the wall, and plugged into her. We also see Vivi without it, particularly during the track scenes. The way it likely works is that the battery gets charged from an outlet, and then Vivi herself charges from the battery.

However, when Vivi unplugs the backpack from the wall, it begins a 5 minute countdown which seems to correspond to Vivi's own battery, as she stops running right as it runs out and powers off. Which seems odd.

Regardless, Vivi unplugs the backpack and then seemingly heads to track practice. Though I'd imagine that her getting there, changing into her uniform, and running all that way through the fields and everything would take a lot more than 5 minutes.

With these inconsistencies, I think it's actually likely that these shots of the unplugged backpack and the scene of Vivi running off the track aren't actually happening at the same time, but are merely being paralleled.

We know that Vivi can function without the backpack itself, as she seems to get power from it that then gets stored in her, rather than staying in the backpack — basically, the backpack is a backup power source that she can carry around and charge from when needed.

With this in mind, I think Vivi unplugging the backpack in the hallway is more of a symbolic action. It doesn't literally correspond to her own power, but it shows that she doesn't plan on using it anymore.

Her personal battery likely can last for longer than 5 minutes, which is how she attends track practice. She then runs off the track, through the fields, and into the suburbs, before she turns human. The shots of the backpack's battery running out likely happened earlier chronologically, but are shown alongside her running to get across the point of her own battery running out.

That being said, we don't actually know if Vivi's battery runs out at the end. If these musings about the backpack are true, then it running out of battery doesn't necessarily mean Vivi runs out of battery. All we know at the end is that she becomes human, seemingly by running. So perhaps the backpack running out of battery isn't meant to indicate Vivi's own battery running out, but rather symbolically show that Vivi no longer needs a battery.

Getting back to the end though, Vivi runs seemingly for a while before finally stopping and becoming human. What exactly caused her transformation? Was it the distance? The speed? Her sheer desire? A combination? Or something else?

Like I said before, we have no way of knowing. Running has special properties in the Loonaverse, but we don't exactly know why or the specifics of how it works. I leave all that to personal interpretation. If you want to theorize about what exactly caused Vivi to turn human then go ahead, but I'm personally content with saying "it just does." It's magic!

One thing I want to bring up is the scenes where we see Vivi singing. Here, she's fully expressive and smiling. I think we can safely count these scenes as "non-canon," just like the choreography scenes usually are. This reads to me as Vivi the idol, rather than Vivi the character.

However, if you wanted to consider these canon, then you could always see them as taking place after the end of the MV once she's turned human. Again, up to your personal interpretation.

Next, I want to discuss the other girls. We learn in this MV that they all attend school together, which is interesting in and of itself. We already knew that they were friends, but this tells us that they all live in the same area. We saw each of them in their representative locations (Heejin in Paris, Hyunjin in Tokyo, Haseul in Reykjavík) and without any further information, it was easy to assume that perhaps they just lived there.

However with this, it's clear that they all live in the same area. Considering the MV was filmed in two different countries, it's likely not meant to be literally New Zealand or Hong Kong. With this in mind, it's also possible that the other locations we've seen aren't meant to be entirely literal either.

I think this is very possible as again, while we haven't seen many instances of it yet, the Loonaverse is filled to the brim with various vague liminal spaces. While these first five members live on Earth as fairly normal girls in comparison to future members, I still think this applies to them as well.

I'm sure you could come up with reasons for the characters to be in those locations (for example, perhaps they were just on a trip, or maybe Hyunjin lived in Japan before moving to wherever 1/3's school is located) but I think in general, it's much better to think of the Loonaverse's locations are more symbolic.

Just like how Haseul might not have literally killed an alternate version of herself in Let Me In, she might also not have literally been in Iceland. Perhaps it was simply to represent her "cold heart."

I'm not saying that none of these locations can be literal. For instance, we see the girls sightseeing and staying in a hotel room in My Sunday and My Melody, so they could've definitely actually been visiting Taiwan in the context of the story there.

But I think if you think of every location as having to be literal, you get caught up in trying to hamfist logistics, which just detracts from the story in my opinion. The Loonaverse is inherently a very symbolic and non-literal story, so I don't think it's worth worrying about.

With that out of the way, I also want to discuss the other girls' relationship with Vivi. First off: Are they aware she's an android?

Like I mentioned before, it's hard to tell. They seem confused/surprised by some things, like her perfect basketball shots, but unphased by others, like her emotionless demeanor, identical track times, etc. We see Heejin catch sight of Vivi charging in the classroom, but her expression and lack of a true "reaction shot" afterwards still leave it ambiguous.

We do get a bit information on this aspect in the next MV, which I'll be discussing in Part 10, so for now all I'll say is that regardless of whether they know or not, the other girls do seem to leave Vivi out quite a lot.

Again, we see her constantly separated from them during activities, and they don't seem to really involve her in conversations. However in their defense, it's possible that Vivi herself is the one distancing herself. They also clearly at least try to involve her, such as giving her the juice boxes. (Though if they do know that she's an android, that seems kind of insensitive... but maybe they just want her to feel included?)

I think the specifics of their relationship are up to interpretation, but I personally think that while the other girls don't have any bad intentions, they do view Vivi as different from them and leave her out a bit, intentionally or not. I think they do care about her and again, it's possible Vivi herself is the one enforcing this distance, but it seems clear to me that even if they do know she's an android, they don't really know how to approach that. It's clumsy, but I think they're trying their best.

While on this subject though, I bet some of you are wondering: Where is Yeojin?

Now obviously the literal reason is that she isn't a part of LOONA 1/3, but what's the canonical reason? She's already been established to be friends with the other girls, so why don't we see her with them here?

Well, I think there's a simple explanation. Considering the fact that she's younger than all of them, she's likely in a different grade and thus doesn't share classes with them. That, or she simply goes to a different school entirely. I think both are possible. Of course, those aren't the only possible explanations, but they're the simplest and make the most sense to me.

Back to the 1/3 girls, something I did notice in Love & Live's choreography is that the girls often seem to be split into pairs, with Heejin and Hyunjin paired together, and Haseul and Vivi paired together.

We already know from I'll Be There and My Sunday that Heejin and Hyunjin are particularly close, but it's interesting that Haseul and Vivi are paired together since they don't interact one-on-one here at all. It could just be for choreography reasons, but it also could imply that perhaps those two also have a closer relationship, or that there's otherwise some significance there. Time will tell.

On the topic of other versions of this MV, there's a vertical version that features many shots not included in the original. Most of them are just additional singing/dancing scenes, but there were two new shots that caught my eye.

The first comes when Vivi throws the basketball. After the regular group reaction shot, we get this new additional shot of Hyunjin with her mouth open in surprise. Maybe it's just my brain, but her expression here looks almost a little impressed, as opposed to the more confused look of the previous shot.

It's interesting that they single out Hyunjin specifically here. We haven't seen any specific interactions between her and Vivi. (Yet.)

The other is this shot of Haseul that comes when Vivi starts running off the track. She appears to be watching Vivi, and her expression looks almost... proud? A little confused, but there's an air of respect as well.

We know from earlier in the MV that Haseul is the one who blows the whistle, and considering that she's the leader of 1/3 as a subunit, it's possible that she's also the manager for the track team. Either way, I don't think Haseul knows the significance of her running like this, but it seems like she might be impressed with Vivi's abilities (while also simultaneously being confused as to why she's just run away lol.)

Aside from those two shots, the vertical version doesn't hold any other relevant differences, which brings us to the end of this analysis.

Overall, while it features the entirety of LOONA 1/3, Love & Live is very much Vivi's story. We get to know her as an emotionless android, inexplicably going to school with normal girls Heejin, Hyunjin, and Haseul. While they're all friends, Vivi feels distant from the rest of the group due to not being human. She wishes she was like them, and eventually through the power of running, manages to achieve her dream.

One big question lingers in the air however: Why is Vivi an android? Who built her? Why is she attending school with the others?

Love & Live introduces us to Vivi, but there's still much more to learn about her. I'll see you in Part 10, where we'll go over the rest of what LOONA 1/3's debut album has to offer!