I know this movie was released nearly 4 years ago now, but I recently watched it and decided I wanted to write a review for it anyway. Plus it gives me a break from writing essays over the cold war, so here we are.

Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl is much more drama focused than its prequel and expands on the character Shouko, who we learn very little about in Bunny Girl Senpai.

Story - 8.5/10
To summarize her arc (skip the next 4 paragraphs if you really want to, it's basically just the story if you were confused about it, I'll talk about that later) - We learn about the heart condition that 4th grade Shouko has which causes her to become anxious about her future, and develop adolescence syndrome. Her adolescence syndrome splits her into two, with one Shouko being the younger one, who wants to grow up to be old, and one from the future, who, thanks to a deadly accident involving Sakuta, is able to use his heart for a transplant, surviving. Older Shouko spends time in the future with Sakuta, and by spending time with him and confessing her love, loses her anxiousness about the future. She accepts young Shouko's dire fate (who is technically in the present) and decides to save Sakuta from the car accident that leads to his death and gives her a future.

This development in the story causes probably the best part of the movie. On the fateful day, Shouko attempts to lead Sakuta away from the site of the accident, but he realizes this, and not wanting her die, tries to kill himself to save Shouko. Mai realizes this however, and saves Sakuta from the crash, dying in the process. This causes Sakuta to go into deep depression and display survivors guilt, as he believes he has lost not only Mai, but also Shouko, as he did not die meaning Shouko wouldn't get a heart. I think this depression was displayed incredibly well in Dreaming Girl, and Mai dying was honestly shocking.

After this, future Shouko appears, and tells Sakuta that he can go back and change what happened. Realizing how much he cares about Mai, Sakuta also accepts the fact that Shouko has to die, and goes back in time to save both Mai and himself. This causes future Shouko to die, meaning all her memories went back to present Shoko. Present Shouko, who is now in the 7th grade, also dies however, as both Sakuta and Mai are alive and she is not able to get a heart transfer. Finally, this causes her memories to go back to the original 4th grade Shouko, who, seeing future Shouko's memories, is no longer anxious of her future, ending her adolescence syndrome.

Because Shouko is cured of her syndrome, she does not end up meeting Sakuta, meaning he loses his memories of her. By coincidence, Sakuta and Mai go to the beach at the same time as 4th grade Shouko, where Sakuta sees her. This causes Sakuta's memories to come flooding back, and he calls out to Shouko, who happily calls back as she remembers him from the future.
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(end of summary)

I think Dreaming Girl gave Shouko a pretty good backstory, and developed her really well, something that can also be said for Sakuta and Mai. When Sakuta learns about how he gets in a car crash and what that means for Shouko, he decides he must make sure the accident happens and Shouko gets his heart. This is likely because Shouko was Sakuta's first love, as well as the fact that younger Shouko probably reminded him of his younger sister Kaede. When Mai dies instead of him however, he has to make a choice - save Mai or Shouko. This makes him finally realize that he is not able to help/save everyone and helps complete his arc,

This also helps develop Mai, as we see how much she truly loves Sakuta, and is willing to sacrifice herself to make sure he survives.

It must also be stated, this story couldn't have been as good if it wasn't for the strong emotional attachment I had with the characters already thanks to Bunny Girl Senpai, allowing the story to be much faster paced (as it was in movie form) but still have a strong emotional impact on me. So basically, make sure you watch the show first if you're planning on watching the movie :p.

Overall, I thought the story of Dreaming girl was fantastic, with great character development between all 3 main characters and a well thought out backstory for Shouko. The main problem holding the story back is the confusion the time travel causes.

Soundtrack and Audio - 9/10
While the main soundtrack is nothing crazy, it really helps provide emotion to the scenes that needed it. We also still got to listen to Fukashigi no Carte, the incredible ED from the first season, which bumps the soundtrack up a point by just existing. Where this movie really shines, like Bunny Girl Senpai, is the incredible voice acting from all characters. In most anime, you have characters with extremely annoying voices or ones that don't really fit the character. Dreaming girl definitely does not have this issue, as the voices all fit with their character, and are full of emotion.

Animation - 9.2/10
Dreaming Girl continues to have the same great animation from Bunny Girl Senpai. Pleasing to the eyes, well animated but not overly detailed, with each character's appearances fitting their personality very well. I thought how the backgrounds were animated improved a little bit from Bunny Girl Senpai, so I increased the score from 9 slightly.

Though I loved many qualities of Dreaming Girl, there were some issues I wanted to address. Firstly, the time travel storyline might bring confusion to some viewers. Implementing time travel into any story is a risk, and while I overall thought Dreaming Girl did a decent job at explaining its time travel, I can understand how some viewers may get lost within the intricacies of the future and present, as well as all the death and revival that takes place and the memory shifting that results because of it. The fact that I feel like I needed to explain the story hopefully shows this fact.