Okay, so the plot is jumbled, the distribution of screen time and important dialogue between characters is wildly uneven, and the concessions to plot convenience are a bit much; these are all true. And yet, I was still wholly swept up in this film and marked out extremely hard for several moments. The narrative, as revealed through the film’s themes and character interactions, still rings strong and true enough to stick the landing with surety. Love Live! is really something that is just too meaningful and specifically moving to me that I can’t even begin to think of approaching it “objectively” (as if criticism should ever be a consideration of a series of neatly segmented and weighted qualitative points).
While the previous film of the franchise (concerning the previous group, μ’s) rested on the buildup from the preceding series about the group coming to an end by choice, Aqours made no such resolutions in their own show. Over the Rainbow continues the series’ secondary project here, in a sense undercutting the externalized, bombastic, “proving it to the world” ambitions of μ’s by continuing to turn inward, charting the uncertainties and self-doubt experienced by Chika and company, and resolving these only when they are assured in themselves and able to lift each other up because of it. The revelation at which the film ultimately arrives is that life goes on, people come and go, but memories are an eternal capsule of shared moments. The film partakes, through two of its major plot threads, in the aforementioned external story, with the continued existence of Aqours needing to be justified to those doubtful. Mari to her mother, and the remaining first and second years to their new parent school. This feels less like a cop out and more like a logical progression to me, since the next step after becoming confident and assured within yourself is to prove it to others. Ultimately though, the girls here find that the approval of others is of little consequence, when what they’ve created and accomplished carries such shared personal significance and fulfillment.
To gush just a bit, one of the places where Over the Rainbow truly excels is in its comedy. The tightly constructed gags are an avenue which allows some of the more sidelined characters to really shine, and it makes sense that this is so, since their individual stories were largely resolved in the series proper. The two characters who stand out the most in this regard are Yoshiko and Hanamaru. I simply love these two, and their interplay is always highly amusing, with the way their respective eccentricities - Yoshiko’s fallen angel persona and Hanamaru’s impossibly voracious appetite - bounce off each other, taking turns from scene to scene playing the straight man to each other’s nonsense.
Other exemplary aspects in the film, as is the standard for the greater franchise, are visuals and music, both creating a bright atmosphere that proves the possibility of exploring deep feelings and emotion without having to settle into dour, greyed realism. Over the Rainbow continues the trend within the Love Live! franchise of providing breezy, light entertainment with a capacity for thoughtfulness and reflection that hits home in just the right way.
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Final Grade: B+
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