I’ll make this short and sweet.

What I think made the original Love Live so infectious was the fact that it was a really simple concept. The writers didn’t need to do anything special or throw in big narrative twists (and when they did it didn’t work out too well, see Kotori’s arc at the end of Season 1), they could just basically use the simple plot structure they had and put the show on autopilot, allowing for the memes and simple emotional arcs to basically write themselves. Simplicity can work wonders with shows like this, and what made μ‘s work was just that. The plot of the movie especially was straightforward and simple, and was able to deliver a lot of fun moments along the way because of this. Not necessarily in the sense of “turning your brain off”, but more akin to staying within the bounds of simplicity and allowing the viewer an experience that doesn’t prod your brain.

After watching the movie, my conclusion is that the failure of Sunshine lies on the writers simply being incompetent. They were wedged in a scenario where they wanted to rely heavily on the plot points and character beats that made μ‘s work (and sell) so well while also trying to come up with new and exciting scenarios. The problem? They can’t fucking write, and as a result they have officially gone off the deep end. The Sunshine Movie is a mess from start to finish, trying to shove in a plot that miraculously is at the same time both half-assed and over complicated. It seemed like they really wanted to avoid making the μ‘s Movie: Part 2 so they relied 100% on their writing abilities to create a whole new scenario, but the movie is so overstuffed with random ass arcs and concepts that flow in no way together and barely make any sense on their own. Digging deeper into this movie would probably unearth even more tiny details that were flat out ignored that I would probably go insane doing so, since there were so many on the surface to begin with.

In summation, I hate Sunshine. It’s cashgrab mentality came to full focus in this half-baked film that felt completely devoid of passion, something that μ‘s at least had a bit of. I’m so glad that its over with and hopefully these new writers can approach PDP with a little more creativity and passion.