An important note - apparently, the anime adaptation of Aqours and the idol unit of Aqours are different!
This review will be focusing on the anime adaptation of Aqours only!! I suggest not dismissing the idol unit if the anime adaptation leaves a poor taste in your mouth. And if you liked the anime adaptation, go check out the idol unit. Some of the songs are quite nice!
The epilogue and closing chapter of Aqours in Love Live. This is the last story told in animated format.
What's my rating? I gave it a 7.5/10
If you really liked the series in general and liked the movie, don’t let this review deter you from enjoying those properties. This is just my opinion on what I think and why I give it as such. If you enjoyed it, I’m glad you enjoyed it. That’s a positive and you gained some value out of your time. Don’t feel bad for liking something that others didn't!
According to AnimeNewsNetwork (they have full staff listings), this movie was directed by Kazuo SAKAI. He was responsible for directing the Love Live Sunshine TV series. There is no visible presence of Takahiko KYŌGOKU from the Love Live School Idol Project series. Naturally, comparisons will happen due to it being in the same series. For maximum enjoyment, I would try to look at this film as its own thing. Looking for comparisons while watching will just hinder your enjoyment.
This movie was… interesting. If I compare it to the School Idol Project movie, it touches upon many similar themes of legacy and succession but it’s clear that it’s going through its own direction which I think is completely fine. I was getting tired of the Muse connection for many hours in the TV series haha.
So, how did it handle the themes of graduation, independence, succession, and legacy? I’m not sure what happened, maybe hectic production or something. There was a clear outline from start to finish but the natural progression in-between story beats was clearly missing. Again, please don’t compare it to the School Idol Project movie, it doesn’t take a more focused exploration on its themes like it does.
In this script, it was also pretty clear that they forgot certain plot points from the TV series or the weight of said plot points for characters. There’s some retreading of some conflicts and while it’s quite a little bit different, I didn't like how it was executed and presented. It has gotten to a point where I just turned off my brain for the rest. This allowed me to enjoy the film a lot more instead of just nitpicking why certain things were happening because if I did, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to be entertained. At the end of the day, I’m trying to be entertained.
While I understand these are teenagers and kids, I just cannot bother to look at how things are going and comment about it anymore. To those who care a lot about the way the story is executed, this may become a big problem for you.
To me, the movie is musical number-focused with performances, in between it has some comedic character moments and a few serious characters moments. Those aspects were well-done, I enjoyed my time with these characters in those individual scenes. I think the characterization and chemistry between the characters were quite entertaining at times, they did try to freshen up the jokes which was nice.
Also for those who recently finished Love Live Sunshine season 2, go take a break for a few days before jumping into the movie. I think having binged Love Live Sunshine, the nostalgic moments didn’t hit as hard as maybe intended hahaha.
For me, the story as a whole took a backseat in favour of a very loose framed context to why certain songs were being presented on-screen or why certain characters are at this point. I guess you could say there’s a bunch of pacing issues but it seems like that was in favour of upping the production value to the max.
This movie is peak Love Live visual quality. If you disagree, come on, remove that negative bias and look at how beautiful this all looks.
It’s understandable that some people would like some story to chew on while watching something beautiful but I’ll have to give respect to Sunrise studios for upping their animation quality so high that it’s ‘movie quality’. This is the best that Love Live will look on the screen in the animated version. Maybe the new announced Love Live anime will compete with it, who knows!
In trading off some realism from the story, the production stages look absolutely out of this world to me. It shouldn’t make sense in the world but it still looks really amazing that highlights the performances really well. The choreography for the characters during their performances is really entertaining to watch. If you get excited for the character performances with their dancing and singing, I think you won’t be disappointed. Like in Sunshine, the blending of 2D and 3D was masterfully done. These performances were a highlight from me when watching the movie and why I didn’t mind how certain story beats got there.
Minor spoiler - you actually see dudes in the show in the background. MALES EXIST IN LOVE LIVE SUNSHINE, EVERYONE.
The music was varied in lyrics, rhythm, and written by many different people. While it obviously fit within the story context, I felt actual variety as it went along with different songs which I appreciated a lot. Music production was quite great to listen to here personally. I can always count on Love Live to not disappoint in the music department at least haha.
For the VAs, they pull in the same quality performances from the TV series and do a nice job!
Before ending off the review. Time to list the best girls and best boys.
Best girl: Yohane (Yoshiko)
Runner-up: Yousoro Girl
Runner runner-up: Dia
Best boy: that guy in the background
Runner-up: that other dude in the background
Runner runner-up: that one guy we can barely see the face of!
I’ll get this question eventually. Which Love Live is better overall?
As of now, I think Love Live School Idol Project (SiP) and Love Live Sunshine have their own strengths and weaknesses. They’re completely two separate series in the same franchise. I think SiP excels in certain story elements and production while Sunshine excels in other certain story elements and production. At this point, I cannot say which is better personally. If you based it on ratings which stemmed from enjoyment, yeah Sunshine wins there. Still that doesn’t mean SiP is bad or anything just because I enjoyed Sunshine more.
And now, my general recommendations:
That ends the review. I’ve binged a bunch of idols and some people are sick of reading my idol banter but it was really fun. I don’t regret this whole Love Live journey. While I got burned by some storytelling decisions, I was entertained and that’s what matters in the end for this hobby for me personally. If I wasn’t entertained, I would just turn it off and go watch something else lol.
Thanks for reading my review! Yousoro!
P.S. If you like Muse and/or Aqours, send me track names of songs you like from them (with links if you can). I really like this style of music. I’ve really dived into Idol hell. I’ll be finishing idolmaster now. If you like idols, that’s also an anime you should check out if you haven’t.
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