Love Live! The School Idol Movie

When I started to watch Love Live!, I was extremely skeptical of how the plot would play out. I'm not really into the whole idol culture but I wanted to keep my mind open and give Love Live! a shot. And boy am I glad I did. Now I can at least appreciate what idols have to undergo.

The movie, which builds off plot-wise immediately after the second season, uses the same kind of group dynamic that was present in the second season. Although this form of group dynamic doesn't change much from the second season (or ever, lol) you could almost feel the charisma beaming ... from the group. The characters, despite the fact that their personalities are clearly drawn from stereotypes/archetypes, clearly mesh together very, very well. They complement each other and this is reflected through their dialogues and reactions.

As for the sound, well, this should be pretty self-explanatory. What would a music-themed anime be without, well, music? One interesting thing that this movie does differently from the prequels is that there is a much heavier emphasis on the sound. In the previous two seasons, the songs were still there (and done very well, if I may say so myself) but they served more to advance the plot as a whole. In the movie - for a lack of a better phrase - the μ's break out into song based on the situational context that they are in. Basically, think High School Musical all over again. Is this done well? I think so - it certainly adds new flavor to the entire series, but that is my own personal opinion.

Now for the cons. Bear with me for a bit.

The plot itself had a rougher execution than the second season. There were some parts in the movie where the plot was rushed to some degree. For example, consider the transitioning scenes from New York (where they are at Times Square) back to Japan (where they are meeting fans at the airport). To me, these scenes were kind of thrown together into an incoherent mess. Although you could tell what was happening at any given moment, sometimes the plot jumped from Point A to Point B inconsistently. These scenes needed to be flushed out more so that viewers can more easily comprehend what is happening.

Another thing I didn't really like was how the movie was piecemealed into two parts - one part in NY and the other back in Japan. The connection between these two parts of the movie needed to be more clearly established. True, perhaps their trip to NY served as inspiration to the Idol festival in Japan, but this was not really flushed out well. If the movie left out the entire adventure in NY, could the rest of the plot been executed in the same way? Perhaps. Maybe some of us wouldn't like that, but it's still possible.

One last thing: the symbolism. Okay, I know this movie tries really hard to integrate some kind of deep symbolism that was not present in the first two seasons of Love Live! But if you're like me, just an average anime watcher, the symbolism completely flies right past you (e.g. the street singer in NY). Symbols don't necessarily have to be obvious, but they should be incorporated into the plot in a way that still makes sense. But kudos for trying.

Overall, definitely a nice way to end Love Live! But is it on par with the second season? I argue not.

tl;dr

Pros:
+ Good music
+ Crisp art, like always
+ Good group dynamics
+ Some development, especially when the μ's explore their identity, but definitely not on par with the development in the second season

Cons:
- Some parts of the plot transitioned poorly (i.e. were rushed), making it difficult to follow
- Connection between NY + Japan somewhat unclear and needs to be flushed out more
- Symbolism present but difficult to interpret

Story: 4
Art: 6
Sound: 9
Character: 6
Enjoyment: 7
Overall: 5

*Note: I put a heavier emphasis into my rating on story and characters. Mwahaha.*

The Love Live movie has been something that I have been looking forward to for a while now. When the time finally came to see it in theaters, I was stoked. But after seeing the movie, it left something to be desired. The movie, although enjoyable, had some pacing issues, story issues, and a ton of annoying cliches. Now I'm usually not one to dock points for story, especially for an anime about cute girls doing cute things. However, its just felt like a bunch of unrelated events which would be great as episodes of the show, but as a movie to conclude the series, ... it didn't do a good job at all. Another thing about this movie is that it has the exact same premise as the K-ON! movie. Seriously, it's exactly the same. Musically talented girls you come to know and love from two seasons go to a foreign English speaking country for the first part, and deal with the graduation of some of their members the second part. Now this shouldn't be a problem, given that I absolutely love everything K-ON! However, the whole movie seemed like I had already seen it as an end result. As for the pacing issues, their trip to New York really bugged me. They spent 45 minutes focusing on them walking around New York, which is fine, but instead of elaborating on why they were there at all, it just cuts to them singing, and the next cut is them on the plane back. It just seemed odd. Now I don't mind cliches, but there were so many cliches it felt almost like a cheesy musical by the end of the movie. Speaking of the ending, it left a lot to be desired. It just felt rushed and unemotional, like the writers just wanted to get it over with. However, despite these shortcomings, I did quite enjoy myself. The characters are the characters we have all come to love, except for Umi, for whatever reason she was extremely hostile in the film. The songs were decent, but they weren't nearly as catchy or enjoyable as the songs from the series. The animation was great, except for the obligatory CGI. So, should you watch the movie? If you liked the series, you for sure should watch it. While you could watch the movie without knowing nothing about the series, I wouldn't recommend it, as there are a lot of references that you can only appreciate if you've seen the series. I know this review seems like me complaining about it, but I found the movie to be very enjoyable, despite these flaws. It's worth a watch, I just wouldn't watch it expecting something as good as the actual series.

A Review on Love Live: The Movie
Story –
The story at best is simply: “Ok”. There isn’t anything exciting or interesting about it. It’s just mediocre. This was already an apparent trend in the actual series, but having it condensed in a 1 hour 39 minute movie, really makes it obvious how bad it is. The pacing is god-awful and it just throws you from scene to scene will barely any suitable transition. At one moment, it’s like: “HAH, HAPPY FUN TIME WITH MY FRIENDS” then it’s a supposedly seriously moment with a (kinda) heavy atmosphere. Then it swaps right back to the “happy, energetic ... moments” with again, little to no transition. It makes you question, “what was the point of that whole scene?” It feels like a waste of time and adds nothing to the overall story. It was there for simply the moe appeal. That brings up another issue I found while watching this. Because of this over usage of dramatic moments with no substance, it made me care less and less about those moments. Why is this bad? Because when there are scenes with actual substance, such as the whole tension about continuing the Muse after the third-years graduate, I couldn’t care less about it because the viewers have already been diluted to the point where their perception is just “another pointless dramatic scene.” If I were to give this Movie anything, it creates a decent conflict for once. A battle against “ the audience they wish to continuing performing for and their relationship as a group” vs. the “philosophy of what school idol means to them”. It’s a shame the execution was just terrible, it had no proper built up, and once we got to the climax, it felt underwhelming. I also need to point out the transition to the music videos, or song section if you will. Based off what I’ve seen, it feels as if they made those segments first, and were like:
A:“Hey, check out this cool music video we made!”
B:“Great! Where is that going in the movie?”
A:“Oh”

Out of the six song segments, I’ve seen, four of them were just awkwardly placed there for the sake of “We need to put this somewhere”. What annoys me about this is that seeing how they could fit in two other songs in the movie well, they failed to do it with the other four songs. It was lazily incorporated into the movie, and honestly felt like I was watching a kids show where they suddenly break out into song just out of nowhere. My best example of this is the first song segment. Where it’s just “suddenly, it’s raining... ooooh that’s bad… we can’t have fun… (or something). Then BAM, SONG. Like what? It goes from one side of the spectrum to the other within a split second, and the initiation to that segment was just, Rin jumping…. It’s a mess.
Art –
The animation has been half-and-half for me. Overall the drawn animation looks pretty good, especially during the dance segments. There are parts where it looks a bit stiff, but otherwise it was well made. My only complaint would be the CGI. It just awkward to look at and contrasts heavily with the background. You may argue that “dancing is hard to animate”, which it is, so using CGI is justified. But they keep on switching from CGI to Drawn, and sometimes the dancing is done in 2D animation, AND IT LOOKS BETTER. And sometimes they have CGI AND Drawn in the SAME SHOT. IT’S LIKE THEY COULDN’T DECIDE ON WHAT TO DO. THERE NEEDS TO BE CONSISTENCY, otherwise, its awkward and a pain to look at.
Sound –
The music is good, this is the only good part of the movie. They’re idols after all, this is probably the reason why you’d watch this in the first place. If the music was bad, I don’t know why this movie would exist then, let alone the series.
Characters –
My main issue with Love Live would be its overall premise. They tried to make an anime based solely on an Idol group. That’s it. In an Idol group, you only need a few things to be successful. Good songs, Moe Characters, and quirky and cute personalities. In an anime, you can’t do that, you can try, but the quality will surely drop. The Love Live gang is just generic. They’re not interesting, they don’t have any character development, they’re just one-tricks. Quirky and baseless. It works for the first ten minutes at most, but in a movie? It gets fucking annoying. Allow me to run down the list:
Honoka – Clutsy leader
Rin – Makes meow noises at the end of her sentences, this isn’t cute. It’s annoying.
Hanayo – WHITEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE RICEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Other than that, nothing is memorable.
Umi – Overreacts to literally everything
Maki – Generic Tsundere attitude
Niko – NICO NICO NIIII. That’s her contribution to the story
Kotori - Her contribution in this movie specifically was minimal, mainly just restates the lines.
Nozumi – Has tarot cards and just is there.
Eri – Serious, and gets the plot rolling.
Of course this a general description of the characters, but it's to get my point across.
The issue here is that you can’t make a show just on very shallow personalities. From start to finish, they’re the same. Boring.

Enjoyment –
Can’t say I enjoyed it. I had literal headaches watching this. It was a waste of my time, and I’d rather would just want to see the music videos.

Overall –
The Love Live Movie is bad…. Not terrible to the point where it’s unwatchable, nor a “masterpiece” as some may describe it. It suffers from being just extremely bland, average, and mediocre. Despite the movie having great music/dance segments, that only constitutes maybe 10% of the movie. Making the other 90% of the movie just unbearably annoying.

To clarify, I don't think Love Live as an Idol group is bad, I just think that the transition from an idol group to an anime and full-on movie was very very poor and deserves another look at the drawing board for we cannot continue with the perception that this series is "well-made" when it clearly lacks in the most important areas in what makes a good anime.

Final Rating:
5/10
Story – 3
Art – 8
Sound – 8
Characters – 3
Enjoyment – 2

The perfect excuse for a musical film. This film is full of musicals moments, with a total of 5 songs in total.

This movie marks the final of the series. Thank animu, because I don't think that LL! SIP have many sources that extract and take advantage. Also, is a good film that takes the teme of the Muse dissolution and the difficult decission of Honoka: continue or end. Curiously has the same dilemma of the School Idol Project franchise.

The characters are the same of the series, but the center is Honoka. Also, appears a new character... or not. This "character" looks like a momentary element... ... I wrong with this idea.

This movie is reccomended for fans or followers of the series, is very enjoyable and a good final.

/// Spoilers for School Idol Project Season 2 ///

To be fair, if you went into this film thinking it was just a light-hearted, entertaining time-killer that couldn't possibly offer any artistic or creative genius, you would probably have a good time.

But unfortunately for me, School Idol Project Season 2 touched me in a way I had not thought possible. It beautifully expressed relevant themes about surrounding yourself with people that make you feel whole, enjoying your youth, and of course, knowing when to end a good thing.

This film took absolutely none of that into consideration. It simply did not need to exist, in any ... capacity. Season 2 crafted a beautiful and heartfelt goodbye to these characters we have grown to love, sending the third years (and the franchise, supposedly) off with Aishiteru Banzai and Oh, Love & Peace. It was perfect.

And then the money came calling.

I know it may seem odd to be getting mad that an IDOL ANIME FRANCHISE cares about making money more than producing a quality product, but if Season 2 taught me anything, it was that idol anime can be artistically AND commercially fulfilling.

But this film wasn't even bad. Angelic Angel, Hello, Hoshi wo Kazoete, ?←Heartbeat, and Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari are all absolutely fantastic songs with beautiful visuals, and as a whole, the film was very technically sound. So why am I mad?

Well, this franchise blatantly backed up on its own core themes.

In Season 2, Episode 11, μ's came together to make a very difficult decision. Even though Yukiho and Alisa would be enrolling into Otonokizaka in a few months and would love to join μ's, μ's is not μ's without the third years. It's always 9, no more, no less. They each stand out in their own way, but they only feel whole when they're around each other. THAT is their legacy: knowing when to end a good thing, even if its not an easy choice to make.

And that completely parallels the franchise itself. Yukiho and Alisa represent Aqours, and μ's represents... well... μ's. The higher-ups in Love Live could've either continued using the μ's name with the inclusion of a new generation (keeping μ's around a little longer), or made the right choice, which was to end the μ's saga while they were still on top.

We all know what they chose.

Needless to say, the μ's saga should've ended with the conclusion of season 2, but the executives decided to take the easy road and extend μ's's time in the limelight. They literally did THE EXACT OPPOSITE of the characters that THEY wrote. So to recap, some fictional Japanese schoolgirls are more mature than the executives behind the most popular idol franchise in all of Japan. Interesting.