Reviews

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.