Where the u's movie merely did a cursor glance at any resolutions and pretty much retread of it's anime series finale just with America added in...Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie Over the Rainbow gives us the resolutions that the anime series left us and did it BRILLIANTLY.
Well the premise of this movie to even get Aquors to Italy is that Mari, Kanan and Dia have gone missing and Mari's mother tells the remaining to find Mari and Mari's mother will give them a huge sum of money if they succeed, thus Italy but it's not as easy as it seems, but this plotline is only the base premise as Chika and the remaining Aquors have a bit of a problem both performance-wise and friendship-wise what with Mari, Kanan and Dia having graduated and it's affecting them harshly. Later on, Saint Snow comes in and much like Aquors' breaking up, Saint Snow but more precisely Leah can't take it that Sarah is also graduating and is ALSO having problems forming an school idol group on her own.
For characters themselves, Mari has taken focus for the first half of the movie what with Italy and all, but she gets some much needed development aside from being the wacky Engrish girl and sure....her development is to do with her mother thus family issues and as much as it's cliche, Mari's development was still decent and a nice foundation and push for the plot to move forward. Yoshiko's chunni gets her own due, yes for laughs but nonetheless. Hanamaru and Yoshiko seemed to be the comedic relief of the movie Yoshiko...being Yoshiko but Hanamaru gets the running gag of eating EVERYTHING in Italy. Kanan and Dia become essentially satellite characters to Mari for the first half of the movie but what with both of them having development from the anime series it kinda makes sense for Mari to take the spotlight as she needed it. Ruby much like Leah gets the same development with their older sisters but Ruby is at the end of it as she KNOWS and has moved forward whereas Leah is at the middle of it and finally given the resolution she got in this movie. Chika, Riko and You gets oddly enough the least amount of development with once again You getting the least out of the three. Chika being the de facto leader of the 6 remaining Aquors members and really she does most of the decision making for the movie, while Riko and You are the cheerleaders, You does have one other addition that of You's cousin, Tsuki who is a student of the main school that Uranohoshi's student have transferred to and much like You helps Aquors, oddly enough Tsuki got the development that You needed as Tsuki tags along with Aquors and later on finds how great being School Idols are and in turn making the main school to show that Uranohoshi is worth being in their school (instead of the branch school they got dumped into). Riko though is similar to You, screentime wise and "yuri shipping goggles-wise" got way more than You, as Riko interacts more with both Chika and Yoshiko. Once again You gets shafted.
The animation done once again by Sunrise, well the background work was AMAZING especially during Aqours' stay in Italy. The character designs and expressive facial animation was done to great and sometimes wacky results. Character designs-wise, though it's still consistent as the anime series, the movie gave Aquors are VARIETY of costumes for any time they change locations or a new time of day (seriously, their sets of costumes could fill up a rich mansion's closet!). The Live's CGI got better as well from the second season's anime series, though it's still obvious when they use CGI, they blended quite well to the point it's not distracting, just noticeable. All in all, Sunrise went ALL OUT for this movie's animation and for such a "farewell" movie, it was to be expected.
Voice cast was back and great as always, with some standouts being Aina Suzuki as Mari because come on, while Yoshiko and Hanamaru's voice actress Aika Kobayashi and Kanako Takatsuki gets to go full ham or comedic and their one liners were great. Tsuki's voice actress who was uncredited (?) was pretty much the same cadence as Shuka Saitou voiced by You pretty much showing that Tsuki IS very much You's cousin. But all in all, since they not only voice the characters but the singing was great and with that. Aquors' voice cast is back and better than ever in this movie so all in all. Great voice cast..as always.
Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie Over the Rainbow did what u's couldn't with their movie and that is RESOLUTIONS and Over the Rainbow actually made it a tearful but satisfying resolution and farewell with Aquors and tied up loose ends from it's anime series and to that end makes it a much better constructed movie, yes it's similar to the u's movie at the start (main cast goes somewhere outside of Japan) and the 3rd Years have graduated and having to deal with it and to Over the Rainbow's end with characters have a mixed development to their resolutions, some little to nothing *cough* You the ever satellite character *cough* but Over the Rainbow nonetheless ENDS tying up ANY loose plotlines with it's characters the anime series left hanging, whereas u's movie gave us an open ended farewell and left it at that.
u's anime series and movie was too happy go lucky, almost coincidental in how things ended up as to be status quo and got the series in a static limbo with its movie's finale, but to state, LA doesn't think u's movie is horrible as a result, that movie did what it did, yes with some flaws but it was a farewell just not a decent one, whereas Aquors from it's anime series dealt with being an idol group and with it's 3rd Years gradating soon in a much more logical way and with this movie gave us a proper farewell and resolutions that were established in the anime series.
If you haven't noticed, LA was very satisfied with this movie as LA can see Aquors moving forward in earnest. Over the Rainbow...well went over the rainbow and once again, gave us a pretty satisfying, yet tearful farewell, what else would you want more for an idol movie than that showing that an idol group can happily move forward with no regrets.
