So when the movie was announced, I was very excited that this would help expanding what I consider a heavily underrated franchise (subjective) tomore audience.
Well guess what, this feels like they were trying to appeal existing fans more than introducing Tokyo 7th Sisters to newcomers.
Maybe they tried, since the worldbuilding in roughly the first half of the movie is vague at best. Some parts of the story also feels rushed. As if they want to deliver the main plot, while assuming the viewers already understood the worldbuilding and characters beforehand (which yeah, the only few characters that get development are the bad guys. Everyone else feels textbook from the franchise's main info). So what we have left is an idol-ish feature length story that feels way too generic compared to other idol animes out there.
Which is a shame, because the story writing is what made Tokyo 7th sisters shine for me. Just go play the mobile game and read the stories in it. "Episode 4.0 / 0.7 / 5.0 / 6.0" arcs really made it special and emotional. Realy woth reading.
Back to the movie, the other big problem is that the movie did not showcase the songs and shows as much as it should. I get it, there's hardly ever any 'show' aspects in the game (unlike almost every other music franchise nowadays), but the song selection are not highlighted as much as...you know...a movie focusing on music would.
If you're already a Tokyo 7th Sisters fan, you'd still enjoy this movie (and the fact that it took SEVEN YEARS for any animated story to materialize). But I'm highly disappointed that this could have been the magnet that gives Tokyo 7th sisters the love and popularity that it deserves. Instead, this would probably become another idol movie that did not stand out against other movies of the same genre.
If you never heard of Tokyo 7th sisters before, seriously go play the game, go discover the songs, go read the in-game story. you'd get to appreciate Tokyo 7th Sisters more than watching this movie.
