Review of Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow
***SPOILER-FREE REVIEW*** Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow was an anticipated movie for many Love Live Sunshine fans. Using the same trope of "Traveling Abroad" just like the original Love Live series, they look to produce the same amount of closure in the franchise as well as the original did. However, this really wasn't the case sadly. ______ STORY: LLS Movie is an extended epilogue of Love Live! Sunshine!! 2nd Season. With the 3rd years graduating and the others merging in with another school, we look to see how they close the show. It started off nicely with the 1st and 2nd years strugglingto find their way without 3 members missing. However, the switch to the "3rd years missing in Italy" arc was out of nowhere and the result of the arc was worthless other than to showcase the "trip abroad" trope that the original did. Nothing really was given to the characters rather than the "Friends got our back in everything" concept.
Then switching back to include Saint Snow's dilemma was rapid as well and didn't really help the main group of Aqours resolve their own problems until later on in the movie.
The ending did feature a touching way to end off the series, but everything preceding this was clumsily directed and filled with filler. But I'll get to that in the "Enjoyment" section of this review.
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ART: This movie showcased a vast improvement in it's art and animation compared to the 2nd season. The CG models of the girls performing are much better. Backdrops looked quite nice as well.
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SOUND: Just take the same OST you got from previous Love Live anime but add in a few new original songs and you get this movie's soundtrack. I personally liked all of the songs although listening to Aqours' singles, they sound quite similar and not so different from each other. Saint Snow's newest song was my standout pick for the soundtrack of the movie in my opinion.
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CHARACTER: As an extension of my thoughts on the story, the way the movie was paced and directed felt sloppy and really didn't do much for any of the individual characters at all. Even as a group which left a mixed feeling for me when finishing the movie. The characters did showcase the tropes that made us love them from the first 2 seasons cause they did have standout moments of comedy and great character chemistry. But seeing as this movie **should** be a defining conclusion to the LL: Sunshine franchise. This felt like filler and that's disappointing.
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ENJOYMENT: As per mentioned in the previous sections, my enjoyment of the movie was flawed due to the sloppy pacing of the story and underwhelming character growth mixed with the "laugh out loud" moments produced by the lovable girls of Love Live Sunshine. Seeing how they marketed this movie to be a "crazy trip abroad" type of movie and seeing the end result was disappointing in my opinion as the whole trip was pretty wasted potential.
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FINAL THOUGHTS: Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow was a overall fine movie. As an extended epilogue to the 2nd season of Sunshine, this was a pretty underwhelming experience. However, for hardcore Love Live fans, this will definitely satisfy you for the comedic moments and good songs that the movie offers. If you have seen the trailer for this movie, don't expect much from the abroad trip or even the movie as a whole. You'll be disappointed, like I was.
5/10