DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME MusicLove Live! Sunshine!! 2nd Season
MANGA Slice of LifeLove Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow Comic Anthology Saint Snow

REVIEWS

• 

  master117

  40/100
  Over the rainbow fixes non of the problems the series was having, and falls short of the original. 6/10

  Note: I was lucky to be able to view an early version in german cinemas with german subtitles. Subtitles are rated but not included in the final score.

  I was having problems deciding how to score this movie, and how to include both bad and good parts. Therefore I will rate this movie in 10 categories, so we can get a very unique look at it:
  Plot, Visuals, Animation, Songs/Performances, Character distribution, Character development, Outfits, Hair, Comedy, German subtitles. Understanding this review will require general knowledge of Love Live! Sunshine!!.

  ---

  Plot: 2/10

  The Story consists of 4 very loosely related sub-plots, which are not completely sequential.

  Keeping Aquors together. 4/10
  Finding Mari. 2/10
  Keeping Saint Snow together. 5/10
  Saving the School, again? 1/10

  I did not appreciate the plot at all, many parts felt either generic or copied from earlier Love Live!. There where several nonsensical parts, similar to the end of Season 2 of Sunshine. What I enjoyed was the execution, the characters are very captivating and can kind of hide the non working plot and convince you of the power of School Idols being what holds reality together, otherwise there would be no way to overlook the huge amount of plotholes.

  ---

  Visuals: 7/10

  There where lots of good shots, the art style wasn't super refined but absolutely ok. Background characters looked a lot better than in previous instances. Facial expressions and eyes were excellent. Light and bloom effects looked ok. But there is still one big concern in all idol animes we have not talked about yet: 3D models.I found the quality of the 3D models wildy inconsistent this time around. Therefore I will go into detail on this in the "Performances" section.

  ---

  Animations: 9/10

  We are talking about the movement of characters here, not image quality. I felt that Animation and expressiveness of the characters were excellent. Everything looked fluid and arguably realistic. At no point was I disappointed by the way characters moved. This movie had no fast action scenes, which are normally the best way to detect animation flaws.

  ---

  Songs/Performances: 8/10

  An idol anime rises and falls with it's songs and performances. There were 5 perfomances and a vocal insert song/montage by all of Aquors.

  First Performance: Bokura was Hashitte kita Michi...
  Members: All 9
  Center: Chika
  Topic: A song about continuing Aquors even after the third years leave. End with Chika having a Solo and the Center.

  Song: +
  Outfits: o
  Animation: o
  Models: - - -
  Rating: 4/10

  Second Performance: Tousou Meisou Moebius Loop
  Members: Dia, Mari, Kanan
  Center: -
  Topic: A song about running away from PLOTHOLE. Blatant copy of ? <- Heartbeat.

  Song: +
  Outfits: +
  Animation: ++
  Models: o
  Rating: 6/10

  Third Performance: Hop? Stop? Nonstop!
  Members: All 9
  Center: Mari
  A song about Idols being more important than the social norms of Mari's Mom.

  Song: ++
  Outfits: +
  Animation: ++ +
  Models: +
  Rating: 8/10

  Fourth Performance: Believe Again
  Members: Saint Snow
  Center: -
  A song about being strippers? Police themed Strippers?

  Song: ++
  Outfits: ++ +
  Animation: ++
  Models: ++
  Rating: 9.5/10

  Fifth Performance: Brightest Melody
  Members: All 9
  Center: You? Kinda?
  A song about shining? In the loosest sense.

  Song: +
  Outfits: ++ +
  Animation: +
  Models: 0
  Rating: 7.5/10

  Sixth Performance: Kiseki Hikaru
  Members: All 9
  Center: -
  A background song for building a concert Stage.

  Song: ++
  Outfits: x
  Animation: x
  Models: x
  Rating: x

  Last Performance: Next SPARKLING
  Members: 1st and 2nd Year, then all 9
  Center: 3rd years
  Another song about Aquors being eternal.

  Song: +
  Outfits: ++
  Animation: ++
  Models: +
  Rating: 8/10

  ---

  Character distribution: 1/10

  A prominent critique for Sunshine is that certain characters get way less lines and screentime than other. And the movie only made it worse. So I decided to kinda count.

  Characters by lines:
  Chika > Ruby > Mari >> Yohane >> Riko > Tsuki(You's cousin) > You >Kanan > Dia > Hanamaru

  The first three probably had as many lines as the rest combined. But that is not the only problem, if we look at only important lines, lines that progress the story or a character, we get.

  Characters by important lines:
  Chika > Ruby > Mari >> Riko > Tsuki(You's cousin) > Kanan > You > 0 = Dia = Hanamaru = Yohane

  This is NOT JOKE, in my opinion Dia, Hanamaru and Yohane said exactly 0 lines that contributed anything. Furthermore You now falls behind Kanan. Yohanes only lines were Dark Angel related, Hanamarus Food and Dias dotting on her sister.

  The distribution of importance is just disgraceful.

  ---

  Character development: 2/10

  Characters that had development shown:
  Ruby, Leah, Shiitake, Mari?

  Characters that probably had development, but not shown:
  Mari's Mom, 1st and 2nd years.

  Shoutout to Kanan for being as stale as wet cement.

  ---

  Outfits: 8/10

  Chika: - -
  You: o
  Riko: +
  Ruby: ++
  Hanamaru: ++
  Yohane: ++ +
  Dia: ++
  Mari: +++
  Kanan: - -
  Leah: ++
  Sarah: ++
  Tsuki: +

  Yohane was soooo cute. Mari looks great in leather. Kanan looked like she robbed homeless for her clothes. Chika took the stuff even Kanan wouldn't steal from the Homeless. Turns out, stripper outfits are hot.

  ---

  Hair: 8/10

  Chika: -
  You: +
  Riko: +
  Ruby: ++
  Hanamaru: ++
  Yohane: ++ +
  Dia: ++
  Mari: o
  Kanan: o
  Leah: +
  Sarah: +
  Tsuki: o

  Did I already mention how cute Yohane looked? Dia had a High Ponyttail, very nice. Hanamaru rocked tradditional braids + glasses.

  ---

  Comedy: 9/10

  The humor is really on point. A mix of references, slapstick, witty retorts and sticky situations left the cinema laughing every few minutes.

  ---

  German subtitles: 0/10

  There were huge amounts of typos. Aquors where always referenced with an article, the Aquors instead of Aquors. Fontsize was small and not very well stylized. The story ocassionally made no sense, details seem to have been omitted. Weird punctuation appears out of nowhere.

  Summary and final Score: 4/10

  In total, I found the movie amusing and entertaining, but if I look any deeper than the absolute surfce it falls apart. I would watch it again, but I would prefer to be very drunk. The songs and performances are great but the rest is clearly below average. Some characters got shafted, AGAIN. I really can't stand seeing Chika anymore. This leads me to give it: 4/10

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• 

  Heinzes

  84/100
  This moment will never vanish, the bonds will always be in your heart.

  Heinzes' 2010s Anime Cleanup Series #5

  ---

  __spoilers within, consider yourself warned__ >When dawn breaks, you'll be able to see the sun!

  Okay, so the plot is jumbled, the distribution of screen time and important dialogue between characters is wildly uneven, and the concessions to plot convenience are a bit much; these are all true. And yet, I was still wholly swept up in this film and marked out extremely hard for several moments. The narrative, as revealed through the film’s themes and character interactions, still rings strong and true enough to stick the landing with surety. Love Live! is really something that is just too meaningful and specifically moving to me that I can’t even begin to think of approaching it “objectively” (as if criticism should ever be a consideration of a series of neatly segmented and weighted qualitative points).

  While the previous film of the franchise (concerning the previous group, μ’s) rested on the buildup from the preceding series about the group coming to an end by choice, Aqours made no such resolutions in their own show. Over the Rainbow continues the series’ secondary project here, in a sense undercutting the externalized, bombastic, “proving it to the world” ambitions of μ’s by continuing to turn inward, charting the uncertainties and self-doubt experienced by Chika and company, and resolving these only when they are assured in themselves and able to lift each other up because of it. The revelation at which the film ultimately arrives is that life goes on, people come and go, but memories are an eternal capsule of shared moments. The film partakes, through two of its major plot threads, in the aforementioned external story, with the continued existence of Aqours needing to be justified to those doubtful. Mari to her mother, and the remaining first and second years to their new parent school. This feels less like a cop out and more like a logical progression to me, since the next step after becoming confident and assured within yourself is to prove it to others. Ultimately though, the girls here find that the approval of others is of little consequence, when what they’ve created and accomplished carries such shared personal significance and fulfillment.

  To gush just a bit, one of the places where Over the Rainbow truly excels is in its comedy. The tightly constructed gags are an avenue which allows some of the more sidelined characters to really shine, and it makes sense that this is so, since their individual stories were largely resolved in the series proper. The two characters who stand out the most in this regard are Yoshiko and Hanamaru. I simply love these two, and their interplay is always highly amusing, with the way their respective eccentricities - Yoshiko’s fallen angel persona and Hanamaru’s impossibly voracious appetite - bounce off each other, taking turns from scene to scene playing the straight man to each other’s nonsense.

  Other exemplary aspects in the film, as is the standard for the greater franchise, are visuals and music, both creating a bright atmosphere that proves the possibility of exploring deep feelings and emotion without having to settle into dour, greyed realism. Over the Rainbow continues the trend within the Love Live! franchise of providing breezy, light entertainment with a capacity for thoughtfulness and reflection that hits home in just the right way.

  ---

  Final Grade: B+

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• 

  Tani

  10/100
  Incompetent cash-grabbing trainwreck

  I’ll make this short and sweet.

  What I think made the original Love Live so infectious was the fact that it was a really simple concept. The writers didn’t need to do anything special or throw in big narrative twists (and when they did it didn’t work out too well, see Kotori’s arc at the end of Season 1), they could just basically use the simple plot structure they had and put the show on autopilot, allowing for the memes and simple emotional arcs to basically write themselves. Simplicity can work wonders with shows like this, and what made μ‘s work was just that. The plot of the movie especially was straightforward and simple, and was able to deliver a lot of fun moments along the way because of this. Not necessarily in the sense of “turning your brain off”, but more akin to staying within the bounds of simplicity and allowing the viewer an experience that doesn’t prod your brain.

  After watching the movie, my conclusion is that the failure of Sunshine lies on the writers simply being incompetent. They were wedged in a scenario where they wanted to rely heavily on the plot points and character beats that made μ‘s work (and sell) so well while also trying to come up with new and exciting scenarios. The problem? They can’t fucking write, and as a result they have officially gone off the deep end. The Sunshine Movie is a mess from start to finish, trying to shove in a plot that miraculously is at the same time both half-assed and over complicated. It seemed like they really wanted to avoid making the μ‘s Movie: Part 2 so they relied 100% on their writing abilities to create a whole new scenario, but the movie is so overstuffed with random ass arcs and concepts that flow in no way together and barely make any sense on their own. Digging deeper into this movie would probably unearth even more tiny details that were flat out ignored that I would probably go insane doing so, since there were so many on the surface to begin with.

  In summation, I hate Sunshine. It’s cashgrab mentality came to full focus in this half-baked film that felt completely devoid of passion, something that μ‘s at least had a bit of. I’m so glad that its over with and hopefully these new writers can approach PDP with a little more creativity and passion.

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