Venue: Dendy Cinemas, Level 2, North Quarter, Canberra Centre, 148 Bunda Street, Canberra City, ACT
Date: Thursday 21 March 2019
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Format: Digital Projection, Japanese dialogue with some Italian dialogue and English subtitles
Length: 100 minutes
Production Date: 2019
Currently on Home Video in English (as of writing): No
So far 2019 has been a pretty good year for anime in cinemas. Not only have several films been released by Madman, a new film distributor, Half Symbolic, distributed the two recent Science Saru films, “Lu Over the Wall” and “The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl”, to cinemas in a limited screening format. But while there may be more anime in cinemas, there seems to be a lot less patrons. Looking back though my previous reviews of theatrical anime films, there used to be around 20 to 30 people attending these films around two or three years ago. Last year it averaged 15 people per film. Today’s screening had seven people.
The lack of patrons is also reflected in the amount of screenings Dendy has for this film; one per day at the rather inconvenient time of 6:30pm. Last year Dendy scheduled anime films twice a day and in years prior three to four times a day. This trend does not bode well for theatrical anime in this town. It was an absolute pain trying to get into the city and get a parking spot. The weather was rather warm for late March, heading towards the late 20’s. It was meant to rain Thursday but held off and must have only poured down briefly when I was in the screening. I decided to get dinner before the screening (Nandos, which I rarely have) and later had difficulty getting out of the Canberra Centre as sections were blocked off sometime before I got out of the screening, but not at places which would be logical, so you’d find yourself blocked from the exit you were going to, then have to backtrack a couple hundred meters to go back to an alternate exit! Anyway, let’s talk about the film;
Taking place soon after the final episode of the TV series (see
here for a rundown of the series if you’re not familiar with the franchise), the second year students, Mari Ohara, Dia Kurosawa and Kanan Matsuura, set off on a post-graduation trip. The remaining six members of Aqours (pronounced Aqua) have decided to continue on as a group. As Uranohoshi Girls' High School has been formerly closed, they decide to take a trip out to see the new school they'll be attending next term, which is on the other side of the city. When they finally reach their destination, they are horrified to discover it is a mothballed and very run down primary school. They go to a restaurant to eat away their sorrows when they discover You Watanabe has left them and is outside talking to a boy her age. Believing that You has a boyfriend, the five of them follow her. But it is soon revealed that the “boy” is actually her female cousin, Tsuki Watanabe, who has come to visit her.
Tsuki is from the high school that the remaining six members of Aqours will attend. She explains that the students from Uranohoshi Girls' High School are being forced to spend their remaining school life at the old primary school that was shut down several years ago. Both the board of their new school and the parents believe that because their school has several clubs which compete and win at a national level, the clubs from Uranohoshi Girls' High School would feel out of place. However Aqours have just won Love Live!, and the girls are determined to show the new school that they can compete like the other school clubs. But their performance at their new school doesn’t go well and the board and the parents association won’t budge on letting the Uranohoshi Girls' High School students study on the main campus grounds.
Despite this set back, the remaining six members of continue their training as part of being in the School Idol club. While training on the beach, they receive a visit from Saint Snow. Discussing their performance with them, Saint Snow asks them to perform to see where they went wrong. Sarah of Saint Snow says that because of the loss of the other three members, they seem to have forgotten who they are as a group. Her sister, the other half of Saint Snow, Leah, is quite angry at Aqours, tells them that Love Live! isn't a game and runs off. Sarah later explains that due to Saint Snow disbanding after their devastating loss at Love Live!, Leah has been trying to create a new idol group, however the new group isn’t working very well as a unit, mainly because Leah expects a very high standard from her fellow members. Suddenly a helicopter flies in quickly from the ocean and Mari Ohara’s mother hops out.
Mrs Ohara asks the remaining members of Aqours to search for Mari, Dia and Kanan who are apparently missing. She tells them she will offer a reward if they are found and flies them off Italy where the trio were last seen. The girls arrive in Venice where Tsuki offers her services as a guide as she lived there during her childhood. While Ruby is terrified at the Venetian masks and other paraphernalia on display in shop windows, the others easily manage to find the missing girls who are atop the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo. There they have a joyful and somewhat tearful reunion, especially Ruby who is overjoyed to see her sister Dia again. For some reason there are posters all around Venice claiming Mari, Dia and Kanan are missing. Mari realises Aqours have been tricked by her mother into finding her. She quickly slips the girls a card which has a clue as to where they are living in Italy, as she along with Dia and Kanan make their escape.
Aqours follow the clues to Florence which eventually leads them to the mansion that the trio are staying at. Despite Mari taking extra steps to avoid her mother by staying at her friend’s family mansion instead her own family’s, her mother eventually tracks her down. Mrs Ohara is frustrated with Mari’s rebellious streak and thinks her time as a school idol was waste of time. She plans to punish Mari (trying not to give away spoilers here!), but Aqours makes a deal with her; if they can show that being a school idol can touch people’s hearts, she has to leave Mari alone. Aqours embark on creating a new performance on the Spanish Steps in Rome in order to win Mrs Ohara over.
This is the second “Love Live!” film in the franchise. Much like the first film, it follows a similar formula; the initial opening scenes concentrate on childhood versions of several characters. We are then transported to the present where the group has “broken up”, a couple of musical sequences follow, then the cast are sent to a foreign country for an adventure, return to complete some sort of task with several more musical numbers, then a grand finale with a huge musical number to send the characters off. However the story of “Love Live! Sunshine!!” is no clone of its predecessor. Sure, in the series there are nine girls who are archetypes of the original nine girls in in µ's, but unlike that group they aren’t overnight success stories. They miserably fail Love Live! the first time around. Their school is shut down despite their best efforts. And unlike µ's and A-RISE's really friendly rivalry in the original series and movie, Aqours' rival, Saint Snow, is initially their nemesis.
I think as a result, “Love Live! Sunshine!!” feels more realistic than its predecessor, or at least more believable. Sure a lot of it is rather silly, especially the plot involving Mari’s mother and whole Italian trip. The idea that Aqours members, Riko Sakurauchi and Chika Takami, could write and produce dozens of great pop tunes for the group seems somewhat implausible. As do the fantastically choreographed set pieces, though they seem more plausible than the almost high fantasy ones that appear in the original series and movie of this franchise. There’s also the cruelness of their new school practically quarantining the students from Uranohoshi Girls' High School away in some run down primary school as if they were diseased or something. And because Aqours actually won Love Live!, a highly popular school idol contest, it seems really implausible that their new school would be unaware of this and wouldn’t open their arms to them and the group in order to be seen in a positive light from the community and to bring in potential students.
But putting aside those niggling problems I have with the film and series overall, while this film uses the original movie as template, it does add a fair wack of originally, and most importantly fun. As I said previously, this film feels far more realistic and far less forced than the original. For example in “Love Live! The School Idol Movie”, the plot for µ's going to New York was pretty thin and didn’t really make a lot of sense. Here the reasons why the girls have to go to Italy are silly, but a heck of a lot more plausible. The reason behind Aqours preforming at the end of the film is also clear; they want to show the new school board and parents, they are worthy of becoming part of their school community. However that plot line at times does get lost amongst some other plot threads. One of those being the best part of the film in my opinion; the focus on Leah and Saint Snow. Early parts of the film show Leah trying to grapple with everything the wake of Saint Snow’s dissolution which is underpinned by her regret of performing badly at the Love Live! finals. This is resolved in fantastic sequence where Leah is able to get a “do over” in terms of Saint Snow’s final performance. For me it’s easily the highlight of the movie.
However the other five performances from Aqours members during the film aren’t bad either. Sure, they may not have the over the top gloss µ's performances did in the original film, but the musical sequences are really fun and engaging. Except for two of those performances, all are “real performances” in the context of the film (i.e. a planned performance for an audience on a stage). There isn’t a great deal of out of the blue song and dance musical type numbers which were common in the first movie. Like that film there is a total of seven songs performed. However one of those is not a choreographed performance but set to a montage of the girls preparing a stage for the opening of their new school. The seventh song is the previously mentioned Saint Snow performance. As per the rest of the franchise, as you'd expect, there isn’t much character development in this film. The cast reprise their character traits and catchphrases, mostly for comedic purposes. Yoshiko Tsushima’s alternate Yohane personality unsurprisingly does get a lot screen time, but not to the detriment of the other girl’s.
New characters such as You’s cousin Tsuki Watanabe and Mari’s mother are given slightly modified versions of their blood relations. I suppose this is to be expected in this franchise. Generally the selling point of this show (besides the music and dance numbers) are the characters, their personalities and wringing as many comedic moments as you can out of those characters. I don’t think this is a bad thing at all. As I said previously, the song and dance routines aren’t as flashy at the first film, but they are pretty good none the less. I still have issues with the CG versions of the girls in these sequences, but they have improved greatly since the original TV series. However some of the crowd CG sequences, especially those in an early sequence outside the train station, surprisingly look bad. But overall the animation is pretty damn good. Like the first film, “Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow” is a fantastic love letter to fans of the franchise. I would also argue it also gives Aqours a far better send off than µ's got in their film. Finally just to note, there is a post credits sequence, but it appears after the copyright notice and
Eirin mark, which is highly unusual for a Japanese film. 7.5 out of 10.
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