Love Live! Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai: Kanketsu-hen

👁 Love Live! Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai: Next Sky

👁 Love Live! Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai: Kanketsu-hen Part 2

2 Recommended

1 Mixed Feelings

1 Not Recommended

Feb 28, 2025

Fireflyerz

Just finished watching the Nijis' movie, and man, what a beautiful film. They fully embrace who they are, introducing new characters just to give them proper screen time. As for Yuu… well, she barely shows up, and when she does, it’s just to do her job in the movie—aka being Ayumu’s girlfriend.

Kasumi? Adorable. Shizuko? Stunning. Emma? Absolute queen. And Lanzhu? Yeah, she’s gorgeous too.

Now, let’s talk about the real deal: the technical aspects. Like I mentioned before, the new character designs and the 2D-to-3D transitions, which they’ve been refining for a while now, give the movie an insane level of fluidity. Sometimes, the shift is ... so seamless you don’t even notice until it’s fully 3D or a distant shot. But the scene where Lanzhu’s mom plays with a card in her hand? Damn, now that’s animation. 🚬

As for the soundtrack, nothing much to say—Love Live! music is always GOD-TIER. The performance songs were all amazing, but Cara Tesoro by Emma? Absolute peak, easily my favorite. Also, the girl playing the kokyū was really cute.

Overall, it’s a pretty solid movie. It introduces the main theme of the trilogy, tells its own story, and wraps it up within the same film without relying too much on the next two (except for the Grand Prix, since that’s the core of the trilogy).

One more thing: it looks like the third-years already have their future plans figured out. Kanata wants to be a fashion designer, which is honestly pretty wholesome. Even though it wasn’t shown much in the anime, she’s actually one of the ones in charge of the Nijis’ outfits. Love to see how being a School Idol helped her find another passion to pursue.

And Emma? Well… Emma’s gonna be my wife. Yep. xd

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 20, 2025

WotsOnSecond

Overall, I'd say this movie was the first time I was let down by anything Nijigasaki related. Everything up until this point regarding the anime and story specifically was pretty much perfect. This does nothing to ruin the story they've already created, but it does nothing to progress it either. There's no real character development for anyone and Kasumi didn't even get a song, despite this movie including her as one of the 6 featured (they split the group in half for movie 1 and 2).

The art style is also completely inconsistent and, honestly, atrocious looking at times. There was the one scene when Yu ... shows up and her mouth moves like that of a South Park Canadian when she talks. There was the one scene of Shizuku and Kanata on a bed where Shizuku is kneeling massaging Kanata's leg, but for some reason Shizuku's knee is positioned 3/4 the way down toward her ankles making the bottom half of her leg look hilariously short. I could point out a bunch of specific instances of the art being weird, but it's just really inconsistent looking and completely uncanny at times.

There were 2 side characters also, but Ten was the only one that mattered because she played the sanshin for Emma's song. Overall, her whole story arc with her friend was pointless and I don't even really know why it's there. We don't know who these characters are and they get far less screen time than Isla from the OVA. While Isla's story felt like it was cut short, it was still long enough to be kind of touching. This side story is completely meaningless

The CG on the other hand was really good and the song performances were great. Considering this I wish there was more of an emphasis on the songs and performances, but they are only a small portion of what was shown (and as mentioned there is a song missing for Kasumi).

The BGM music was again made by Naoki Endo who has arranged several Nijigasaki songs on top of making all of the anime BGM, and it's just as great as always. The nostalgia I get from listening to the music of the Niji anime is like no other. Some of the best BGM in anime 10/10

Overall I give it a 6/10 because of the music and that alone. Since this is mostly a musical, I'd say the music is the most important part. And even if it seemed like there wasn't enough, all of the songs and performances were pretty great. If it weren't for the music and the really good CG performances, this gets like a 3

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Feb 22, 2026

Firechick12012

Man, that title is a mouthful. So you all know by now that I like the Love Live Nijigasaki series. It's the first Love Live series I've watched, the first one I actually like, and while it has its issues, I still enjoyed it overall, even if I haven't played the cellphone game that started this whole saga. I did admittedly find the Next Sky OVA to be rather weak though. It was later announced that the Nijigasaki series would get a three-part movie series serving as its grand finale, and you know me, I was gonna watch them. Though for some reason Crunchyroll didn't ... bother to start streaming the first movie, Love Live Nijigasaki School Idol Club Final Chapter Part 1, until today, even though by now it's a year old. For the sake of brevity I'm just gonna call this Nijigasaki Movie Part 1 and not by its mouthful of a long title. But...much like the Next Sky OVA, this first movie is rather dull, which doesn't bode well for the other two movies.

Taking place after the events of Next Sky, the Nijigasaki girls find that they've been formally invited to participate in an event called the School Idol Grand Prix, where individual school idols compete against each other via impromptu livestreams held at various venues. Emphasis on individual, as groups and units aren't allowed. The girls decide to participate and see who can come out on top, breaking out into groups as they explore different venues where the Grand Prix takes place. For this movie, it focuses on Ayumu, Shizuku, Lanzhu, Kasumi, Emma, and Kanata as they travel through Okinawa, meet new friends, visit the sights, and spontaneously break into song when they feel like it. Yes, really. There's also a subplot about two idol friends who disbanded their group, and Lanzhu having issues with her mom, but I'll get more into that in a bit.

I admit, I'm really conflicted on this movie, and one of the things I'm conflicted on is the animation. The CGI for the idol performances are still pretty high quality, as they were in the TV series, and the 2D animation by itself is really fluid. It's clear that the movie is making great use of its new animation budget to really bring the characters to life. However, I don't know if a new character designer was brought on or something, but the girls' designs look really...off, with their biggest issue being their eyes. I don't know what it is, but the girls always have this weird dead look in their eyes that just wasn't there in the TV series, and it makes them look really creepy and lifeless. I don't know what prompted the character design change, but they probably should have kept the designer from the TV series, because for as good as the animation is, I can't get over just how...uncanny the eyes look.

As far as audio goes, the music is fine, though I don't feel the songs here are as good as the ones in the TV series were, so they're a bit of a step down. Moving onto characterization...yeah, there's not much here. For one, the movie expects you to already know who these characters are, so you're not gonna be able to understand what's going on unless you either already saw the TV series or played the School Idol Festival mobile game...which has already shut down. The movie doesn't really do anything new with them, and what little it does try to do comes off as pretty hollow and half-baked, mainly because what few subplots are there could be resolved easily if the characters involved just talked to each other for five minutes. Lanzhu gets a subplot where she suspects her mom is trying to rig the competition in her favor and doesn't want her to do that, but thanks to Kasumi accidentally getting involved in her family's drama, it gets resolved extremely easily, though it could have easily been resolved earlier if Lanzhu had bothered to listen to her mom for five minutes. I didn't find the whole thing about the two idol friends disbanding their group that good either, because it also suffers from "characters dragging out a misunderstanding because they can't be bothered to talk to each other and explain things" syndrome, and we all know how much I hate that trope with a fiery passion.

So yeah, for the first movie in a three-part movie finale, Love Live Nijigasaki School Idol Club Final Chapter Part 1 is just...not good. Between its whole plot feeling rather slapdash, its odd stylistic choices, and the musical interludes feeling tacked on as opposed to actually feeling like part of the movie, it was just a chore to watch, which shouldn't be possible for a movie that's only one hour long. It honestly felt like it dragged on for way longer than it needed to. I really hope the next two movies are better, especially since the next one features my favorite girl Rina, but I'm not holding my breath.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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