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

Here's the blunt TL;DR: If you've become invested in Nijigasaki's cast enough to the point that you let out fragments of dopamine anytime you see them merely breathing, then this film is going to seem a cinematic masterpiece for you. And the only reason I can confidently say this myself is because I’m someone who’s always loved the Nijigasaki cast the most of the other Love Live! Groups! To me, this film was exactly what I told you it was: A personal cinematic masterpiece! Nijigasaki has always had an odd history in the Love Live! sphere. Had things followed LL! Staff's original plan, we wouldn’t havegotten an anime with these girls to begin with. It was only through constant devotion from fans that an anime spawned, comprising two full seasons, an OVA, and eventually the announcement for a set of trilogy films, marking the "Final Chapter" for the Nijigasaki cast. Saying goodbye is always difficult, but handling a cast of 13 diverse characters in-tandem with writing a satisfying conclusion for hopefully each and every one of them is just as much of a tremendous task. It's no wonder that this Final Chapter had been split into three parts. In fact, while the idea is slightly archaic in concept, it does seem sound after giving it thought. From what I can assume as of the time writing this review, LL! Staff are making one film tell the concluding stories to a set of girls of the entire cast, with the remaining few being done in the 2nd part, eventually culminating in the third part becoming a "final act" of sorts. At least, I can only assume this is what LL! Staff has planned for Nijigaku. As of the time of me writing this review, Part 1 has only recently had its BluRay release, so I can only point to conjecture on what the rest of the alleged Final Chapter will do. Even still, what we have so far for Part 1 is an incredibly simple, yet solid foundation! Part 1 of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Final Chapter focuses on five of the 13 girls, being: Shizuku, Kanata, Emma, Lanzhu and Ayumu. While juggling each girls’ stories, the film also has to contend with a strict 1 hour and 7 minutes worth of feasible runtime. Under normal circumstances, I would be incredibly sceptical. As an aspiring writer myself, the very thought of juggling these intertwining narratives alongside such strict limits would scare me senseless. You would have every reason to be sceptical of this film just from this explanation alone, and yet you'd be equally as surprised to learn that so far: Part 1 has juggled these girls’ stories remarkably well! The core theme of Nijigasaki has always been the idea of “Friendship in Rivalry”. In previous seasons, the show has even been blatant about it, captioning the girls as, “friends, but rivals”, to emphasise this point. Nijigasaki’s Final Chapter sees the girls pitted against one another through a School Idol Grand Prix. For the first time in the Love Live!’s anime history, solo idols are allowed to compete. This leads to each of the five starring girls scattering themselves around Okinawa to find ways to promote themselves to bolster their popularity. It's a simple enough premise that doesn't take time to introduce itself. What follows is the presence of carefully curated foreshadowing, character interactions, and some exceptionally funny gag jokes (thank you, Kasumi! <3) to help fill in the rest of the runtime. With these pieces in place, suddenly the film becomes much more than you'd give it credit for. Almost all the starring girls have a story to tell. You could very carefully take your time explaining everyone's role during Part 1 and still forget the film accomplished this in such a short runtime to begin with. Between Emma’s newfound friendship with a rival school idol, Ayumu’s burning insecurities, and Lanzhu’s conflict towards her mother - the film takes time carefully foreshadowing these intertwining narrative threads to cohesively fit everything together. As for Shizuku and Kanata? I would personally argue that with their character arcs having been largely completed already earlier on in the anime, their roles, alongside Kasumi, act more as a supporting pull for the remaining girls. To fans of these characters, this could seem as a bit of a letdown, but I’d personally argue otherwise. Speaking personally, Kanata has always been my favourite character in the series, and yet I'd been absolutely enamoured, fulfilled, and happy when seeing the plentiful interactions she had with the rest of the cast in this movie. I've actually also made it a point to my personal friends that when it comes to Shizuku, her early deliberate confidence at the beginning of the film also goes a long way in showing just how much she's grown from the once insecure Shizuku of Season 1’s anime. The film is absolutely packed with cute interactions that fans of these characters would absolutely love! As if that wasn't enough to fulfil fans’ desires, I'm also incredibly happy to write in this review that I have full faith in the rest of Final Chapter’s MV performances going forwards. Why? Because I'm happy to say that all five of the School Idol Music Video performances were some of the most gorgeous musical inserts in the Love Live! anime to date! There is no describing how stunning this film is, even outside the MVs. While a lot of fans were hesitant towards the art style change leaning towards a look befitting Bocchi the Rock! (some have also aptly titled it, “Bochisaki”), this change in aesthetic becomes less of an issue when noticing just how well the character animations mesh with the beautiful environments around them. I and a few of my friends had stopped at certain moments to take screenshots because the film was so stunning to behold. Heck, during my rewatch of the movie, I ended up using that time dedicated to noticing backdrop details I'd not seen before because the film really was just that much to behold. All the characters are animated with precision, the backdrops are stunning, and the animations (especially the MV segments) are fluid beyond all reason. Suffice to say that Nijigasaki fans are eating well with this film. There really is just a certain beauty in this movie that I can't quite describe or properly put into words. Nijigasaki, as a series, has always been pushed into success through its fans’ devotion. When it came to finally following these girls towards their final moments in the anime, it felt as if Final Chapter Part 1 was made for its devoted fanbase first-and-foremost. And yet despite the thousands of words I could spend writing my personal analytical interpretations regarding this singular film, I'm filled with hope that, if all goes well, there could be two films just like this going forward. Simply put, Nijigasaki has become my personal comfort series out of the myriad of media I consume. Seeing these girls take their final steps from the phone screen to a big screen did initially make me cautious, but this notion has changed as time passed. I can confidently say that I have full faith in LL! Staff when it comes to their plans for the Nijigasaki girls, and I can't wait to see the rest of their stories culminate towards!