Personally I think it did a good job of having a really nice balance for the members of µ's, barring Honoka having quite a bit more due her being the leader and having to make certain decisions.
The movie starts off with a certain late afternoon day back in the childhood of Honoka, Kotori, and Umi at the park they usually played at. Honoka is...trying her damn best to jump over this huge puddle. but she failed so spectacularly.
Umi's shriek at her failure and Kotori telling her it was impossible was adorable. Course that doesn't stop Honoka from giving it another go...or dozens more I guess. Anyway, on the next attempt we get to see, she starts running, very focused on trying to jump over the puddle, but slows down due to hearing some singing from other kids in the distance. That ends up pretty much with her humming along, and having some silly crazy stat boost to succeed in jumping over the large puddle.
Flashback end.
Anyway present time, Honoka is just running along through the halls to the club room, where she finds Hanayo freaking out over BIG NEWWWWWS~ Shortly after, everyone else arrives, and Kotori's mother does too in regards to their trip/invitation (I believe this is the case...) to which she also has the plane tickets for 'em.
Now they're only in the US for a brief time, but heh, on the way there Umi is so panicky with Kotori, making sure she has her ticket and luggage and knowing which flight they had. Was hard to hold in my laughter there. Eli was scouting out ahead kinda with Nozomi, Nico is at the airport with her family, just nico nico nii-ing it up with her siblings. Maki, is dropped off by her father and gives him a goodbye kiss (sorry to spoil the surprise for you Maki fans, but at the same time I"m sure you wanted to know who it was.
)
After mostly everyone meets up, they begin to wonder where Honoka is, turns out she was the first one there and has just been on the rooftop watching planes land and take off.
After their plane lands, they all get in to taxi's! With Umi being too worried about being seperated. Eli gives her a piece of paper to give the cab driver their destination. The gang are split into 3 groups - Honoka/Eli/Rin, Nozomi/Nico/Maki, Kotori/Umi/Hanayo. Now...sadly for Umi they do get to the wrong place. Mainly because Eli told Honoka to write down the address that was all in english, and Honoka messed up just enough.
Umi was quite upset by the whole ordeal, just crying away into her pillow, but that gets taken care of when the topic of going out to have cup cakes is brought forth. It just ends with Kotori ordering a fairly big cheese cake for the group, and being the happiest about it.
The hotel rooms are split up as so : Honoka/Nico/Eli (Honoka rolls onto Nico to give her a nightmare, and both overhear Eli dreaming of her grandmother). Hanayo & Rin share a room talking to each other about things, but end up leaning on each other's shoulders. Maki & Nozomi share a room, and Nozomi notices that Maki was writing a new song.
Now...Kotori and Umi. Card games. Poor Kotori, Umi is such a sore loser. Not enough sleep.
In the US the gang has loads of fun and relevations to the different culture... At a (nearby?) park they plan to do some jogging. When everyone is doing stretches Eli is so visibly embarrassed of being overheard by Honoka & Nico, the smug look those 2 gave heh.
Anyway jog starts, with Rin blasting ahead of everyone. Sometime after they finished their jog they ran into some Americans that were asking if they were Japanese. Honoka tried her best to explain that they were students and were also here for something else, but that ended pretty bad. Nozomi to the rescue though.
More eating stuff, with a moment of Hanayo crying at the restuarant, Nozomi thought she wasn't feeling well, Eli thought she was Homesick, but it turns out Hanayo is dissatisfied with the restaurants not having her favorite thing : rice! So...then they go out and eat at some china town.
They then decide to head back to their hotel, as they are at the subway going through the gates, Honoka finds out her subway card doesn't have enough cash to get through, she tries to put money on her card as fast as possible as the others didn't notice her issue... well she succeeds and runs down stairs and jumps into the train as it was closing. And I'm sure you guys know what happens from the pvs in regards to that.
Anyway Honoka gets off that train, and leaves the station wondering what she can do, as she doesn't know the street names, and doesn't know the hotel name either. She wanders around for a bit worrying about all that, but hears some singing and is captivated by the beautiful voice responsible for it. Here we meet the only 'new' character in the movie. I call her an alternate time lord Honoka. Same eyes, same colored hair (but nearly waist length and straight..) Anyway, after ALT TIME LORD HONOKA is done singing, she thanks those who were listening and to come to her live showing, whenever that is. But notices Honoka and her enthusiastic clapping. Skipping stuff...they are then on another subway train, and this Alt Honoka is of course, capable of both English & Japanese. She ends up laughing at how Honoka was so foolish to not know where she should be staying at the very least, but does ask her what the place is like. And narrows it down in the city to bring her back personally. ALT Honoka freaks out for a moment that she forgot her microphone when entering the subway, but apparently being an airhead of the sort, Honoka has to point out it is right next to her.
She does notice that Honoka seems to have something on her mind, something that no one else has noticed yet. She simply boils the question down to "What do you want to do with your friends?" Since it seems Honoka is unsure what to do or say to µ's about their future due to them being invited to perform.
Anyway as they see the hotel in sight, ALT Honoka disappears when the rest of the group notices Honoka is walking back. Umi is soooooo upset with Honoka, but is forgiven since she made it back safely. Honoka does apologize, since, as the leader, she shouldn't be worrying everyone like that. But they head on in, and the scene cuts to their performance! Was pretty nice to see that in full + hear the song. (I forgot to mention early, but sometime during the US playing around the 1st years had their song moment, and heh, that outfit Rin wow.)
Next scene is them returning back to Japan, well there was this short plane moment between Honoka & Kotori looking out of the window. Granted Honoka opened the window to get a view and the light woke up Kotori... I believe only Maki noticed them talking away as everyone else was sleeping.
Aiport - > Akiba station. Scene starts with them feeling glad to be home, buuuuuuuuut! They are all getting stares from all sorts of random school girls in the area. I think it was Umi and Nico thinking Honoka did something to offend the public.
But it's cleared moments later when these 3 school girls run up to ask for Honoka's autographs (along with confirming the 2nd year members, except Umi denying being Umi, because pure embarrassment). Everyone in µ's was kinda lost at what was going on, until they noticed that their over seas performance was being played on big screens, and when they walked out there were posters everywhere. (no different than Akiba currently
)
They kinda get trapped signing autographs for a while, after getting away Umi is pretty much DYING from embarrassment from all the people that went up to her. Crying away in an alleyway with everyone else watching. Was super cute. She never wanted to leave her room again. Poor Umi.
Cue 3rd year song time. That was super cool before it started, I don't know where they got those shades...but man was it just awesome. XD
After the song, the next scene starts with Honoka running from classmates, and then being apparently....mouth tapped and rope tied to her chair by 3 very familiar support charas at her school. Mainly bugging her, being the leader of when their next performance would be! (and I think, if they could get some special seats?) Anyway after getting out of that situation, Honoka has a brief talk with Kotori's mother about the future of µ's with the 3rd years having to not be school girls soon. Honoka does end up thinking for a while about what to do, or well giving us a thinking face while doing everyday stuff. She also gets a call from Tsubasa late at night, and runs on over in her pj's to UTX.
I forgot to mention a bit earlier, but the rest of µ's was considering asking A-RISE on how to handle life with mega popularity. But I think some of the group felt that would be...rude somehow?
A few days later, at night Honoka is quite frustrated on what to do, but hears more singing from Alt Honoka who isn't too far away. Like, maybe 10 steps away. They end up walking back to Honoka's place, and Honoka invites her on in. But is turned down, with the reason of "some other time"
And then things get
weird here. Instead of the dark street they were in by Honoka's house, suddenly some fantasy esque dimension pops up with bright light and flowers...and a giant puddle. To which, this 'alt' Honoka tells her to just jump/fly to wherever she can go, and reach her answer there or something. I didn't get what was going there, but it was uplifting so whatever.
Honoka has her answer now, she tells the members of µ's after a practice session, and everyone is kinda speechless / awestruck at the idea. But support it. What's the idea? What's a great way to have a fantastic moment with µ's and their fans? For fans of school idols?
Hold a gigantic performance with other school idols + aspiring idols in Akiba. To be lead by µ's & A-RISE! Honoka goes to meet up with A-RISE to propose the idea to them. She gets to ride in their fancy van that is blasting shocking party in the middle of the night, cause Tsubasa wanted to go for a drive.
They agree, but A-RISE seemed to want to take a lesser role as µ's has earned the right to take the lead I believe.
And then, off goes µ's members split into 3 groups again to recruit other idols around Tokyo. Oh yeah, Yukiho and Arisa, I forgot, but after µ's returned from over seas, Arisa came back from Russia during their popularity issue. Anyway yeah, after recuriting a good number of idols, in the middle of a street µ's members...well Honoka and Eli mainly with Tsubasa, giving a speech of the sort to the current gathered idols (30+) on them all learning the same song & dance and to do it all at the center of Akiba, to show the world that they all
love being school idols. Along with being earnestly thankful to all their fans.
Yukiho & Arisa are above them on a crossing bridge asking if it was ok to join even if they weren't practicing things yet, and not in the same age group... to which all the other idols from various areas that joined up shouted in unison "Of course!"
Anyway, day of the performance (after lots of advertising by the combined efforts of many, many people...) The mass idol performance happens! There was probably some 300+ idol participants. Quite a number of familiar faces in the support cast (aka like those 3 girls who have been supporting µ's since the start!) The performance was pretty fun and great, showing various scenes from Akiba, or idols and their enjoyed moments. So much shown couldn't catch it all.
EDIT :I forgot but near the final moments of the performance, all the mothers of the girls are shown I believe. At least... I did notice Umi's by Honoka's at their shop, and when Maki's, Nico's & Kotori's were moving & cheering along a Rin & Hanayo grown up vers did pop up... (I'm sure Nozomi & Eli's were there too but so much stuff on screen for that mass performance I most definitely missed them
Performance ends, everyone decides to take one nice group picture together. Picture is taken, all those wonderful smiles, the screen fades to black...
3 year time skip! Arisa & Yukiho walking through school grounds with their obvious 3rd year ribbons (faces not shown for some reason..) Also Arisa had a growth spurt... Anyway both of them now lead the idol research club, and tell the room full of people how grateful they are to school idols, especially the group that was at that very school, as they had saved it. They then tell(or show?) the new students/club members the final performance of µ's.
Final performance plays, and my god those outfits were ridiculously hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh death inducing! Performance ends, credits role.
Thank you µ's! Will miss all of you ;_;
2015-05-30, 12:45
Graphic Designer
