Tokyo 7th Sisters: Bokura wa Aozora ni Naru

If I had 2 words to describe this movie, it would be: too late. And I don't mean that as a hardcore fan of idol shows. As someone who played every mobile idol games back in 2017, I can definitely say that as a game, it ranks up there together with your big name idol franchises. So it could've made it up there together with said franchises. I mean, the game already had an anime-style CG and everything, so it was only a matter of time until they made an actual anime out of it. Heck, the game came out in 2014, so there wasplenty of time for this to come out. However, they might have taken too much time on this. Animation-wise, this was well-made. There aren't any dead frames or horrible background art. It feels lively, really. And the character designs are consistent throughout the entire show. If there's one aspect that this movie excels in, it's the animation. Now, as someone who plays the game (already at level 72 btw), I can say that the songs are catchy. But then again, it might be nostalgia talking, as most of these songs are played in-game as background music for minigames. So the music is entirely subjective in this case. The characters are... well, if you've seen one idol show, you've basically seen every character trope, and 7th sisters is no exception. What I will give it props for is how characters have their own dynamic from one another. So pairings or OTPs are out of the question. And thank goodness for that, cuz I don't think I can take any more shippings in every franchise. Did I enjoy it? Well, I did, but mostly because of nostalgia. Most people who aren't familiar with the franchise will probably just brush it off. But I assure you, without spoiling anything, that it tackles a subject in the idol industry that is a scary thought but is also an inevitability. Overall, it's a good movie, despite it being too late for the party. If you like idol shows, or waifus in general (cuz there's a lot of them here, and I haven't even mentioned the rivals, originals, and time-skip idols), then give this one a shot. It's not mind-boggling, but it's an interesting watch nonetheless.

Don't look at my score. I score 7 because I really enjoy watching idol anime even though this show doesn't deserve the rating. It still has some potentials, it's just executed horribly. Tokyo 7th Sisters has quite an interesting premiere for an idol show. But it failed to make used of it. Set in the futuristic world, where Idol enter the "ice-age" after the legendary group "7th Sisters" disbanded. So now, Idol industry is in shambles, there hardly any groups left. Then we got to meet our lovely idols "777", a twelve-girls idol group with the hope of bringing idols back to its glory days.In my honest opinions, there are two major things that prevent this movie to be considered a good idol show. Firstly, for its lengths of only over an hour, it's not sufficient enough to introduce 5-6 girls let alone twelve. So they have to make kind of a PV at the beginning where they spoon-fed us the info and personalities of each girls. Damn that's lazy writing just because they don't have enough money to make this movie I think. Then the second problems, they should just get rid of the horrible cartoon villain, he irritates me to the bone and absolutely contribute nothing to the plot, they could cut him out and the show will remain the same. I figured this show need an entire new beginning section and at least 25eps anime to make this work and this will be an amazing anime for sure. Hire some competent director and make this work please.

I believe a majority of the people who actually watched or heard about this movie are already fans of Tokyo 7th Sisters. Seven years ago when the game was released, it stood out as one of the earliest idol games aside of Love Live (which is the biggest franchise, even now). The franchise also took a lot of transformation, game wise (changing the game system entirely for a couple times), and story wise. They also showed signs of trying to take the franchise to the animated scene multiple times, through animating a music video with short story, to intermissions between anniversary concerts. So when the moviewas announced, I was very excited that this would help expanding what I consider a heavily underrated franchise (subjective) tomore audience. Well guess what, this feels like they were trying to appeal existing fans more than introducing Tokyo 7th Sisters to newcomers. Maybe they tried, since the worldbuilding in roughly the first half of the movie is vague at best. Some parts of the story also feels rushed. As if they want to deliver the main plot, while assuming the viewers already understood the worldbuilding and characters beforehand (which yeah, the only few characters that get development are the bad guys. Everyone else feels textbook from the franchise's main info). So what we have left is an idol-ish feature length story that feels way too generic compared to other idol animes out there. Which is a shame, because the story writing is what made Tokyo 7th sisters shine for me. Just go play the mobile game and read the stories in it. "Episode 4.0 / 0.7 / 5.0 / 6.0" arcs really made it special and emotional. Realy woth reading. Back to the movie, the other big problem is that the movie did not showcase the songs and shows as much as it should. I get it, there's hardly ever any 'show' aspects in the game (unlike almost every other music franchise nowadays), but the song selection are not highlighted as much as...you know...a movie focusing on music would. If you're already a Tokyo 7th Sisters fan, you'd still enjoy this movie (and the fact that it took SEVEN YEARS for any animated story to materialize). But I'm highly disappointed that this could have been the magnet that gives Tokyo 7th sisters the love and popularity that it deserves. Instead, this would probably become another idol movie that did not stand out against other movies of the same genre. If you never heard of Tokyo 7th sisters before, seriously go play the game, go discover the songs, go read the in-game story. you'd get to appreciate Tokyo 7th Sisters more than watching this movie.

I will preface by saying that I have not played the game, so maybe that is good. The impression that I get from this movie is that every aspect of it is wildly derivative of other idol series. It is very generic despite having a futuristic setting, which you would think they would do something with. The characters felt like exact copies of other idol series' characters. Obviously I know that there are common tropes between idol series, but the Tokyo 7th Sisters characters are literally exactly the same as individual existing characters. Every time a new character started speaking, I immediately could identify whichexisting character they were created to rip-off. And then the actual plot doesn't make up for any of this. Weirdly it kind of feels like a kids movie, but some parts are too inappropriate for kids I think so I don’t think this could have been rebranded as being for kids either.