The moment Aqours wins everything they've worked for, the movie strips it all away and asks what they actually mean to each other when they're not on stage together. The animation is gorgeous enough to make you forget the plot barely holds together, but the real reason to watch is Yoshiko and Mari finally getting their moment, their real moment, the one the TV seasons kept from them. This movie knows its only job is making you feel the weight of nine girls realizing they won't always be nine anymore.

Aqours, the idol group from Uranohoshi Girls' High School, has taken the Love Live! title, but new trouble follows soon after. With their old school closed, the first- and second-years visit the campus they are about to join and find the building seemingly deserted: the school board, worried the transfers would weigh on its clubs, has placed them at a branch school instead. They set out to show that Uranohoshi students take club life seriously. At the same time, the graduated third-years, Dia, Kanan and Mari, disappear on their graduation trip, and the remaining members go looking for them. Separated, the group realizes for the first time how much being together means and must decide how to move forward in a musical slice-of-life film.