A production meeting becomes a small crisis becomes a quiet lesson about keeping things running when nobody's watching. Four years later, Aoi still isn't the director, she's the one making sure the director can actually do their job. The movie doesn't celebrate animation as art; it celebrates the unglamorous work of keeping a dream alive when budgets are tight, schedules slip, and everyone is tired.

Four years after the events of the original series, Musashino Animation has fallen on hard times. A canceled project left the studio in financial trouble, most of its staff quit, and nothing it has made since has stood out. Producer Aoi Miyamori refuses to let the decline continue, and after a morning meeting Watanabe hands her a new theatrical film, SIVA, due for release in ten months. The project quickly runs into unexpected problems, and Aoi wonders whether the studio in its current condition can manage a feature at all. Along the way she meets a new colleague, Kaede Miyai. Her friends face struggles of their own: Ema is fighting a punishing schedule, Shizuka wants more anime roles, Midori has lost her inspiration after a failure, and Misa worries that her passion is holding her career back. All five stay determined to push forward toward the dream they share. The film is a comedy and drama set in the everyday work of an animation studio.