Love Live! Nijigasaki Finale Movie Chapter 1 Now Streaming on Crunchyroll

The first film in the Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club finale trilogy is now streaming on Crunchyroll under the title Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club The Movie – Finale – Chapter 1. It marks the beginning of the end for the Nijigasaki anime story.

The trilogy picks up after the events of the two previous TV seasons and the Love Live! Nijigasaki Next Sky OVA series. The main cast and staff are returning for all three films. In this first chapter, following Isla’s return to her home country, the club receives an invitation to a competition called “School Idol GPX,” where contestants perform individually through content distributed via an app. Six members including Ayumu, Kasumi, Shizuku, Kanata, Emma, and Lanzhu head to Okinawa to take part. Ayumu in particular struggles with the complicated feelings that come with competing against her own clubmates.

The second film in the trilogy is set to open in theaters in Japan on November 7. That chapter follows Karin, Ai, Setsuna, Rina, Shioriko, and Mia on a trip through the Kansai region, visiting Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe.

The Nijigasaki High School Idol Club characters were first introduced in 2017 through the Love Live! School Idol Festival smartphone game’s “Perfect Dream Project.” The first TV anime season premiered in October 2020, the second season arrived in April 2023, and the short spinoff anime Nijiyon Animation launched a second season in April 2024. The Love Live! franchise has been running since 2010 and has grown into multiple spinoff series over the years.

My take: Nijigasaki has always been a quieter and more character focused entry in the Love Live! family, and seeing it get a proper theatrical finale across three films feels like a real send-off. Chapter 1 sets up some genuinely interesting tensions, and I am curious to see how the rest of the trilogy resolves them.