Note: This post is considered an episode review and it dives into spoilers for the movie.
BanG Dream! FILM LIVE is an anime concert film released between Seasons 2 and 3 of the original series. The movie has Poppin’Party, Afterglow, Pastel✽Palettes, Hello, Happy World!, and Roselia perform for a large outdoor concert they’ve been invited to. PoPiPa bookend the event and they as well as Roselia perform for the encore. The set list is comprised of music from Season 2 though there are some new songs added in and the movie uses full versions of select returning tracks, as opposed to the abridged versions used in the show.
This movie is sort of canon to the TV anime. It at the very least acknowledges the events of the show up to Season 2. To play it safe and because I’m a stickler when it comes to completion, I decided to include this in my coverage for the original series. But as you might’ve assumed, there is almost no story to talk about here. It literally is just song after song with some emceeing in between. The only time the movie steps out of that pattern is between the last official song and the encore and even then, that’s just Rokka providing the audience with backstage footage of everyone.
I quite like the insert songs for Season 2 so I had plenty of fun watching the characters perform most of those songs again. It’s especially cool to actually see Roselia and PoPiPa perform their opening themes for Season 2. That only happens briefly in the band’s respective OP sequences and in PoPiPa’s case, a series of stills for the season finale. It’s nice that it finally happens here in the movie and with the full versions of those songs no less. Not having Raise A Suillen perform is a little odd but then again, they only had one song in Season 2. Them being shoved to the wayside works anyway since it leads to a funny cameo appearance by a very salty Chiyu. I did notice with the returning songs, a lot of character and camera animations are reused from the show, just with different backgrounds and maybe different outfits worn by the characters. To be fair, it’s a smart budgeting decision to reuse animations that already syncs up to the music. Plus, there’s still plenty of new animation when the characters perform new songs or full versions of select tracks.
With how long the original Bandori is, I can understand skipping this movie to save on time. It’s pretty inconsequential to the show’s narrative so it’s not that big of a deal anyway. That said, if you’ve enjoyed the insert songs in Season 2, this is a fun follow-up to watch after you finish that season.
Xenodude Scribbles 
Bang Dream Film Live is one of my favorites in the Bandori canon. As you say they reuse some of the animation from those insert songs during the second series but if you look closely these have all been remastered and the animation seems more fluent and shows how much Bandori’s performance animation has progressed since season 1. Unlike other studios Sanzigen avoid middle distance shots that can make performance animation (idol or band) look flat and two dimensional. Sanzigen instead apply lots of privileged close up and close shots to depict the band’s performances. It is really is masterful editing and direction.
My one complaint is the cheap approach they took towards depicting the bands’ enthusiastic audience. I guess with a limited budget some sacrifices had to be made. I find other series have portrayed their audiences with more detail.
While I regard Bang Dream Film Live as essential Bandori viewing, I cant say the same for “Bang Dream Fill Live 2”. Set in a huge twin stage arena, its the same line up of bands plus Morfonica. However the songs are weaker and the animation is not quite as refined. For me its an optional watch.
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Errata: “Bang Dream Film Live 2” (ara, ara)
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