
Well, this is the first review I've written, so don't expect too much.
THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS
I like HIbike! a lot, but I'm not a fan who knows everything about it. It took me a while to see the movie, since it's not officially available in my country. And I thought it was just a compilation of the previous episodes, but I watched it immediately when I realized I was wrong.
The first two seasons adapt Kumiko's 1st year at school, according to my calculations a total of 10 hours. The movie adapts the 2nd year in ONLY 1 hour, 40 minutes. Honestly, with that kind of time, I had nothing better to do. The movie is very confusing.
Kanade Hisaishi, at first, seems to be a lovable character. But as time goes by, we see that she's a manipulative character, and seems to be just out to confuse people. Her big drama is that she wants Natsuki to take part in the contest, even if it means that she herself won't take part, even though she hates Natsuki. This is explained, but at this point, I already hate this character. She's poorly developed, unlike Yuuko who I didn't like at first, but now I like her a lot.
We also have Satsuki and Mirei. They have a few scenes, but they're characters without any depth, especially Satsuki. Mirei is a little bit antisocial, and why is that? I don't know.
Motomu plays the bass. The most superficial character in the movie
Reina hardly appears in the film, which makes me sad, since she's my favorite character.
The anime begins with a confession from Suuichi to Kumiko, but the scene is cut without any conclusion. Kanade teases Kumiko several times about how close Suuichi is to another character, and I personally didn't care much, since in both seasons, it's shown that Kumiko has no interest in Suuichi. Later in the movie, Suuichi tries to kiss Kumiko, but she doesn't want to. And about 3/4 of the way through the movie, Kumiko wants to take a break from dating Suuichi until next year. Here I asked myself, "What kind of relationship?" "Were they dating?" Their relationship isn't natural at all, no development is shown at all.
It's sad to see how Natsuki and Yuuko don't get a decent ending, like Asuka for example. Natsuki is explored more than Yuuko in the movie.
As for the final performance, I thought it was so dull, it didn't carry any weight. In the others, I was crying. In this one, I was begging for it to end soon.
I feel that it would have been a good story if it had been done the conventional way. And that the 2nd year was COMPLETELY wasted with this movie. I could have had 1 or 2 more full seasons with my favorite characters. But unfortunately it's been summed up in 01h40m. Why they made that decision?. In the end, what remains is a feeling of sadness and emptiness. Maybe the only solution is a remake, who knows one day?