User blog:MuhdNurHidayat/Thoughts and experience watching LoveLive! The School Idol Movie

As what most of you have known, LoveLive! staffs has announced that LoveLive! The School Idol Movie are screened worldwide. (If you came here by accident and doesn't know about that, read it here) According to the original screening schedule, the movie would be screened in Malaysia on 1st October 2015. After a long waiting, we Malaysian LoveLivers finally got the confirmation of the screens here but with a new schedule, the movie will be screened from 15th October 2015 instead. The official trailer was also released by screening cinema: https://youtu.be/jZF_4nPgOtw. As October is the month for my final examinations, I've started to plan carefully so that I'm able to watch the movie without affecting my exams.

Part 1: Special Screen
A few days later, Golden Screen Cinemas (GSC) official website has put a promotion poster, and we found out it is the special screen! GSC will make a special screening of the movie on 9th October, 9:00PM where they will give limited edition LoveLive! goodies and premiere screening of the movie before public screening. However. the screen will be made only in GSC Signature of The Gardens Mall in Mid Valley City, Kuala Lumpur. When I found about this, I quickly lookup information of that cinema because I have never been there. After making some planning with the help of Google Maps and various public transport website, and also after measuring the times and money, and contacting busy friend to help me send me to bus station after the screen, I've made the decision to go for it. I even saved the instructions from Google Map as PDF into my phone in case my phone cannot connect to internet. The online ticketing for the special screens are opened on 28 September around 12:00PM and I was able to buy it on 1:35PM before it completely sold out few minutes later. I was already trying to connect to the website from 11:00AM in my room without success before I go to the computer lab and use university's internet instead.

I board on economy class coach train at Arau Train Station on 8th October, 10:30PM and sleep in the train while waiting it to arrive. I arrived at KL Central Train Station on 9th October, 8:00AM, and again with the help of Google Map, I find my way to go to the Gardens Mall, this time boarding commuter from KL Central Train Station to Mid Valley Train Station. Once I arrive at Mid Valley, it's time to manually search for the cinema inside the building. It took me an hour searching for the cinema. At there, I found a male LoveLiver wearing his headphone is sorting his Weiss Schwarz LoveLive! card collection with Kousaka Honoka dakimakura (hug pillow) sitting beside him, both of them are in front of the still closed cinema as the operating hours starts at 10:00AM. I go there to collect my physical ticket but I didn't read about their operating hours beforehand, so I'm just sitting there too, charging my phone as the battery will soon used up as I'm using its internet. Small talk with him revealed that he is actually waiting because he want to take the LoveLive! goodies, he has been waiting from 9:00AM because he doesn't know where or when will the goodies will be given, well neither I did know about it. When the cinema starts operating, the staff of the counter where I collected my ticket said the goodies will only be given an hour before the screen starts, that means 8:00PM as the screen will start at 9:00PM, however the staff advised us to come at 7:00PM because it might be many people lining up and she even said there are already patrons quarelling with counter staffs during ticket sales because of ticketing system problems and they have had added one more hall for this special screening for the patrons.

Since it's still a long time, I decided to go for a walk around the shopping complex and had a simple brunch (breakfast with lunch). On 5:00PM, I go back to the cinema and saw the number of LoveLivers has increased, all of them are chatting about LoveLive! like their favourite characters, exchanging LLSIF IDs to add friends etc... I did played LLSIF JP version but since it's actually installed in my laptop via BlueStacks, I prefer to be silent and just say I didn't play it and show my Android 2.3 phone to shut them up as they will know my phone will not be compatible to play it if I showed to them the phone. When I saw the staffs are setting up some kind of tables, I quickly stand up and go near by the table. >w< The others followed what I did and at last we formed a long line of queue. Some of the staffs then took some photos of us fans (photo available in Facebook ). Then we go to the cinema hall as stated on ticket, mine is PC2 (Premiere Class 2). Firstly they screen some ads, including the  stupid DoubleMint ads  and a few other ads, then they starts to screen the movie, but starts from GSC Movies logos to ODEX logos included first, it seems that the movie screen here is managed by ODEX Pt Ltd, distributed by GSC Movies, screened by Golden Screen Cinemas (GSC) with Japanese audio and trilingual subtitle (English, Chinese and Malay) stacked above each other as those three are the main languages used in Malaysia.

I feel very enjoyed watching this movie, this is also the first time I see Malay subtitle for this anime because there is never had official release of LoveLive! series, not even in Animax channel. There is also no Malay fansub group taking this anime, we're depending on some English and Chinese fansub groups for the series since there's no legal way to watch it at all, not even Chrunchyroll (except if you live in USA or other selected countries, they did broadcast the anime but not available worldwide, we cannot view it from Malaysia and proxy/VPN will cause our already slow Internet connection to be even slower). Since I am able to understand all the subtitles and the audio itself, I find it quite funny to see the translations are not consistent among each other, lol. For example, the English word "like" is translated into Malay as "suka" (meaning "love", it's similar to "like" but in different usage) and the Japanese audio is saying about "no you ni" which means it's not that love-related "like". Another noticed translation is the Chinese translations for their names are really unexpected (Nico, expected 妮可, they use 日香... Kotori, expected 小鸟, they use 琴梨) Not to mention the movie classification has changed from U (suitable for all ages) on the earlier promotion and synopsis of the movie to P13 (parental guidance required for children under 13 years old) on the final release. After we watched it, we had a group picture, since I am quite short (165cm) but I was standing quite behind so I am not visible in the final image of the group picture. After watching, it's time to go back to university, my friend help to send me from The Gardens Mall to Duta Bus Station, Kuala Lumpur. I boarded the bus on 10th October 01:00AM and safely arrived Kangar Bus Station on 08:00AM of the same day, where I take another bus from Kangar to Arau, back to my university and prepare for my Discrete Mathematics final examination which will be start on 2:30PM of the same day.

Part 2: Rewatch on my birthday
My birthday is on 18th October, since the normal screen is taking place from 15th to 28th October, I've decided to go rewatch the movie, this time I didn't go to GSC Signature in Kuala Lumpur because it's too far and I don't have much money left, so I decided to go to the nearest screening cinema, that is in GSC Gurney Plaza, Penang. Due to several problems with public transport, I have no other options than watching it on 7:50PM session. I take taxi from my university in Arau to Kangar Bus Station and board the bus on 9:00AM, reached the Penang Mainland on 12:00PM and wait for ferry to Penang Island, then take bus 101 from the ferry terminal to Gurney Plaza. I arrived there and claimed my birthday pass but it's only for selected movies (as expected) and I choose "The Martian" of 3:00PM session (there's no LoveLive! movie session after 12:00PM before 7:50PM though). After finish watching "The Martian" I go to toilet and transform my shirts into Otonokizaka High winter school uniform >w< and then I go to collect ticket and my popcorn sets. There are people who noticed me and chit-chatting at behind "Oh, it's LoveLive! uniform!!!" but well, I then enter the cinema hall and watch the movie. '''I feel very happy when I can watch LoveLive! The School Idol Movie while wearing their school uniform'''. After watching it, I just ask someone to help me take my picture using my  noob Android 2.3 phone, it seems kind of blurry but shou ga nai wa nee, I don't have any camera or other phone; this is my only phone. The picture taken is being used as my Twitter display picture. Then, it's time to go back to university, taking bus 101 from Gurney Plaza back to ferry terminal, then I had to wait from 11:00PM to 3:00AM for the express bus to go back to Kangar. I arrived Kangar at 05:45AM and I had my breakfast (actually it can be counted as brunch from earlier day, as I didn't eat anything except popcorns on the earlier day) before waiting for the first bus Kangar to Arau which starts operation on 06:15AM.

Additional
After two times of watching the movie, I got notified by Malaysia LoveLive! fan group in Facebook that GSC is going to extend the screening of the movie until 31st October, but it's only for GSC Mid Valley branch in Kuala Lumpur, so I didn't bother about it, I can't go there anyway. This might be because of the fact some of my friends went to watch the movie everyday at GSC Mid Valley, yes every single day from 15th to 28th October, maybe some people doesn't get the chance to watch it so GSC is extending it.

''I will write a longer article (with images) in my website after I make sure all articles in my website are organized because broken links everwhere as I am separating English articles from my main website and moved them to new English-only website (so that visitors doesn't get lost in navigating). Forgive me for any grammar errors because English is my third language after Malay and Chinese (Mandarin). MuhdNurHidayat (talk) 18:44, November 5, 2015 (UTC)''