PriPara – 40-43

I’m not the only one criticizing ANN about how sometimes their translation of interviews are wrong, how they sometimes post completely useless things as news, or how they never post stuff about less popular things like Pretty Rhythm/PriPara. Unless it’s to announce the next season, but even then they don’t even post the details you can easily find on Animate or other sites. Which is why I started doing it myself. But for the record, the editor in chief of ANN Christopher Macdonald is a pretty nice and cool guy.  Back in january, ANN bought back a french anime magazine called Animeland that was dying for a few years now, because ANN editor in chief is friends with Animeland boss among other reasons. And so Christopher McDonald was in France, and he went to Nolife. They made him MC their daily show on Friday like what they always do with their guests. And he was cool. Plus one of his favorite shows is Bubblegum Crisis.

Episode 40

So yeah now Laala is now 11 and in 6th grade.

I think Mikan is much more scarier than Aroma. People that always smile like that are dangerous. And her mouth is always open. It’s like she’s planning to swallow the world itself.

The apple part of their choreography is pretty funny. It’s funny they made Aroma summon Mikan during their Making Drama while saying “come forth my minions” because that’s pretty much what Mikan is. She barely says anything besides food things or catchphrase, just follows Aroma around. Their team is even called Aromageddon. They were supposed to add two new characters and their cat mascot, not one new character and her two mascots. I guess if they made the Making Drama this way, the staff know themselves about this problem. Doesn’t make it any less excusable though. It’s like acting like an imbecile and saying it’s okay because you’re doing it on purpose. Maybe Mikan will get a bit more personality later. Not too much though, don’t want her to exceed the character development maximum to stay in PriPara like Faruru did. And hopefully they won’t do a super boring twist that Mikan is actually the one bossing Aroma around once Aroma stops bribing her with manju.

Psychic waaaaaaaabu!

Episode 41

>idols are supposed to make people happy, saying you’re a devil idol doesn’t work etc I guess Mireille doesn’t know about the current trend of chuuni idols, and that Aroma is a clone of Ranko in Ixmas Cinderella, which is a clone of Yurika in Aikatsu! (or maybe the other way around, I don’t really care anyway. I do like Yurika though) which is a clone of other characters who did it before and Yousei Teikoku.

I don’t like how chuuni has became a character trait now in anime now. It shows the laziness of the writers. In a show specially focused on the subject it works, but as a character description trait it shouldn’t be used. It became like “childhood friend”. People write crappy harem, and put a childhood friend, and they conveniently don’t need to write a reason why she likes the MC just because she’s the “childhood friend”. Saying a teenager character is a chuuni deep down means that they think they’re super special or have super powers like in movies, and every normal kid in the world thinks that, with some showing it more than others. There’s nothing that special about it.

Yousei Teikoku is pretty popular and yet they’ve never done a live in France. Some much less popular groups have already made it here thanks to Nolife. I’m pretty sure one of the reasons why Yousei Teikoku has never come to France yet is because live concerts organizers know that antisemitism is regarded here as a higher form of racism, and that they could get in huge trouble if some stupid people falsefully call the group antisemitic because of some of their outfits.

That Akaii Meganee isn’t mocking Laala for being a monkey repeating catchphrases. In Japanese O/circle is correct and X/check is wrong, so when people lift their arms like that to form a circle it means ok.

No Sophie this isn’t your jellyfish Nagasumi antenna super powers. You could tell because you see and hear the catchphrases every single time.

40 episodes later, Mireille still has the same Making Drama, didn’t take pics. To be fair, it’s different as they removed the looping and the teacup spin.

Episode 42

The shop lady gave the bread to Sophie for her graduation. They mentioned at the beginning of s2 that it’s a new school year and Laala is a 6th grader now, but they didn’t say anything about Mireille and Sophie so was wondering when they’d bring it up. Mireille is now in 2nd year middle school, and Sophie is now a 3rd year. I remember demonstrating how there’s no high school section in Paprika, so Sophie won’t be in Paprika anymore in s3. Unless they retcon that, or Gloria or someone creates one, or if s2 doesn’t last a year in universe and they’re still in same grade in s3. Or they could make S3 about new characters. But I think they’ll wait until 2017/s4 minimum to remove Laala and co and do new characters.

Sophie’s eyes are scary there.

I like how Mireille got up elegantly befitting the superiority of untransformed Mirelle, and how Shion got up in a stylish and swift way, like a warrior going up a horse departing for battle. Shion is so awesome she makes an episode ten times better just by getting up from her seat.

Do you think Sophie’s dad being an adventurer is a jab at how Ichigo’s dad is also an adventurer?

Oh, this is a “transfer” episode again. First time they did it was with Sophie already. Can’t they think of anything else for her?

The bow thing was nice. I guess it wasn’t in episode 40 because they didn’t finish it yet.

Mikan’s Making Drama was nice too. Also doesn’t Mikan kinda looks like Aira in CG? Or maybe it’s because the fruits made me think of Aira and FURESHU FRUITSU BASKETTO

What if the show continues till they all go to Prifornia university.

Yaaaay Cosmo finally. It’s an episode about Cosmo and Sophie’s dad and she hasn’t appeared yet so I was getting worried.

The short transformation scene was nice.

Sophie’s dress is nice.

Making Drama was ok.

That’s Sandro Botticelli’s Allegory of Spring. Someone pointed it out on twitter, I knew of the painting but totally forgot the name. I don’t know anything about art pictures except the ones often referenced in anime like the scream.

It’s like I’m watching City Hunter.

Was okay. Could have been a million times better though. I don’t get how they managed to make the episode this unfunny, when it had an over the top Japanese dad coming back from Brazil, voiced by Inada Tetsu aka UNIVERSE!!, and who kinda looks like davy crockett. It started so well too, with his dynamite entrance and everything.

Inada Tetsu tweeted “be sure to watch PriPara tomorrow” the day before the episode aired, hinting he’ll be in it. In other tweets after the episode aired he said he had fun doing it.

Note: It’s weird how they say Purajiru for Brazil, Purifornia for California, but still used Canada instead of Canadapara or something for Dorothy and Leona back when they were introduced.

Episode 43

Akaii Meganii jumping out in a parachute and posing wasn’t done in an enough ridiculous over the top way.

What is this social segregation.

Poor Sophie, she wanted to run. I’m sure they would have won if they let her run.

Dorothy must have used an incredibly shrewd and wicked trick to manage to catch Shion.

Enka girl and New Mew couldn’t run sadly. Nanami just flew off for some reason hahaha.

Who would’ve thought we’d see Shion doing Limbo.

Maybe Mikan will start going out with a guy after billions of rage inducing misunderstandings, get pregnant and then prematurely halt her career as a PriPara idol, giving up participating in the PriPara olympics, in order to take care of her daughter.

Wow mean.

Pshuu.

So Aroma isn’t the sportive type.

I honestly think the end of the race was the most engaging scene since the beginning of the show. Needless to say I wanted Shion and Dressing Pafé to win, but it made me want to root for Salami Smile too, and even Aroma and Mikan. It was more emotional than any pseudo tournament or forced drama so far. IT felt like there was something at stake. It made me actually care about them winning. Something this easy to do, took them 43 episodes to do it right. And I’m not sure if they’ll ever will again.

Raburi Furowa Shinderella was ok.

It’s their signatures appearing behind.

Episode 43 was good.

Random

They released the info about the new characters:

Midorikaze Fuwari

“As a PriPara princess candidate, she comes to Para Inn(パラ宿) from Europpara after being invited by a mysterious prince. She’s a girl whose charm resides in her naturalness”

Dunno what Para Inn/パラ宿 is. Or maybe it’s read as Parajuku and is the town of Laala and co. No idea what a PriPara princess candidate is either, I guess they’ll explain it later, then forget about it like with prism voice. Europpara is Europe. Judging from Unicorn saying he’ll go to another PriPara by helicopter while inside the PriPara in Laala’s town, it seems all PriPara are connected in the PriPara world. Maybe you can go in PriPara in Laala’s town, travel all the way to another continent’s PriPara, then get out there, so you’re at the actual continent? She’s voiced by Sato Azusa, never heard of her. According to wikipedia she started voicing in 2012 and almost only did side characters.

Fuwari was revealed the 16th of April at the summer 2015 Takara Tommy group business meeting. Sato Azusa was present there, she said boring typically japanese seiyuu event lines like “I always wanted to do a role like that,  I have a 3 years old niece watching PriPara, I’ll do my best for her” blablabla so not gonna translate it all.

Shikyouin Hibiki

“He is the grandson of the president of Paprika holdings, the company owning Paprika school. He’s in first year of high school. He is a big movie star in Europpara but is currently on a break. He won the “Mr Universe World Prince of the year” and thus owns the title of “best prince”. He got to know Fuwari at Parupasu, and decided to invite her to Para Inn/パラ宿 as a PriPara princess candidate. He also later transfers to Paprika school as a representative of his grandfather. “

He’s probably the one who’ll make a high school section in Paprika school. The problem I wrote about earlier is solved. Seems he’s partnered up with Fuwari until they do the 5 person teams so I bet they’ll recycle jumps or some of the chemistry between Otoha and Beru/Ito. In fact they already started recycling with the prince princess thing.

He’s voiced by Saiga Mitsuki who familiar with voicing effeminate males/masculine females/bishounen characters  like Enzan in Rockman Exe or Lin Shaolee in Black Cat.

I didn’t think that not only they would add another male character, but one who actually dresses like a male idol, unlike Leona. I know PriPara though, so can’t say I’m any excited. After the reveal, they used the fact that Leona is actually a guy in only one episode focused on him, and I can only think of one joke when it was used: when he was about to help Laala get changed when she was sick. I’m looking forward to Hibiki but definitely not getting my hopes up. And I’m sure even if he ends up being a good character, they’ll manage to ruin him just like how they’re ruining Shion with no plot and no development and nothing.

As a side (useless) note, just like how Salami Smile and Dressing Pafé girls family names have kanjis for cardinal directions: Laala=Center, Sophie=North, Mireille=South, Shion=East, Dorothy+Leona=West the four new girls’s family names have a color kanji in them. Aroma is called Kurosu Aroma and Mikan is called Shiratama Mikan. Aroma=black, Mikan=white, Fuwari=green, Hibiki=purple (Useless note because you’re super naive if you think this will have any incidence to the plot, which is near nonexistent anyway)

I’m betting the two five persons teams will be: Laala Mireille Sophie Aroma Hibiki Shion Dorothy Leona Mikan Fuwari Logically you’d think Mikan will join Laala and co and Aroma will join Shion, but I think Aroma will have an episode where she’ll say she doesn’t have any friends besides Mikan, or that she just wants to be friends with Laala, and will join their team.

Hibiki and Fuwari will appear in the show in June so in episodes 49-50.

There’s going to be an event the 12th of July to celebrate Laala’s one year anniversary debut. Crunchyroll already wrote about it.

The 18th of April there was a PriPara tournament at Prism Stone Harajuku for people over 18 years old. 87 players in total went to the shop, while they were expecting 32 people maximum to show up, so they did a lottery to pick 32 people for the tournament. Matches were one on one, the player with the higher score would proceed to the next round. Songs were chosen randomly. Players would exchange purichike after the duel. For the final, the two players could choose the song, they both picked the new Dream Theather mode and the new OP as song. The winner, “opera san”, won with 27192 points against “momiji san” who got 27184 points. Opera san won by only 8 points. Translated and summarized from here, there’s more pics too. It’s pretty nice they aren’t alienating the adult fan base or anything.

PriPara started a collaboration with Joypolis. From 18th April to 10th May at 14:00, 17:00 and 19:00 everyday (and 11:00 on weekends) they’re doing CG hologram lives. There’s also other things naive parents will waste money on for their kids like taking photos or overpriced PriPara themed menus/drinks etc. Sega’s Joypolis amusement parks are one of the first things I learned about IRL Japan when I was a kid.

In the manga in Ciao magazine and the PriPara official fan book magazine, they also did a sports competition. Faruru participated and Sophie and Shion paired up.

Cosmo cosplayer at Niconico Chokaigi 2015.

Purichike cake.

Along with Kyupikon, there’s also Doki now subbing PriPara s2. I dunno both groups, so I don’t know if they are made up of childish people who will compete with each other or not. Seeing how these first episodes of s2 were, I don’t think the show will get any better than s1 anytime soon. You should know what I’m talking about already, not gonna repeat myself(One thing I’ll repeat for newcomers is that I knew full well PriPara wouldn’t be like Pretty Rhythm). Because of this, I bet either Doki or Kyupikon will stop subbing the show in the long run. The Kyupikon guys are aware of the show’s true nature though, since they joke about Nanami’s(and every side character) abysmal screentime, and still decided to sub it anyway. So I’m betting they’ll be the one to keep going, while Doki will stop.

Crunchyroll actually posts PriPara news pretty fast when they’re out, using the official twitter as their source. They posted about the new characters the day they respectively got revealed. They don’t post about completely useless things for overseas watchers like the Joypolis collab though. Sometimes their translation is a little derpy (“The character is a Princess candidate comes from Europe invited by a mysterious Prince”) but it’s just grammar errors and perfectly fine unless you’re a bastard who likes complaining about every little thing. So I think I’ll just post their links now if they already wrote about something.

A twitter user pointed out there’s a brand of hygienic towels called Whisper and one of their products is called Cosmo. Another one is called Sophie. It even corresponds to their colors too. Not sure if those products got out before or after PriPara. Is PriPara actually the deepest anime ever?