Everyone and their cat knows how Shinkai Makoto’s Your Name revolutionized anime cinema in 2016, breaking through Spirited Away‘s records. What few know, however, is that another movie made anime history the same year: KING OF PRISM by PrettyRhythm.
As you may know, the KING OF PRISM movies are spin-offs of the Pretty Rhythm franchise. The first movie, KING OF PRISM by PrettyRhythm (shortened as Kinpri) was initially released in 14 theaters on January 9th 2016. Three weeks after release, it was only screening in 9 cinemas, and the staff was preparing for the worst. However, the movie ended up earning more than 800 million yen, and by May 2016 it was in over 100 cinemas across Japan. All thanks to dedicated fans’ word to mouth and the movie’s “Cheer Screenings” (応援上映 in Japanese), screenings where you can come in cosplay, use glowsticks, scream and sing along during the movie, or dub lines during subtitled scenes specifically made for it. The movie had a 9 months run in cinemas, and its final screening was at Shinjuku Wald 9, on September 2nd 2016, even though the movie was already out on DVD/BD since June 17th. KING OF PRISM was a huge success in South Korea as well. The first movie released there on August 11th 2016, and broke the record of longest screening period for an anime film, a record previously held by Love Live! The School Idol Movie! The sequel movie, KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO-, ended up releasing simultaneously in Japan and South Korea on June 10th 2017.
However, the Kinpri movies have a hidden history unrecorded even on Japanese anime sites. In the first place, how did a kids franchise spawn movies geared towards adults? Why are the movies gayer than actual Boys Love anime? Why does what seems to be a Yuri on Ice! ripoff with Shinji and Kaworu clones is a big enough deal to be screened at Los Angeles Anime Film Festival???
Note: While similar, I’ve added a lot of things compared to the French version of this article I published back in May 2018. This is basically the XX+ Reloaded Definitive edition of the “Pretty Series History”.
Edit: I fixed the post’s layout, as it got screwed up after I changed the blog’s theme, even though it was fine beforehand during preview.
There’s no spoilers for KING OF PRISM- PRIDE the HERO- , except for one fact about George they had revealed in interviews prior the movie release, so if you’ve read my previous posts you should know it already.
This is a summary of the Kinpri related production info and jokes they said on Anigera episodes 271 and 272. Similarly to my other radio shows summary, it’s written in a very crude&fast way.
Sugita Tomokazu voices Takadanobaba George in KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO-. (aka Kinpra or Kinpri 2) Kobayashi Tatsuyuki voices George when he’s singing, he’s his ghost singer. Furuya Yamato is George’s actor in the stage play, KING OF PRISM-Over the Sunshine!- (aka Butakin)
Anigera Didoooon!! is Sugita’s radio show. He hosts it with his friends game journalist Mafia Kajita, Kedouin Makoto(yes, Corpse Party’s author) and Asakura, an animator. On episodes 271 and 272, Kobayashi and Furuya were present as guests.
When Kinpri 2 was in production the staff called Aoni, Sugita’s agency, and he got the role for George without even passing an audition. Director Hishida also said he made George around the same time they called Sugita and it’s a bit like if he made the character for him. Sugita advertised Kinpri 1 a lot on every radio show he appeared in in mid 2016.
Kobayashi Tatsuyuki voices George when he’s singing, he’s his ghost singer. He’s also Asahi in Idol Time PriPara. He also sang OP2 of Saikyou Ginga Ultimate Zero Battle Spirits(Batosupi6), which was a pretty good show you should watch. It’s fine to watch it even if you haven’t seen past Batosupi seasons. Director Hishida was also the episode director for episode 44 and also did its storyboard. The most appealing thing about Batosupi6 is definitely the original, refreshing, hard lined chara design by Ishikawa Tetsuya. Ishikawa actually worked on the Kinpri movies as an animator, and is also among the many personalities, mangaka, singers etc who advertised the first Kinpri movie on Twitter and part of why it became popular. But I digress, and you should be able to read about all this in detail very soon if I manage to finish my “Everything you should know about Pretty Rhythm and the KING OF PRISM phenomenon” thing.
Episode 271
Episode 271 starts with a sketch, something they often do on Anigera. It’s a pretty funny Getter Robo parody with Sugita, Furuya and Kobayashi each acting George.
After introducing themselves, they talk about how the “Butakin” nickname for the stage play is super funny. They also talk how Kinpri was the first movie to use ouenjouei/cheer screenings profusely and popularize it, showing it can be a mean to success. And how a lot of other movies are doing it too now.
The three of them had already contacted each other on Twitter DM saying they need to meet up one day, but Sugita couldn’t go to that meeting, so he decided to talk with his radio staff to see if they could invite them.
Both Furuya and Kobayashi knew Sugita before Kinpri happened, but never met him in person. Furuya says he doesn’t watch much anime but he knew about Sugita since he’s in very popular shows. When he was chosen to act George in Butakin, he was super nervous, wondering if he’ll be able to portray a Sugita voiced character properly. He felt a lot of pressure. Then he went to watch the movie, and got even more confused when it turns out it’s not Sugita when George is singing. Plus he wanted to get an idea of the character, but George has very few lines in it, so it didn’t give him enough info at all. So then he went to see Kinpri 1, but George doesn’t even appear in it as he’s a character made for Kinpri 2. So Furuya was really lost. In the end, he inspired himself with Gintoki in Gintama and even listened to tons of Anigera past episodes. Sugita says it reminds him of the Blazblue stage play, Ragna’s actor had the same problem and was super worried if he’d be able to portray Sugita’s character correctly. He was really happy when Sugita praised him about it, saying ‘it’s fine yo be yourself, your Ragna was great’.
Kobayashi talks about the recording of George singing the Love Mix song in Kinpri 2. At first he was really lost, because he thought he had to sing in a way that sounds like Sugita’s voice. But then the staff explained to him that even in the story, George does use a ghost singer, so it’s totally fine even if the 2 voices sound completely different. They told him it’s fine to just sing like a “sparkling normal idol”. So then it was much easier.
The name Takadanobaba comes from the train station with the same name. They don’t actually talk about it so that’s just info from past posts I’m repeating: in the past Hishida director said he often passes near Hirokouji station during walks. Then it became a private joke between him and the fans, because of Hiro and Kouji. That’s why he decided to name George after a station. But Hiro and Kouji weren’t named after Hirokouji as far as I know. It was a coincidence.
Sugita says the cheer screenings are definitely one of the big appeals of the Kinpri movies. And you can actually do it at home, just not too loud to not bother neighbors.
As he already said many times back in 2016, Sugita went to see Kinpri 1 twice when it released. The first time, it was right after seeing the movie Doukyusei which he though was a movie adapted from the bishoujo game Doukyusei. Turns out it was adapted from a yaoi manga with the same name. He was the only guy in the theater. But the movie was pretty good, so then when getting out, he saw the ad for Kinpri1 and was like, “might as well go watch this other yaoi looking movie, maybe it’ll be good too”.And he was absolutely amazed by it. So he invited one of his friends to go watch the movie again. He had already seen some if not all of Pretty Rhythm before seeing the movie too. Anyway back to Anigera, Sugita says he’d actually like to go to the events etc as a simple fan but can’t. Like the Wrap Up Party events in Tokyo and Osaka which he then promotes.
They talked about a lot of random things in this episode, but less about Kinpri.
Furuya had to improvise a lot of George’s lines in Butakin. I guess this means each representation was different. Stage play George talks a whole lot more compared to anime George. Furuya says that he thought “if it was Sugita san, he’d go overboard and say tons of stuff”, so that’s why it turned out like this.
Tatsuyuki was named like that by his parents to evoke a dragon soaring into the skies, and to reflect how they wanted to see him grow up well.
It was announced during the “KING OF PRISM SUPER LIVE MUSIC READY SPARKING！”event on October 21.
Be careful if you want to order it, as there’s two different preorder limited editions. The first limited edition is called the 速水ヒロ プリズムキング王位戴冠記念BOX/Hayami Hiro Prism King Crowning Ceremony Commemoration BOX. The second one is just called “preorder limited edition”, is cheaper and has less things.
The Hayami Hiro Prism King Crowning Ceremony Commemoration BOX is 19940 Yen, tax included. (18360 yen for the DVD version) It’ll have:
A new drawing of Hiro enclosed in a case, a mini version of the movie’s script, a booklet, and unspecified other goods.
A first dvd/bd disc will have the movie and a collection of the ads and trailers.
A second dvd/bd disc will have videos of:
The OTR SPECIAL THANKS PARTY, (the September 11 2016 event where Kinpri2 was announced.)
The stage greeting with Over The Rainbow from July 15 2017(the one where they said to not forget Kinpri exists thanks to the girls, and they’d like to do an event together again with the girls characters’ seiyuu)
The “THUNDER STORM SESSION After Party!!!” medley video which is still currently shown after the movie in some cinemas
The first stage greeting when the movie was released on June 10 2017
Footage from ouenjouei/cheer screenings(this should include the ones with Prism Afureko samples where some lines in the movie were voiced by some of the girls seiyuus like Kato Emiri/Naru, Goto Saori/Oto)
Lastly it’ll have 2 CDs with
a new recorded message from Hiro,
a new episode of the Kinpri Radio Secret Rose Time specially made for this, along with a collection of all the previous episodes
the song 「EZ DO DANCE -THUNDER STORM ver.-」
the song「FREEDOM -THUNDER STORM ver.-」
The “preorder limited edition” is 12960 yen (11880 yen for the dvd version) and has:
The movie, ads and trailers, the movie’s script& booklet, footage of the OTR SPECIAL THANKS PARTY, The “THUNDER STORM SESSION After Party!!!” medley video, the first stage greeting and footage from cheer screenings, the two songs 「EZ DO DANCE -THUNDER STORM ver.-」&「FREEDOM -THUNDER STORM ver.-」
Depending on which shop you preoder either version, you also get a different bonus goods. They’re listed on the official site article linked in the tweet.
Lastly it has also been announced the movie has now earned 600 million yen.
On August 29 the male/female separated Kinpri2 screenings were held, with Kato Emiri/Naru and Gotou Saori/Otoha doing the stage greetings, along with Avex producer Nishi Hiroko who was acting as MC like she often does. They announced that starting September 2, KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO-/Kinpri2/Kinpra will have Prism☆Afureko/Prism Dubbing screenings. These screenings follow the same rules as ouenjouei/cheer screening(cosplay OK, cyalume OK, screaming OK etc), but all the characters’ lines are muted and subtitles are displayed, so the audience can dub the movie themselves.
From September 2 to 8, theaters across Japan will show a sample version, made by the female characters’ voice actresses. Confirmed so far are Kato Emiri/Naru, Uchida Maaya/Wakana and Mikako komatsu/Ito. Moreover they confirmed this sample dubbing will be included as bonus in the KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO- Bluray. There’ still no release date for it though.
More things about the event: According to both news site and fans’ reports on Twitter, the audience’s reaction was tremendous when they announced the female seiyuu’s dubbed version, and Kato san Gotou san and Nishi san all got moved to tears.
When Nishi san asked them who’s they’re favorite character in Kinpri 2, Gotou Saori said Kakeru and Kato Emiri said George. When asked about how they felt when dubbing Kinpri 2, they said that instead of thinking that the boys became girls, they just voiced out their feelings naturally. They think people will do the same when attending Prism Dubbings screenings, and they even made a Twitter hastag for it: #ありのままのキンプラ, which can be translated as “Kinpra the way you feel it”.
During the male only screenings, seems Wald9 9 had some kind of technical trouble, so the audience started cheering for the staff, and someone screamed “get back uuuup!! Waaald 9!!!” Like Kouji does to Hiro in the movie(not a spoiler since you can see it in a PV)
This is pretty cool news so making a post specifically for it instead of simply reporting it on Twitter. I’m already extremely hyped to watch the movie. And now I’m ever more hyped to watch thegirl’s dubbed version. Can’t wait to hear Naru wakana and Ito voice Alexander.
Kinpri got into anime history in 2016 and made Cheer Screenings popular. Tons of other movies are doing it now. These new Prism Dubbing are interesting, as it shows they know Kinpri was ahead of it’s time with the cheer screening (though technically speaking it wasn’t the first movie who did it) and so they want to keep their lead. Like a technology race. Prism Dubbing is pretty much the next step after Cheer Screenings, allowing you to dub the whole movie. Surely this will become popular as well. Pretty Rhythm is such an exciting series. I wish I’d be able to write about it in some official news site or magazine.
There hasn’t been an official announcement yet, but Amazon started listing a KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO- setting book to be released on October 25 2017. This is basically the guidebook of Kinpri 2. It’ll definitely have new information, along with all the background information the director and staff talked about at various stage greetings since the movie’s release. I have that info already, thanks to fans on twitter always writing reports, but I haven’t read it yet to avoid spoiling myself, and waiting for the DVD/BD release. If God wills, I’ll definitely get this new book and translate the interviews in it, like I’m doing with the others guidebooks. I’m kinda busy these days so I haven’t got the time to translate a new interview in a while though. I still haven’t finished translating the ones in the PRASS guidebook.
Edit from 26 October 2017
After asking a fan(Thank you Sakuramochi san), I realized I got this all wrong, I’m terribly sorry. Actually the Prism Afureko thing is much simpler than that. You know how Kinpri 1 had scenes which were subbed, and the audience would dub them during Cheer Screenings. Needless to say there’s scenes like this in KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO- too, and these Prism Afureko screenings has the girls seiyuus dubbing these scenes instead of the audience. They didn’t redub the whole movie with the girls, nor do you get to dub the whole movie yourself. You dont’ get to see stuff like Naru voicing Alec for a scene. Again I’m sorry. Not the first time I get something wrong but it’s been a while since it last happened.
Script is by Aoba Jou, aka Pretty Rhythm&Kinpri Director Hishida Masakazu (aka Riru Riru Fairilu Director Gojou Sakura)
The actual director of the stage play is someone called 宇治川まさなり (not sure how his name is read). Seems he directed many other stage plays in the past like the Yowamushi Pedal stage play, or the Sengoku BASARA vs Devil May Cry stage play (yeah, I didn’t know this existed either, I want to see that).
They haven’t said for now whether it’ll be a completely new story or using the story from the movies. I don’t think it’ll be a new story. I think it’ll mostly be the first movie, with maybe a few changes.
When it was announced, director tweeted “please support Butakin”. He’s abbreviating the stage play as butai + Kinpri = Butakin. In the past he’s also the one who coined the “Kinpri” abbreviation for KING OF PRISM by PrettyRhythm and the “Kinpra” abbreviation for KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO-, though I mostly use Kinpri2 instead of Kinpra, so it’s easier to get for people not familiar with Pretty Rhythm.
Some people told him to change the abbreviation but I hope it’ll stay this way. In any case I’ll keep calling it Butakin myself because this is so funny.
Old time Pretty Rhythm fanartist Siokya san explained it’s because Director loves it when everyone uses an unique abbreviation so it sticks out during searches, so it’s easier for him to see people’s reactions. So Siokya said he’ll purposely use the emotes
buta/pig and the emote for the kanji 禁/kin
to talk about the stage play, to make it harder for director to search for it haha. Some other old times fans really like the Butakin abbreviation as well and will keep using it alongside with the emote version.
— じす太 俺たちのドリフェス！はこれからだ!!!!!❗️ (@sfbb_ojisan) July 24, 2017
Another fan: “I always said Kinpri is a 2.5D movie, so if we’re getting a 2.5D stageplay of a 2.5D movie, it’ll be 2.5*2.5 and become a 6.25Dimension stage play.”
All the characters are played by different people than their seiyuu.
A fan made a listof the age and height of the actors, to compare it with the characters’
Except for Minato, who will be played by his seiyuu Igarashi Masashi. As you can see on his profile, he did many stage play roles in the past so he’ll definitely do a great job.
Soon after the announcement, Igarashi tweeted “If not for Kinpri, I wouldn’t have got the opportunity to be in such a stage play again”, that he’ll try to spread the prism sparkle with this stage play which can be considered in a sense 2.5D. And he said “The only one who can act Minato, IS ME!!” referencing Hiro’s line in Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live episode 18. Made me laugh a lot.
Enoki Azusa/Mion tweeted she’s happy Kinpri is getting a stage play, and that she knows Shin’s actor, she did the Bakumatsu Ookami Kick stage play with him.
It seems Tsubota Fumi isn’t working on Kinbuta. Would have been perfect if she helped with the scripts, as before writing for Pretty Rhythm, she used to write theater pieces, hence why she greatly contributed to making the Grateful Symphonia theater like episodes at the end of DMF.
Also, if you’ve been reading my blog for at least a year, you should already know that Koreans fans made their own fan stage play of Kinpri 1 at a convention. Director even retweeted it back when they put it on Youtube. I hope the official one will be at least as good as this.
In other news, Yamamoto Nozomi (Cosmo, Ai jozenji(Naru and Ito’s classmate),Ito’s pair tomo Kurun) finally saw Kinpri 2 today. She says she likes Street Style the best and wants to see the movie again.
The official KING OF PRISM Twitter is about to reach 60K followers, they'll give out Twitter avatars to celebratehttps://t.co/R9rK1WkzDr
Lastly, as always, I’m still saving info from the ongoing stage greetings, eagerly waiting for the KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO- DVD release so I’ll finally be able to read all the new background info and translate&publish it.
These days I’m trying to save all the info I see from stage greetings with the seiyuus, interviews post movie release which contain spoilers, the Kinpri radio(the episode scheduled for June 23 will have Director Hishida Masakazu answering fanmail questions on the movie, next episode will have Kakihara so I think they’ll keep inviting seiyuus) etc etc. I’m waiting until seeing the movie before I read&publish all this, to not spoil myself. If God wills, when the movie is out on DVD, I’ll first do an impressions post without reading these to not “contaminate” my own impressions, then I’ll do another post with all the info I gathered.
I’m gathering everything in a folder. I remember that a lot of the info director was tweeting during Pretty Rhythm’s run on TV from 2011 to 2014, and info from the RL After Party and such events, ended being reworded/compiled in the Rainbow Live Guidebook and the All Star Selection Guidebook. So I’m pretty sure all that Kinpri2 info from stage greetings, prism elite meeting events, etc will probably be compiled in a new KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO- Official Guidebook. But I’m saving it anyway just in case. If a KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO- Official Guidebook happens, I’ll try to buy it and translate it like I’m doing with the others.
Source Director also said at one of the stage greetings that after finishing Kinpri2, his inspiration ran out, but by going to the various stage greetings and events with the seiyuus, hanging out&eating with them, he can feel the characters are still growing, and they might do another new sequel. He said that for now though, the second movie’s screenings and cheer screenings need to do well.
Gonna sound like a teen youtuber, but as I won’t make a post for every threshold, if you want news asap remember to follow my Twitter, which I linked above.
Kinpri2/KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO- released in Japan and South Korea on June 10. You can easily find spoilers from english speaking people in Japan on Tumblrs blogs, Twitter, etc. I’m not planning to read spoilers but will probably inevitably see some.
Most Japanese fans on Twitter,especially all the Pretty Rhythm Yakuzas, are really considerate, and only talk about the movie in MP, or made specific new accounts, or are using apps to hide their tweets. They’re really nice.
Director did another stage greeting at Cineplex Makuhari cinema in Chiba but with Nagatsuka/Leo alone. It was the first time they did an event with only the two of them.
All of this reminds me of when Kinpri1 got out and when it started getting popular starting end of February 2016, and Director was going all over Japan everyday for the stage greetings and even went to Okinawa.
As I reported in the previous post, during the stage greeting and first public premiere of the movie at Wald9,Tokyo on June 10, they announced a new live event for October 21. It seems very similar to the OTR Special Thanks Party held on September 11 2016. They were both announced very early, and they both happen twice the same day so more people can attend. And the September 11 event was when KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO- was announced, so they might announce something new there again.
In my case, I think they might announce a Kinpri TV anime.
I don’t consider KING OF PRISM a spinoff to Rainbow Live but a direct sequel, I’ve often seen english news site refers it to as a”older females audience oriented spinoff of the little girls oriented series Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live”. KING OF PRISM is a sequel, not a spinoff. It’s true Naru and her friends aren’t the main characters anymore and it now focuses on Hiro Kouji Kazuki and their juniors, but Hiro Kouji and Kazuki were already main characters in Rainbow Live, and the villain is still the same. While I remember the staff may have used the word “spinoff “in some interviews to describe KING OF PRISM, it’s definitely considered as a sequel by the staff as well.
I think it’s bad to be hung up over these kind of things, and it’s just anime, just a hobby, so I’m not gonna push it further. It’s a similar case to how people call Pretty Rhythm an “idol anime” when it isn’t and what I already wrote about this in the past. It’s fine to call it one, but it’s slightly misguiding to do so. And the staff themselves have already used the words “idol anime” to describe it, but also say it isn’t, just like when Director said during Kinpri’s announcement1 “You’d think it’s bad business wise to do another male idol anime as this market is crowaded. However, we aren’t making anime about idols, we’re making anime about Prism Stars”.
Now what would be a spinoff would be if in 2019-2020 for the 10 anniversary of the Pretty Rhythm series they do a new project crossover with PriPara and past seasons.
Enoki Azusa san(Mion) tweeted she appears in KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO-, reprising her role as Hiro’s mother. Unsurprising since this is Pretty Rhythm and parents characters are important.
She also went to see the movie on release day June 10. (on the premiere at Wald 9 I think)She says it was fun watching it with everyone, she wants to see it again and support her son. It seems Mion also appears voiced in some way as she said so herself, and she also RTed/subtweeted and answered a lot of people talking about it on twitter saying stuff like how “Mion appears in Kinpri2”. (I could look into it but I try to avoid spoilers)
Kinpri1 DVD was announced on March 21 2016 for a June 17 release. So I guess DVD for Kinpri2 should be announced in August, for a October 2017 release.
Similar to the KING OF PRISM by PrettyRhythm Prism Elite Meeting events they did last year, they announced the second KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO- Prism Elite Meeting event for June 17. (The first one was the June 7 event with Director, Nishi san and Kato san). I hope it’ll be streamed online. Last year I didn’t care about spoilers, so I could watch these live when they were streamed and write reports about it, but I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible this time, so I will just save the stream if it’s streamed and keep it for later. At worst if it’s not streamed, there will always be Kunieda5gogo’s blog where I could check what happened after seeing the movie myself.
On June 13, NHK world broadcasted Imagine Nation, featuring KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO-. It features an interview of Pretty Rhythm director Hishida Masakazu, Avex Producer Nishi Hiroko and Pretty Rhythm CG Director Otobe Yoshihiro.
I haven’t watched it yet as I’m really busy, and it shows a lot of the Prism Show scenes of Kinpri2, and I want to avoid spoilers anyway. I think I’ll only “listen” to it, since they dubbed the interviews in English. They talk about how Kinpri was made, it’s surprising popularity, how it became a cultural phenomenon in Japan changing the way cinema is enjoyed, being the first movie to do Cheer Screenings, etc.
Technically, there were others who did it before it, like the first Pretty Rhythm movie. I’m currently writing a post that would basically be this video, but ultra complete and detailed, regrouping all the background info about Kinpri’s making history and how it became a huge thing. Basically I’m doing a “everything you should know about the KING OF PRISM phenomenon” post. I hope I manage to finish it soon.
This post covers the first preview screening event of the movie, interviews prior to the movie’s release, and many miscellaneous info. Director Hishida Masakzu and Avex Producer Nishi Hiroko have been doing lots of interviews the days before June 10 to promote the movie. The characters’ seiyuu too. I’ve included promotional screenshots of the movie published before release day on June 10. Lastly, I also included the translation of the letter Director posted on twitter shortly before the movie released.
Kinpri1=KING OF PRISM by PrettyRhythm
Kinpri2=KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO-
Ouenjouei=screenings of the movie when you can come cosplayed, dub over lines, scream&cheer and use glowsticks. I sometimes translate it as “cheer screenings”.
You can find all previous posts and translations on this page.
It’s been so long since the last post that even if I bookmark and write down and save everything I want to talk about, there may be things I forgot to put in this post.
I also didn’t go through all of director tweets from June 2016 to now. I check his tweets almost daily, but I usually check everything he tweeted between each post I did, in case I missed anything important. Didn’t do it this time, it’ll take me too much time.
From June to September 2016, nothing too big happened except the announcement of KING OF PRISM -PRIDE the HERO-. From September to December 2016, I was playing Persona 5 during my free time. Since January 2017 I’ve also been busy with others things. That’s why it’s been almost a year since the last general news post, and there’s some things I wrote in this post which are almost one year old. However, from September 2016 to now, I did write posts whenever something big happened, on here and on twitter, so I’ll just link these. This means there’s a lot of embedded tweets in this post. It’s the first time I do this, there’s some tweets that don’t display and I don’t know how to resize embedded tweets. Hopefully it doesn’t turn out weird and people with toasters can still read this post.
You can find my Twitter here. I try to report Pretty Rhythm news as soon as I can on twitter. A Wordpress blog like this isn’t the best way to be “popular” in 2017, and it would be “better” to post all the news on Twitter or another social media. I don’t want to do it though, as twitter is bad for writing good things and keeping track of information. I prefer my current way of doing things, with these news posts.
Nowadays, there’s multiple blogs, Tumblr pages like this one that covers a lot of Pretty Rhythm things, some of which I also cover in this post. It even has translations too. For example, if you’re keeping track of magazine releases, it’s much better than my blog since with the tumblr system they can make a new post whenever a magazine containing Pretty Rhythm material is announced, without clogging their post history.
Edit: There’s this tumblr too that posts new Pretty Rhythm news very fast and sometimes posts summaries of stuff in magazines as well, forgot to include it.
If you want to know magazines releases with Pretty Rhythm material ASAP, you should follow that tumblr or follow those magazines directly on twitter. I’m only interested in the magazines for the interviews and short stories.The magazine release list I do in my post is primarily for myself so I’ll easily know what to buy if I ever have tons of money to spend.
I’m not anymore the only person regularly reporting Pretty Rhythm news in English, but it won’t change my way of doing things. I won’t try to be more “competitive” because in the first place, I’m looking for news and reporting them because I want to know them myself, not because ANN or other sites didn’t report them. So I’ll naturally post about things I haven’t seen on other sites, at least the ones I check. While I do jokingly say “hey look, ANN didn’t report this” from time to time, pointing fingers at them isn’t actually my goal. If there’s something Pretty Rhythm related which is unreported in ANN or Crunchyroll or other blogs, I’l try my best to find it, because I’m doing it for myself first, and put it here to share. So in the end it’s not like I’ll be putting in more effort or try to do some competition. I hope what I’m saying isn’t too confusing and my point is getting across.
I’m happy more people are into Pretty Rhythm now. I hope one day there will be a very reliable and complete source of Pretty Rhythm info in English, that way I’ll be able to stop doing these posts.
Thinking about it now, when I started covering Pretty Rhythm, if I was evil and a 12 years old kid I could have even made money out of this. By starting a forum and monopolizing the Pretty Rhythm English fandom, writing rants on social media about how any other forum or fandom is “illegitimate”, swindling people into paying me for translations, swindling kids with tons of free time and with Japanese knowledge into helping me(Japanese Americans from Hawaii for example), etc. I’m not sure how to explain it but you should get what I mean if you’ve been on the internet for a few years. I’m very happy I didn’t turn like that and none of this happened, as it would mean I’d be a scumbag.
Edit: When I have the time I’ll try to write another guide, as after quickly updating it on March 2018 I’ve grown dissatisfied with it.
To celebrate how it’s been 7 years since May 2010 when I started this blog, I’m publishing a “‘how to get into the Pretty Rhythm franchise” guide.(that’s pretty much just a pretext, I don’t care about anniversaries)
I see a lot of Japanese fans writing guides like this on Twitter so I thought I’d do one too. If you only saw the Kinpri movie and want to see more
if you watch PriPara and want to know what was the series that originated it
if you like Bakemonogatari and want to watch more things with Watanabe Akio designed characters
If you like Love Live or Shortpants no Kuni, and wondering how the director learned to make good CG scenes
if you like Aikatsu! and a friend just taunted you saying “Pfff, Aikatsu! copied everything from Pretty Rhythm”
If you want to watch Pretty Rhythm and don’t know where to start, this is the thing you need, perhaps.
buta/pig and the emote for the kanji 禁/kin
Nekketsu Nikki 