#i started this edit in the middle of b2 but i never finished it

[plsdiamondgod]

GUESS WHOS EXCITED ABOUT ENDLESS SUMMER BOOK 3!!!

[priparaplayer]

i☆Ris, King Of Prism, and some really good Ramen

Sup. This is my report on this weekend. It was pretty cool.

Huh? You want more than that? Okay

This was my birthday weekend. Coincidentally, Pride the Hero was coming out. And there was an  i☆Ris concert an hour away. And those were on my actual birthday. The initial plan was to see Pride the Hero in the morning before the  i☆Ris concert (and obviously go to both sections. It was my birthday, after all). However, when I saw the 5.5 hours (!!!!!!!!!!!) Pride the Hero midnight showing I knew I had to go.

So, Friday I had the most incredible King Of Prism/Pretty Rhythm experience. Saturday I saw i☆Ris again. Sunday I planned to go to Akiba to play some DFC and go to a cheering section that night. 

In this post, I’m gonna start by talking about fighting games because it’s short. Then I’ll talk about  i☆Ris. I’ll finish with KoP. That way the KoP spoilers will be below everything else.

EDIT: This came out way longer than I thought it would. My b. If any of you actually read this whole thing, ty <3 I really appreciate that you care enough to do that <3

After going out two days in a row I decided to skip going to Akiba and just stay home until the cheering section. I ended up playing Xrd netplay with my American friends. I’m not a huge fan of Xrd (See me in +R though), and the connection with America on my trash LeoPalace wifi was pretty bad, but it was still fun to play my friends and talk to them on voice chat. I’m playing on my keyboard, which kinda sucks. It feels okay though because it’s buckling spring. I was planning to build a stick after my next paycheck, but I also want to buy a ton of PriPara and KoP and i☆Ris merch, so that might have to wait lol. Priorities.

i☆Ris  was amazing, as usual. Before coming to Japan I’d seen all their concerts on blu-ray. Seeing them live on April 9th (right when I got to Japan) was the most magical experience. This time was pretty different, because I’d already seen them once, and I’d been practising the calls with the blu-rays. This meant I was focused on them a lot rather than on actually watching and enjoying the performance. Fortunately I fixed this in the second performance.

I left early enough to play a couple of games of PriPara at the station and then get to the concert an hour early to pick up some merchandise. Didn’t get anything cool when playing PriPara. Still need Yume rare accessory and shoes... And the onepiece for the June bride coord... So I can do pair play with me and Laala wearing it...

Unfortunately, there were a ton of delays on the Yokohama line (apparently due to signal inspection?) and rather than arriving an hour early, I arrived two minutes late and came in just after the start of the first song. Fortunately my seat was in the back row of the first floor so I didn’t have to make anyone move to get in it. Just jumped over the back. Unfortunately I couldn’t pick up any merchandise before the first showing, but I already had most of what I wanted from the April 9th show. I never took photos of it back then, so here you go

After the noon showing I picked up the other stuff I wanted. Got the pamphlet (I was curious what it was about)

It wasn’t really that interesting though. It had various photos of them, and talked more about the photo shoots. It also had short interviews. The fan club magazine was a lot more interesting and also had some photos from the photo shoot for the pamphlet. Overall not worth getting the pamphlet. Fan club magazine is pictured below because I wanted to take a picture of it.

The main thing was about a foreign fan named Julian meeting them (idk if he was actually a fan, but it said he was). All that really did was make me super duper jealous of him. Does he have any idea how much many I’ve spent on Skyping with Himi? And he just gets to hang out with them? Granted, I “justified” it by saying it was my way to practice Japanese with a Japanese speaker. But we all know that isn’t why I was doing it.

I also picked up a Himi B2 Tapestry (they didn’t have these at the performance in April)

None of you are probably aware of this, because I don’t really talk about it much, but I think Himi has the most beautiful singing voice I’ve ever heard. Ever. And I’ll probably never stop believing that. (She’s also incredibly beautiful, which is nice too). I mean her actual voice btw, not her Laala voice (although I do also enjoy her Laala voice).

In between shoes I wanted to play PriPara, but couldn’t find any machines in walking distance. I used this time to read the pamphlet and then play Golden Sun (yay Japanese practice). Overheard some guys talking about how they haven’t seen someone using a Gameboy Advance in ages lol. Glad I’m positively influencing the Japanese. Eavesdropping is also really good practice... as long as you’re not eavesdropping on Menardi and Saturos...

Both performances started and ended the same way. Got their usual songs, and got a few different ones than in April. I hurt my leg in one of the jumps during Make It. Oops. But it was all super incredible. I can’t believe how amazing iRis is.

The lunch section had small ensemble performances. They did a lot of covers I really enjoy (e.g. 1000% sparking), and also performed some of their regular songs in the ensembles. It was all super great.

The evening section had solo peformances. Some of these were the same as April (Himi doing her polka dots song and Yuu doing Voice for You), but the rest were different. Saki wore the same dress as in April, and it still looked incredible on her.

After the performances was the encore. It was the same both times. They did the standard hachamecha strike. Also had the new song Saki, Yuuki, and Azuki are doing together (title TBD). Saki put on her Sion voice and made a joke about them being Dressing Pafe. The song was pretty entertaining though.

Overall, it was an amazing experience. I’m glad I went to see them again, and glad I went to both showings. Definitely glad they were so close by. Although let’s be real here, I’d probably travel pretty far to see them on my birthday if I needed to.

KING OF PRISM

PRIDE THE HERO

LOTS OF SPOILERS BELOW

PROBABLY

I HAVEN’T WRITTEN THEM YET SO CAN’T CONFIRM 100%

BUT PROBABLY

I took some photos of the theatre on the day, but took some better ones when I went back tonight. Here you go.

Some of you might remember I came across a stupidly good 90% off sale on King of Prism goods in Akiba in May. Although there wasn’t any Alec stuff, so I just picked up a Kazuki bowtie. Obviously I wore it to both showings I went to. Here it is, pictured on my shirt.

There’s an arcade right next to the theatre,so I had time to play PriPara and Dream Festival before the Friday showing and after the Sunday showing. I think I’ve mentioned this a few times, but wow, I really love the Dream Festival music. Wow.

Anyway, a bit about me. To provide some context. I love PriPara. So so so much. Although you probably know that already. I got into PriPara because I liked idols and loved purple, and saw it was an idol anime where the main character had purple hair. Also my friends from the anime fgc told me they were enjoying it a lot. I downloaded it and started watching on the bus to AGDQ. I watched episode 1, and was completely hooked after episode 2. I had planned to sleep on the overnight bus ride, but that didn’t happen. And I haven’t looked back since. Also my friend Puncay won the Super Mario 64 race that year (I think it was that year anyway) and we played DFC together. Good times.

After getting hooked on PriPara, I wanted to learn more about Pretty Rhythm so watched King of Prism. I’ve always been a fan of male idols. Part of this is because I love male singing voices, and part of this is because I had two dreams growing up. One was to be a video game programmer in Japan, and one was to be a male idol. I suppose it’s obvious right now which one of these I ended up pursuing, and which one I ultimately gave up on. But when I was younger I really thought it would be the other way around. I joined the dance club in primary and middle school (I was the only guy). At my high school music was required for the academically accelerated classes, so I ended up doing band instead of dance. I learned to play the Euphonium (which I think I got pretty good at), French Horn, Flute, and obviously learned some singing (can’t be an idol without singing after all). Anyway, a part of seeing King of Prism definitely lets me fulfill this childhood dream. After watching and loving it (especially the EZ DO DANCE battle), I watched Rainbow Live, which was also really good. To this date I’ve only seen a few eps of Aurora Dream and haven’t seen Dear My Future, so there’s probably context stuff I’m missing out on because of that. Really need to fix that some day. Some day soon.

So back to KOP. I’m so glad I watched Rainbow Live after watching the first KoP movie. Because wow, this was a real sequel. Full out. And it nailed it in almost every way.

Getting to see rainbow live again was fun. But wow, it felt weird to go through it that fast lol. 3 hours and suddenly we’re at the last episode. It was great to see Prizmmy again. Although have you seen them these days? Mia looks so beautiful now that she’s grown up. I made an Instagram account just to follow her. I’ll probably never follow anyone else (unless Himi makes an Instagram).

I don’t really need to spend a lot of time on Rainbow Live. It’s Rainbow Live. It’s great. Watch it. I didn’t know I needed to see it in a theatre on blu-ray, but now that I’ve seen that I know there was a part of me that always needed to.

I felt more invested in the Pretty Rhythm characters during KOP than I did when I went to see it on June 6th. I guess that’s because it was so fresh. Not much to say. It’s KOP. It’s also great. Watch it. EZ DO DANCE!

Back to KOP. Thoughts aren’t really gonna be in order they appeared during the movie and more in the order I think of them.

During the cheering section I was careful to not show my bias at all. And by that I mean my second cyalume was only set to purple and I pulled it out of my bag every time Alec showed up. What bias? I don’t see any.

I bought my seat online and picked row H. I ended up being with no one in front of me in the cheering section lol. This sucked, because I wasn’t confident what colours to use for the new characters. Everyone else in the audience had clearly been to a few of the cheering shows already, and they were far more organised than I expected. There were a couple other guys, so i wasn’t alone in that regard. Although obviously no foreigners. A lot more guys at the midnight showing. Anyway, i need to remember that A is the back row. Instead of the front row. I don’t know how that makes sense.

The movie started with pride. It was incredible.

Actually it started with a short drama with Kakeru and Shin. It was entertaining enough, but I don’t really remember what it was about lol. Guess it wasn’t that memorable. Apparently other locations got other dramas.

We saw the new Scwartz Rose boys. Honestly they’re pretty forgettable and only one of them does anything. Oh well.

There’s a lot more stuff, straight from the start, with Rainbow Live characters like Rei. Also Ito shows up and gets a line later on. And she has the most amazing ponytail. It’s so pretty. I wish I could have a ponytail like that.

Kouji is apparently making songs for Scwartz Rose. Hiro heads off to talk to Kouji. Definitely didn’t expect them to reunite so soon into the movie. There’s some super duper amazing English here. I was able to hold myself back the first time. But I chuckled a lot during the second viewing. I’m honestly amazed I managed to keep it to a chuckle, and next time is probably gonna be full out laughter. I just don’t think I can hold myself back a third time.

Shin gets a letter. And they’re like “woah, it could be a love letter. from a boy. watch out for those”. Anyway, Shin goes to meet up with Louis and they do Crazy Gonna Crazy. By now I’m sure you all know that they kiss in this scene. So yeah, I think it’s fairly safe to assume that letter was a love letter.

Crazy Gonna Crazy was like the montage scene of this movie. It had a dance battle going on and some other stuff. So I assume the next King of Prism movie will have Butterfly Effect for the montage performance?

Jin comes to take June and for some reason she goes with him? I don’t think they explained why. Hijiri seems heartbroken. Me too. JUNE </3 </3 </3 During the cheering section I tried to reach out for her like him. I’ll practice it more for next time so I can do it justice.

Kazuki went to King of Prism Fight Club. And bodied everyone. Then trained under a waterfall. What a hero. FREEDOM.

Did I mention Shin and Louis kissed?

There’s a lot of rough stuff that happens and Hiro gets super depressed. His mother talks to him about his father a bit but says she can’t say more... huh? future plot point confirmed? She manages to pull him out of his depression (and he gets some help from a honey apple curry... with a nice shot of Kouji’s butt)

Eventually everyone gets their training done, and we also see Rei Wakana and Ann looking on and cheering for Kazuki under the waterfall. Did he know they were there? I wonder if he could even hear them over the waterfall. lol. Waterfall hype.

Then we get to the cup. The new Schwarz Rose dude does a song, but it barely focuses on it. rip him.

Then ALEC SHOWS UP. AND I WAVE MY PURPLE CYALUMES. the second time. The first time I’m like “I really want this to be EZ DO DANCE... but I also want it to be a new Alec solo... but I really want EZ DO DANCE....” Anyway, it was EZ DO DANCE!!!! YES!!!!! NOW KARAOKE MACHINES HAVE ANOTHER VERSION OF THIS SONG!!!!!!!!

Anyway, Alec was terrifying. In the most incredible way. Like wow. He scared everyone in the audience in the movie, and did a good job making me scared too. Then he starts using his incredible six pack to bomb the stadium (what a six pack). He’s destroying the whole thing. Kazuki looks like he’s about to give us the dance battle we’ve all been waiting for, but Taiga jumps in! I was really hoping this would be close but with Alec’s victory, leading to him and Kazuki battling to a new song. Instead it ended in a draw. I felt bad for Alec. But you know what? Alec, you were blowing up the whole stadium. And scaring everyone. Those are pretty bad things to do. You don’t deserve to win acting that way.

Anyway, they’re going to have to end the cup there (because no stage or anything lol). But Kazuki steps in to save the day, and his performance repairs the entire stadium. FREEEEEEEEEEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!! He gets disqualified. I didn’t catch why. They used some Japanese word I didn’t know. Next time I’ll write it down so I can look it up. Alec shouts out “What!” really loudly after hearing about the disqualification. Note to self: There’s time to shout this right after him. Do it next time.

The stage is fixed. Shin does a performance.It’s really good. Before this everyone in Edel Rose puts there hands together. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. There’s room to shout 8 right after this, so we all did it. Cheering sections really are the best.

Louis wears the most incredible dress. Wow. I wish I could wear that dress. It looks so beautiful. There’s apparently some crazy back story between Shin and Louis. Shin had super cool long hair, and Louis is pretty much confirmed to be a Prism Messenger (I don’t think they specify it’s Louis in this flashback, but I’d bet on it being him).

Then everyone cheers Glorious Schwarz. Including us. GLORIOUS SCHWARZ!!!

Hiro comes out and reveals his magical power to change all cyalumes by snapping his fingers. Then halfway through the song he turns everything into gold, including the cyalumes (don’t forget to change yours at this point!). Oh, yeah, he performed Pride. And made Kazuki and Kouji holograms appear. He didn’t need projectors or anything. Get outplayed Non. But I guess this means Kami Idol Non could do a Triangle performance with no projectors. That would be hype. Anyway, Hiro’s performance is super good, and he becomes King. The issue with him not being able to use Pride gets settled during the performance. It’s implied Kakeru took care of this when he was doing money stuff earlier. Maybe some sort of deal that was part of using his watches?

June leaves Jin and goes back to Hijiri! JUNE <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

And Hiro gets crowned King. He hugs it out with Kouji and Kazuki (I really thought they were going to perform here). Then he shouts “I am the King of Prism” and we go to credits.

The credits song was great... but I’m sitting here like “Wow.. they teased us like that... Over the Rainbow shows up and they didn’t even perform... If this was a cheering section I’d be shouting encore right now...”

Anyway, credits song ends and suddenly we go back to a stage with the audience shouting “Encore”. And Over the Rainbow shows up and gives us what we’ve all been waiting for. During their Prism Jump they kiss girls who look very similar to characters from Rainbow Live. Kouji even calls his girl Cross... huh... must be coincidence. Like the first movie, there are lines you can shout out. After the first showing, I really thought my favourite scene was either the EZ DO DANCE battle (ALEC!!!!) or the Crazy Gonna Grazy performance. But once I shouted out the lines, I suddenly could vividly imagine myself kissing Kazuki and it felt almost like the real thing. So yeah. No scene is going to top my imagination giving me that experience. Sorry other scenes.

After the movie we got film strips. Here’s mine.

We also got to buy pamphlets

There’s a ton of KOP merchandise at the theatre now. Definitely gonna pick some of it up next time I go back. Which will hopefully be when I don’t have a cold. Although I have a job where I work with a billion different little kids every day. I pretty much always have a cold. Given that I want this (and I need to get that May Laala pillow from Prism Stone), I think I’ll have to pass on building a fight stick next month lol. Then there’s the Kazuki daki, which I’d seen at Prism Stone plenty of times but hadn’t bought because it wasn’t Alec. That kiss with him changed my mind though. I need it. Too much money from that paycheck already committed to being an idol fan. Oh, and if I get tickets to the iRis fifth anniversary live I’ll want to buy stuff there. Wish me luck in the second lottery.

Anyway, the movie blew me away. It was so good. Movie of the century for sure. Yes I know we still have like 80 years to go. I’m calling it now. The next 80 years are downhill. Unless the next King of Prism movie tops this. Oh yeah, there was a thing at the end that said “End of youth forever”. So I assume that means we’re done with over the rainbow? Or maybe just their youth? Next movie might be more about Shin/Louis, or it might be a more grown up thing about Over the Rainbow and the Rainbow Live cast? No matter what I’m super excited.

Well, there’s all that Shin backstory. So they’re definitely gonna go into more detail about that.

Can they please do something about the pacing though? Like, this movie was so fast. It probably could have been 2-3 hours long. And no one’s gonna complain about the movie being that long lol.

I know this is kinda insignificant, but it feels really cool that I can understand almost all of this movie. Years of Japanese study paying off. I’m pretty proud of myself atm.

There’s a super delicious ramen place 2 minutes away from my apartment that’s open until 3am. My apartment is about 30 minutes from the theatre, and I was super hungry after the movie, so I stopped by there around around 2am.  Last time I went around 9 and had to wait in line 50 minutes, but it seems like there’s no line at 2am. Treated myself to their super fancy miso char siu ramen. And got a noodle refill. But wow it was so good. Great birthday meal.

Also, it was super cool that after the Rainbow Live marathon and first KoP movie I turned 24. Right in time for Pride the Hero. Best Birthday Ever.

PRIDE THE HERO