#but i DID want oshama to win

[kirakiramelody]

Poor Oshama Tricks... they deserved to be princesses just as much as anyone

[pretty-idol-hell]

Kiratto PriChan 89

SO MUCH FOR ME THINKING THIS WAS A CHRISTMAS FILLER EPISODE FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

DAIA PLOT DAIA PLOT 

So this episode opened with Nijinosaki having a nightmare that as soon as everyone finds out her secret, nobody will be her friend anymore. 

Later while the girls are getting ready for a Jewel Idol Christmas party, they catch Oshama Tricks sneaking in. Mirai tells Oshama Tricks that when they try and buy friends with candy, those people may not be their real friends. This seems to echo with Nijinosaki. 

Nijinosaki remembers the Diamond Princess book (WHICH IS CONFIRMED WRITTEN BY NARU) and imagines that the story ends with the girls not showing up to her party when she runs out of matterials to make them dresses and not being her friends anymore

So. 

It turns out

The Jewel Idol Auditions

THE WHOLE THING 

Was all made by Nijinosaki

ALL OF IT

With the specific goal of getting the girls to wear her dresses with the hope that the one girl who wins, the Diamond Idol, would be someone who truly appreciates her dresses and become her friend. 

Woah

So at the Christmas party all the Jewel Idols are on the stage, and Mirai talks about how excited she is to be a Diamond Idol.

And this is the point where Nijinosaki cannot take the guilt anymore.

I thought after that big reveal we may have a few episodes to sit on it but NOPE

Nijinosaki blurts out that being the Diamond Idol isn’t what Mirai thinks it is. It was all a lie just so she could find a friend. Daia then goes onto explain everything for Nijinosaki, including confirming that Nijinosaki is in Designers 10 as the designer of Milky Rainbow.

It turns out Daia only picked girls for Jewel Chance who she thought would like Nijinosaki’s dresses? (If that was the only criteria, I have to wonder why it took some girls longer to get their JRs than others but--)

So Nijinosaki runs away crying. After she leaves the girls discuss amongst themselves how they don’t feel tricked at all. They liked the Jewel Auditions, and they would have been Nijinosaki’s friends anyway. 

After wandering alone in the cold and thinking she only has Daia left now, Nijinosaki finally returns home to find.... everyone is there! They moved the Christmas party to her house instead. Everyone confirms they really are Nijinosaki’s friends, they enjoyed the Jewel Auditions, and they still want to try to be Diamond Idols all the same. 

Now here’s where it gets a bit confusing. Nijinosaki’s Jewel glows and she performs but... still as Daia? Or is it actually her performing now because she had her own voice and reacted as herself when Daia came down to give her Jewel Chance?? ?????? So did she dress up as Daia or what? Or PriChan now let you change your appearance like PriPara?

And now Nijinosaki/Daia is a Jewel Idol. Or maybe just Nijinosaki. IDK.

Anyway. The episode ends with Naru giving the book to Nijinosaki so she can finally read the ending. It turns out everyone came to the Diamond Princess’ party anyway even though she could not make them dresses anymore, because they were her real friends after all. The end.

Next week Diamond Dress! Or Diamond Collection....? They never called it that before did they? Are there multiple dresses now? What else is there it’s only December and the Daia plot is over!!!?

Oh, and Anju was noticeably absent from the Jewel Idols Christmas party, buuuut I’m pretty sure she knows Nijinosaki’s secret already since she’s close to the Designers 10. 

Damn this episode

I ain’t mad either but it is weird to think this entire time my PriChan arcade character has also just been auditioning to be Nijinosaki’s friend....

[venus-says]

Kiratto Prichan Episodes 80-81

YOU WANTED THE BEST!!!

The last time I did a prichan post I said I was curious about episode 80. Reality is: I wasn't, thus why I skipped a week.

The episode itself was pretty bland, but seeing Anju who has such a great noble presence doing mundane things was actually pretty charming and it made this episode fun despite not having anything especial happening.

I think the only thing worthy of noting in his episode is Anju's oblique quote to Nijinosaki when she says she don't need her mask, and that makes me very happy because it may be early foreshadowing for Nijinosaki finally debuting as an idol without Daia, which was what I wanted for her since he beginning.

One last thing I wanna say is, does anyone know how old Ange is? Because from Season 1 she seemed much older than the other girls and I always guessed she was in her 30s, but she seems so bright and young in this episode and it gave me the feel that she's on her early to middle 20s and it got me confused. Not that a 30 years old woman can't be bright and young, but it would be kinda awkward for a woman in that age, who's also basically a stranger to the family, to be sleeping with a kid and a teenager.

Much like what happened with Precure, this weeks episode was miles better compared to it predecessor. And to me that was surprise since this episode focused a lot on Oshama Tricks and, as yall know, I'm not the biggest fan of them. I don't know if it was the fact that they decided to pair them with Meltic, or if it was just good writing, but I was really invested and at some point I eve started liking them?

It was an interesting dynamic seeing Anna, that has already been very selfish, and that now is being so focused on stepping up Meltic's game (most likely because I thike she feels like she's getting behind since she's the only one on her group that isn't a jewel idol yet), taking a step back to help someone who she had a bickering in the past because (with the help of Sara and Mel) she could see herself on them. And the execution was pretty well done, the tournament looked fun, the "prize coord" was horrible but it recalled to last year's episode, the dynamic of pairing Oshama with Ring Marry worked very well, and while I think the moment at the end was a bit forced, Oshama's reconciliation was pretty endearing. And for one of the very few times seeing the follow ticket exchange scene was actually very emotional.

I can't go by this episode without saying how I loved Meltic StAr's participation on this episode. They kinda took back seat and at the same time they didn't, they had the perfect balance of comedy and more emotional moments. As an Meltic fan it made me very happy seeing how they were used in this episode and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Of course I can't go by without mentioning Meltic's new song! I feel like the majority of people didn't like the song, but I LOVED IT SO MUCH. It has elements that recall to her previous songs, the line distribution is somewhat decent, it was bright and chill at the same time, it's just an amazing song.Yes, it's not as powerful as their past songs, but I don't think a song NEED to be powerful for it to be good, and this is the case for this song. I can clearly see myself jamming to this on my day-to-day life when I don't listen to Netemo Sametemo Dreamin' Girl all that often despite liking the song.

If I have a criticism to make its that I don't think Sara's vampire PR matches with the song and they definitely should've given them new unit coords for it.

All in all, I was very pleased with these episodes. Next week we will have the final (useless) Daia Fest, and it seem like Sara and Suzu will be the main characters this time. I already predict that Sara will be the one winning this time and I'll be very annoyed if she doesn't because Meltic Star is the only group yet to win one of those thing and to me it's just very unfair. But this is stuff for next week so I take a step back and wrap things up here. See you all a next time.

[venus-says]

Kiratto Prichan Episodes 59-64

Welcome back, Meltic StAr!

I bet you thought I forgot about Prichan right? This gonna sound like a lie but I didn’t, for real. XD

The problem Prichan has is basically the same one as AiFure, the subs come out late and things just pile up. Last year I used to watch Prichan without the subs as normal because I wasn’t as invested in the story and if I felt like I was missing out on something I could check on tumblr and see what actually happened. But this time around I actually wanna know what's going on with these characters, especially for this batch of episodes that give major focus to my favorite members of this cast.

But anyway, I got a lot to cover so let's get right into it.

Episodes 59 and 60 are pretty boring. 59 is one to try to promote the new rarity in the game while 60 is to promote the new toy, and I didn't really care for neither of them.

59 had some cute moments on it, specially Daia she was pretty adorable on this one. The owners of that bookstore were also fun sometimes, and I do like the idea they came up to save their business. But the rest of the episode I just couldn’t care less, boring stuff from left to right.

Episode 60 I had quite a lot of problems with it. First I don’t like how they made Mirai so over-obsessed about the palette thing, as far as I know, she never showed signs of being crazy over something at this level before and is just awkward. Second, I don’t like how they make the design palette be such a big deal when we probably won’t see it again after maybe one or two months, also if it’s such an important and rare thing why would Aira give it to Mirai? It makes no sense to me. And in overall it’s just not an interesting episode at all. IF only IF, the new Prism Stone uniform was good I think I could give it a pass and say at least something good came out of it, but these new ones are nowhere near the ones from S1 so...

I think I would've liked 59 more if instead of a repeat performance of Rinka we got one in that Snow White coord. If they still wanted to use Yumeiro Energy it'd be fine for me, I've come to accept this song more from the last time I did one of these, but still I don't think that Miracle Idol coord fits neither the song or the stage and is just a generic group coord because they were lazy to make new performance coords for each new song. But nothing could save 60 for me, not even Super Cutie Super Girl.

Episode 61 is when things get interesting again because MELTIC STAR!!!!!!!!!

The first episode of this mini ark is great, I was surprised by how much I liked this one since it was very focused on Emo and Oshama Tricks was a big part of it as well, and these are normally two elements that if put together could make me go crazy and bored because I don’t like neither of them. But in this one, it worked very well and I enjoyed this episode a lot.

They’ve made a very good job showing how important Anna is for Emo even though they drive each other crazy, and because it was so well done that you can really feel both Emo sadness for thinking that everything was just a lie and her happiness right after as soon as the girls introduce themselves on stage.

If there’s only one thing to complain about this episode is that Meltic StAr’s new unit coords are weird as hell, I really dislike them and I don’t get why they would go with this aesthetic for them. Maybe if these were introduced with a new group song that had this Circus vibe to it I wouldn’t dislike it as much, but since that’s not the case I can’t like them, at least not yet.

I also don’t understand why they would have to announce they’re taking part in the Jewel Auditions since I though everyone doing prichan was eligible for it, but this is honestly just a minor nitpick and not a problem per se.

The next two episodes are used to finally cement Meltic StAr as active parts in this season this gets evident by looking at the opening that features them on it.

I think that, to me, the best that episodes 62 and 63 do is creating bonds between Meltic and Ring Marry, and I’m not saying this just because the 5 of them are my favorites and I love to see their interactions. I promise. I think it is just natural having the two groups together when you consider that Kiratts and Daia have a strong relationship and this has left Maria and Suzu behind for a little.

And honestly, both groups work really well together. Even though both episodes are mainly focused on Mel and Suzu, they still add some other nice little touches to it like for example, saying Sara knows Maria’s channel. Sara loves cute things so is just natural that she’s aware of Maria’s channel. Are small details like this that make me appreciate and enjoy these episodes a little more.

These episodes are so well constructed that they alone made me raise Suzu in my faves list, I really enjoyed seeing her with Mel and seeing how they’re very different from each other which makes possible for both of them to learn a lot from their time together. Given that in both episodes Suzu basically was the one in charge of learning rather than teaching, I believe Mel was able to extract some good this from this experience as well.

Talking about 63 more specifically, I have two problems with it. First is Mel getting jewel chance in the first episode she performs alone in this season, I already mentioned that I don’t like this but since it seems this is the trend for all idols who were already a part of the original cast I can let it pass, also Universe Queen jewel coord is gorgeous and probably my favorite of all we’ve seen so far so this makes me even less mad about the whole situation.

The second is that part where Mel insists for Suzu to sing, I know it’s a minor moment, it goes very quickly, and it’s there just to consolidate even more the fact that Suzu doesn’t want to sing yet. I also know that Mel had good intentions there, but I still don’t like it. As someone who constantly has people trying to force me into doing things I don’t like/want, I can’t stress enough how bad this is.

Thankfully this episode does so many other great things that in the end they overcome these bad points and results in a good episode. My favorite bits being all the moments where Mel was the most hyperactive kid on the planet. Gosh, I love her so much. ALSO, Mel promoting education and saying that learning is fun is very valid.

The highlight of this episode is definitely Mel’s performance!!!!! What a great song it is!!! I have the same problem as before where the Circus Ringmaster Coord doesn’t fit the song and the stage, but I still enjoyed every single bit of it. Even using the repeated stage was good, I think the Amusement Park stage works better here than the palace stage and the sweet shop stag does for Mirai and Rinka’s song. I must say, I didn’t expect Mel’s song to be like this, I expected it to be more like Cometic Shilouette, but I really like it and it fits Mel PERFECTLY. I also think the Meltic StAr generic Yattemita for this season is better than the Kiratts generic one so that’s another plus for this performance.

Closing up this batch the show goes down again in Episode 64. I really don’t like this episode, I really don’t see the point of it and the execution of the thing was kinda wonky.

This Daia Fest was very confusing. First, I don’t get the concept of going through a competition to win a single piece of a coord. I know this is something they do since the Pretty Rhythm days but still, I don’t get it.

Second, I don’t understand why the only two participants are Mirai and Mel, I’d think that more idols would get jewel coords as well, it’d be a good way to showcase in the show that the jewel coords come in various colors in the game. Making the two of them the only competitors make the competion even more pointless.

Third, I don’t get how someone could come out victorious of this thing, they’ve done the exact same thing with nothing different being added to spice things out. Yeah they performed in their Jewel Coords, but in general they share the same value so, is not like they’ve done anything special.

Fourth, Mirai’s victory feels empty. They tried to set up a conflict with Mirai not knowing what her dream was but they don’t do anything with it. If they made Mirai lose they could give her an ark about finding herself, and finding a dream for her and make the culmination of all that be really amazing. But no, she’s the main character so we have to give everything to her very easily.

But to not say I dislike everything this episode has done, I liked the excuse they came up with to why Rinka didn’t got in, I think this thing she has with her mom is very funny and probably the only thing I REALLY like about her.

Oh there’s also Naru who’s in the middle of love and hate. I do like her character here but since I never watched the PR season she’s from I have this sensation in the back of my head that i’m already loosing lots of information about this character, even though like Aira she’s not the same naru from Pretty Rhythm and technically all we’re seeing here is new.

And this is it for now! It took me way longer than I wanted to write this down but I’m finally done.

A FEW SIDE NOTES:

Maria is very relatable.

IS THIS A MOTHERFUCKING BRAZIL REFERENCE?

Despite all the bad things I had to say about these episodes, I can’t deny that we got some very adorable shots from them. LOOK AT IT, THEY’RE SO CUTE.

Now that’s everything I had to say.

I’ve already watched Episode 65, but I’m leaving it for its own post because I have lots of things to talk about and this post is already long enough as it is. I’ll probably post it later today by itself or tomorrow with Episode 66, it will depend if Aikatsu subs will be coming out today or not. Regardless, the symphoger review will be out very soon, I’m finishing up some things here and I’ll be watching the episode in no time.

See yall soon (very soon this time, I promise).