The King of Prism Queen 2016.
I love Hibiki and this arc is genuinely good, but I think there’s some serious issues as well which I wrote extensively about at the end. That’s what kids on the net call being autistic. Haven’t wrote that much on episodes since when RL was airing.  Also put in some random news I found that wasn’t already on ANN.

Episode 68 

Cute Leona.

Ugly PP outfits.

That girl looks a lot like Bell and she was also wearing Bell’s haloween outfit from RL haloween episode 30.

Lewd.

They’re doing a contest on who gets the most kowaiine, pun on kowaii and the iine. Aroma wants to win because she’s Aroma and manages to scare everyone with her notJoJo vampire mask.

Then Aroma and Laala bully Rantan and are mean to her even though she only gets to appear once a year.

IIRC in the s1 haloween episode she was accepted in Horriwood as a stylist and now she says she got expelled.

Scary.

Chanko getting chased by Meganii.

This shot is from s1’s haloween ep. It was the exact same scene of Meganii chasing girls, except he was dressed as a werewolf. Speaking of which S1’s haloween episode was funnier than this one. I’m still laughing at Leona fainting to imitate Dorothy fainting.

Greenwind’s default ranking pose is kind of smug. Like she’s looking at you saying” can you even lift goats?”

These aren’t that ugly.

Ajimi is too stupid for me.

I read somewhere that that’s a Yokai Watch reference.

Then Rantan accidentally scares everyone and wins.

They used nearly the same Making Drama as last year as expected. It’s a recurring private joke for longtime fans. Since PR, each year for the haloween jump/act/making drama they recycle the same assets.

Episode 69

Hibiki only realizing now that Laala has main character cheating powers.  Can’t blame her though. She spoke something like twice to Laala. Hibiki never meet the other characters during Greenwind’s arc for some reason and would only appear when Green Wind was alone.

>Everyone sees Kaitou Genius

Left:Delusional /u/ who get extremely unstable in presence of (supposed) boys
Right:Superior educated fujoshis with perfect taste who know (supposed) boys are fun

Some of these background girls have pretty fun looking hairstyles.

Kaitou Genius craze.

PriPara police: Blue is calmness, red is hot bloodedness, green is peace. Does this mean Mikan is the one who shoots unarmed black little idols?

Speaking of police, are you reading Koi wa Ameagari no You ni. It’s about a girl in love with notGoto from Patlabor who works as a restaurant manager. It’s the cutest thing ever.

I don’t get what she’s saying either. Yellow Taste starting to get more and more annoying. I’m looking forward to when the focus switch to Hibiki.

Lewd.

>Laala can scream with a her big voice and tell everyone Kaitou Genius is here.

Or you know, you could just ask Akaii Meganee and Meganii to use the sound announcement system?

Dorothy’s talent is to keep speaking and being blunt so she’ll interrogate him.
Gotta admit this scene was funny especially the “aren’t you ashamed to call yourself Genius”. Come to think of it Kaitou Genius is a pretty good name. Fun cool and ridiculous.

Stretching Aroma. How long are Aroma and Mireille gonna keep training. It’s like they’re on Namek before it explodes. Is what I’d say if I was a uncultured kid only repeating memes and who doesn’t know how good Dragon Ball is. And when I say Dragon Ball I mean all of Dragon Ball.  Kid Goku era is good. Saiyan landing is good. Freeza era is good. Cell era is good. Buu era is good. And then Dragon Ball Kai made everything even better by removing the filler. Dragon Ball is a masterpiece.

Those outfits are actually pretty lewd.

PriPara police and PriPara nurses.

Laala’s face kinda look like an expression a character in MMD would make. Their Making Drama was kind of lacking. They should have included tons of other mob cops with them chasing Kaitou Genius or something. You know, like the cops in meitantei holmes. Or like sometimes in Lupin.

Some parts of the dance is pretty funny. I always found it funny when they make weird movements with their legs like that. To bad I’m too lazy and incompetent to make webms.

Mikan eating while running was funny.

That too.

I felt genuinely sorry for Dorothy. Her voice really expressed the pain too. Shibuya Azuki did a good job. Dorothy acts like a bitch sometimes but she’s kinda cute too.

Felt really sorry for Hibiki. I can’t stand Da Vinci as well.

Mikan and the goats didn’t get reprimanded for eating, and Mikan is happy about it. Aroma tells her she shouldn’t be happy she got treated at the same level as a goat. Because Aroma knows Mikan isn’t furniture.

I really hope Hibiki’s disgust for catchphrases stays even after she stops being Kaitou Genius. I wouldn’t even mind if “being disgusted of catchphrases” becomes her own catchphrase of sorts and gets overused to hell.

Episode 70

>The helicopter she pilots gets hijacked by some twintail biting loli terrorist.
>Transporting a VIP girl who once literately got bullied to death by Laala, and brought back to life.
>Stay composed and just say “everyone please stay calm during the flight”
Truly Akaii Meganee is the final boss we don’t deserve

I always hoped that when Faruru and Green Wind would meet, Green Wind would tell Faruru that her eyebrows reminds her of the grassy grazing plains of the Alps. Too bad it didn’t happen. Typing this made me want to replay snes Harvest Moon and Ogre Battle.

Gotta admit that was funny.

I don’t get this joke. Maybe that’s a reference to a famous interviewer in Japan or something. Way too lazy and not passionate enough about PP to actually research.

Faruru is about to do a gravure shooting session but they don’t show it.
I thought PP was TENSION PANDERING MAXUSSU to every audience. Seems even after the swimsuit ED they still have restraint.

Speaking of swimsuits, I think Koei Tecmo are lying when they say they don’t want to release DOAX3 outside Japan because they want to avoid bad buzz. I think it’s just that they know their game will be bad. Few characters etc. They know it will get bad reviews and won’t sell when it’s out outside Japan. They just don’t want to loose money. Being scared of people criticizing them is a huge lie.

Exposition talk to explain that Faruru lives in PriPara world. For the little girls who are new or who forgot about it because current modern society doesn’t let them use their brains.

Poor Faruru is all alone at night. I wonder if she can actually sleep.

A stranger gets in her room from the window. This feels kinda rapey. And oh I guess this counts as worldbuilding. Unless Akaii Meganee kicks you out, you can actually enter PriPara world at night. Humans who stay there when it closes won’t be turned into data and assimilated by the matrix or anything.

Hibiki:I’m a magician who protects PriPara. I long for you, as a man
Faruru:Men can enter PriPara world?
Hibiki:Cuz I’m a magician

While it’s true she just closed in her face to see if Hibiki has evil intentions or not, I think she realized Hibiki is actually a girl.

Hibiki: Currently idols aren’t using their coords powers to their full potential. I want to make a princess team to bring a revolution in PriPara and change this.

Thank you PP for butchering one of the few good looking dress by giving it a horrible coloring.

I’m gonna miss those “Hibiki looking ultra evil to end the episode” shots.

Episode 71

Should be “cœur remplit” and “chocolatier”.

Nao’s mom is cute.

Hibiki says “it’s too hot”, Andou thinks she means the tea but she means how Laala and co aren’t despairing yet.

See, this is the difference between s1 PP and s2 PP: they actually notice they could just reprint the stolen tickets. Meganii said so too at the end of episode 67. Except turns out he tried doing it and it didn’t work.

Shion doesn’t sit because she’s the boss. Also Dorothy says Kaitou Genius is a lonely narcissist who probably spends birthdays alone every year, and the “narcissist” point makes Mireille and Shion think about Hibiki, but they don’t think it’s possibly him. Since s2 started Mireille and Shion actually act in accordance to their intelligence.

So predictable. At least Laala did mention Nao instead of going “she forgot she promised to spend our bday together” forced drama route.

Then the dead characters goes on doing unfunny jokes.

I didn’t get Faruru’s joke though. She said she’s gonna do an imitation of Garuru, then was about to bite, and Dorothy and Leona hid her. Usually I just don’t find the jokes funny, but here I’m not sure what was supposed to be funny.

Enka girl is fun.

Oh wow they actually remembered. Back in Aroma’s arc there was a flashback showing she wanted to become a PP idol because of New Mew. Back then I wrote something along the lines of “it would be nice if they actually make them meet and make something fun out of it someday, but eh this is PP so it won’t happen.”

Seeing Hibiki get sick because of catchphrase is always funny.

Cute Nao mom who will never appear again.

Aroma is faking ventriloquism with Mikan as her puppet. Kinda illustrates how I think that Aroma could still be an interesting character by herself, but Mikan wouldn’t. Mikan is like Aroma’s puppet.

I like how the s1 rewind sequence at the end was just:
1Laala going to PP world for the first time and meeting Mireille
2Sophie joining
3Her mom and Gloria meeting again
4Bullying Faruru to death and reviving her

It shows how literally nothing else happened in s1 besides character introductions and the rare funny episodes.

Episode 72

PP teaching little girls it’s ok to be visited by a man every night and have an affair. First she goes on make a bunch of kids and now this. I wonder if pure waifu type otakus who like Faruru are killing themselves over this.

There’s a PP firewall to avoid hacking. Judging from Faruru being able to move from one PriPara world in Japan to another in France, and Meganii as well, I guess it’s not region locked. Would be nice if they exploited this and showed non japanese little girls visiting the japanese PP world. In the third PP movie they’ll go to Paris(Puriparis) so maybe they’ll go there through PuriPara world. You can travel without paying. Then maybe they still check your passport and stuff or else you can’t get out of the PriPara world. There’s tons of possibilities they could do with this if they actually try.

Hibiki asked Andou to infiltrate the control room and manufacture a new weather type, shooting stars, to show it to Faruru who wanted to see some.

I wish she stayed dead.

The subtle message in this scene is the fact that Sophie got the brain of a jellyfish and Green Wind doesn’t know about electricity, so only Leona could think of this. I’m still sad about how they never do jokes with Fuwari related to the fact that she lived in the Alps with no technology and stuff.

Didn’t think I’d find catchphrase related joke ever funny again.

Come to think of it Andou is probably a woman too.
The correct code was 120 because like Mireille said in French it goes 1=un and 2=deux. Though “un” and “deux” isn’t really pronounced “an” and “dou”.
“an” and “dou” is how a how a japanese person would pronounce it. And then rei=0 in japanese.

Usually detective episodes in shows are kind of fun but this got ruined by Ajimi.

Episode 73

I know it was to explain the situation to the dumb little girls but it took Shion and Mireille way too much time to realize what’s going on.
According to Meganii the headquarters of PriPara is in PuriParis so the 3rd movie will probably use that too.

Meganee acting surprised as always when she actually already knows the future.

Oh so she actually told everyone she’s Kaitou Genius.

I had doubts because of her voice actor being used to voicing girly looking boys and boyish looking girls, but I definitely thought Hibiki was a boy, until Meganii pretty said she’s a girl with the line “only girls can enter PP world” in episode 67 (except Leona). In a sense I’m also disappointed like those girls screaming “please start the first ever boys live already” because when I thought she was a boy I genuinely thought they would add boys, and that Hibiki’s revolution was about adding boys. Anyway I wrote more at the end.

Gonna sound like I’m never satisfied or nitpicking, but gotta admit that really wasn’t as funny as I thought it would. Even Sophie actually reacting when she usually don’t care about everything didn’t even make me smile.

Faruru didn’t particularly react, she didn’t show whether she already knew it or not. So I guess  my hypothesis that she noticed Hibiki is a girl in episode 70 will never be confirmed or denied. I’ll just believe she did anyway.

Fuwari blackouts because she’s realizing that she’s a failed Otoha clone who was programmed to fall in love with a ItoxBell clone.

Meganii says that since he was born to help girls idols and Hibiki is a girl he can’t force her to return the tickets she stole.

Really fun and cool poses.

It kinda looks like she was skating which was probably done on purpose.

Hibiki is cute.

Super cute.

I don’t think her Making Drama recycles directly assets from Prism Unicorn Destroy or Bell’s jumps, but they still recycled the aesthetics of Bell’s jumps. What’s interesting is that they also reused the same symbolic behind Bell Rose’s Kakumei no Rosette Nebula. Except this time they actually spell it out: “There will necessarily be sacrifices in a revolution”. I guess little girls watching PP are dumber or something. Though I admit I didn’t get it why Otoha and Wakana blushed like that in Kakumei no Rosette Nebula until the CG director explained that they were “defeated and symbolizes the sacrifices in a revolution”.

Hibiki does a Airy Change and gets golden wings, Golden AIry, whil eusually they’re called Sairum Airy. And she did an Airy Change even though she’s not doing a Dream Theather live. This is one of those PriPara attempts at trying to make someone look more powerful than the others. Sadly it doesn’t work very well as we don’t know much about the power levels and actual grading. However, this is a much better attempt then what they did in s1 with Faruru doing multiple Making Drama in the same live. (As no one ever did even two in the same live anyway, and was never used as a way to grade power levels)

Seeing her laugh like that was really fun.

KING OF PRISM QUEEN

HIBIKI SAMAAAAA

Oh Meganii actually did explain why she managed to do Airy Change and get Golden Wings, she was just that good and the audience was that entranced so they made it happen. Okay.

Just like Cosmo in season 1 this will probably be the best performance in all of s2 and the only time the lyrics were actually relevant to the plot( My love, my revolution, etc).

Eyecatch

Faruru has good taste allying herself with Hibiki.

Black Meganees were already shown carrying Kuma to the mascot graveyard in a s1 early episode.

Haha they got quarantined.  They should leave Yellow Taste in it forever.

Hahaha Dorothy starts teasing her right away and calls her Mahou chan like Faruru. Then she imitates her Kaitou Genius lines.

Hibiki: “I love PriPara more than anyone else here.” I feel the same too and that’s why I criticize s1 so much. Hibiki wants to bet on who likes it the most, but no one would bet something nonphysical like that, so in order to represent it she decided to steal the dream tickets to be able to bet them.

Laala is stupid and doesn’t know what kuusou means so Mireille explains it’s something empty, with only looks. I admit I googled it too.

It was really fun how Dorothy always tried to rebuke Hibiki while mocking her. “You’re in high school, you want to fight grade schoolers and middle schoolers? You’re not ashamed?”

“They(Saints) were kami aidoru not too long ago. Their era was the best. Only those whose skill was unanimously recognized would stand on stage. However now there isn’t a single kami aidoru in PriPara. It’s just an agglomeration of amateurs. I dream of reviving this golden era.”
Laala rebukes with “what’s wrong with being an amateur, PriPara is for everyone to be friends, everyone is a friend and aidoru blabla”. More on this at the end of the post.

Faruru asks her to give them back the tickets so Hibiki and everyone asks Mireille to make the final decision. They’ll accept her challenge and Hibiki gave them back the tickets for now.

Then she gets her sairum charm. Meganii says she gets a sairum charm with a golden crown to symbolize her Chae Kyoung CELEBRITY aura.
Come to think of it she did the Airy Change without one in that first live. They didn’t explain how. Or I guess Meganii’s explanation that she moved the audience so much she could do Airy Change outside of Dream theater also included the fact she could do a Change without a sairum charm.

That entrance was really cool.

Hahahahaha Hibiki is so good they showed her CG twice in the same episode. Almost all of it too. Without counting the times it was a joke like when Sophie ate the super umeboshi, iirc this is the first time they ever do that, Pretty Rhythm and PriPara included.

I already said it many times but I really love it when people put roses in their mouth.

Episode 74

This was unintentionally extremely funny.

Hahahaha what the hell. Why did she even get sick. Yeah she should be shocked that the “boy” she liked is actually a girl, and also a children card games card thief, but to get bedridden over it? Wow. Did she got sick because she thinks she’s gay or something?

Pretty cool. Reminds me of gangsta Rinne. They should wear hoodies more often. Also that blonde woman looks a lot like Bell’s mom.

Hibiki: “I did my PriPara debut? It’s more like PriPara finally met Shikyouin Hibiki”
Her lines are cool too.

I don’t get what Meganee said in that scene, I think that if no one manages to beat Hibiki she’ll  be forgiven for stealing the tickets? (along with getting them all).
Also Mireille is talking about how Hibiki is trending on social networks and people are editing her wiki pages etc, which made me laugh because that’s what little girls making PP related wikis are probably doing right now. Nice thing I’m not a little girl, wouldn’t want to see the bloodbath of the fight between the ones wanting to admit Hibiki is a girl and the ones who doesn’t.

“Laala, you have plot armor, this is how we’re gonna win”
I really hope this won’t happen.

Basically Mireille is talking about one of the laws of (mostly sports) anime, which says that there’s genius types characters and hard working types characters. Whenever I speak about that it reminds me of that super cool scene in Chijou Saikyo no Deshi Kenichi, during the Hermit vs Berseker fight at the end of the Ragnarok arc, when Hermit says there’s talented people and there’s hard working people, and how he has both hard work and talent.
Anyway, Mireille say they need to work super hard to attain Hibiki’s genius.

Hibiki summoned Sophie and Shion and tell them the same thing as what Mireille was saying before..
Hibiki: “Geniuses resonates with each other. You two would like to take off and fly like me. That’s what you thought when seeing me. You’ll be able to see a scenery you’ve never seen before.”
Note that when Hibiki says resonates, she uses the word Hibikiai.
I don’t like how it seems they’re treating this genius vs hard work fight like it’s super original.

I know Sophie is supposed to be pshuu and all, but even Sophie should be able to understand. It’s like they treat this whole arc like it’s super deep while everyone who already watched a sports anime once in their life already saw it, and it irritates me.

Kaitou Genius has been technically stopped, though it wasn’t thanks to the efforts of the special investigation team of Ajimi. In any case they’re disbanded now. PriPara police will continue though. Too bad. I wish they’d mute Ajimi to PuriPari and never show her again.

“It must be a shock that the person she admired turned out to be a woman.”. You bet. It gave her gay sickness.

Hibiki had free time and called Andou chan telling her to prepare something which I don’t get(more like I’m too lazy to check the japanese transcription), but she says her horse Maxi escaped from the horse riding club. I know a lot of horse related kanji and expressions thanks to reading Jaja uma Grooming Up since this January. It’s a real masterpiece, I’m at volume 24 now and almost done.

Fuwari: Was everything you told me just a lie?
Hibiki: No. The only one I love is you. Lol just kidding, did you think I was serious? Acting is my daily job. Tricking a country girl from the Alps like you is easy. If you want I can continue showering you with buttered up words.

Wow what a bitch. Hibiki definitely isn’t a mean person though. Yes I’m a Hibiki apologist. I do like her after all and always did since her introduction. I think her plan is to push Fuwari into opposing her. Hopefully Fuwari does something soon because her arc was the boringest of s2 and she wasn’t even there at the end of episode 73 when Hibiki was explaining her ideals to everyone. She does nothing but lol goat jokes these days.

And then right after Fuwari felt sick again.  This is ridiculous.

This is the same movie director since PR. This guy is his alternate PP version though. That’s why he’s blond I guess. The assistant guy too.

Hibiki: “Dorothy West, and her little brother Leona West. He was allowed by the PP god to be an idol in PP. He really doesn’t look like a boy”

Yeah we know Hibiki.

Oh right Leona did kinda manage to receive the smash back then. Maybe he’ll end up joining Hibiki’s team.

Leona asks Hibiki why she dresses like a guy, she says if he replaces the late actress she’ll answer.

The movie is about a Knight of Persia who saves the princess, but the knight is actually a girl so Leona asks Hibiki again why she dresses like a girl except it’s part of the script. Hibiki ditches the scenario and answers her for real.  She says the world is fake and made of lies so who cares if she lies too. Hibiki aks Leona what about him. He answers it’s just the way he is. In other words cuz of the otaku pandering. The fact that Hibiki gave out an actual raeson for dressing as a boy made me realize Leona never really gave an actual reason to dress as a girl except that he’s cute, wanted to copy Dorothy, and for otaku pandering.

It also gives off a pretentious feeling like they wanna do a parallel between Hibiki and Leona, and the storyboard thing references Utena, except it doesn’t really work at all, and they’re limited by whatever how they treat homosexuality in Japan. Basically trying to act deep but failed.

Also Leona’s answer “aru ga mama”/”that’s just the way I am” may be a reference to something.

That’s the woman from the beginning. She looks a lot like Bell’s mom. Bell’s mom in PP universe is blond. Or maybe it’s PriPara universe Bell herself, and she’s just older, so she looks like her mom. She was called Bara Zoro or something? Bara is rose so they did this on purpose.

Leona thought he and Hibiki were similar but they have different points. One actually has a story behind, the other is just for pandering. Dorothy says Leona and Hibiki have nothing in common and that Hibiki’s nature is of a shady person.

They should have made it so Hibiki has a special machine scanning the tickets for her or something. She’s too kingly queenly to actually do it herself.

After one live Hibiki is already charisma idol.

Come to think of it while this is heart shaped because it comes out of her heart, it’s probably because Prism Stones look like that.

Unless I heard wrong, she said something different than her performance in 73, using the word 付き物. Well it still have the same meaning: “Sacrifices are an indispensable part of revolutions”.

I’ll never get tired of this shot. Come to think of it it’s a shame she doesn’t do the Obari pose with her sword.

Oh right Aroma and Mikan still exist.

This looks like a nazi salute so it would get censored in France.

Episode 75

Mireille tells Sophie that if she really wants to go in Hibiki’s team, she shouldn’t worry about them and go.

Dorothy and Leona didn’t know yet that Hibiki scouted Shion. Apparently Laala was about to tell them in a more gentle way but then Nene blurts it out while interviewing them, and Laala facepalms. I don’t believe one second Laala would have broke the news to them in any more peaceful manner. She’s a kid who can’t read the mood and don’t have experience in this. That facepalm was out of character since she wouldn’t have done a good job herself anyway.

Greenwind is going back home because she still has homophobia sickness. This is completely stupid. I guess they couldn’t write anything interesting about her so might as well just remove her? Even though there’s tons of possibilities. Like actually joining Hibiki, to challenge herself and try to see through Hibiki’s acting, trying to see her real feelings and try to help her stop being crazy. Or at least joining Laala’s team. But nope, let’s just send her back to the Alps. I don’t even particularly like Green Wind but this really irks me. This is like when they removed Faruru at the end of s1 all over again. Unless Fuwari actually comes back in a few episodes this is the biggest blunder in s2 yet.

Hibiki didn’t think that Greenwind would go back home. This furthers my theory that she wanted to provoke her into a reaction in episode 74 and didn’t act like a bitch toward her for no reason.
Hibiki:”Geniuses and geniuses attract each other. One day they’ll come at me, being fed up of staying with peasants”.

Shion:”I who used to only love white and black things, have been entranced by these golden wings”
Except you know it’s been a while since Shion started liking things other than black and white since her introduction in s1 but whatever.

Yaaaaaaaay it’s Iroha. I wondered if she would show up, because in the last episode she talked with Shion, it was at the same leaf corridor garden. She basically rouses Shion telling her not to forget her goal to become Kami Aidoru.

Mireille remembering Hibiki’s words of how she isn’t a genius.

Mireille: “Someone once said that Geniuses are made of 1% percent of talent and 99% of hard work. I’ll just use 100% of hard work!!!”

WORST MIREILLE ON SUICIDE WATCH.

This was supposed to be emotional with how Kuma feels bad Mireille can’t get past that 1% genius wall, basically how managers feel bad for their aidorus too, except I didn’t feel anything at all. I wrote about this Mireille problem at the end of the post.

Neko said she also had times when she struggled as a manager, Kuma wanted to know more but she told him you shouldn’t ask about a woman’s past.

Shion joins Hibiki as expected.

This scene was stupid, because Laala and Dorothy can’t understand why Shion went with Hibiki and are surprised, even though they keep talking about GENIUS VS HARD WORK like it’s the deepest and revolutionest thing ever for 3 episodes now. I guess they weren’t listening to their own conversations.

Shion says she doesn’t have regrets so far and don’t want to have future regrets. She wants to try doing the golden airy thing by her own power as well. It’s the first time since she was born she was moved this much but something else than Go.

Usagi decides to accept her decision, saying he knew that day would come, and he already saw how shining an aidoru can be once she’s been set free, referencing to back when he was a bastard exploiting Sophie. Lastly he reminds us that the charms still need to put her and Hibiki in a team anyway, else it’ll all be for naught. The biggest approbation Shion needs to get is the plot’s.

After that Faruru does a live and annonce she’ll join Hibiki’s team. I guess she won’t be permitted to wear anything else but that horrible yellow version of her dress until when she does the dream theater live with Hibiki.

Faruru manages to do Airy Change outside of Dream Theater live and get gold wings/Golden Airy too.

Not the best Shion shot I remember but still a really good one.

Faruru.

Maybe since Andou first got into PP world posing as a goat, she got registered as such and can only go in wearing it. And Andou is definitely a woman because even for goats only females ones can enter. Though we don’t know if that was actually her first time in PP or not. Andou may actually be a Kami Aidoru that was active during Saint’s era, and she’s the one who inspired Hibiki her dream as the only one she trusts.

Sophie realizes she wants to join best girls team as well, since she’s a best girl too. Laala and Mireille accepts it as they aren’t best girls.

Was pretty funny. Yellowtaste says she already saw Hibiki before. I’m guessing at some art venue. Ajimi is past 20, so when she was still a teenager she may have met Hibiki when she was still a child. Or maybe they’re actually blood related. There’s always at least 2 main characters that are blood related in every PR season. In PP there’s already Dorothy and Leona though.

Dorothy and Leona accept Shion’s depart as well. I want to brofist Shion too.

Hahaha Hibiki changing her sick face to a beautiful one in an instant. The talent of an actress. Reminds me of Juné getting her heart broken then immediately smiling like nothing happened. Man that was sad.

The usual “Hibiki looking evil at the end of the episode” shot.

They should have made an actual Dezaki postcard. Been rewatching City Hunter for the billionth time these days so I have them on my mind.

Episode 76

Ooooh it’s those two lolis from that Aroma Mikan ep. Anko(rabbit) and Miruku(donut).  I’m too lazy to count but they may have have broken the record of how many eps it took for side characters to get out of the void and return to the show, without counting background appearances.

  

They’re crying because Anko is moving so they won’t be able to see each other anymore. Mikan tells them it’s ok because they’re tied with an invisible string of friendship and she’s the same with Aroma so she knows, so they stop crying.

Gotta admit that was very cute.

The crow is saying baka baka instead of aho aho. They should redo this in anime. It happens all the time in City Hunter and I still find it funny. With the joke alone  itself being funny of course. Also crows in Japan can steal you even bigger things than that if you don’t pay attention.

Aroma thinking she really have powers.

That was actually very good writing, because if the crow suddenly got out of nowhere and stole the glove, without the scene where it first steals the ticket, I would have called it forced drama straight away and it would’ve spoiled my impression of this episode.

Hibiki can’t choose a fifth genius for her team since all the ones left are people that literately makes her head hurt.

Most accurate representation of PP ever, by PP itself. It shows they are aware how boring the show is when it goes catchphrase overload. Being aware of it and making fun of it doesn’t excuse it though. It’s still bad.

Hibiki is fine with Mikan’s gobi since she just says nano, and it feels just like desu and stufff to her so she doesn’t mind it much compared to the horrible atmosphere destroying puripuri da vinci.

Mikan got a glider licence. Maybe she has a helicopter licence too.
When she looked at the highest skyscraper in Parajuku, where Hibiki resides, I knew she’d do this. I guess why not. But she could have just climbed the church directly. Mikan can do that for sure. Dorothy and Leona could have done it too since they’re ninjas. But whatever. This episode obviously isn’t meant to be overanalysed like the previous ones.

Andou”She’s a grade schooler. We shouldn’t let her do that.”
Hibiki”Nah it’ll be interesting let her do it”

Because Hibiki called herself Kaitou Genius, this reminds me of that one Conan movie where Kaitou Kid lets Conan pilot an airplane and Conan is like “I knew it was you since only you would let a kid pilot an airplane”. Maybe I’ll get into Conan again one day. I guess when it ends.

PP teaching little girls it’s ok to believe in the power of the devil and be satanist.

Won’t that make them sick?

Yeah PriPara I get this whole thing wasn’t mean to be taken seriously and she could have just climbed. You didn’t have to actually show me. That’s one of the problems with this genius vs hard work arc, it lacks subtlety.

They don’t show it but I wonder if Hibiki and Faruru still hang out at night together.

HeidiiAnette and her grandfather.
I may be French but I don’t do raclettes.
Come to think of it Fuwari is french. Weird how it never hit my brain before even though I always make lifting goats in the Alps jokes.

Then Aroma and Mikan do a live too.

Most important scene ever: PP universe Beef or Fish or Chicken did a dream theater team with a goat and an alapaca.

Oh so the charms finally made Hibiki Faruru Shion Sophie and the last member revealed this episode Mikan into an actual team. I thought they would hold it off until last minute and make it so they choose someone different than what was already decided cuz lolplot device. Nice thing I was wrong.

And that’s the Laala/hard work team. I guess Fuwari really isn’t coming back anytime soon. They really screwed up.

This looks like the ending of a City Hunter episode if you replace Mikan with an airplane Anko would be riding.

Oh there will actually be the side characters in the 3rd movie.

Jikai

Oh so next episode will already be the winter grand prix? It’s cool they aren’t making us wait. Next episode is 3rd January, there’s no episode the 27th.

Overall impressions about Hibiki and this genius vs hard work arc

68-71 were ok.  72 was good. 73 was the best episode in all of PP along the Shion vs Hibiki (62) and Cosmo performance . 74-76 are good but filled with bad things I wrote about just below.

I have very mixed feelings about this arc because it’s the first time they’re building up toward an actual confrontation. Actually they didn’t buildup so much as it should already happen in episode 77. Which means Laala will probably loose then as there’s still one more Grandprix, and for whatever reason they’ll bet the tickets again.  It’s also the first time they’re trying to do some plot with a little bit of complexity. This is Hibiki’s arc, but instead of focusing on one person(Hibiki) like they always do, there’s also things like Sophie and Shion joining her, or Mireille noticing how she’s lagging behind. The side characters as well finally feel like actual side characters as multiple ones can appear in a single episode even if that episode isn’t dedicated to them. In episode 75 you’ve got Nene(reporter girl), but also Iroha appearing and having lines. Usually I don’t want to think too much about PP because it’s not worth it, but it’s the first time since the show started I feel it is worth it.

1/ Hibiki

At first when they pretty much confirmed that Hibiki was a girl in episode 67, I was disappointed because it meant her revolution wasn’t about bringing boys idols into PP, and because they already did a gender plot twist with Leona. I thought it was unoriginal. However after seeing it actually happen in episode 73, and after seeing Hibiki’s plan, I think this is much better than boys being introduced. And Hibiki being a girl is tied into the plot and has tons of implications, compared to how Leona being a boy is just otaku pandering. Of course Hibiki panders to reverse trap fans as well but unlike Leona this isn’t her gimmick.

When episode 73 happened with Hibiki telling everyone she’s a girl, my first impression was that she was gay. I’m not a specialist, but I think having gay characters in children anime in Japan is very common. However, I think Japan is actually very homophobic. There’s a lot of gay characters or crossdressers in children anime but 99% of the time they’re treated as weirdos or comic relief, basically teaching the kids these people aren’t normal and shouldn’t be frequented. While I’m not a supporter of homosexuality, I don’t really care whether someone is gay or not. While I’m against it, I don’t judge people because of it as it’s not my job to judge them, it’s God’s. Speaking of that, I’m not savant, so I will definitively avoid pronouncing myself on how my religion views gay people, except it’s “forbidden”. And please spare me dumb arguments like “yeah but <insert country here> does this and that to homosexuals, so you must think the same as well!”. If you’re genuinely interested I suggest going to ask at a mosque instead of asking me or google. If you’ve been reading this blog, you should know I often denounce how there’s a hierarchy of racism in France and how you’ll get much more in trouble if you’re antisemitic rather than if you’re hating something else. How a lot of politicians still say that “disliking Israel’s agenda=antisemitic”etc. However, while fighting against homophobia is obviously important, I do think it should be less prioritized than fighting some other forms of racism. At a job interview the recruiter will have a much easier time figuring out whether you’re black or not than whether you’re gay or not.

The reason why I’m saying all this is mostly because these episodes aren’t subbed. So some people watching PP will probably only have this as reference for a while, I don’t think the wikis etc are safe right now with all the little girls arguing about Hibiki. I try to be as honest as possible. I just want  to warn you that I may be biased on my view of Hibiki because of all that. If you believe unlike me that Hibiki is gay or some other interpretation please don’t.

Anyway as I was saying, after 73 I definitely though Hibiki was gay as I had the scenes with her dancing with Faruru and stuff fresh in my mind. But after seeing episode 74 I  changed my mind.

If you combine what she says to Fuwari and Leona, you get “Acting is my job”, “The world is made of lies. There’s nothing wrong with whether I dress as a man or woman as I just act anyway”. They haven’t told us about Hibiki’s past yet, but either because of her upbringing or how people always approached her with ulterior motives and flattery, she basically gave up on people and don’t trust anyone. For Hibiki, it doesn’t have anything to do with being gay or not, or gender identity or whatever people defending homosexuality want to use these days. She’s just “acting” the part of a man. She’s completely insane. PriPara is probably the only thing she genuinely loves and don’t think is “a lie”. And as it’s the only thing she’s into she likes it to an extreme.

Which is why Hibiki wants to changes the current PriPara scene. In universe, Hibiki is a fan of Saints and wants to revive their “golden era” and is unsatisfied because of how there’s no kami aidoru now.

At a first glance there’s a lot of things pointing out Hibiki may metaphorically represent PR fans.

• When she’s Kaitou Genius, she’s speaking in riddles kinda similar to Jun.

• She’s fan of Saints.

• It looks as if she’s skating at certain points of her performance.

• The Making Drama that recycles Bell Rose jumps ideology.

• The giant prism stone in her Making Drama

However I think that’s wrong. If not, it would mean that basically Hibiki wants to make PP into PR, and while I’m a PR fan, I don’t share that opinion. So at the very least I don’t think Hibiki is supposed to represent me. I already said this tons of time but I knew before PP even started that it wouldn’t be the same as PR. I accepted it.

My own interpretation is that Hibiki actually points out both in-universe and metaphorically everything which is wrong about PP and which should be changed for it to become a better show. Instead of simply making the show better, the staff decided to write a character specifically for the task, and that’s Hibiki. She points all the flaws out and is the savior of PriPara. It gives the illusion that she’s representing PR fans because a lot of flaws in PP could indeed be solved if it took pages from PR. However my interpretation makes me think she isn’t representing PR fans. Hibiki doesn’t like catchphrases overload. She doesn’t like how everyone feels to be at the same level and there’s no friction. She doesn’t like how it feels there’s no stakes at hand. They fixed many things since s2 started like the world building, but all these are still present flaws.

There’s still no actual, visible materialization of the idol ranks. There’s no power levels. I’m not saying a show needs power levels just to have them. It’s more like the idea itself of powerlevels is inexistant in PriPara, and the way the show is made makes it disappear from the viewer’s mind as well. Like how there’s almost no solo performances. Or how when watching the show you never think to yourself about who is the best aidoru between Dorothy and Leona or stuff like that. Did you actually ever root for Laala and co to win? Were you ever scared of someone loosing? The only time I actually felt engaged and rooted for Laala and co, felt a sense of tension and emotion, was the three legged race in episode 43.

Indeed there’s been quite a few VS episodes actually. Shion VS Mireille in episode 15. Shion Vs Hibiki in episode 62 which I consider the best and funniest episode so far. Cosmo Vs Yellow Taste in episode 65. However in all these episodes, they compete in everything EXCEPT actual PriPara performance.

Also, I’m not saying that having everyone beings friends is wrong and the show needs meanie evil rivals. Notice that when Laala tells Hibiki “What’s wrong with being amateurs? Everyone is friend with each other and an aidoru. That’s what is good about PriPara. Everyone tries their best and are aiming to become kami aidoru one day.” Hibiki only answers that they aren’t ranking up at all these days and stagnating. Hibiki doesn’t reject the idea of friendship.

Back in episode 68 when she was talking to Shion, it was the same thing. Hibiki never told Shion something like “you became weak because you’ve became friends with your rivals Salami Smile”. Hibiki only told Shion to return to her roots, to not forget her goal to become kami aidoru.  Having rivalry don’t necessarily mean there won’t be friendship. This is a big theme in PR and PR was a sports anime at core and had friction and rivalry, this may once again in turn may explain how you could think Hibiki represents PR fans.

The fact that they made Hibiki this deep and have all these implications on her makes me think they genuinely want things to get better. And because of how everything I said, I don’t think they will dare to make Laala win again Hibiki simply because of plot armor. Making Laala win that way would fundamentally go against Hibiki’s character nature metaphorically. So I really hope they’ll do something that manage to give a satisfying answer to Hibiki’s ideals both in the show and metaphorically.  Hibiki is the metaest character I saw since Anshin in in Medaka Box or Erika in Umineko so I hope she will be handled well.

If Hibiki’s team does win the Winter Gran Prix, Hibiki will have the right to change PP as she wants. If I’m right about her pointing out the flaws of the show itself, they won’t do something stupid like making it into some kind of dictator rule with then Laala winning the Spring and last grandprix and toppling her. Rather, they’ll see how much better things are with Hibiki’s ideas, and won’t remove them completely when Laala wins at Spring.

2/ Mireille and Fuwari

This scene was falsely great. After 70 episodes they basically finally woke up and went oh right we should give Mireille some development. If Mireille can’t keep up with Sophie and Laala anymore because she’s not a genius, she should have been unable to keep up right when Sophie joined them in episode 13. And she’s smart, she should have been able to predict this long ago. Why would she suddenly be unable to keep up with them now and realize it now? Because of Hibiki’s words? Is it a case of being insecure and unconsciously limiting yourself when solving a problem because you heard someone saying that problem was hard?

This development should have happened long ago. It’s like how international court waited this December 2015 to try and judge Compaoré while everyone knows he’s the one who in 1987 assassinated Sankara and made the coup in Burkina backed by France, USA etc. If you saw Sankara’s house when he was president, you’d think it was a peasant’s house. He was one of the few African presidents ever who genuinely cared about his country. Which is why they killed him since France needs puppet leaders in Africa to be able to steal ressources in peace.

Anyway. Even now, Laala still calls Sophie “Sophie san”. Imagine if they made an episode right now about Laala starting to call her “Sophie” or “Sophie chan”. This would be completely stupid, they’re already friends for more than 60 episodes now. What’s the point of doing this kind of development now? That’s how I feel about this whole Mireille plot. It’s completely stupid and was forced in just for the sake of the hard work Vs genius fight.

There’s also the fact that regardless or not Sophie is a genius, she’s a year older than Mireille and have been doing PriPara ever since she was a kid. Of course she has more experience than her. Kuma fails as a manager if he can’t realize this.

The best thing that could come out of this is that Mireille ditches her worst Mireille popu steppu getchu form and mixes prosecutor and attorney form, and becomes some sort of dictator hitman aidoru.

Then, they could have made Fuwari join Laala for revenge. They could have made her be bold and courageous, actually joining Hibiki in order to perceive her true feelings and try to understand her. But nope they just sent her away like Faruru at the end of S1. This is another big disappointment.

Lastly, there’s how the whole arc is presented like it’s the most original thing ever and how they keep reminding us how it’s a fight between GENIUS and HARD WORK. Tons of anime already did that genius VS hard work thing, in universe and in a metaphor way like PP right now. Even PR alone did it with basically Rizumu having no super innate talent compared to Mion and Aira and being jealous of them. Or Mion trying to surpass Aurora Rising with her own jump, that was the same genius vs hard work. Then during all of DMF, Mia represents genius, Hye In represents hard work.

For the first time instead of criticizing the show because it’s boring and don’t have funny jokes or story like in s1, I’m criticizing it because the story is very good but handled in a very bad way. In the end ironically I can say about all this the same thing as s1. It feels like wasted potential.

Random news and fun things

For the general news about the 3rd PP movie, 3rd PP season, the musical etc, check on ANN  or Crunchyroll etc. For the fanarts/photos all the artist names source are in filename. Too lazy to write them individually. PP is really really popular now so there’s billions of different collaborations,merchandising etc.

They’re even doing a collabo with Tokyo’s fire department to raise awareness of fire risks to the children. I tried to put here all the interesting things I’ve come across.

The announcement for the 3rd season was during the xmas event.  Ever since the first PR xmas event, they would usually announce a movie at those, and the next PR/PP season was always announced in the last ten days of January or so. However this year they announced the third PP movie right at the end of the premiere of the 2nd movie, so I figured they would announce the new season at the xmas event.

Also at xmas event, they actually flew on stage recreating Airy Change – Sairum Airy.

This is Laala’s new outfit for season 3. They just added more yellow stripes and ribbons. There will be 3 new characters at the beginning, surely more later.

I don’t know what the secret silhouette is supposed to be.Looks like a cart to me. Maybe it’s skates and they’re bringing back skates.

This is Shintaro Yamada, who will be playing a completely new character for the musical called  Aoi Meganii. He’ll probably wear blue glasses and be a rival to Akaii Meganii or something.

Posted by the CG director for the characters’ birthdays. Last pic is for merry xmas.

They’re also selling xmas cakes.

The 3rd PP movie will take place in Paris so seems they’re adding mousquetaire like outfits in the game. Maybe they’ll wear them in the movie too.

That’s first pic of Hibiki with visible chest I saw. This is from the arcade game I think, was tweeted the 31st October.

Aroma/Makino Yui and Mikan/Watanabe Yui at a live event November 1st, I think. They were also cosplayed during the xmas event.

Irua will sell a Hibiki Fuwari doujin at winter comiket 2015. A new Beru Oto doujin too.

That’s an ad for a doujin event that happened in November.

Akaii Meganii cosplayer doing the STYLISH TOUGH GUY poses.

Video showing a bit of one of the second movie screening, sing all together version. As in the movie screenings where it’s ok to shout and sing together etc. Seeing people actually get hyped by PP catchphrases and shout TENSION MAKKUSU!! RIRAKKUSU!! triggered my autism like cool kids would say. I didn’t read much about the movie but I think it was a clipshow like always except they put all the performances in randomly, so each time you see the movie you see different ones.Like the PR routes in the first movie except all the movie was like that.

SD Gundam Aroma Mikan.

Since the 19th there’s a PP and Sega’s UFO catchers colabo. You can try catching PP new illustrations you can only get in the UFO catchers.

Rantan fanart.

This pic is funny because it looks like Sophie is saying OSU!

SUPERIOR LIVER TRAINED IN THE HIGH ALTITUDE ALPS. This was drawn before ep73 btw.

Kubota Miyu/Sophie is really good at making funny smugfaces. She was  recording for a Jyashin Chan Dropkick commercial. It’s a pretty funny manga you should read. I always feel bad for Jyashin Chan. Though she is a huge bitch and deserves most of what happens to her.

She voiced Jyashin Chan rapping. Makes me think of Kodomo no Omocha.

There’s a PP boardgame with a Ajimi tile that says you must imitate her.

Not sure where these are from and too lazy to research.

Some of the dresses in the arcade game are pretty good.

The next update in the arcade game is titled “Climax! Winter White Grandprix. I don’t follow the arcade game so I dunno if they link all the time the updates with the anime’s story, but it’s nice they’re giving the Hibiki fight exposure even in the game.

Some sort of animation reference sheets for Mireille? Not sure where it’s from.

A mom of a Pripara fan made the dress they wear at the end of s1 iirc. The fan then lent the dress to her best friend for her 2nd marriage party after the ceremony.

Fuwari cardboard

A bunch of short Hibiki x Fuwari doujins.

Starting January 4th 2016 PP will air Monday at 18:00 instead of 18:30. And there will be no episode the 28th of December. New Year is the only time in the year PR/PR takes a break since 2011.

Not that I care but Iris and Wake up Girls will do a live together the 14th of February 2016. There’s the official page here.

As I’m finally wrapping up this post and proofreading, I saw a Kubota Miyu tweet saying she finished work at 3am the 25th December 2015. Well it was past midnight so it was the 26th. Being an aidoru in Japan sure is hard. I kinda respect some of them for that even though I’m not a fan.