PRIPARA NEEDS AN IDOL TIME(SKIP)

TONY T. - Managing Editor, 3rd Year, Economics and Data Science

"The anti Yu-Gi-Oh GX."

As a whole, the original 140 episode Pripara series is engaging due to the presence of a great cast and fundamentally interesting conflicts arising from its characters’ differing views of the direction of their artform. The first season juxtaposes the main six characters (the members of SoLaMi Smile and Dressing Parfait), all of whom represent varying types of individualism in their art, with an antagonist in Falulu who is anything but. Falulu is the antithesis of the protagonists in that she amalgamates popular ideas, such as the main characters’ catchphrases, and thus is the most consumer friendly, common denominator product. The second season manages to surpass this with a conflict regarding the series’ titular platform, with villain Hibiki wanting to refine it into a curated area where only the best are highlighted, whereas the main characters wish to leave Pripara as a place allowing all voices to be heard. With Hibiki’s aesthetic and performances unsubtly being inspired by Hollywood and American film productions, the clash feels reminiscent to the ongoing struggles between new and old media. Pripara does not seek to answer this question, as Laala and company do not exactly represent new media in its positives and negatives, but merely poses the question.

The third season, realizing that the second season’s climax wherein both Laala and Hibiki are edging towards the level of gods cannot and should not be surpassed, instead turns its focus towards interpersonal conflict. Calling to mind fictional tournaments like Dragon Ball’s 21st Tenkaichi Budokai, Pripara season three’s Divine Idol Grand Prix derives its intrigue from watching titans clash in attempts to define who amongst them are truly worthy of the title of greatest. In this sense, while the third season is not at all as conceptually interesting as the previous two, it makes up for it in being emotionally interesting. Where the first two seasons reminded me of other fictional stories, such as Revolutionary Girl Utena, Pripara season three took a tone similar to real life athletic competition. In this sense, while its structure is similar to other anime tournament arcs, the third season’s conflicts, particularly the final showdown between close rivals SoLaMi Smile and Dressing Parfait, evokes similar emotions as, say, the three fights between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. In this way, Pripara may be a rather inconsistent show, but its three seasons all remain powerful in varying ways.

None of what I’ve said above is necessarily intentional. Pripara is, after all, a highly merchandised franchise focused on getting young children to buy superfluous toys. That being said, whether or not the series’ interesting writing was purposeful misses the point as, within a storyline broadly following a sports dynamic, the series manages to touch on interesting ideas with its colorful cast.

In contrast, the fourth season, a soft reboot called Idol Time Pripara, is less interesting in that the central plot of the series, the rise of SoLaMi Smile as the divine idols, has already elapsed. It introduces a new protagonist, Yui, but still has the series’ original protagonist, Laala, as a main focus as a sort of mentor character. The intentions behind this move are fairly clear and understandable. After all, media directed at children need to consistently restart so as to keep engrossing newer younger audiences in whatever product is being sold. That’s why Precure has new entries every year. The problem comes with Idol Time’s half measures in doing this, resulting in a series that is neither a departure from the original series nor a satisfying continuation.

The main problem comes with how the main six characters are seemingly still present within the world whilst not meeting audience expectations in terms of narrative contributions. Laala, for instance, remains one of Idol Time’s two central characters, but still suffers the same setbacks that she learns to deal with in previous seasons. It feels as though her character has been reset in a rather abrupt manner, as the time between Pripara season three and Idol Time should only be a few months. Yet, others from earlier seasons feel rather out of character as if a far larger time has elapsed. Beyond that, the new characters like Yui, Michiru, and Nino follow archetypes that already existed in previous characters.

In my view, the most effective solution to almost all of Idol Time’s problems would have been a longer timeskip. The audience for the previous series would feel vindicated in seeing the same characters grow to a certain degree, and younger audiences would still be able to latch on to the newer cast. Laala’s mentor role would particularly benefit from this type of change, as she would be able to fit the image of the ‘retired legend’ akin to how a character like Rocky Balboa is able to function brilliantly as a mentor in Creed. With this small change, Idol Time would be able to imply far more with its narrative and capture a far larger audience. That isn’t to say that it is a terrible series altogether, as it still features many of Pripara’s interesting writing quirks. However, it feels lacking compared to its extremely fun predecessor in large part because it is unable to tow the line between being a full continuation or a new series. An Idol Time(skip) would almost instantly allow it to truly function as both.