The Pretty Series is a multimedia franchise based on a series of Shoujo arcade games developed by Takara Tomy and syn Sophia.
The games center primarily around managing characters to participate in Prism Shows - a hodgepodge of acting, singing, modeling, and various other idol jobs. But rather than just being limited to singing and dancing, Prism Shows take it up a notch by adding figure skating into the mix. Balancing all of these talents at the same time, players take their idols to the top by combining their fashion prowess with precise reflexes and dazzling moves. Beginning with Pretty Rhythm Mini Skirt in 2010, the series eventually found itself with a manga serialization in Ribon, as well as an anime the next year. The anime itself got a sequel, Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live, that focused on an entirely new cast of characters participating in Prism Shows.
The original Pretty Rhythm arcade games were eventually shut down in July of 2014, and were replaced with machines of their new spinoff series: PriPara. Carrying much of the same spirit, PriPara proved to be a much more successful and popular franchise than its predecessor. Despite this, the girls of the old Pretty Rhythm series still live on through cameos in PriPara, and get caught up in the plot from time to time.
Unsurprisingly due to their fashion focus, Pretty Rhythm eventually launched the Prism Stone Shop
, dedicated to providing accessories and merchandise based on the franchise. The store also carries a line of girl's wear mimicking the clothes found in the various Pretty Rhythm and PriPara anime. They have a small station where one can play the games, and it's quite possibly the last place in Japan to find and play a cabinet of Pretty Rhythm alongside its successor game.
In 2016, the Pretty Rhythm side of the franchise was revived with the film King of Prism by PrettyRhythm, a sequel to Rainbow Live with a new focus on the boys of Edel Rose Academy. The movie got to be so popular it turned into a sub-franchise of its own, with a sequel film, manga, and even a Pretty Rhythm-like mobile game made in its name. Like in PriPara, it still pays homage to its parent series with cameos of characters from the original anime, as well as a special remix of Rainbow Live's opening theme "EZ DO DANCE".
In late 2017, Takara Tomy announced a franchise-wide crossover for its then-upcoming 10th anniversary in 2020: the Pretty All Friends project brings together the Pretty Rhythm and PriPara girls for a special event, which was hyped up through monthly short stories on the Prism Stone website. In 2018, they attached their third major series to the anniversary project: Kiratto Pri☆Chan, about two girls using the "Pri☆Chan" system to become self-broadcasting stars. Their 10th anniversary title, Waccha PriMagi!, came out in October 2021.
Works in the Pretty Rhythm franchise:
Video Games- Pretty Rhythm Mini Skirt (2010)
- Pretty Rhythm: My Rainbow Deco Wedding (2013)
Anime
- Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream (2011)
- Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live (2013)
- Pretty Rhythm All Star Selection: Prism Show Best Ten (2014)
- King of Prism (2016)
Works in the PriPara franchise:
Video Games- PriPara (2014)
- Idol Time PriPara (2017)
- PriPara: All Idol Perfect Stage! (2018)
- Idol Land PriPara (2021)
Anime
- PriPara (2014)
- Idol Time PriPara (2016)
- Idol Land PriPara (2021)
Live Action
- WIT-H by Idol Time Pripara (2020)
Works in the Kiratto Pri☆Chan franchise:
Anime- Kiratto Pri☆Chan (2018)
- Kiratto Pri☆Chan (2018)
Works in the Waccha PriMagi! franchise:
Anime- Waccha PriMagi! (2021)
- Waccha PriMagi (2021)
- Waccha PriMagi Studio (2022)
The Pretty series provides examples of:
- Audience Participation: The Best 10 films featured the top 10 best performances as voted by the audience through purchase of the Greatest Hits Album, which contained a ballot to submit. Glow sticks are also sold at film screenings to cheer for the performances.
- Canon Foreigner: Hiro Hayami, who appeared in the anime adaptation of Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live, was made a playable character in the PriPara crossover game on the Nintendo 3DS.
- Character Customization: If you register an account on any of the arcade games, you can customize your player character with five different clothing categories to create different outfits for bonus points. In Kiratto Pri☆Chan, you can also pick out your character's voice.
- Color Motifs: The Pretty Series follow seven fashion brands, with all of them having specific colors:
- Pink: Lovely
- Blue: Pop
- Purple: Cool
- Yellow: Feminine and Celeb
- Green: Ethnic (later renamed as "Natural" in PriPara and Kiratto Pri☆Chan)
- Red: Sexy
- White: Star and Premium
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Aside from the image songs used during performances, most of the theme songs are prone to this.
- Aurora Dream has the opening song performed by LISP, where would later voice the main characters (Aira, Rizumu and Mion).
- Subverted for Dear My Future with Prizzmy sung most of the opening song and some ending theme, but the third opening are from the speaking voice actors instead of the singing ones. Puretty, on the other hand, sung the second and fourth ending theme.
- Averted in Rainbow Live, where all of them are sung by either Prizzmy or Prism Box, save of the third ending which was sung by Naru, Ann and Ito's voice actresses.
- Most of PriPara openings and endings are sung by I☆Ris who would voice SoLaMi Smile and Dressing Pafe in the series, with few exceptions of early endings performed by Prizzmy, one of them by Super Girls, and the first two Idol Time openings from The World Standard. Played straight again for few songs performed by the characters' voice actors.
- Kiratto Pri☆Chan has all openings performed by Run, Girls, Run! who also voice Mirai, Rinka and Mel. The endings are sung either by either idol units or voice actors.
- Waccha PriMagi! broke the tradition with all openings performed solo by Anna Suzuki (Lemon). The endings were sung by the mascots (with the protagonist Matsuri in one case).
- Secret Ai Pri continues PriMagi tradition in terms of the opening, but instead of being produced by the industry, it was sung by a YouTuber! And in case you want to know her name, it's PMaru-sama! The ending theme, on the other hand, was performed by Himari and Mitsuki's voice actresses.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The final season of Pretty Rhythm introduced the characters of the franchise advising a young aspiring idol... Laala Manaka...
- Rhythm Game: All entries in the Pretty series were originally arcade games. The only exception is King of Prism, which started as a film series, but eventually got its own rhythm game on mobile devices.
