Tobidasu PriPara: Mii~na De Mezase! Idol Grandprix (found unresurfaced anime movie; 2015)

The film's poster.

Status: Found

Date found: 11 Sep 2018

Found by: Avex Pictures

PriPara (short for Prism Paradise) is a 2014 arcade game, intended as a spiritual successor to the earlier title Pretty Rhythm. In July 2014, it received an anime adaptation, which focused on a girl named Laala Manaka, who dreams of becoming an idol in the titular idol theme park, PriPara. The franchise became a huge hit among the target demographic, and four movies were made based off of it. However, while the first, third and fourth movies in the series received DVD and Blu-ray releases, the second film, Tobidasu PriPara: Mii~na de Mezase! Idol Grand Prix (PriPara 3D: Aim for it with Everyone! Idol Grand Prix), has not been seen outside of its theatrical run.

Content

The movie was a collection of PriPara performances, with additional shorts featuring super-deformed versions of the characters interspersed throughout. Audience participation was encouraged during the performances through specific scenes telling the audience when to cheer. Supposedly, despite being advertised as a 3D movie, only half of the performances were actually done in 3D. As for the character scenes, they mostly featured comedic interactions between the idols, such as answering fan letters and hosting a fake weather report. A recurring element of the film was the use of a gacha machine to choose songs. Not much further information has surfaced about the content, though the film is said to end with the "SoLaMi Dressing" idol unit giving an encore performance of the song "Realize!".^[1]

Status

The movie was released in theaters on October 24th, 2015, but was not released on DVD or Blu-ray a few months afterwards as with most of the movies based on the Pretty Series.^[2] There were been quite a few theories as to why the film was never on home video prior to September 2018. The first was that an ad for the 3DS game, PriPara: Mezase! Idol Grandprix #1 (Be Number One At The Idol Grandprix!), plays in the middle of the film. The second was that it was only meant to be shown in 3D, similar to another lost anime film, Pokémon 4D: Pikachu's Ocean Adventure. No full fan recordings existed either, meaning that the only pieces of the film that had surfaced are a handful of screenshots and a video showing a "cheering screening" of the film, which includes footage from the first few minutes.

On September 11th, 2018, the official Twitter for PriPara's successor anime, Kiratto PriChan, announced that the movie will be included as a bonus disc with the DVD of Kiratto PriChan and PriPara: Sparkling Memorial Live.^[3]