King of Prism by Pretty Rhythm

If you enjoy Yaoi/Otome fanservice, pretty boys, cheesy over-the-top humor, or just enjoy a good musical with dancing (primarily ice-skating dances), you would probably love this.

I must say that this movie is definitely not for everyone. If you are watching and hoping for a deep and dramatic thriller of a story, this is definitely not a strong point of the movie. It is primarily musical, fanservice, silliness, and the happiness of friendship and sparkles. Not much drama aside from two of the guys' pasts, saying goodbye, and possible foreshadowing of the sequel.

Now, even though the story itself is weak, that does not mean it ... is without feeling. It does get a bit emotional later in the movie. There are also obvious implications of there being a planned sequel at the ending, which could possibly be darker.

The art is very pretty. There are some times where the 3D can be a little bit awkward in either the body movement or facial expressions. The facial expressions in 3D could use more movement, but it wasn't too bad in my opinion. The dance animation was pretty much flawless, though their faces could be really cheesy-looking, but it was probably intentional for humor. After all, Prism Shows are meant to make you smile!

It feels a bit like it was made for a younger female teen audience, perhaps maybe even pre-teens, but at the same time it has plenty of fanservice (such as nudity, ropes, and a butt-touch) seemingly aimed at those who you would imagine to be older teens or young-adults. Some of the songs are from older 90's music artists such as TRF, which also is very nostalgic for anyone familiar with it.

I would absolutely recommend this to you if you enjoyed titles such as "Osomatsu-san", "Uta No Prince-sama", and "Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love!", as they share a similar humor style and cater to Yaoi/Otome fans.
I think that if you like musicals enough, you may like it even just for that, because the music and dance are really well-done.

King of Rhythm is honestly so amazing I had to watch it a second time. If you love so bad its good anime you will love this mess of a movie.

story- There is no plot except for a random backstory of some of the side characters in the middle of the film which is told at twice the pace of the rest. Nothing makes sense, they wear ice skates while dancing for no reason. I was left constantly confused but also in tears.

Art- the dancing sequences look like old vocaloid dances. This anime uses a wild amount of sparkles to distract us except... theyre always ... the exact same sparkles. It looks like a filter.

Character- The main character may as well not exist, they have no personality. The other characters are made out of tropes.

Enjoyment- 10/10 would watch again
Its so all over the place and I love watching my friends expressions when I make them watch this. If you don't want to sit through the whole movie you must at least watch the dance battle.

I'll say this as an avid pretty rhythm fan: If you don't watch Pretty Rhythm, Rainbow Live NONE of the characters,the idol world, or plot will make sense to you because this movie takes place after it.

There are 3 Pretty Rhythm series out there. Chronologically, they start with PR Aurora Dream, PR Dear my Future, and finally PR Rainbow Live. Rainbow Live is in an alternate setting with new characters while Dear my Future is the (trashy) sequel to Aurora Dream. They are all idol anime for younger girls based off of a rhythm game in arcades and follow various "prism stars" in their ... struggle to become better. If you want to fully understand this movie, I'd say start with PR Aurora Dream (you don't have to but you will understand how prism shows work more if you do), skip Dear my Future because it's awful, then you MUST watch PR Rainbow Live.

Story
I personally really like the story. All of the other PR series focus on the girls side of things and its nice to finally see what some of the guys are up to. It starts by adding in some new characters as idols in Edel Rose and tells what Over the Rainbow has done after their debut. You follow along Shin, a new student at Edel Rose, as he learns how to do prism shows. The story has a few layers: the rivalry between Edel Rose and Schwarz Rose, Shin and Louis'(the guy that got Shin into prism shows) relationship and growth in the idol world, the King of Prism tournament, and leftover saltiness from characters that previously entered the King of Prism tournament. The story is still pretty easy to follow and interesting if you know whats up. However, a major flaw to this movie is that it doesn't complete the story at all and you'd have to watch King of Prism: Pride the Hero to complete the story. It also doesn't really feel like the story takes itself seriously because everything is so rushed, forced, and how absurd other parts of the movie are.

Art
The art is somewhere between average to bad depending on what your standards are. The normal art is ok. All the characters are pretty colorful and unique which helps in identifying them later since there are a lot of them. there is only one or two character designs I'd say I dislike. I said "normal" art earlier because the prism show use everyone's worst nightmare: CG animation. I personally don't mind it and I think it's better than the alternative of having really limited movement in shows because the shows are important to the movie. I will admit that they do go overboard with the sparkles and some of the special moves but it's good for a laugh. Also, some of the costumes these guys wear look absolutely hilarious.

Sound
Since this is a idol anime, there is a lot of singing. The music is ok and the lyrics can be kinda cringey/ corny but its not that bad. One of the guys is a trap and sounds like a girl but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Otherwise audio is all around ok.

Character
Some of the characters are from Rainbow live and there are at least 10 new ones, making for a LOT of characters to wrap your head around. Luckily, you can probably just remember most of the new ones by hair color and the only new characters that will really matter at the end are Shin and Louis. You do get some character development from Shin but otherwise it mostly just sets up character development for the future. The plot more focuses on the tension between Edel Rose's owner and Schwarz Rose's owner.

Enjoyment/Overall
As a Pretty Rhythm fan, I absolutely adored this continuation of the story while it does have flaws. I really loved that I got to see more male prism stars instead of the girls as usual. I feel like this and Pride the Hero will nicely tie up some loose threads left after Rainbow Live. It makes me kinda sad to see that this got such a low rating, i think at least a 7 to a 7.5 would be more fair. That's why I was compelled to write this review(this is my first one lol). I hope this review was helpful!

TLDR: Watch Rainbow Live first to watch this movie and fully understand it. The movie itself is pretty good if you are into male idol anime and are ok with it being more of a prequel to the next movie. Otherwise, I see a lot of comments that it's cringey because of the CG and the cheesy special moves during the dancing.

i mean, i watched this back when it was released. but i can't help but leave a review on it even now after four years bahah. i have rewatched all of the pretty rhythm series several times, especially aurora dream since i grew up with them and they'll always have a special place in my heart. and basically i was so excited for having something more of pretty rhythm- and this movie disappointed me SO much it was frustrating. it's not a bad movie overall, but if you take in consideration the actual pretty rhythm series and their plot. and the way the gap of ... the movie and the anime is whole three years and they had all the time to improvise- how could they have done it even worse? it was just a whole let down hhhh barely finished it tbh