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Pretty Rhythm Arcade Game Ends Service in July
posted on by Sarah Nelkin
The official website for Takara Tomy and syn Sophia's Pretty Rhythm franchise announced last month that the Pretty Rhythm arcade game will cease service in July after over four years of service. The sixth volume of Shogakukan's Pretty Rhythm Fan magazine confirmed the announcement earlier this month. In the post, the staff thanked players who enjoyed the game for so long. The image announcing the end of the game (seen right) features the game's navigator Meganee Akai, and reads, "Thank you for playing up until now."
Pretty Rhythm machines will be replaced by syn Sophia's new game PriPara when it debuts in July. Players of the Pretty Rhythm game will still be able to use their Prism Stones (excluding hair and accessory stones) with the game, but Takara Tomy will cease producing the stones entirely. The company will also stop selling Memory Passes that allow players to save their progress at the arcade game.
Although all machines will be removed from toy stores, electronic shops and other stores around Japan, a few of the Pretty Rhythm chain of stores, Prism Stone, will keep arcade machines for Pretty Rhythm available for customers to play. The locations that will house the arcade machines will be the Harajuku, Sapporo, Fukuoka, and Nagoya branches.
In addition, Michiyo Kikuta (Mamotte! Lollipop) will begin serializing a PriPara manga in the July issue of Shogakukan's Pucchigumi magazine on June 13. Kikuta also penned the Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future, Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live, and Pretty Rhythm All Star Selection manga series in the same magazine.
The anime of PriPara, which will debut on July 5, stars Himika Akaneya as 5th-grader Lāla Manaka and anime song unit i☆Ris as the other lead characters. Lāla first appeared as a new character in the Pretty Rhythm All Star Selection: Prism Show☆Best Ten film.
Toy maker Takara Tomy and game developer syn Sophia have been running the franchise continuously since the 2010 arcade game Pretty Rhythm Mini-Skirt. The arcade games are targeted towards elementary school girls. The stories center around aspiring idols who compete in Prism Shows, a new kind of event that combines skating, dancing, singing, and fashion.
The first television anime, Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream, premiered in 2011. Two more television anime, Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future and Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live, have since followed. A film compiling the songs of the three anime series titled Pretty Rhythm All Star Selection: Prism Show☆Best Ten premiered in Japan in March, and a TV anime that features reruns of the past series titled Pretty Rhythm All Star Selection is currently airing.
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