Aikatsu x PriPara 2025 Movie Reveal Initial Thoughts

Disclaimer: This is a repost (with minor changes) of an article I initially published on my Ko-fi on April 23, 2025.

These are my initial D thoughts about Aikatsu! x PriPara THE MOVIE -Deai no Kiseki- , releasing in Japanese theaters on October 10, 2025.

Since April, the movie got new key visuals and a second trailer, and other tidbits that I talked about a little on my bluesky, but I don't feel like making another article for now.

I'm gonna say this out loud because recently I realized that sadly you need to specify these things nowadays: I'm writing my blog, not a wiki. So I'm not gonna update this. If I have more things to add I'll do another article incha Allah. Wikis who constantly erase and modify past information to STAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY "up to date" and add spoilers right after an episode aired are such a scourge, especially those owned by Fandom. It really sucks how people got genjutsu'ed into being utterly obsessed about "what is canon" and the "timeline" and "current status". It's all a plan by Disney The Racist and other big companies to Milktank fans out of their money even more. Anyway here's the original article:

Global Thoughts

A few days ago, Bandai Namco and Takara Tomy each announced a separate announcement showcase. One for the Aikatsu Akari generation (Aikatsu season 3) 10th anniversary, and one for the PriPara 10th anniversary. The showcases were both on April 23 at 1900 JST, so some of the longtime Pretty Rhythm and Aikatsu JP fans I follow on Twitter were noting how "this is the first direct confrontation between Pretty Series and Aikatsu in years".

It turned out it wasn't a confrontation but a cooperation, and both showcases featured the same trailer for Aikatsu! x PriPara THE MOVIE -Deai no Kiseki-, releasing in Japanese theaters in Fall 2025.  

(Well if you think about it from a business standpoint, it makes sense to not announce something for a series at the same time as your rival company with a similar product, in fear of getting overshadowed. Especially seeing Pretty Series, with the AiPri arcade game nowadays, is really popular, while Aikatsu has no anime or game running at the moment, only the Aikatsu Academy streamers. So maybe some people had guessed that it would be a crossover. But to be fair, a real confrontation was definitely possible. Both companies with their respective franchises have tried to do that kind of one-upping in the past.) 

(I should add context for those who don't know: Long story short Takara Tomy copied Sega's Oshare Majou Love And Berry to make Pretty Rhythm in 2010. Then Bandai Namco copied Pretty Rhythm to make Aikatsu and Aikatsu got MUCH MORE popular. So then Takara Tomy copied Aikatsu to make PriPara, which ended up getting even more popular, and became one of the most popular arcade games ever in Japan. Anyway too many Oratorio Tangents let's Move On Now.)

In 2022, Bandai Namco and Takara Tomy announced they were working together to make crossover stuff for Pretty Series and Aikatsu. In the end IIRC the only thing that happened since then was the Dream Collaboration Festival crossover VR concert in December 2022, some merch, and a small art expo.

So I thought that was done and over. I didn't expect they were working on an anime movie crossover. 

Over a decade ago on my old blog I've been saying I want a PriPara x Aikatsu movie with my favorite PriPara main character Toudou Shion and my favorite Aikatsu sidle Kamiya Shion fighting each other. So I'm both surprised and not surprised that a crossover movie is happening for real.

(There's also how I'm rarely surprised by any pop culture related announcements these last few years. It's difficult to explain and most people will mistakenly think I'm depressed. But TLDR I think culture itself changed these last 15 years with the start of the Netflix era, the remakes and remasters era, Disney/Microsoft/etc buying everything, etc etc. Anything can happen. So even when a niche JP only game from 30 years ago gets a worldwide English remaster I'm not particularly hype or surprised. I guess I am hype enough about the PriPara x Aikatsu movie to write this article instead of catching up sleep hours though. Edit from the future: for more ramblings on this subject, read my article on the Gundam Wing 30th anniversary official AMV/MAD.)

(Part of myself is also mad that even though a PriPara x Aikatsu crossover anime with an actual story is now real, there still isn't the same thing for all of Pretty Series together.)

As a reminder, Pretty Series contains so far:

• Pretty Rhythm/King of Prism (which is the best anime of the 2010s decade and the current 2020s decade too seeing it's still ongoing)
• PriPara
• Kiratto PriChan
• Waccha PriMagi
• Himitsu no AiPri

I'm still waiting for King of ParaChanMagiAi Prism. The King of Prism movies are doing it kinda I guess. But yeah there's no real Pretty Series crossover. We had Pretty All Friends at some point, but it was just a novel with a barebones story, and didn't feature any of the boys. And while they never said that it's over, there hasn't been a new chapter in years.

I didn't spot a single JP news outlet publish an article right after the trailer's premiere was over. Be it the gaming ones that also post anime stuff like Famitsu etc, or the anime focused ones like Comic Natalie. So I assume this means Bandai Namco and Takara Tomy wanted to avoid any possible leaks and didn't send a preemptive press release to anyone. They wanted this crossover to be as big as a surprise as possible.  

The trailer mentions the movie has an actual story so it won't be just a selection of 3DCG concerts from both series. I don't expect anything big from the story though, and I don't think most characters will interact with each other or even appear. Shion and Shion might not even see each other. But yeah beggars can't be choosers this is better than nothing, and I'm not the target audience. People who grew up watching PriPara s1 s2 a and Aikatsu s3 s4 must be super hyped.

Thoughts on the staff

The trailer and the official site have a partial staff list.

Tatsunoko's 3DCG team is handling the 3DCG for the movie, but there's no "CG Director" listed so I wonder if it's Otobe Yoshihiro or Yanagawa Satoshi (Satoru? I can't find a confirmation on how to read their name). Otobe worked as CG Director on all Pretty Series (Kinpri included) except for Himitsu no AiPri, where he was replaced by Yanagawa. I still haven't watched a single episode of AiPri so I don't know how the CG is like. 

Edit a few hours later: Otobe Yoshihiro tweeted he's working on the movie, so he should be the CG Director.

Meanwhile the 2D parts will be made by Bandai Namco Pictures, who made the past Aikatsu series.

The director is Okawa Takahiro. Looking at his past work, he worked as a key animator on Aikatsu Friends and Aikatsu on Parade. And this is the first time he'll endorse the director role. This is kinda worrying, but since it's a movie and not a TV series it'll be fine I think? 

The movie's scenario was written by Tsuchiya Michihiro, who is one of the main scenarists of all of PriPara starting from the first season to Idol Land PriPara (season 5). The only other Pretty Series series he worked on is PriMagi, as one of the scenarists.

Overall, Tsuchiya Michihiro has been part of the scenario teams of many anime since the late 90s. I think my favorite thing he worked on is Scrapped Princess. Really awesome anime you should watch. It's Skibbidy Peak Absolute Cinema like cool kids say these days. I need to read the novels one day too since they're different. Also I'm still waiting for Scrapped Princess to show up in Super Robot Wars. I really need to destroy and rebuild games media and prevent it from Turning White again, and fund a crossover game with everything I like from Scrapped Princess and Pretty Rhythm to Melrose Place.

Since Tsuchiya Michihiro is writing the scenario, I guess this means the movie's story will feel closer to PriPara than Aikatsu? 

I assume most of the 10 people reading this are my longtime online friends who used to read my old blog. Which means you know I like PriPara a lot and I consider it better than most of its contemporary anime. (Technically that's only true starting s2, PriPara s1 ranges from bad to average barring a few excellent episodes).

However, I would often find PriPara lacking, most notably in terms of how I felt like the jokes were always too predictable or not going far enough. Also ten years later, I'm still mad about how the "hard work vs genius" arc was written at the end of s2. Besides a lack of time it's part of why I stopped watching PriPara back then, so I still haven't watched beyond the start of S3 and the Non arc. Hope I have the time to watch everything one day insha Allah.

Last but not least, Kimura Ryuichi and Moriwaki Makoto are listed as supervisors

Kimura was the director of all 4 seasons of the original Aikatsu series. He was also the director of the Aikatsu Mirai no Stairway ten years later movie.

(I still haven't watched that movie. Due to lack of time I actually never watched the original Aikatsu past s1. So ideally, I'd like to do that first, regardless of plot links. BTW I never watched any of the following series either. Aikatsu S.T.A.R.S., Aikatsu Lesbians Sex Friends, and Aikatsu Captain Planet).

Moriwaki is a legendary anime director working in the industry since the 70s. She's the director of all of PriPara including Idol Land.

(I wish I had the time to watch the 2025 Purikyua idol-themed series, Princess Orchestra, AiPri, and get paid to write about them.)

Like I always say, I'm not a sakugabuta and don't know much about animation and anime production itself. So I can't make any profound analysis. So that's all I have. 

That's everything they revealed so far I think. In the past I would also scrutinize Twitter and see&translate what the staff members have tweeted but I already spent too much time on this article so I'll stop. 

They made an official Twitter account for further info regarding the movie.

It's not impossible they'll keep doing these kind of movies over the years. Maybe we'll get an Aikatsu S.T.A.R.S. x Kiratto PriChan movie, and an Aikatsu Sefurezu x Waccha PriMagi movie. Though maybe that won't happen and be considered too risky by the companies. Seeing PriPara itself is much more popular than its successors PriChan and PriMagi, and Aikatsu's original series is (I think?) is more popular than its successors Aikatsu series.

That's everything I think, thanks for reading.

Remember to check out my streams and vids on Twitch and YouTube.