PriPara Primer Prieason 1

PriPara Prieason 1 Summarpri
Princluding Must-See Eprisodes & Character Prios

Arc 1. Saving Sophy & SoLaMi Smile
Laala enters PriPara despite it being forbidden by her school's headmistress. She teams up with Mirei, a peppy idol whom it turns out is also the president of the disciplinary committee, and aims to form a team with the most popular idol, Sophy. But Sophy is secretly a human jellyfish with no stamina, and is convinced no one could possibly like that side of her...
Key eprisodes: 1, 5, 9, 12

Arc 2. Here Go the High-Tension Rivals
Go champion Sion forms a team with Dorothy & Reona, whom Mirei had rejected as teammates on the grounds that twins can't count for a single person on a three-person team. They compete with SoLaMi Smile both in and out of PriPara, but slowly begin to respect their rivals - and each other.
Key eprisodes: 14, 18, 20

Arc 3. Gloria Blows Away Her Past
Headmistress Ookanda Gloria doubles down on forbidding PriPara to everyone, and Laala's secret is revealed. But Gloria has a secret of her own - that she once had attended and loved PriPara, until a perceived betrayal by a friend changed her mind. Can she reunite with that friend and learn the truth?
Key eprisodes: 23, 24, 25

Arc 4. A Perfect Idol Appriears
Everything should be going smoothly for Laala and her friends now that Gloria likes PriPara. But just as the big competition for a fancy coord gets underway, a new idol debuts. Her name is Falulu, and she can do everything well....despite not seeming to know much of anything. Guess it's time for everybody to have a Focus Eprisode with Falulu in the background!
Key eprisodes: 26, 29, 30 (tell me who your fave is and they probably have a focus ep in here too)

Arc 5. FALULU, NO
Laala has become friends with Falulu, showing her more of the real world and teaching her many things. Falulu wants to be friends, too - but Vocal Dolls aren't supposed to snap their PriTickets. Everyone has to work together and sing the problem away if they want to save Falulu from a fate worse than....nope, actually, it's pretty much death. We have to sing our friend out of death. PriPara!
Key eprisodes: 34-38...just. Just watch the whole thing, okay? It's engaging. And as close to Plot as this show ever gets.

Character Prios
Note: I use the official name spellings that dominate on romanized merch, etc. The subs predate my sources & thus use something different.

SoLaMi Smile are Laala, Mirei, & Sophy. Their team name comes from the "So/S" in "Sophy", the "La/L" in Laala, and the "Mi/M" in Mirei, plus the phrase "look at the sky and smile (sora mite, waratte)". Their manager is Kuma, a loser bear whom Mirei saved from being consigned to the mascot graveyard.

Manaka Laala - A fifth-grader with a big voice and a small vocabulary. Although she finds it hard to turn down requests from others, she's stubbornly optimistic once she gets an idea into her head. Laala's ability to care about others is endless, and she's completely besotted with PriPara because it both gave her friends and taught her that her loud voice (about which she'd had a complex) can be a good thing. Her parents run an Italian restaurant, "Papa's Pasta". She has a little sister, Non, about whom...more anon.

Minami Mirei - A first year in middle school. In the real world, she's a straight-laced honors student on the Discipline Committee; in PriPara, she's a poppy, peppy idol who ends her sentences with "pri". No matter where she goes, however, she's concerned with doing things Right, is extremely competitive, and figures out the best way to move forward by calculating probability percentages. Her parents are a prosecutor and a defense attorney; they get into courtroom battles at home, over which Mirei presides as judge.

Hojo Sophy - A second year in middle school. Although normally she's a space case with low energy and no sense of direction, when she eats pickled plums (which she calls "Red Flash") she gains a burst of energy and acts Super Cool. Sophy is learning to do more things on her own, but her "genius" talent as a singer and dancer gives her a skewed perspective on how easy performance-related things are. She lives in a fancy apartment with her sister, Cosmo, a fashion designer who makes (among other things) the light-up Cyalume Coords everyone wears during their performances. Cosmo supports Sophy, as does a "Royal Guard" of loyal fangirls.

Dressing Pafe are Sion, Dorothy, & Reona. Their name comes from the "Do" in Dorothy, the "Re" in "Reona", the "Si" in Sion, the word "perfect/parfait", and the idea that Sion and Dorothy's personalities don't mix, like oil and water (thus, salad dressing). Their manager is Usagi, Sophy's former manager who had mistreated her out of the mistaken belief that everyone would only like the "cool" Sophy. With Dressing Pafe, however, he begins to know what it feels like to actually be PROUD of one's idols.

Todo Sion - A first year in middle school. The five-time junior Go champion, who retired from the world of competitive Go because it wasn't enough of a challenge. Instead, she's decided to become a Divine Idol. Sion sees the world in "black and white" and operates entirely on game theory, trying to "read ahead" in every situation. She's got an old-fashioned samurai vibe, competitive and fond of four-character idioms but also honorable and fond of self-improvement. We don't know anything about her family, but her entire bedroom is shades of black and white....she's hoping to learn to see a world beyond those colors, though.

Dorothy West - A first year in middle school. Tomboyish, bratty, and immature, Dorothy heckles everybody and is operating under the mistaken impression that she's sexy. She claims her twin Reona can't do anything without her, but spend enough time with them and it's obvious that she can't do anything without Reona. Despite her prickly personality, Dorothy's got a good heart and unleashes her full venom on jerks. Her parents run an okonomiyaki shop, Ninja Monja; she and Reona are half-Canadian, and occasionally dress up as ninja because of their foreigner dad's ninja obsession.

Reona West - A first year in middle school. Assigned male at birth, though the show's treatment of this changes based on the eprisode. Cute and calming, good with kids, fond of fashion, crushing HEAVILY on the male NPC in PriPara, Meganii. Reona is starting to figure out who they want to be beyond "Dorothy's twin", and makes friends with the others far before Dorothy is ready to. The glue that keeps Dressing Pafe together. Reona's happiness comes from seeing others be happy, so while they try to look out for Dorothy and go along with her sometimes, they also try to rein Dorothy in when she goes too far.

Beyond these two teams, there's also:

Falulu - A "Vocal Doll", born from a PriTicket created when everyone's love and admiration for idols pooled together in PriPara. Falulu can do everything performance-related perfectly, and can copy people perfectly, as well. In fact, when she first enters the show she only knows how to copy others - but the more she learns and grows, the more she becomes her own person, and realizes she doesn't want just fans, but also friends. (IF ONLY THERE WERE SOMEPRINCE OUT THERE WHO LONGS FOR A PERFECT IDEAL PRINCESS AS MUCH AS FALULU WANTS SOMEBODY AROUND WITH HER, WOULDN'T THAT BE GREAT, HUH.) Falulu's manager is Unicorn, who is a helicopter parent that is super proud of her kid and isn't afraid to badmouth all the other kids to prove it.

And a supporting cast:

Manaka Non - Laala's little sister. Clever and better than Laala at everything. Totally into idols; her favorite is Falulu. Dreams one day of going to PriPara, just like her big sister....in order to kick Laala's butt at the whole idol thing.

Ookanda Gloria - Headmistress of Paprika Private Academy's elementary school division, which Laala attends. Hated PriPara due to a misunderstanding in her youth, but after that's cleared up, supports everyone and starts attending herself. Never seen without her beloved vacuum cleaner of increasing sentience, Rina-chan.

Nao - Laala's IRL BFF; they've been together since preschool. She's able to go to PriPara after Gloria returns all the PriTickets she'd confiscated, but chooses to stay on the sidelines cheering for Laala instead of debuting herself. Loves Parajuku's mascot character, Parakappa.

Eiko - Laala's first fan. An everygirl who's into tennis.

Tochiotome Love - A friend of Eiko's from a rival tennis club. Tall but bashful. When overcome by emotion, she has to vent by taking EXTREME TENNIS SWINGS, screaming stuff like LOVE FORTY, LOVE GAME.

Tokuda Nene - Reporter from the Paprika Academy Newspaper. Earnestly committed to getting the scoop. At first, she resented PriPara for its popularity because she thought it was shallow, but after watching Laala & co. for a day she realized how much dedication it takes to be an idol.

Amamiya Haruki - A boy who serves on the disciplinary committee at school with Mirei. A huge Mirei fan. At first this is heartwarming, but as the show goes on, he starts getting creepy.

Iroha - Sion's rival from her Go days, who never managed to beat her but is intent on doing so someday. Encourages Sion to polish herself further. Is much flashier outside of PriPara than in, ironically.

Hanana - The first person SoLaMi Smile snapped with after becoming a team. Sweet and self-effacing, with big nerd glasses.

New & Mew - The high schoolers Sophy almost forms a team with. They later form a team with an enka idol.....and are all but consumed by her costume. Oops.

Ran-tan - An idol who loves Halloween and wants to study special-effects makeup in the capital of horror, Horriwood. She's too cute to scare anyone on her own, however (except when she trips and falls, leading Laala to believe she's a ghost, and has disappeared).

Meganee - The female NPC for PriPara; there's a ton of them. Meganee basically keeps the place running. Always has a smile on her face, and the more inappropriate this is for the situation, the more she will grin.

Meganii - The male NPC for PriPara; he MCs major events and writes everyone's songs. Flirtatious and born to protect idols. At the beginning of the show, he has dignity. Don't get used to that.

AND MORE TO COME!