The publishers of the King of Prism anime franchise announced on May 12 that a joint theatrical screening event will be held for the series’ latest feature film, “King of Prism: Your Endless Call – Minna Kirameki! Prism☆Tours,” and 2018’s “The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.” Now, even if you’re not fully familiar with what the King of Prism series is about, you’re probably experiencing whiplash just seeing those two titles next to each other, and no one can really blame you.
Depicting boys who perform as idols called “Prism Stars,” King of Prism is full of passionate teenage drama and flamboyant live performances that combine singing, dancing and figure skating. There is, however, a stark absence of meteorological disasters, apocalyptic events or bloodthirsty sharks in any of its entries. Nonetheless, on June 7, fans of both the King of Prism and Sharknado will be able to experience a beautiful marriage of the two franchises through a joint cheer screening (a type of film screening during which you’re encouraged to cheer and applaud like at a live show) held in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro.
Although the announcement was met with reactions like “Genuinely what is going on?” (including both fans and King of Prism’s cast members), tickets for the screening sold out in just three minutes, according to the organizers.
This event is organized by Japanese film news outlet Eiga Natalie, and according to the announcement, the initiative was born from the site’s serialized column “All Roads Lead to Shark Movies (?).” The author of this column is Shark Movie Rookie, a Japanese film buyer and translator specializing in, you guessed it, shark movies. Shark Movie Rookie, who is also the president of the Japan Shark Movie Society, happens to be an avid watcher of the King of Prism series, and they actually observed some similarities between the two, which they describe quite beautifully:
If someone were to say that King of Prism and Sharknado are of a different genre, with different fan bases, and are just completely different in every way, I suppose they’d have a point. But there are commonalities in the structure of these works. Both bombard the audience with scenes that could never ever happen in reality, loosening the brakes on your rational thinking, while simultaneously tugging at your heartstrings with straightforward drama. They beat you senseless with shocking visuals and plot twists, only to gently reach out to you in the end and say, “Sorry for scaring you.” (via Eiga Natalie)
Aside from these conceptual similarities, a surprising common point between King of Prince’s latest film and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time is that they both revolve around traveling back in time to set things right, which hilariously seems to have been enough to get an official crossover event approved.
During the upcoming joint screening, King of Prism: Your Endless Call – Minna Kirameki! Prism☆Tours will be shown first, followed by The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. During the intermission, a talk event will be held featuring Shark Movie Rookie and the representative of The Japan Shark Movie Society’s PR department. The two will enlighten fans on “how to cheer for sharks in Sharknado,” given that disaster films are not exactly a classic choice for cheer screenings.
If none of that was crazy enough, theatergoers will receive a special admission gift – a parodic crossover novel featuring sharks in King of Prism’s academy setting, penned by Shark Movie Rookie themselves.
