Anime / HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!

Clockwise from bottom right: Cure Lovely, Ribbon, Cure Princess, Cure Honey, Blue, Cure Fortune, Glasan

Pouring with happiness, charging with joy, HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!

HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! is the eleventh entry in the Pretty Cure franchise, commemorating the franchise's 10th anniversary. It is the 11th installment in the series, and began airing in February 2014. It is preceded by Doki Doki! PreCure and followed by Go! Princess Pretty Cure.

Hime Shirayuki is the spoiled princess of the Blue Sky Kingdom, which is suddenly attacked by the Phantom Kingdom and their evil "Saiark" monsters. To defend her realm, Hime is granted the power to become one of the legendary Pretty Cure, but finds that she is too cowardly to defeat even a single Saiark.

Hime ends up in the city of Pikarigaoka, Japan, the next target of the Phantom Kingdom. She continues to struggle alone against the Saiark attacks until Blue, a mysterious god of the Earth, gives Hime a "Love Crystal". He tells her to give it to the girl that will be her new friend and partner Pretty Cure. Naturally, Hime decides to chuck it from the top of a building and befriend whoever it hits. It strikes Megumi Aino, a good-hearted but meddlesome girl who happened to be passing by.

Standing up to the attacking Saiark, Megumi unlocks the power of the Love Crystal and transforms into the Pretty Cure known as Cure Lovely. Together with Hime as Cure Princess, the two vow to fight against the Phantom Kingdom while searching for the magical PreCards, a full collection of which will bestow any wish the owner desires. However, they are not alone: they soon form a team with a singing Pretty Cure called Cure Honey, and butt heads against a rival Pretty Cure called Cure Fortune.

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HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc: Ribbon and Glasan can each grant one wish once a full set of Precards have been collected. In episode 22 Iona is given the Precards Hime and Megumi collected and uses that wish via Glasan to re-power herself back into a Pretty Cure. Hime is fine with this, as they can continue collecting cards and eventually use Ribbon for a second wish. However, despite all the extra cards they collect a second wish is never made. It's never stated why, but the implication is that the girls realize the wishes they had in mind are either no longer applicable (like Megumi wishing for her mother to be perfectly healthy again) or they have the power to make it come true themselves without needing to wish for it (like Hime saving her kingdom).
• Actor Allusion:
  • Megumi dresses as an idol in episode 10. Megumi Nakajima voiced an idol in another anime, and she's an idol in real life as well.
  • Hime loves pancakes. This is an allusion to Magic Adventures of Mumfie, a show which her mom narrated, where the main character loved mashed banana pancakes. However, said episode was not dubbed into Japanese, due to Kei Tomiyama's death and ForteMusic going bankrupt. Despite this, a few cable providers in Japan have had English-language channels since at least 1997, including ABC Family, meaning that the English version of "If Wishes Were Pancakes" was possibly broadcast in Japan.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Although subverted. The clothes grant the Precure powers that match the theme of the clothing. For example, the detective outfit grants Notice This powers on relevant items.
• Anger Born of Worry: Glasan has one on Iona for being lost in the Precure mirror with Pretty Cure Hunter.
• Anti-Climax: The Evil Cure Tender plot gets resolved in one episode, compared to incidents like Ako and Mephisto in Suite Pretty Cure ♪.
• Badass Arm-Fold: A particularly epic one by Cure Lovely in Episode 40.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Hosshiwa pretending to be a Damsel in Distress in #5.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: The first opening has Iona acting friendly and being cheered up by Megumi, Yuko and Hime. What the opening doesn't tell you is that Iona is a Jerkass on the similar vein to Namek Saga Vegeta for the first half of the season, treating the former two as tools to help her become stronger while completely antagonizing the latter. Doesn't help that she would actively bail on Cure Lovely and Cure Honey if she even so much as sees Cure Princess's shadow while refusing to listen to anything she has to say, regardless of how relevant to the current situation it is.
• Ballet Episode: The Movie fills this role.
• Baseball Episode: Episode 12 has is a Baseball Teribad that shoots baseballs for its attack. So what does Cure Lovely do in this situation? Conjures up a bat and calls out "Play Ball!"
• Big "WHAT?!":
  • Sums up Megumi, Hime, and Ribbon's reaction when they find out Yuko is actually Cure Honey.
  • And another one when the girls learn that Red and Blue are brothers.
• Book Ends: In the final episode, Hime decides to once again throw away her Love Crystal and befriend whoever it hits.
• Breather Episode: Episode 40, which takes place between two big Story Arcs.
• The Cameo: In the first 33 episodes, each one of the past Pretty Cures appears briefly in the opening, in a semi-random order, starting with Cure Black. For the cameo list, see The Cameo page.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Land-speed record here, folks - Cure identities blown to a civilian in three episodes. Hummy and Miyuki have nothing on Hime and Megumi!
• Cannot Spit It Out: A massive problem with the first half of the series: Hime and Ribbon are more than happy to hide the truth of the Phantom Empire's appearance from Megumi, leaving the girl in the dark whenever Iona antagonizes Hime. By the time Iona actually spells it out for Megumi, Megumi had long made up her mind about Hime.
• Captain Ethnic: Episode 8 shows some internationally-based Precures: An American (specifically, Texan) team including two Cowgirls and one wearing Native American-style feathers in her hair, a French precure who appears to be maid-based (and wields a paintbrush as a weapon), and a pair of Indian Bollywood Nerds whose attack involves calculators.
• Celibate Hero: Precures are forbidden from getting into relationships. This turns out to be less because there's a specific danger with Precures falling in love and more because Blue and Mirage's relationship going sour was a major impetus in her turning evil, and he's making sure there's not even a vague risk of that happening again. Since we're talking Shōjo Demographic here, this naturally doesn't stop most of the team from getting crushes on various males over the course of the show.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Yuko Oomori, the girl who eventually becomes Cure Honey, shows up in the first few episodes as a non-powered civilian.
  • Phantom first appears in Episode 1 before his formal introduction in Episode 13.
• Christmas Episode: Episode 45 takes place on Christmas Eve.
• The Chosen Many: In departure to previous seasons, there are many Pretty Cure teams operating on Earth. The main characters are just one such group... and an underperforming one, at that.
• C-List Fodder:
  • All other Precures besides Happiness Charge.
  • An Egyptian-based Cure shows up just to get trounced by the Precure Hunter, have her device taken away and be sealed into a mirror.
• Clothes Make the Superman: This trope is what subverts And Your Reward Is Clothes up above.
• Colony Drop: In the finale, Red drops Planet Red on the Earth.
• Color-Coded Characters: In episode 44, the girls wear color-coded pajamas.
• Combined Energy Attack: In the Non-Serial Movie, as is standard. The twist is that the movie's villain has absorbed enough despair to block the energy from reaching the Precure. It takes the Victim Of The Movie to break the villain's power and allow the Lovely to receive her power-up.]
• Contrived Coincidence: In the final episode the characters muse about how they were brought together by chance.

• Dance Battler: The Form Changes all use dance themed attacks.
• Debut Queue: Subverted with the Mid Season Upgrades. Cure Fortune gets her Innocent Form in episode 32. Episode 33 initially appears to be a Megumi-centric episode where she gets her Innocent Form...but it doesn't happen.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • "Happiness chuunyuu! Shiawase charge! HappinessCharge Precure!" is basically saying "happiness charge" over and over. The fansubs try to deflect this with the wording, but "happiness injection, charging with glee" still means the same thing.
  • Megumi's "Shiawase Happiness" also classifies as this.
• Early-Bird Cameo: In episode 34 Hime has an Imagine Spot of a prince on a white horse. The Title Sequence for the episode contains a preview of the Non-Serial Movie...which includes the guy in Hime's Imagine Spot!
  • The final episode ends with Cure Lovely introducing Cure Flora.
• Ear Worm: Cure Honey's song becomes so popular the school starts singing it.
• Eat the Camera: Done exactly three times in the first episode alone. In the first two (Hime crying over losing another battle and Megumi gushing over the Pretty Cures), Super-Deformed versions of the characters in question were shown inside their mouths, with the camera continuing to zoom in.
• Edible Theme Naming: The Cures' dance-themed Form Changes are all named after different food along with the kind of dancing they're based on (i.e Cherry Flamenco, Lollipop Hip-Hop, Sherbet Ballet, Popcorn Cheer, etc.).
• Everyone Is a Super: With the international Precures, there are so many in the world, that it's possible that every country has at least a Precure. In fact, at least five continents have Precures.
• Expy:
  • Like Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star before it, Happiness Charge shares a lot of traits with an earlier entry in the Precure franchise - in this case HeartCatch Pretty Cure! (with which it shares a director). This extends to its protagonists, though this time around the pink Precure is the Red Oni while the blue is Blue Oni.
  • Episode 20 introduced another International Cure who looks suspiciously like Cure Echo, sending some fans into a panic as they thought that this was a thinly-veiled Take That, Scrappy! due to the fact that she's another Cure who gets beaten down by Phantom.
• Fairytale Motifs: "Snow White" references are particularly prominent.
• Fanservice: A subtle example in Episode 24, which gives us Hoshiiwa in a bikini.
• Flight: All Cures have this power using the wing-shaped bows on their backs.
• Foreshadowing: In episode 31, Yuko compares Phantom to her pet dog. Ten episodes later, it turns out that Phantom is actually a fairy.
• Gratuitous English: Aside from the ability names, English phrases are dropped here and there.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: in episode 4, Cure Lovely literally takes two Choiarks and beats up the Saiark of the Week with them!
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Exaggerated in that the ninja outfits also double as Color-Coded Secret Identity.
• In the Name of the Moon: Individually and together.
• Involuntary Dance: The effects of Macadamia Hula's Hawaiian Aloha ʻOe attack makes everyone in the surrounding area do this.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The Non-Serial Movie has an interesting variation. It was made for one person, that person is aware of it, and she will do anything to keep it going.
• Love Dodecahedron:
  • Whoo, boy. Alright, so despite the "Precure can't fall in love" spiel, Blue obviously has something for Megumi. Despite being a Chaste Hero, Seiji has a crush on Megumi. And despite Blue's said spiel, Hime has something towards Seiji. And Megumi isn't saying a blasted thing so far.
  • Eventually Hime realizes she's in a love triangle...and then she sees Seiji and Blue's somethings for Megumi. This causes Hime's imagination to go out of control.
• Make a Wish: Possible after completing the book with all PreCards. Ribbon and Glasan have one each. In episode 22 a wish is made: Iona uses Hime's cards to restore her powers after Phantom destroys them.
• Male Gaze: Odd for a show for little girls, but episode 39 giving us awkwardly angled, extreme close up of the feet of Maria Hikawa can hardly be seen as anything but this.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Cure Lovely's real name is Megumi Aino, Ai being the Japanese word for love. Not just that; "Megumi" is one possible (albeit uncommon) reading for the kanji "Ai" when it's used as a first name.
  • Likewise, Cure Princess is named Himelda and called "Hime" for short. Hime is the Japanese word for princess. Her full name, Shirayuki Hime, is the Japanese name for Snow White. When Iona asks, she reveals that she named herself after the fairy tale on purpose.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: The Shining Make Dresser, which gives the Cures a new Combination Attack And Innocent Form
• Mistaken for Romance:
  • In Episode 31 Hime sees Yuko tending to Phantom and thinks there's some kind of forbidden romance before realizing that it's perfectly innocent. Made even more hilarious when Iona sees Yuko feeling Phantom's forehead and coming to the same conclusions Hime does.
  • Later in the episode, Yuko tells the story of her first love. It's only near the end of the story that everyone, including the viewers, learn she was talking about her dog.
• "Miss X" Pun: The character that tells Megumi that Hime is a threat (actually Iona) is named Miss Fortune.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Episode 8 begins with awesome fight scenes and silly antics. The episode's ending is unexpectedly serious.
  • Episode 23 gives us one of the most over-the-top reactions to getting something before getting followed by a serious talk of events that happened in the past.
• Mundane Utility: Probably has the most abuse of a Precure gear yet.
• Mythology Gag: Being the 10th anniversary season, it has its' own page.
• Naughty Nurse Outfit: An Invoked Subversion via Transformation Trinket. The nurse outfits are quite modest due to Proper Tights with a Skirt, and they are practical in that The Heroines actually do become Hospital Hotties while wearing them.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Episode 16's preview made it seem like the Cures would dish it out against Phantom. In the actual episode, Phantom only appeared in one of Miyo's reports.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands:
  • Considering how the Lovepre Brace works, the girls essentially can essentially come up with new attacks on the spot.
  • Considering that Ribbon mentioned they have to come up with their own moves, it's very likely that their powers are limited only by their imagination.
• Non-Serial Movie: Subtitled Ballerina of the Doll Kingdom.
• One-Steve Limit: Two aversions:
  • Megumi's and Hime's voice actresses share the same given name, "Megumi". And in case of Megumi, she's also The Danza.
  • Seiji is no way related to Alice's father, Seiji Yotsuba.
• Parent Service: Oresky working out in a tank top and showing off his muscles in episode 24. Also in the same episode, Hosshiwa wears a cute bikini.
• Pictorial Letter Substitution: The English logo has a curly heart dotting the "i" in "Happiness".
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: Part of the costumes that come with the Nurse and Cook PreCards.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: This is the case for Aloha Precure: Ohana and Olina both have black hair in their civilian forms, and it changes to Orange and Light Blue as Cure Sunset and Cure Wave.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Like every season. What's unique about this season, however, is that unlike every other season, where the Cures' hair is the last thing to change, in this case it's the first thing to change.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • As the entry for Expy noted above, Megumi is the Red Oni here compared to Hime's Blue Oni, though Hime can often take on Red personality traits at times in comparison to the rest of the team.
  • Near the end of the series, it's revealed that Deep Mirror's true identity is Red, an opposing god to Blue who wants to drown the whole world in despair. Naturally, Red is a Red Oni compared to Blue.
• Self-Deprecation: Episode 23 has Hime going gaa-gaa over merchandise of the International Cures. Iona can't believe she'd want to waste her money on something like that.
• Shout-Out:
  • Hmm, an action series about form-changing heroes who use food-based forms and dances to fight evil. Doesn't that sound familiar...?
  • The PreCards used to change between forms are also quite reminiscent of the Rider Cards in appearance.
  • And the use from PreChanMirror is identical to Tensouder.
  • Megumi shares her last name with a certain other famous magical girl.
  • Cure Lovely new attacks are Rocket Punch and Big Sword. The combined attack is identical to double kick from Tsubasa and Misaki twin shot.
  • In episode 6, Hime wants to eat pancakes for breakfast instead of fish. There was an episode of Magic Adventures of Mumfie where Mumfie wanted to eat pancakes for every meal called "If Wishes Were Pancakes". This could have been because the mother of the voice actress of Hime was the narrator of the Japanese dub of that series.
  • In episode 8 had a tent with images of Super Sentai and Super Saiyan on it.
  • Episode 9 is an nod from Karate Kid.
  • The fact that Cure Honey made her appearance in the third Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage movie is a nod to the Kamen Rider Movie War franchise, where that series' Secondary Rider would make a brief appearance before they would appear in the series proper.
  • The episode 11 preview: "Sometimes she's a food-loving girl, sometimes she's the singing Precure, Cure Honey!"
  • Episode 14 is focused on a friend of Seiji's little sister, Takuma Hiiro, who tends to dress up as a henshin hero and protect others calling himself Kamen Takumer.
  • In episode 17, Oresky tells the Cures that working hard for the sake of others is useless, useless, useless.
    • The same episode also includes Cure Honey's Burning Dance in her Coconuts Samba form, complete with Honey's Vamola Mucho!
  • Episode 24 gives us Glassan mentioning the Super Sentai and how they always do their poses near cliffs.
  • The Trailer for this seasons Non-Serial Movie has a character in it similar in appearance to Whispy Woods.
  • This may have been by accident, but Cure Fortune's Shaking Star attack bears a striking resemblance to PK Starstorm.
  • In episode 48, there is an English Cure who looks a lot like Alice
  • The final episode has the brief appearance of a girl who resembles Aoi Kiriya from Video Game/Aikatsu.
  • The final episode also has a baton pass at the end with Cure Lovely introducing the new leader Cure, Cure Flora of Go! Princess Pretty Cure, similar to how Super Sentai had been doing so since Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger.
  • Phantom and later, Red's attack "Eternal Gauge" is similar to the Saint Seiya attack "Freezing Coffin".
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: The four friends from episode 8 have similar names to previous Pretty Cures. Rin Ishigami, Rei[ka] Takano, Kana[de] Furuta, Erin(/k)a Shina.
  • Alternatively, and more tenuously, with Rei's brief important(-ish) bit with her crush on Seiji, she could also be considered a call to Sailor Mars, particularly since Toei is also doing Sailor Moon Crystal at the same time (moreover, the episode with Rei's crush occured one week before Rei's debut in Crystal).
• Special Guest: Episode 19's Mr. Gon is voiced by former soccer player Masashi "Gon" Nakayama
  • Celebrity Star: Episode 28 introduces a pair of Hawaiian Pretty Cure, played by singer Hitomi Yoshida and former AKB48 idol Sayaka Nakaya.
• Spinoff Sendoff: Quite appropriate considering this is the 10th anniversary season, at the end of the final episode, Cure Lovely introduces Cure Flora, the next head Cure. Apparently, it started a new tradition. One year later, Flora got to introduce Cure Miracle.
• Spoiler Opening:
  • The opening doesn't even try to hide the identities of Cure Honey and Fortune, or the fact that they will join the other two.
  • The first ending shows the four alternate forms: Cherry Flamenco, Sherbet Ballet, Lollipop Hip Hop and Macadamia Hula.
  • The second ending shows this season's Super Mode.
• Story Arc:
  • Episodes 9-11 are about the introduction of Cure Honey.
  • Episode 18 begins an arc about Cure Fortune which culminates in her joining the team in episode 23. This immediately leads to...
  • Episodes 24-26, where the Cures go to a training camp. Episode 27 then follows up on a plot point introduced in 26.
  • Episode 28 is mostly a one-off, but it ends by setting up the plot for episodes 29 through 36 where the Pretty Cure get their Mid-Season Upgrades.
  • And 37-39 is another story arc involving the reappearance of Cure Tender.
  • Episodes 41 to 43 are about the final fight against the Phantom Empire.
  • The final story arc begins with episode 44.
• Thanking the Viewer: Invoked. This is the entire point of The Cameo appearances for the franchise's Milestone Celebration.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The preview for episode 34 shows Cure Princess using her Innocent Form.
• Transformation Trinket: The PreChanMirror (Pretty Change Mirror) and PreCards.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: The opening (Lyrics here) does this once or twice per stanza.
• Warrior Therapist: While fighting them, the Precures are perfectly willing to hear out the villains about their issues. Sometimes it actually works.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 13. Phantom "the Precure Hunter" appears and effortlessly beats both Lovely and Fortune. Blue, Phantom, and Queen Mirage have some kind of shared Dark and Troubled Past. Fortune reveals that she was given her powers by her sister, Cure Tender, whom Phantom took from her...and Blue lets slip that the entire war against the Phantom Empire may be his fault.
  • Episode 29. The Cures transform the Axia Box into the Shining Make Dresser, and Blue reveals his past with Mirage...but the real twist is that Deep Mirror is controlling the Phantom Empire like puppets.]
  • Episode 37. Mirage decides her minions aren't going to cut it, and so brings out Cure Tender.
• Wham Line: See examples here.
• Wonder Twin Powers: The Hawaiian Cures, Cure Sunset and Cure Wave, transform together and perform their only known attack together while holding hands. As a bonus, they're also twin sisters.
• The Worf Effect: Fortune fights the Precure Hunter... but she can't even scratch him. Justified, as he is stronger than any other enemy the Precure have faced up to that point.

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