The first series was Futari wa Pretty Cure ("The Two of Us Are Pretty Cure"), a show where a Red Oni, Blue Oni duo of Japanese schoolgirls- Nagisa Misumi and Honoka Yukishiro- are forced to work together to fight the invading inhabitants of the Dusk Zone, retrieve all sevenPrism Stones and free the Queen of Light. As Cure Black and Cure White respectively, they set the standard for many of the show's recurring tropes. The show is also notable for its Seinen elements, including an abundance of action-packed physical combat (directed by the guy who did Dragon Ball Z!) and blatant homoerotic subtext between Nagisa and Honoka.The show did so well that it got a direct sequel as Futari wa Pretty Cure MaX Heart. The Evil King of the Dusk Zone revives again and the Queen of Light is forced to split herself into pieces, one of which manifests as a young girl called Hikari. Cure Black and White are given a power-up and sent out to retrieve all the pieces of the Queen with the help of Hikari, who can transform into Third Ranger and Support Party Member Shiny Luminous.Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash*Star is the first to be set in an Alternate Continuity. At first the show was an awkward Expy of the original series, with not-Nagisa Saki Hyuuga (Cure Bloom) and not-Honoka Mai Mishou (Cure Egret) fighting to free the seven World Fountains from the control of the evil Dark Fall. In addition, Moral Guardians had forced many of the Seinen elements unique to Pretty Cure to be downsized, resulting in battles that focused less on hard-hitting fisticuffs and more on non-contact magical attacks. However, once past that initial awkward phase the series grew into its own identity, adding two Dark Magical Girls as rivals and establishing Saki and Mai as their own characters.Yes! Pretty Cure 5 caused an uproar by diverging from the previous Pretty Cure formula in favour of a more standard Magical Girl show with a Sailor Moon-esque team of five equals. Idiot Hero Nozomi Yumehara (Cure Dream) and her four team-mates have to catch fifty-five fairy critters with their extremely cool and affordable watches before the evil Nightmare Corporation does. Yes! did start one new trend for the franchise: including the phrase "Pretty Cure" in every attack name and transformation phrase.Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Go!Go! (the 5 is still pronounced "faibu", slightly obscuring the Incredibly Lame Pun) continues the story of Nozomi and her friends, only this time they are trying to save the four rulers of Magical Land from an evil museum called Eternal with the help of a flying mailman penguin named Syrup. They also pick up a mysterious Sixth Ranger called "Milky Rose", whose true identity is... shocking, really.The sixth series, Fresh Pretty Cure!, switches to the adventures of Love Momozono (Cure Peach) and her two friends (Cure Berry and Cure Pine) as they fight against the sinister agents of Labyrinth over a mysterious MacGuffin called Infinity. There's plenty of dancing, Mid Season Upgrades that arrive way too early and a pretty epic character arc that results in the birth of the fourth Pretty Cure, Cure Passion.HeartCatch Pretty Cure! focuses on flower-loving introvert Tsubomi Hanasaki and fashion-loving Genki Girl Erika Kurumi, who transform into Cure Blossom and Cure Marine (respectively) to fight the evil Desertrians and their quest to steal the "Heart Flowers" of innocent people and turn the world into a desert. Highlights include character designs by Ojamajo Doremi illustrator Yoshihiko Umakoshi, and a heart-wrenching series-long subplot about a fallen Pretty Cure called Cure Moonlight.Suite Pretty Cure♪ brings the Wonder Twin Powers back again with Tomboy and Girly Girl Hibiki Houjou and Kanade Minamino as Cure Melody and Cure Rhythm (respectively). The two fight against the villains of Minor Land, who seek to sing the Melody of Sorrow and plunge the world into despair. Helping them out is Third Ranger Cure Beat, a mysterious maskedAloof Ally called Cure Muse, and a ridiculous Lensman Arms Race of not-so-Mid Season Upgrades.Smile Pretty Cure! goes back to having a core team of five. The theme of the show is fairy tales, as the Smile team work with the storybook critters of Märchenland against the baddies of the Bad End Kingdom, who seek to awaken their lord Pierrot and bring the "Worst Ending" to the world.Doki Doki! PreCure, the latest Pretty Cure series, commemorates the anniversary of the franchise. It appears to inherit certain elements from Fresh, such as the number of Cures and the playing card motif.
There is also a series of Pretty Cure All Starsmovies, teaming up characters from all series, as well as a short film and a video game that do the same. Together, these make up the Crossover Compilation.Furthermore, most seasons have at least one movie that makes no canonical sense (most of the time) but can't be thrown out because of something really awesome happening in it.The Franchise seems to have very good relations with Tokusatsu : it's produced by Toei, which also produces Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, and the three franchises are aired back to back in the appropriately named Super Hero Time block. The Pretty Cure and Super Sentai movies have been played as double bills, and Nagisa and Honoka teamed up with Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger characters in an audio drama, and later with Mahou Sentai Magiranger. Gundam has a less than amiable relation with Pretty Cure as those who had a role in Gundam went on to play villains for Pretty Cure.This franchise has a character sheet.There is also a manga for each series, going into depth in various ignored aspects, like Rin's crush on Nuts and Saki's little sister's life.The franchise is also known as Precure. While this is technically a more accurate transliteration of the title logo (which reads "purikyua") and appears in URLs and such, said logo (as well as much of the truly astonishing amount of merchandise) also explicitly spells out the title as "PRETTY CURE"...at least until HeartCatch Pretty Cure! and subsequent series, which say "PRECURE" instead.(Incidentially, Yes! Pretty Cure 5 has no caption). The pronunciations purikyua and puritii kyua are used interchangeably, both in theme songs ("1, 2, 3, 4, Purikyua 5! Puritii, kyu, kyu, kyu, kyua...") and in-universe (including one odd instance of a character hearing the name for the first time as purikyua and immediately questioning "Puritiikyua?"). There are two ways to deal with this: one is to directly translate, taking "Precure" as a commonly used short form and "Pretty Cure" as their less-used full title, and the other, used by both fansubs and the first season's official subs, is to use "Pretty Cure" for both. TV Tropes Wiki does the latter for reasons completely unrelated to "Pretty Cure" making a goodWiki Word.And in case you're wondering: yes, it's a Pun-Based Title. "Purikura", short for "Print Club", is the name given to those photo booths in Japan that print out stickers with your photo on them. (This is never brought up in the show, save for the Elder of the first continuity constantly calling Pretty Cure "Purikura", nor does it have any significance.)For individual series examples, go to their pages. More than one installment of this franchise provides examples of:
Becoming the Mask: If you masquerade as a student at the school your enemies go to like Kiriya or the Kiryuu twins did, or as a friend to someone who's supposed to be your enemy like Setsuna did, you've completed your first step toward a full-blown Heel Face Turn.
Catchphrase: Every lead Cure and sometimes even every Cure of a team has one or two catchphrases. Also, the villains say usually "I don't forget it" when they lose.
Darker and Edgier: Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash☆Star and especiallyHeart Catch Pretty Cure are the darkest series in the franchise, though all of them have their dark moments. If the backstory is anything to start with, Doki Doki Pretty Cure will follow suit, and is implied to be even darker then the aforementioned shows. None of the series lose any of the humor aspects of them in spite of this, though.
Theme Song Performer Cameo: Mayu Kudou, singer of several Pretty Cure themes from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 to Suite Pretty Cure♪, has cameoed twice. Once in Yes! Pretty Cure 5 with the ending singer Kanako Miyamoto, and again in HeartCatch Pretty Cure! with the opening singer Aya Ikeda. Oddly enough, both animated versions of Mayu look completely different from each other (the different art styles not helping matters).
Everything's Cuter with Lucky Charms: Hearts for just about every season, stars for Splash Star, clovers for Fresh, flowers for Heartcatch, music notes for Suite, wings for Smile, and winged hearts and card suits for Doki Doki.
Evolving Credits: Very common for the franchise as a whole. This happens whenever a Sixth Ranger appears in the show.
Expy: Most lead Cures are expies of Cure Black and most blue or white Cures are expies of Cure White. However, this trope is never played straight.
Five-Girl-Band: The problem is that there are only two continuities with five members. Most teams has a four-girl-band, the early teams have even less members. Some members play a double role.
Fleeting Demographic: Young girls, though fortunately they aren't the only demographic. Not that fleeting though, since the ratings for the series have remained high throughout the franchise.
Frilly Upgrade: Costume upgrades usually appear sometime after mid-season. Movies have their own special upgrades.
Good Old Fisticuffs: A lot of action series could learn a thing or two from how these girls dish it out.
Hair Decorations: All over the place. In fact, the only Cure in the franchise to have completely unadorned hair in Pretty Cure form is Cure Black (though Nagisa does wear a cute little heart bead when she plays lacrosse).
High Heel Face Turn: In general, since this is a magical girl series, female characters seem quicker to make the switch than male ones.
Heroic Second Wind: Common, but most blatantly after Yes! Pretty Cure 5. From that point onwards, every single movie, no exceptions, has to include flashlight-esque items called the Miracle Lights, used by both the characters and the audience to bring the Eleventh Hour Superpower.
In a Single Bound: One too many Cures have this ability. In fact, there is one famous scene from the original Futari wa Pretty Cure opening (and copied a lot in the Pretty Cure All Stars movies) which involves Black leaping away from an explosion; Max Heart's opening featured a similar scene but with White added in.
Merchandise Driven: How much varies from season to season, but it's usually obvious that at least one magical trinket per season was designed to be a toy first and an implement of magical ass-kicking second. The Transformation Trinkets are a relatively common example, as are the cheat code items that became a tradition from Fresh onwards.
Mid-Season Upgrade: The Precures get usually two or more upgrades per season. Some villains get upgrades, too.
Name's the Same: Several seasons tend to repeat names from previous continuities. So far the repeated names were Nozomi (Max Heart and Yes!5), Kaoru (Splash Star, Fresh, and — if it counts — Kaoruko from Heartcatch), Hayato (Fresh and Heartcatch), Kurumi (Yes!5 (given name), Heartcatch (surname)), Miyuki (Fresh and Smile), Akane (the original/Max Heart and Smile), Nao (Max Heart and Smile), Reika (Fresh and Smile), and Ayumi (Fresh, Heartcatch and All Stars New Stage).
No Export for You: The English dub of Futawi wa Pretty Cure only aired in Canada and the UK. None of the other seasons have been dubbed yet, although Cynopsis Kids has reported that Saban Brands will be making a new show called Gangnam Girls, whose synopsis sounds almost identical to Smile Precure.
Not Allowed to Grow Up: As of 2008, the older Cures have been subjected to this. It's been years since Max Heart's end, but Nagisa, Honoka and Hikari don't look a day older than they were back then. Although it should be noted that this depends only on whether or not you count the All-Stars movies as canon.
Odd Couple: For two-person teams; when the teams widened and there was only one main character instead of two, just about every combination was an Odd Friendship
Pink Means Feminine: In fact, every team has a member in pink, and more often than not she's the leader, similar to Super Sentai with red.
Post Modernism: One of the most unusual aspects for a mainstream Magical Girl series that isn't a full deconstruction of the genre.
Power Dyes Your Hair: It's usually downplayed, with a Cure's hair changing shades instead of color.
The Power of Friendship: Unlike most series in the genre, where it's second to The Power of Love, friendship is the most important thing in Pretty Cure. Every episode focuses on the relationships between the girls, and no romantic subplot is ever completely resolved, whether between the Cures themselves or with a third party; Nozomi/Coco is the one exception, and even they are allowed far less PDA than other magical girl leads, only getting to kiss offscreen and in a movie. Most speeches are of the friendship variety, and the Cures' powers literally run on friendship — even the ones who can transform separately are stronger together, and, as seen in the case of Karen, powers can fail completely if they don't open up and act sincerely towards their True Companions.
In Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash☆Star, Gohyaan engages in 2 different ones, one against Cure Bloom/Bright and Cure Egret/Windy at once, and later does the same against Michiru and Kaoru
By the final arc of Smile Pretty Cure!, we get a few Cure-like characters. One is a set of Psycho Rangers, the other? Candy getting a humanoid form known as Royale Candy!
Slice of Life: There are episodes that focus almost solely on the daily lives of the heroines where the enemy makes the obligatory appearance and subsequent defeat in under a few minutes.
Spoiler Opening: Sometimes, even some events of the great final are spoiled. Usually, the appearance of the Sixth Ranger is not shown in the credits, with four exceptions: Shiny Luminous, Milky Rose, Cure Moonlight, and Cure Muse. All four of them are subversions. Both Luminous and Rose are planned as new members before the series have even started and the Japanese viewers knew it before. Cure Moonlight appeared in the first episode, so it was expected that she will eventuelly join the other Cures, especially after the appearance of Cure Sunshine (moon & sun theme). Cure Muse however was a masked Aloof Ally and the openings don't spoil her real identity.
Strictly Formula: Not just individual episodes, but the series themselves, something that became particularly jarring from 2009 to 2011, which always had four-girl teams and a cheat code item appear at a late point to give the girls a new attack or set of costumes.
In all series, seasons, holidays, and school events (culture festival, sports meet, etc.) roughly line up with the real world according to episode airdates. This requires a little chronological fudging, as Pretty Cure series run from February to January but reflect the April to March Japanese school year.
Notable is that around episodes 20-24 (usually 23) something plot-related always happens, usually the appearance of a Sixth Ranger or the Mid-Season Upgrade.
Certain plots also may happen once per season, such as two of the Cures having a disagreement and nearly triggering the team's break-up.
An episode in the late 30s will feature one member of the team getting a real or imagined opportunity in acting/modeling/music/etc., with implications that they'll leave the area and cease all Magical Girl activities. Never actually happens.
It also seems that, from Fresh onwards, the first villain in the group to appear is the one who does a Heel Face Turn first. Ellen and Setsuna become Cures, while Sasorina gets purified first out of Heartcatch's villains. Smile seems to be the only exception, as there all three members of the Quirky Miniboss Squad are purified at the same time.
There will be an episode/arc where the series' Fairy/Non-Human Sidekick get kidnapped and the Pretty Cures have to rescue them.
Thigh-High Boots: Every series has at least one Cure wearing them, with the exception of the the firsttwo continuities, which instead used leg warmers for a similar effect.
Trailers Always Spoil: New Cure? New power? If it's not in the title, it's in the next episode preview.
Transformation Is a Free Action: Justified in-universe, where the transformation takes place inside a barrier or appears as a bright flash of light to observers.
, teaming up characters from all series, as well as a short film and a video game that do the same. Together, these make up the Crossover Compilation.Furthermore, most seasons have at least one movie that makes no canonical sense (most of the time) but can't be thrown out because of something really awesome happening in it.The Franchise seems to have very good relations with Tokusatsu : it's produced by Toei, which also produces Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, and the three franchises are aired back to back in the appropriately named Super Hero Time block. The Pretty Cure and Super Sentai movies have been played as double bills, and Nagisa and Honoka teamed up with Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger characters in an audio drama, and later with Mahou Sentai Magiranger. Gundam has a less than amiable relation with Pretty Cure as those who had a role in Gundam went on to play villains for Pretty Cure.This franchise has a character sheet.There is also a manga for each series, going into depth in various ignored aspects, like Rin's crush on Nuts and Saki's little sister's life.The franchise is also known as Precure. While this is technically a more accurate transliteration of the title logo (which reads "purikyua") and appears in URLs and such, said logo (as well as much of the truly astonishing amount of merchandise) also explicitly spells out the title as "PRETTY CURE"...at least until HeartCatch Pretty Cure! and subsequent series, which say "PRECURE" instead.(Incidentially, Yes! Pretty Cure 5 has no caption). The pronunciations purikyua and puritii kyua are used interchangeably, both in theme songs ("1, 2, 3, 4, Purikyua 5! Puritii, kyu, kyu, kyu, kyua...") and in-universe (including one odd instance of a character hearing the name for the first time as purikyua and immediately questioning "Puritiikyua?"). There are two ways to deal with this: one is to directly translate, taking "Precure" as a commonly used short form and "Pretty Cure" as their less-used full title, and the other, used by both fansubs and the first season's official subs, is to use "Pretty Cure" for both. TV Tropes Wiki does the latter for reasons completely unrelated to "Pretty Cure" making a good Wiki Word.And in case you're wondering: yes, it's a Pun-Based Title. "Purikura", short for "Print Club", is the name given to those photo booths in Japan that print out stickers with your photo on them. (This is never brought up in the show, save for the Elder of the first continuity constantly calling Pretty Cure "Purikura", nor does it have any significance.)
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