As one of the most successful and long-running Magical Girl franchises out there, Pretty Cure has resulted in many references in other works, especially anime.
- Aho Girl has a Pretty Cure parody called PreChure, which Yoshiko gets theatre tickets for that Akutsu puts aside his hatred of her for so his little sister Ruri can watch it. The characters on the screen are a duo with the same color scheme as Blossom and Marine from HeartCatch Pretty Cure!. Funnily enough, Yoshiko’s voice actress Aoi Yūki is a big Pretty Cure fan and later became a Promoted Fangirl when she was cast as Cure Grace in Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure.
- Anime-Gataris has the PreFae franchise as one of the many, many references to other properties.
- Flip Flappers: The girls transform and fight in the style of Pretty Cure heroines. To drive the point home, they even called themselves "Pure Blade" and "Pure Barrier" (though the collector's book included in the Blu-ray limited edition explains that the girls' transformations actually have no names, and calling out "Pure Blade" and "Pure Barrier" was a one-time expression of enthusiasm caused by eating the Peppy Potato).
- Chapter 140 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has Chika Fujiwara mention Pretty Cure by name when asking what video game Ishigami will be busy playing that preoccupies him from going to her Christmas party. He calls her out on the Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure and assuming he’ll be all alone on Christmas. This is also an allusion to the fact that Fujiwara’s voice actress in the anime adaptation Konomi Kohara was also playing Lala Hagoromo/Cure Milky in Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure at the time.
- Love Me For Who I Am: There's a work featuring a magical girl called "Magical Girl Twinkle Shine", which takes some Pretty Cure influence. Ten enjoys crossplaying as her.
- Episode 3 of Gundam Build Fighters Battlelogue is just one big shout-out towards Pretty Cure.
- My Dress-Up Darling: The Flower Princess Blaze!! anime that Marin watches is a pastiche of many Magical Girl Warrior shows, with references to specific Pretty Cure seasons. Blaze’s transformation pose and speech evoke that of HeartCatch Pretty Cure!, her scene where she talks about her dream of being a princess directly mirrors Haruka’s scene from episode 38 of Go! Princess Pretty Cure, and Gojo observes that it has more Good Old Fisticuffs than he expected of the genre. It’s also mentioned to have been produced by Toh-A Animation when he looks it up on Wikipedia.
- My Hero Academia: In the sixth episode of Season 4, one character buys a toy from an anime called Mo-retsu! Puriyua 10, a cross between HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! and HeartCatch Pretty Cure! with a similar Word Salad Title to Yes! Pretty Cure 5. (Series creator Kōhei Horikoshi is also a fan of Pretty Cure, and has drawn fanart of seasons such as Go! Princess Pretty Cure. Yoshihiko Umakoshi was chosen to design the anime adaptation specifically because Horikoshi enjoyed his work on HeartCatch and other shows.)
- ONIMAI: I'm Now Your Sister!: Episode 4 contains a magical girl show called "Magical Girl Nicolala", whose protagonist has a rabbit theme like Cure Whip in addition to resembling her.
- The first episode of Penguin Musume opens with Sakura watching a spoof of Yes! Pretty Cure 5. Later on in the episode, when she is discussing her interests, she shows off a dress that resembles Cure White's, but with a gigantic rotary telephone on the hip instead of the cellphone carrier the real one has.
- In episode 113 of Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, Mallow, Lillie, and Lana have Transformation Sequences based off of a mix of HuGtto! Pretty Cure and KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode, a team theme based on Fresh Pretty Cure!, and a beam finisher not too different from Pretty Cure Marble Screw. They even have some cute Pokémons acting as their fairies.
- Sumi Sakurasawa from Rent-A-Girlfriend and her own spinoff Rent-A-(Really Shy!)-Girlfriend is shown to be a fan of a particular magical girl anime for kids, which is apparently a Pretty Cure pastiche given that the heroines are named Cure Evidence and Cure Alternative. She later attempts to see a Cure Cure movie in a theatre, and her inner monologue mentions that the seasons try out new ideas to stay fresh, with the recent Gold Cure Cure being focused on capitalism.
- There's a Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei bit where characters turn into Lily Cure and Itoshiki is the Big Bad.
- An episode of Let's Go! Tamagotchi! has Chamametchi transforming into Super Chama Girl, who resembles Cure Dream. Coincidentally, Bandai made the toys for both franchises.
- Shinozaki-san Ki wo Ota Shika ni!: One of the anime that Kaede obsesses over is called PrePure, and it has seasons such as Futari de PrePure, HeartBreak PrePure, Slime PrePure, and Flash PrePure.
- The Way of the Househusband: The eponymous househusband’s wife Miku is a fan of an in-universe anime called PoliCure, which is evidently a police-themed version of Pretty Cure, and owns a figurine of the heroine from a season specifically titled CrimeCatch PoliCure. For bonus points, the anime adaptation plays a Suspiciously Similar Song to the HeartCatch Pretty Cure! opening when the season is brought up.
- Rex Morgan, M.D. of all things namedrops KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode as the reason Sarah wants to get Crunchyroll in the August 8, 2021 strip. After his daughter infodumps to him about it, Rex states that he now knows more about Pretty Cure than any dad on the block. Terry Beatty, the comic's artist at the time, has said that the conversation was inspired by his own daughter who's a fan of the franchise.
Fan Works
- Healin' Good 💖 Host Club's title is a nod to Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure.
- Junior Officers: "Anime
" mentions a series called "Precious Cure Shining Bright", a series mixing elements from Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure and KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode. - Kedabory's Muppet Mania: In Chapter 4, Hinata, Kokone, and Ako are among the guests watching the show.
- Ma Fille and Shining and Sweet:note
- In "Sick Day", Katrina briefly passes by a rerun of HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!.
- In "Independent Woman", Annie asks Katrina if she's going to watch Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure after school.
- In "Do the Hustle", when Bear Hugger lists the things Katrina hasn't had time for recently, he mentions Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure.
- Pokémon Crossing mentions a Show Within a Show called Pretty Refresh, and one of the characters names her Swablu 'Coffret' (after one of the Heart Catch mascots).
Film — Animated
- Weathering With You features characters cosplaying Cure Black and Cure White.
- A segment on one episode of Akashiya-san Channel focused on making kids happy by imitating Pretty Cure, which was done to promote FUJIWARA's appearance on Smile Pretty Cure!.
- An episode of Iron Chef America featured sardine tacos that had been made by Morimoto Masaharu being held together by origami paper with the cast of Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! printed on it. This was notably the first time anything from the franchise was seen in the United States.
- NMB to Manabu-kun did a segment on the physics of why the protagonists of Futari wa Pretty Cure aren't attacked when transforming.”DEATH AWAITS ANYONE WHO DARES TO DISRUPT A PRETTY CURE TRANSFORMATION!!”
- Kamen Rider Den-O
- The last episode of the Imagin Anime spinoff has the characters looking at a poster for HeartCatch Pretty Cure! on the Toei studio building.
- The title of the Pretty Den-O film is an allusion to Pretty Cure, and features a young girl turning into a Magical Girl Warrior version of Den-O.
- Super Sentai
- The epilogue V-Cinema for Shuriken Sentai Ninninger brought some guest animators from Pretty Cure for the animation where Kasumi and Fūka do a magical girl finishing move based on the Pretty Cure Marble Screw as the Ninnin Girls idol group. Incidentally, the new addition to the team Luna Kokonoe is played by Megumi Han, who voiced Cure Princess in HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! and Kyūemon Izayoi in the series itself, in an instance of Significant Double Casting.
- In Infinite Craft, it is possible to craft Cure Amour's name.
- In League of Legends, the dance emote for the Star Guardian Lux skin is recreated from the dance sequence for Beyond the Sky Romanji, Doki Doki! PreCure’s first ending theme.
- Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE: One of the shows featured is a Magical Girl series called Dia Majo Iroha that references both Ojamajo Doremi (the tittle format) and PreCure (in the Persona games, Dia is a cure spell).
- Yandere Simulator
- When it was first introduced, the Magical Girl Wand in the game was represented by the Crystal Princess Rod from Go! Princess Pretty Cure, though this was a placeholder and its model was eventually changed to be less copyright-infringing.
- YandereDev has indicated that how he envisions the titular Magical Girl Warrior of the Show Within a Show Magical Girl Pretty Miyuki at least partially takes after the Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! team.
- Yo-kai Watch 3: Hailey Anne is a fan of Sailor Cuties, a mix of Sailor Moon and Pretty Cure. This also applies to the anime adaptation. Coincidentally, Nate has the same voice actress as Cure Fortune, and Hailey Anne's seiyuu would later play Cure Grace.
- Cure Black, Cure White, and Cure Pine are among the magical girls that utterly decimate Incognito and send him back through the hellmouth in And Shine Heaven Now.
- Sleepless Domain: When Tessa visits the magical girl graveyard at the beginning of Chapter 6, one of the graves in the background appears to belong to Yuri Tsukikage.
- Word of Saint Paul confirms that Ride-Player Nico’s transformation phrase being "Let's play! Kamen Rider Modulation!" in Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: The Abridged Series is an intentional Shout-Out to her voice’s favorite Pretty Cure season Suite Pretty Cure ♪.
- My Adventures with Superman gives Clark a Transformation Sequence when he first receives his iconic Superman costume, which is very clearly inspired by Magical Girl Warrior shows. According to the storyboard artist’s notes, “Pretty Cure Style” is a direct influence on it. Cure Mermaid's transformation from Go! Princess Pretty Cure is specifically cited as inspiration, particularly for when Superman's cape appears.
