YMMV / Soaring Sky! PreCure

• Accidental Innuendo: Episode 8's ending has Nodoka as its Special Guest, but during the mirror clip show in the dance, the cropping cuts off part of her hand during her transformation sequence, making it look like she's flipping off the viewer instead.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: There's a moment where Shalala visibly tenses up when Tsubasa explains to her how to use KiraKira energy to protect Skyland, which gave more credibility to the theory that she was secretly evil. That has since been disproved, so that action comes off as this since it's not explained in the slightest.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Elle being Cure Majesty was predicted the second Cure Majesty's name was leaked, and by some even before then because "princess from another world" is one of the most common character types for the Sixth Ranger in this series.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Battamonda being put in his place by Sora and friends after his initial defeat him in Episode 23 can be very satisfying for viewers who hated his guts since Episode 15.
  • Skearhead being defeated soundly in both the last two episodes after everything he put everyone through.
• Crossover Ship: Ever since their interactions in Pretty Cure All Stars F, Tsubasa/Haruka unsurprisingly has developed a decent following, thanks to their Lady and Knight dynamic which isn't quite different from the former's loyalty to the princess Elle.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Dark Sky instantly won the hearts of the viewers despite appearing for not even five minutes of one episode.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • In the first iteration of the opening, there's an obscured adult (via sunlight) in a pink jacket driving Sora and Mashiro in a hummer. Due to Cure Butterfly's civilian form not being revealed early compared to the others, there was a ton of speculation that she was that adult, and once her civilian form was revealed, she'd be shown in the opening. Additionally, the Pretty Holic model shown in the first episode had also been speculated to be Butterfly, due to the butterfly-shaped perfume with the model. The former point was reinforced by the fact she does indeed drive a yellow Hummer (she was shown specifically driving a hummer at the end of episode 6). Most of this bore itself out in the updated intro from episode 10 onwards, which finally revealed her driving the Hummer (with Tsubasa in the back seat). However, it was later confirmed she wasn't the Pretty Holic model, as not only is her main focus is being a nursery teacher, she later gets a part-time job at a Pretty Holic store in Episode 20. (In hindsight, the model might've been one of her sisters.)
  • Additionally, people picked up that the orange bird seen in the intro shared design cues and merchandise space with Cure Wing; they were shown to be the same person in episodes 8 and 9.
  • Two theories that didn't bear out: that Shalala was secretly Empress Undergu (who didn't appear in person until the show's endgame) or just evil. It was mentioned that she and her company were fighting elsewhere right around the time the Undergu Empire began attacking Skyland again, and she was sealed into a Ranborg around the same time that the Empress didn't tighten the screws with Battamonda like she did Kabaton. There was also a strange moment in a later episode where Shalala's hand tensed after being told about Tsubasa's plan to protect Skyland. However, not only are Shalala and the Empress shown to be separate and entirely dissimilar people when the latter finally shows herself, Shalala continues to fight for Skyland as she always has.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • The Sonic the Hedgehog fandom had a brief period where fans of Sonic pointed out how Sora was practically a Distaff Counterpart of Sonic himself...
  • Due to having a similar premise of a teenager wanting to be a hero and having a notebook, fans of My Hero Academia have taken notice of this one. It also helps that the creator of said manga is a fan of the Pretty Cure franchise as well.
  • It has gotten this with Ben 10 due to Ben and Sora having the same catchphrase, "It's Hero Time!" ^note  Though in Ben's case, his catchphrase is just "hiiro taimu" in the Japanese dub of his series
  • There are quite a few Yuki Yuna is a Hero fans, since it's another Magical Girl show, with many noticing the similarities between Yuna and Sora (especially their whole "hero" gimmick).
  • The Project SEKAI fans are enjoying the show each other, mostly fans from the unofficial Pretty Cure Discord server.
  • Due to the below mentioned Shout-Out, the Superman fandom has also come to enjoy the series.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Sora pretends to be from a Scandinavian country in class, to avoid revealing that she's from an another world. It gets funnier when you realise the English word "Sky", as in "Cure Sky", originally derived from Nordic languages.
  • In the final episode, Sora tells Mashiro that, before that point, they held hands 142 times, then holds her hand one more time to make 143. "143" is code for "I love you", something that became popular with pagers in the 1990s but has origins in the late 19th century.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the memes page for the Pretty Cure franchise, one of the jokes is that Sora seems to be the only upstanding member of the Super Hero Time block, being that her Super Sentai and Kamen Rider counterparts at the time, Don Momotaro, Kamen Rider Geats, and Kuwagata Ohger, were not the most moral of heroes at the time^note While all of them are well-meaning, they all have their quirks that make them easily alien to their allies. Episode 22, where Sora loses her heroic resolve, drops in at a rough time for both Geats and KingOhger as Keiwa/Kamen Rider Tycoon has begun a Roaring Rampage of Revenge pushed by a member of the DGP who believes Kamen Riders should be sorrowful heroes (this one is doubly tragic, because Tycoon was considered the best possible role model for Sora before his turn) and Shugoddam finds itself taken over by the villains.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • Just looking back at Sora and Mashiro's early interactions with Elle, the King and Queen didn't need to make any effort to find Elle's parents. They found each other by themselves.
    • Even more heartwarming is how Elle's mother knew exactly what would happen to Elle. Elle, along with her surrogate parents, met Ellelain, Elle's birth mother, and impressed her immensely.
  • Kabaton and Minoton returning together in Episode 47 implies the two have reconciled off-screen. Beforehand, Minton, in his debut, only saw Kabaton with shame.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Cure Wing has a Swallow Tail on the back of his outfit, which alludes to him being birdlike while also bearing a resemblance to Getter Dragon's Getter Wing, from Getter Robo G. This was made even more notable by the fact his special attack greatly resembles Getter Dragon's signature Shine Spark move.
  • This season’s hero motif became especially pertinent when My Adventures with Superman released during its run and turned out to have repaid the homage by giving Superman—the Trope Codifier if not outright Trope Maker of superheroes and many superhero tropes—his own Transformation Sequence intentionally done in “Pretty Cure Style” by the storyboarders.
  • Prior to being casted as Tsubasa, Ayumu Murase voiced Malt Marzipan in Fuga: Melodies of Steel and its sequel, who made a big deal out of flaunting his age to proclaim himself as the leader due to him being the oldest. Not only is Tsubasa the same age as Malt was in the first Fuga game, but he is inversely The Baby of the Bunch and not the leader here, effectively living out Malt's Absurd Phobia from the Comedies of Steel subseries.
  • The Accidental Innuendo mentioned above can come off as this, since Nodoka was criticized for not helping Daruizen. That's her answer to those people.
  • Ageha says "Wonderful" during her Transformation Sequence. Turns out she was telling us the name of the following Precure season the whole time.
  • A gag in episode 8 has Sora barking like a dog, only for the very next series to have a dog, outright, as its lead Cure. The icing on the cake? One of the dog's teammates is a cat who shares a VA with Beryberie!
  • During Episode 23, Ageha mentions a proverb, "it's the weakest dog that barks the loudest..." In Wonderful Pretty Cure Episode 1, Komugi's bark as she tries to save her owner suddenly is very loud, very clear... and sounds very like Japanese.
  • With Beryberie's VA Satsumi Matsuda voicing Cure Nyammy, her and Sora's Friendly Rivalry has become this since it's from one blue Cure to the next.
• I Knew It!:
  • At least one Twitter user successfully predicted that we would be getting a male Cure a little around a month before the reveal.
  • Several people punched the air after episode 8 confirms that Cure Wing and the small bird seen at Mashiro's house are one and the same.
  • Although Toei tried to hide Majesty’s identity better than most, almost everyone predicted she was Elle.
  • Almost as soon as Ellelain was introduced, it was suspected she was involved in the star that delivered Elle. Ellelain is Elle's birth mother, and the reason for the vague prophecy was that Ellelain had seen Elle with her future parents years before she became the star.
  • There were some who believed Skearhead didn't actually die in Episode 47. They were right.
• Inferred Holocaust: This season goes back to battles in the main world (some even in the city) after the previous season used "Delicious Fields" to avert this, and although the purification of the Ranborgs do magically reverse all of the damage caused by them, there's no implication on how civilian casualties would be affected. This is considering some Ranborg attacks (so far, involving Kabaton's UFO in Wing's debut episode and Battamonda's Shalala-fused Ranborg) involve outright destroying buildings, considering there may have been little to no time to evacuate people.
• Les Yay: Has its own section on this page.
• Memetic Mutation: You can be a hero with these memes!
• Moe: Elle. She's easily one of the cutest Pretty Cure characters ever, probably even beating Hugtan in terms of being adorable. Even her grown up form has her moments.
• Moral Event Horizon: Skearhead already established himself as a silent yet vicious threat by usurping and brainwashing Minoton for taking too long to try his hand at defeating the Cures, but he truly reveals himself to be a monster in Episode 48, which reveals he caused the social darwinism that is systematic of the leadership of the Undergu Empire by maniplulating his own boss- and by extension her father- and implementing false memories, something he makes clear by literally stabbing her In the Back.
• Older Than They Think:
  • It's common for people (especially those who aren't entirely familiar with the Pretty Cure franchise) to assume that Cure Wing is the first male Cure period, when he was actually beaten to the punch by Henri Wakamiya transforming into Cure Infini for two episodes half a decade earlier.
  • Similarly, some people also assume Cure Butterfly is the franchise's first adult Cure ^note on the main team at least, but Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure already had Cure Earth, who was physically twenty (although that depends on how you define "adult", since she Really Was Born Yesterday).
    • And years before Cure Earth was even a thing, we had Tsubomi's grandmother, Kaoruko Hanasaki aka Cure Flower from HeartCatch Pretty Cure!; while she wasn't part of the main team, she was still the first adult Cure we ever saw in the franchise.
  • Some fans were surprised that Toei decided to have the lead Cure hail from the magical fantasy land as opposed to some of the secondary Cures, assuming this was the first time Toei has done the "reverse isekai" trope for its lead character. While this may be the first time Toei has done this specifically for Pretty Cure, the earliest magical girl anime, including Toei's own Sally the Witch and Majokko Meg-chan, along with the infamous Minky Momo, all starred girls who came from magical worlds and stayed in the human world, and it was only when series like Sailor Moon came along that the modern magical girl came to be.
• One-Scene Wonder: Darkhead flooding Cure Sky with enough Undergu Energy to corrupt her into a Dark Magical Girl.
• Preemptive Shipping:
  • Within hours of Sora and Mashiro being introduced, several weeks before the first episode being broadcast, they were shipped together, not helped by artists like the Kamikita Twins doing official artworks of them together, sometimes with Elle, who the series itself portrays as their daughter.
  • Despite their obvious age gap, the close proximity between Tsubasa and Ageha in promotional materials before their debut and their earliest interactions in the show itself have brought about a significant amount of fanart shipping them together. However, that seems to apply mostly to Japanese fans, while Western fans are unsurprisingly squicked over it.
  • Within hours of Episode 44, without them actually meeting face-to-face, Ellelain and the Undergu Empress were shipped together.
• Shocking Moments:
  • In the second episode, the Mirror Pad's purpose is revealed in show... as a spyglass mirror that belongs to Mashiro's grandmother, who knows a lot more than she's letting on to either Sora or Mashiro.
  • In the third episode, Yoyo casually drops that she's from the Skylands, revealing retroactively that Mashiro is at least one-quarter Skylandian.
  • In the sixth episode, Sora almost confesses she's in love with Mashiro, until Kabaton practically demands she stops, but clearly, from Mashiro's reaction, she got the message.
  • In the fifteenth episode, the Cures have their finisher countered, Sora's idol and mentor is seemingly killed and the king and queen of Skyland are brought down by a magical spell. The fifteenth.^note Normally, in Pretty Cure itself, an incident like this would be around December, setting up for the finale.
  • Battamonda single-handedly amps up the shock factor of that incident when he reveals in episode 22 that he kept Shalala alive by flooding her body with Undergu energy, which is inherently toxic to humans, meaning she's both slowly dying and any attempt to free her will cause her to die anyway. Or so he claimed.
  • A mild one in Episode 24, when the King and Queen of Skyland mention one thing about Elle's backstory... The mysterious force that delivered her to them told them, categorically, they were caretakers for Elle's real parents. Mashiro realises, at that moment, who Elle's actual parents are... Her and Sora.
  • In Episode 31, Skearhead dispatches Minoton with little effort, and manages to successfully abduct Elle out from under the noses of the Cures, and strands them in a pocket dimension to defeat with impunity... only for Cure Majesty to save them, a full week earlier than expected or scheduled!
  • In Episode 44, The Undergu Empress arrives and hands the Cures their asses. As she's about to finish them off, the Majesty Chronclun stops time, sending Sora, Mashiro and Elle back to the event which caused the Undergu Empress to hate Skyland and everything about it.
  • In Episode 45, the Undergu Empire and Skyland declare peace, 300 years before the Cures came to be, when Cure Noble teaches the Emperor how to patch up his daughter with Undergu Energy... but Empress Undergu losing her shit when Noble's words are repeated at her in the present, along with a shot of Ellelain's remorseful spirit, indicates that something went horribly wrong afterward. As we later learn, that "something" was Darkhead.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The villainous generals interacting with each other and/or their higher-ups (generally a norm beforehand) was axed for this season, replaced by a Debut Queue. This has received a few small complaints, as some feel the interactions added some personality to the villains along with being relatively comedic at times.
• Ugly Cute: Kabaton's piglet form, only seen in Episode 4, has a goofy charm to it.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • You will be forgiven for thinking Cure Wing was a tomboyish girl, due to his androgynous-looking appearance, even after the news of his voice actor and that he would be a male Pretty Cure.
  • Battamonda, thanks to his androgynous appearance.
• The Woobie
  • Sora is one big time, being a Fish out of Water afraid of losing her first and closest friend (who she cares deeply about) and forgetting how hard things like defeat can truly be (until she is forced to make a Sadistic Choice involving her idol which temporarily breaks her) while also trying to put up a brave face for Mashiro and Elle.
  • Ageha also qualifies as this. While she tends to be such a bubbly and enthusiastic person, she's had a very rough childhood, being cut off from everyone close to her (her two older sisters and her childhood friend Mashiro). One can imagine how lonely most of her life must have been.
  • The antagonists are this to some degree, with it being easy to see them as similar to overworked salarymen, with Battemonda suffering serious PTSD from his defeat and their boss feeling they're easily replaced.
  • As of Episode 44/45, even the leader of the antagonists gets this, when it's revealed that she was peace-loving 300 years ago, and ended up almost killed when she was hit by Cure Noble's sword slash, with both Noble and her father collectively declaring peace as an apology for what happened... only to end up, due to Skearhead, believing that, on her birthday, Cure Noble lured her father to his death.

---