Pretty Cure general thread

Splash Star may have had better villains, but FW had much better protagonists, even ignoring the fact that Saki and Mai are Nagisa/Honoka expies. And I think FW fights were overall better. Though SS had less annoying fairies, so that's another point in its favor. I don't particularly consider either of them better than the other overall. And neither are anywhere near as good as Yes 5 or Heartcatch.

x4

That contradicts my experience with the fandom. From what I've seen the English speaking fandom widely considers Splash Star to be a better done Futari Wa which is why I suggested skipping Futari Wa. Maybe it's different among the Japanese fandom but from an English perspective what I've said is absolutely true.

Nothing can compare to Yes 5 and Heartcatch. What I got the beef of is the complete dismissal of Splash Star, when in truth there's no 'bad' Precure season. It's only matter of taste. Everyone knows that Precure rating is bullshit rating that doesn't show true merit of the seasons, anyway; it's a rating of how much money Toei can swim in from that season.

The treatment of Michru and Kaoru alone ruined the series.

Max Heart and DokiDoki would like to question the no bad season statement. Though Nagisa is at least still a good protagonist, even if she gets too much attention. And DokiDoki has Aguri and Bel I guess? Well, those two I feel are easily the weakest seasons.

Here's my take on the differences between the two shows. It's been two years since I've seen them both, but I'll try not to miss anything major.

The first continuity does get better with Max Heart, and I consider Saki and Mai to be different from Nagisa and Honoka. Let me explain:

Nagisa is significantly easier to irritate than Saki is. That's a huge difference right there already! The only way I know of to piss Saki off is to be an irredeemable little prick, whereas Nasiga's Annoying Younger Sibling actually does give her some (very humanly portrayed) grief and frustration.

I also find Honoka to be one of the more unique characters of the franchise. The way she solves problems is very inventive, and I don't just mean that in a Gadgeteer Genius sense either. Instead of flying face first into enemies all the time, she takes the time to analyze them too. That and she proves that an aspiring scientist can make excellent Magical Girl material. What is Mai's big difference compared to Honoka? Well, I honestly don't remember, but Mai's relationship with Saki is played with much more smoothly at the very least whereas Nagisa and Honoka's relationship was rougher yet more realistic of people who have huge differences between them.

Another major difference when comparing these two shows is that the original Futari Wa's Garden of Light has a lot more personality as a world and a place to be. The leads are actually given a tour of what it's like to live in the Garden and how it all works. We, the viewers, actually see the heroines soak their efforts in. Come Max Heart, the relationship between both worlds becomes a major plot point in character form: Hikari. I thought this was very cool as even though the worlds are technically separate, they do co-exist and are dependent on each other even if one isn't aware of the other.

When you go to watch Splash Star, you can simply replace "Land of Fountains" with a Damsel in Distress plot, and not have to rewrite the story completely. Sure, Earth is specifically Dark Fall's next target, but I don't exactly see a deep connection between both worlds aside from the Fountain of the Sun. Looking back on this, this is part of the reason why I like to see plot-important settings being given similar dynamics as characters.

Am I saying Splash Star is the worse show? Not really, I just want to make more major differences known between the two outside of the clearly better villains in Splash Star.

They're not bad; they're poorly structured and designed. Max Heart and Doki got a wrong thing as focus, as sometimes subtle hinting just doesn't cut for the job. It's not a complete wasted potential, but when the demography doesn't aim for seinen kind of thrill, then implied backstory of Max Heart's Elite Four and Doki's split of Ange (until the in-your-face reveal) will just fly over everyone's head. I think HaCha handles this aspect well.

What Toei did to Splash Star posthumous the season doesn't matter to the season itself. Does Square Enix's complete apathy toward FF3 until the DS re-release matters to its accomplishment as one of the pioneers of the job class system? No.

edited 19th Dec '14 11:32:06 AM by AlaAlba

Splash Star is a more polished version of Futari Wa. The story is better laid out, with better personalities on the villains. Kaoru and Michiru follows on the heels of Kiriya's Heel–Face Turn and also improve it. But all these are incremental improvements. This gives a sense of dejá vu when watching it after Futari Wa, amplified since it follows right after the first team. Compared to Nagisa and Honoka, Saki and Mai are also relatively bland. Intentionally, since the designers made them to be similar so as to not alienate the fans, which backfired since it made them even less likeable. Even now, years afterward, they are consistently the least popular Cures. The sparkle-fu of Splash Star's fighting style also lack impact up until the very last episodes. The first one has a raw grittiness in the straight-forward pugilism that none of the following seasons ever returned to, which opt for flashier fight scenes.

Max Heart suffer from poor planning since it is clear that the writers have to come up with things as they go along instead of having it laid out beforehand. There's the first episodes, the middle part, and then the last episodes which matter to the plot. The rest are obvious fillers. Max Heart is a lot more enjoyable when you can skip the fillers.

edited 19th Dec '14 3:58:03 PM by PsychoPJ

That doesn't sound very encouraging. Maybe I should just skip the first three altogether if it has this many problems.

Futari wa (and Splash Star) are good as long as you're in the right mindset. They're not the best of the series, but they've got their own strengths and weaknesses. FW has arguably the best and most developed relationship in the series, while SS is probably still on top regarding villains, being matched only by Fresh.

I actually find Saki to be more like Nagisa than Mai/Honoka are. Nagisa and Saki at least share a lot of superficial qualities. Tomboy, loud, easily gets a crush, popular, not too hard to piss off, etc. They have their differences, but they have a lot of similarities. Meanwhile, I struggle to think of anything Honoka and Mai have in common. Honoka is a genius, but Mai is implied to be just smart. Their interests lay in opposite directions. Honoka doesn't let herself be pushed around, while Mai is a bit more passive. Plus their backgrounds are vastly different. They just look similar and are smarter than their partners.

They are definitely good seasons. But it is better to not watch them right after the other. Watching Splash Star first means you avoid most of the sense of rehashing and appreciate its strength. I find that it's best to watch Futari Wa alongside the newer ones since it has many unique things when compared to what follows.

After rewatching the All-Stars DX movies, I think it's a good place to see which series' characters you take a liking to. All-Stars 3 a pretty good showcase of everyone's personality up to Suite.

edited 25th Dec '14 9:52:54 PM by PsychoPJ

Episode 45. We are getting Cure Ange, right? Anyway, holiday episode. Always low key right before shit hits the fan. Blue plays dumb. Yuuko whips her girls (and Seiji) into shape. Gift stuff yada yada. Really pushing Megumi/Seiji. Perhaps Nozomi's record of being the only one that got anywhere is about to be broken. Scrooge Iona is best Iona. Glassan could certainly use more glasses. Red decides to attack the normal boy who has bad luck with love, which there are millions of. Forgive me if I don't particularly care for how this is going. Confirmation that his name is Red. I guess we're all psychics. Blue finally admits he was playing dumb. Seriously, he should've crossed his mind at some point. Time to fight Seiji. I expect Tender 2.0, which means our heroes won't be going all out.

Okay, I'm blaming my slight dislike for this show squarely on Mepple. He's so screechy and annoying I practically have to change my volume every time he opens his mouth. Mipple's pretty likable by comparison, she's at least sweet to everyone.

Only thing that makes it tolerable is he's at least The Scrappy for Nagisa in-universe.

you'll find porun to be far worse.

Again, that's not terribly encouraging. Damn it, the fights and relationship building between the Cures had better be worth it.

And that's not counting Porun's sister, who somehow even more annoying. Episode 8 is incredible, though.

Finally catching up on HaCha episodes and holy shit, Meg's sad face is so deliciously animated! The amount of wrinkles in her face make the expression so realistic without forgoing the season's artistic take. Maybe it's up there along with Peace's mid season finale despair face.

The new finisher is slightly tedious, though. Every episode, they end it with singing...

edited 28th Dec '14 11:24:13 AM by AlaAlba

I never found Porun's sister annoying. Mostly because she had no presence. And Porun was far more annoying when he was unbearable than Lulun ever was. Though I do wander why the show kept having an annoying fairy. First it was Mepple, then he got better. Then Porun came, and it took him a whole year for him to become tolerable. Then Lulun came and contributed all of nothing.

Episode 46. I am completely meh on this finale. I'm sure I just missed Cure Empress. Seiji > Mirage confirmed. Seriously, Lovely took on Mirage, a Precure boosted by Red, basically by herself, but now evil Seiji, a regular boy otherwise, is too much for all four of them. Weak. At this point I just want to see which bad emotion Red personifies. Probably hatred. Nice planet at least. Should screw over the tides. About time Tender showed up. Where did Mirage go anyway? The International Cures finally showed up. And since everyone but Yuuko only met Sunset and Wave, the emotional stuff is sort of ruined. And of course none of them seem to be joining in the final battle, making their existence basically pointless.

I don't know why, but I cannot get excited for this finale. It just feels like it could be so much better, but the show isn't making use of its potential and is otherwise playing it really safe.

Seriously, Smile's finale had a better finale build up than this.

Yeah I think however reluctantly, I'm going to have to put FW aside. The fairies just ruin the mood for me, to the point where the Garden of Light could burn to ashes for all I care.

So after that is Splash Star, right?

@Dark: The fairies and Cures in that story are superficially similar to the ones in the first FW story, although Saki and Flappy fight less often than Nagisa and Mepple did. There are some notable differences in plot that come later in the series, but the first few episodes may end up feeling rather similar to FW.

Is it just the mascots' personalities that bother you, or is it their voices as well? Because that might help me think of what to recommend to you as far as later series are concerned. One later series that has mascots that are notably different from Mepple and Mipple is Fresh Pretty Cure. The two mascots in Fresh, Tarte and Chiffon, don't say their names after their sentences, although Chiffon doesn't start being able to really speak until later (and a later plot point makes her go into a mode where she repeats one sentence in a Creepy Monotone over and over that could be annoying). Neither of them really bicker with any of the Cures in the same way that Nagisa and Mepple fought, though.

edited 1st Jan '15 3:05:52 PM by Rainbow

Hellooo Precure loving Tropers!

This Stranger wants to drop by to give you... this.

And what a coincidence that yer talking about Futari wa right now.

I think I'm gonna say it; Michiru and Kaoru are Precure, dammit...

Yes, yes they are. Damn shame Toei is all NOPE on that idea.

Well, at least we have fanfiction to make them share the spotlight.

@Rainbow. Half and half. Voices are grating, but it's the personalities combined with a slightly annoying catchphrase that does it for me. Switching to the English audio track helps a little.

I get it's supposed to be funny to a point, but it mostly just makes me feel really bad for Nagisa.

Yeah apologies, it sounds like a lame nitpick.

Later mascots are less annoying, thankfully ( well, Milk aside. And it's for different reasons entirely then an annoying voice or tic).