Pretty Cure general thread

I really need to catch up.

Take it easy. This season has just started.

Sources are a bit old, but still relevant:

http://cannibal-sarracenian.tumblr.com/post/89780170811/the-behind-the-scenes-origins-of-pretty-cure

Seems there's a pretty good possibility of season finale with a pink solo again until we get another producer.

I always knew this franchise had transcended the Girl-Show Ghetto, and to think it did so by simply Defying a few Double Standards and traditional views as that article says... Bravo.

See? That's the kind of daring writing the current iterations need right now. Take a chance, and challenge the viewers with something different while maintaining what it means to be Pretty Cure.

Luminous and Rose weren't officially Cures because Cures were supposed to only be regular Earth girls? Probably explains why Michiru and Kaoru got the shaft. I actually like the sentiment, but abandoning that practice was probably for the best, and separating the likes of Rose doesn't actually mean or do anything.

Go Princess Precure actually has a second producer alongside Shibata, the first in the series.

It's probably because Shibatas shows have been Lagging in terms of both TV and merchandise money compared to the previous producers ( except Splash Star).

I really hate the Multiple Demographic Appeal entry on Precure? Why? Because the entry seems to think the action is put there to appeal to "Boys and Adult Otaku". God. The thought of girls LIKING ACTION never occurred to the editors. There were even people who tried to say that girls liked action too but they were ignored. I really want to edit the article now that this new info has surfaced but I hate the effort of editing so.....

Also, RIGHT ON for avoiding Otaku Pandering stuff like Panty Shots and "Sexy" Swimsuits.

Sure, they appealed to otaku with Yayoi.(I think it wasnt only to appeal to otaku but unless Word of God confirms it I cant say). If anything Rosetta was more of the Bland Moe Blob Waifu seem to eat up like Candy. And this is from someone who loves Rosetta and didnt hate her at all.

That might explain the Megumi bias in the 2nd half of Ha Cha. But I still can't understand the logic behind the pink only powerup. It comes too late in the series to sell it as merchandise. What's the point?

I dont get why people hate that so much. Even Heartcatch had Tsubomi Kill the bad guy with a Final PANCHI!

Then again, the other three had really badass final fights and Tsubomi had to have SOMETHING.She was the main lead and she got overshadowed heavily by her teammates.. That, and the Infinity Silhouette was all the team fused up.

It's just we were so used to the 11th-Hour Superpower applying to everyone, and then suddenly Doki Doki switched it up for no real reason. There was nothing wrong with it before, why bother changing it?

That's true. The Proto-Jikochu fight was a joke.

I havent seen the Final Happiness Charge fight.

Lemme Check it out

LATER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2kYgrgLCG0

Wow! This is actually quite cool! Way better than Mana-sue. Sure Lovely is a bit too H 4 RCOR 3 B 4 D 4 SS, while the rest of the team is reduced to cheerleaders, but isnt BAD.

I really like Megumi so I might be biased though.

The fight is good, but reducing the rest of team is not. This would have been fine in shounen, but not in a series known for Power of Friendship. No matter how you slice, having just one character get the most powerful power-up makes the others less important.

Imagine having the previous seasons have only one of the characters get the focus in the finale battle. There would definitely be change in the tone.

True. I ALWAYS HATED that about Shonen. Doki Doki was pretty bad especially because the other characters never had any episodes to themselves.

But I didnt mind on Happiness Charge because Hime did have the first half to herself. Iona also had decent focus. I really dont get why does Megumi getting the spotlight in the second half bother people so much. What did you want for her to stay in the corner for all the season? That doesnt really seem fair.

Note, Im not saying the "Pink Lead Only Power Up" or "Reducing Teammates to Cheerleaders " is okay.

What do people want?

For everyone to play a vital role in the final. It's not that hard to understand that with only the pink getting the final powerup the show is essentially shitting on the rest of the team/ignoring the team aspect of the show.

Ok. I really hope they wont do it this year. Haruka doesnt seem like she will eat up others screentime from day one (Mana) or stay too much in the background for the first half and then dominate the second (Megumi). Yeah. I feel we might be in for a treat this year.

edited 4th Mar '15 8:21:59 PM by AegisP

What does the Heartcatch finale have to do with anything? The Infinity Silhouette was all 4 of them combining together into one super form to take out the planing punching dude. Just because it resembled Tsubomi doesn't mean she was any more important there than Erika or Itsuki. There's a big difference between everyone combining their powers and the secondaries giving the power to the pink. One makes everyone look great. The other paints one as being better than everyone else combined.

Frankly, I'm tempted to put the Hacha finale below the the Smile and DokiDoki finales. The Smile finale was bad sure. Really bad. But it really doesn't affect the rest of the series too much. DokiDoki's finale meanwhile didn't have much of a show to ruin (though it tried). And that at least gave everyone a bit of spotlight and had a nice epilogue. And Mana being better than everyone else at least made a little sense since she was Mana. Didn't excuse it, but it's something.

Hacha's meanwhile was just one big Lovely-wank. 3 times in a row. And that was in a show where Hime had better connections to the plot while Iona was stronger. More importantly, it actually decreased my opinion of the earlier episodes, since I overlooked some of the flaws figuring that it would all have a point in the finale. Well I was half-right, but I won't give credit for teasing good ideas and then not delivering.

Quick point about Mana. She was not a giant screen-time hog (no more than pink standard anyway). Max Heart Nagisa still takes that crown. Her problem was that she was perfect, people fell for her for no real reason, and the plot bended itself over to make her look even more important and better than she already was.

Mana wasn't a screentime hog? Then tell me why she finished off most of the MoTW by herself or why she got more focus than everyone else. Rikka and Alice barely got any focus episodes ^* (Rikka had her episode during the search for the Royal Crystals, her episode where she took care of Ira and the episode where she struggled with taking care of Ai-chan. Alice got her Royal Crystal episode, the episode where Sebastion got his own Cure form, the episode detailing her history with Rikka and Mana, and the episode where they went to space) and Makoto got all of two ^* (the episode where she quit singing and the episode where she wrote a song for Regina). The only one to come close to the same amount of focus as her was Aguri and even that's a stretch.

edited 4th Mar '15 8:40:26 PM by Chariot

Like I said, she was one, but she was far from the worst in pure screen-time. She dominated the plot, but the filler episodes at least had the courtesy to usually put her aside until it was time for monster slaying. And I'm comparing her to MH Nagisa, who probably got over half the episodes to herself despite it being Hikari's season.

That's like comparing two burnt slices of toast. One being burnt more doesn't stop the other from being a burnt slice of toast.

Ok. But beyond the whole "Evil Lovely" plot you proposed, how would you have handled Megumi's second half development. Im curious because it feels like you just want her to stay put in a corner. I know that its pretty bad that she got all the love during the finale and I agree, but you havent answered my question.

I make a lot of noise about the finale in general, but all of it ultimately boils down to one factor, Hime. I honestly did consider her the main character. For about 2/3 of the show she was the lead. And I don't mean like Fresh where Love was the protagonist but Setsuna was who it was all about. Or Heartcatch with Tsubomi and Yuri. Megumi was simply not the protagonist of Happiness Charge. Hime had the screen-time, the importance, the fairy, the development, the interesting narrative, and was refreshing after what happened with Mana. Megumi's role seemed to be one of support. Someone who Hime looks up to. And a decoy to look like the main protagonist until the big twist.

Remember that episode after Megumi beat Mirage? The one where Megumi spent a whole bunch of time moping because she lost Blue? That was where I knew the finale was going to be bad. Why? Because everything Hime had fought for was just brushed aside for the love quadrilogy plot tumor. It was a huge constant that tainted everything about the final episodes.

• The whole story is about Hime trying to save her parents and kingdom. So they're saved. Yay... except the big reunion with her parents and everyone she knew was literally reduced to a slideshow. No satisfaction to her major goal, and arguably the primary goal of the show.
• Hime now has feelings for Seiji. Lots of buildup and tension around that. Then she doesn't. Except she probably does still have feelings for him. And that's it. The entire thing is just left hanging. Normally I'm all for dropping love side plots, but this one was actually kind of endearing. Proving that Hime can do any plot better than Megumi can.
• A big part of her character is growing the strength and courage to actually fight the Phantom Empire. Well she got the courage eventually. Strength less so. She was able to fight for herself, but she was always way below the others. And this isn't a Tsubomi case where the entire point is that she's weaker than the others. She's supposed to be on par with her teammates. But everyone else got a big fight (Fortune: Tender, Honey: Phantom, Lovely: Mirage/Seiji/Red) while Princess's biggest fight was against the first and weakest villain. Weak.
• She's the princess of the mystical kingdom. There are implications she's got connections to the gods and mirrors and stuff. But any sort of backstory is dropped after she dances to make a new toy.
• Hime was the one that freed Mirage out of sympathy. Megumi's parallels or not, it would've been way more appropriate for Hime to confront Mirage over the whole issue because Hime's sympathies were what started everything. But Megumi, without even meeting Mirage in person, starts feeling for Mirage instead and solves the problem that Hime started. Extremely unsatisfying.

The problem is that there's no satisfaction to the growth and development Hime gets. She doesn't accomplish or finish anything of note, and that's not a good thing when she set the entire conflict off and got the brunt of the screen-time for 2/3 of the series.

What to do with Megumi? Ideally everything would be the same until that episode I hate a lot (Mirage's plot sucked anyway, so Hime missing out on that alone would be okay). There Megumi would actually get corrupted and fight everyone. Eventually Hime fights and brings her down (possibly with help from Seiji), and everyone together defeats Red in the final battle. If that's not an option, at least let Hime solve the whole evil Seiji plot (since she did have feelings for him) before everyone beats Red. Soloing the Big Bad is always going to be bad, no matter who does it.

Then I hate to say this but then I wish for Toei not to try what they did with Hime anymore. The whole "Decoy Protagonist" ends up rubbing people the wrong way.

Ah, that tumblr post really reminds me of that 'era' argument that had surfaced after an edit war happened in our attempt to explain the director changes in Izumi Todo. That one guy really determined we have a blatant Word of God (which we won't get in near future, knowing Izumi Todo) that say something similar to Kamen Rider's eras, or no clarification in the Precure page at all. That post is one of the proof I gave for the argument 'Precure is divided into are', but the guy didn't seem to heed it.

Anyway, guys, sorry to burst your bubble, but I get a feeling Haruka is going to be as bad, if not worse than Megumi in terms of spotlight. I really, REALLY hope they try and give a refreshing view of what a princess is. I mean, if a 13 year old girl told me she wanted to be a princess, I'd first of all tell her to be realistic, and second of all bemoan that her dream is to basically sit around and look pretty.

Yeah. I was way too optimistic with that "In for a treat" comment. Still, its encouraging that the writers took the time to build a side character supporting cast gives me the impression the writers know Haruka cant carry the show on her own and that putting other characters on the spotlight is important. I DO agree that Haruka is pretty meh and her "I want to be a Princess" dream is annoyingly girly and childish.

Nothing so far has indicated me she will have Mana or Megumi levels of Hostile Show Takeover.