Pretty Cure general thread

Violin lady's name is Twilight by the way. That was revealed last week.a few days ago. So you don't have to call her violin lady anymore.

Oh hey, Kirara episode. That means I can start giving a shit again. Kirara is easy to bribe. Her agent knows how to handle her. Dysdark isn't one of the friendly groups. Annoying girl of the week. Good enough for comedy. Kirara really doesn't care about her though. I'm with Yui, what's up with Haruka's ribbons? I'm liking her new role of not understanding all the weird stuff. Odd competition, but whatever. Those doughnut descriptions are tame after Koufuku Graffiti. Race is kind of unfair seeing how much taller Kirara is. Super serious doughnut race of life or death. Yeah, I'm with Shut. A TV reporter and an idol are separate things. Doughnut monster popping out was funny. Ranko is a third year? I forgot how short anime people can be. Kirara continues to be the saving grace for this show. Maybe violin lady will provide some much needed interest.

Huh? Ms. Shamour?

No, Twilight.

edited 20th Apr '15 7:23:55 PM by Chariot

No I mean, she looks kind of like the human form of Ms. Shamour.

...I'm not seeing it.

I think if they play the cards right, Twilight might become something of an Ensemble Dark Horse, if it's true that she'd be Cure Scarlet. She looks like she'd be heading the path of Setsuna/Ellen. Not to mention, her voice is one of the more goddamn popular new age seiyuu Miyuki Sawashiro. Bronies might also take notice too, since it has the Casting Gag of being voiced by the same Japanese dub actress of Twilight Sparkle.

edited 27th Apr '15 6:27:45 AM by ChrisX

Op still changing. Keep that up. Good to see we're not spending another episode teasing with Violin Lady like they did with Regina. Haruka turned lesbian really fast. Of course Minami can play the violin. Haruka better not break that violin. Those things are expensive. As someone who has played the viola, I could tell the difference between Minami and Kirara, and how Kirara did have some skill. I did call Twilight being Dyspear's daughter. About 20 seconds before they revealed it, but still. At least she has the right to be a princess, unlike those three fakes. Shut going gaga for her was fun. I like Twilight aesthetically at least. Nice ears. Unlocking Shut like that was nice. I always enjoy a nice evil counterpart. Really nice fight. Too bad the Zetsuborgs are still easy. Haruka's sister reminds me of Nozomi for some reason.

Twilight is off to a decent start. Not sold on her yet, but she's got potential to be interesting.

edited 27th Apr '15 8:45:00 AM by Sterok

Hmm. Twilight is right; you can't become a princess through hard work. Technically, you have to be either born as one or marry a prince to become one.

Is that what she says? That's awesome! I always wondered if they'd address that!

Of course, Haruka's probably going to prove her wrong...somehow. But, still.

What I'm wondering is how old is Twilight? She towers over Haruka!

She just said that you can't become a princess through hard work. The rest were my thoughts.

Of course, I don't agree with the rest of what she said. Like dreams being nothing but an illusion and everyone else being worthless compared to her.

edited 28th Apr '15 8:29:18 AM by HanabiraKage

Episode 14. Twilight no longer has her mask in the op. Pafu continues to be worthless. Momoka looks almost exactly like a younger Nozomi. Also, a sister named Momoka again? Kids are brats, the episode. Though it's pretty obvious she just misses Haruka. Once again Kirara gets the best scene. Though it does bring up the question of where her father is. Twilight's power-up is pathetic. Doesn't strengthen the bad guys at all. Next episode we get Aroma being awesome.

Or maybe Shut just sucks too much. 0 x 1000000 is still 0 after all.

A really enjoyed the fight this episode, especially the fact that Lock's Zetsuborg pretty much won against Flora until Mermaid and Twinkle showed up and even after that was unfazed by Twinkle's attempt at a counter-attack. It was nice to see that the villains can match the Cures' power, even if only temporarily.

Pafu is a maid? No wonder she's so lame. Ribbon is better than her in every way. Human Aroma is decent, though he really should've thought before sneaking into the girl's dorm. Aroma's problem is pretty obvious. Pafu isn't passing any exams soon. Lock doesn't mind kissing up to the boss. Pretty good fight. Nice to have a powered-up monster actually be threatening for once. Next up, we once again get a beach/swimming episode without proper swimsuits. An important tradition.

Episode 16. The trials of the rich. No wait, the super-rich. Hold on, the so stupidly rich you can't even begin to comprehend how wealthy these people are. And naturally they're basically flawless. I wonder which is bigger, the Yotsubas or the Kaidous. Hello dolphin. Dolphins are assholes by the way. Another dual attack. Time for some animal abuse. Another collectable found. Minami still has this uncanny ability to make me not care at all.

I'd have to agree with you there. This episode felt more like it was about where Minami comes from rather than focusing on actual Character Development. I still enjoyed the episode, but it's pretty much an introduction that came a bit too late.

I don't know what they should do with Minami. She just hits all the checkmarks for the nice ojou without Karen's complexity/depth or Reika and Alice's quirks. Granted Alice having too many quirks is one of the reasons I didn't like her, but at least she wasn't boring. Even Haruka is kind of making herself distinct. At least as far as pinks go I don't have any big complaints about her.

I think the question to ask about Minami regarding this personal issue with her is "How will her personality be dynamically involved with the other two Cures?". I'm not seeing a proper answer to that either, but it is how I'm understanding this problem. My best guess is for Haruka and Kirara to have a day in Minami's shoes — kinda like how Nozomi did as Urara's manager.

I think what they're trying to do is make Haruka and Minami complete opposites with Kirara somewhere in the middle. Minami's perfect from hard work, takes a bit to get excited about things and is already a 'princess' of sorts while Haruka is imperfect, gets excited easily and is far from princesslike.

And next introduces us Kirara's mom, aka, adult Urara.

edited 19th May '15 5:21:44 AM by Demongodofchaos2

Might as well finish these eventually. This time it's someone who naturally became popular very quickly, even though she was overshadowed by a certain crybaby. She riffs off one of my favorites, which makes her a tough more interesting. She is the scorching Cure Sunny.

Akane knows her place in life. She cooks, plays volleyball, makes bad jokes, and lives life to the fullest. She's confident in herself and her skills, though she does acknowledge where she needs improvement. She's always training hard to her next goal, of which she has a lot of. Be the star volleyball player, which she kind of becomes by the end. Contrast that to Nagisa, who was already the lacrosse champ at the beginning. She had her comedy routine, which I never cared for. That episode with the special guests is the perfect example of Japanese culture/comedy not always translating well overseas. She figures out the cooking stuff as the typical put your heart into it.

Then there was love. Yup, Akane was the only member of the group to get a formal love interest (despite Miyuki and Reika marrying). The Brian episode showed off her more vulnerable side, and it's probably where she shows the greatest range of emotions. Despite all her bluster she gets flustered just like anyone else, and that confidence can drain away when she has no clue how to handle something. Being a Precure was not one of those things once she realized she just needed to hit stuff. The love thing is probably the only major continuity that carried over for her (over one episode, but still).

Plotwise she was a non-pink Smile Cure. We all know where that went. She prodded on her friends, became the Butt-Monkey, started several shenanigans (the school mysteries episode was encouraged by her), beat up Wolfrun, and overall had a good time. She tended to be one of the more logical ones when Miyuki/Yayoi/Reika came up with odd ideas. Akane had crazy ideas herself, but you could usually see the logic of someone who just wanted to screw around. Aside from the Brain thing she had about as much development as Nao. So basically none. From beginning to end she was the same cooking jokester, just now better at everything. I suppose there really wasn't anywhere for her to go. Like Nao she was scared of several things, though not nearly as many. There was heights and partially ghosts at least.

Like I mentioned awhile back, Nao makes her redundant. Or rather, she makes Nao redundant. There wasn't much need for two sportsy competitive girls that also happened to be the sane ones of the group. They're differences were highlighted when they contrasted with each other directly, like the beach episode. Akane is louder and more likely to take the initiative. But aside from their focus episodes you could swap one out for the other most of the time and lose about nothing. The Happy Robo and Cinderella episodes were the most obvious instances of this. Akane was the more dynamic one and had a touch more development, so I lean in her favor.

This is a problem when Akane/Nao was the only decently interesting relationship in the show. They played off each other well and had a strong rivalry, as long as Akane wasn't teasing her. Everyone else was pretty standard though. Miyuki made her happy, and she carried Miyuki through tough times yada yada. Akane was the biggest snarker to Yayoi and Reika's antics. Candy didn't get much from her oddly. Maybe she shouldn't have turned Akane invisible. Twice. She had a family she got along well enough with. Even the younger brother. Wolfrun was her rival, and they really put a number on each other. Either Wolfy was pulverizing her, or Sunny was throwing a giant boulder on him.

As Cure Sunny, she represents the sun. In this case, the possibilities and joy the sun opens up. Thanks to the sun we can do all sorts of things, and Akane takes advantage of that. She's got super-strength by Cure standards (comes into play maybe a couple times) and fire. Fire is always nice, even though she never burns anyone. And she couldn't use it underwater. But she did use it as a makeshift rocket once. And used it to power-up a sword. Which made Smile the second show to have multiple sword wielders after Dream and Aqua in Yes 5. Sunny Fire was a volleyball attack, which made it the coolest (hah hah) attack in the show. Which became hilarious when they were kids. Her fight against Bad End Sunny was neat. Or it would've been if it got more than two minutes. Always cathartic to take down spammers.

She also had by far the best Princess form. The only one who actually improved in that state. She looks good with her hair down.

Akane is a fun character. What she is on the surface is what she is on the inside. She isn't hiding anything big, which fits in with the happy Smile gang. Her individual dynamic was important to the show, even if she didn't have the depth to take it further. But at least I can see why she's a big favorite.

I actually loved the one episode where Nao thought her family was killed, sure we knew they wouldnt do that but god was it a gut punch. And her fights against Majorina were so badass. Sure when you come down to it she was a bit boring but I loved her. I used to not like Smile but now I realize I love it like CRAZY!

Wow, you make it sound like Smile is already being Vindicated by History.

I've always loved Smile since the day I began watching it; I still do. I never really held back on my opinion on it mostly because it knew what it wanted to do and how it wanted to be different from every other series before. I've also argued that Miyuki is among the greatest team leaders the franchise has. Sure, it didn't always have the most intense fights (espeically compared to Go Princess! right now), but I've always thought of the fighting as "a crusade of ideals" more than simply punishing evil-doers.

Mmm, I do like Smile, but I think it's biggest weakness is actually the cast dynamics now that I think about it. The characters themselves are fine for the most part. Even Miyuki, who's probably the worst team leader, and Nao, who's basically just redundant. But aside from Akane/Nao there are no great relationships between them. No interesting conflicts or compatible/incompatible personalities. That was Yes 5's greatest strength, the numerous relations and how they grew amongst each other. Heartcatch also was good there, albeit mostly between Tsubomi and everyone else.