Pretty Cure general thread

…Ugh, I didn't expect every series to be 50 episodes long. >.> It's become pretty rare nowadays…

Anyway, by popular vote, I'll go for Heartcatch for now.

Heartcatch, Futari Wa, Go Princess for now.

Watch Symphogear

So, first episode impressions, now that I've finished puking rainbows after taking in so much cuteness.

It's pretty funny and dynamic, with an arstyle that remains simple to favor animation fluidity − and it works well. Erika's voice is a tad annoying, but I like her character, at any rate.

For now I can't say much more, except that that Transformation Sequence is way to long. >.> And Tsubomi is strangely quick to get in-character, with the poses and all.

…Oh, and also that CG ending is gonna haunt my nightmares. ;__;

edited 4th Feb '16 10:16:43 AM by Lyendith

Heartcatch might be has the most uncanny Ed CG, but at least it's on model. Doki Doki committed serious crime by making the models look nothing like the artstyle.

I didn't notice anything Off-Model in the DD E Ds.

"Yup. That tasted purple."

I like the eds, for both Heartcatch and Dokidoki.

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Heartcatch ED 2 was way better than the first one but the CG wasn't THAT bad in both, quite a bit of rotoscoping style lifeless eyes though but thats about it.

edited 4th Feb '16 7:04:28 PM by Memers

I actually prefer Heartcatch's first ending when it comes to visuals. In terms of the actual songs however the second ending blows the first ending out of the water for me.

The song is rather punny.

…But I still prefer the first one.

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Found some stuff on the website for Magic Precure:

• For the Magic World people, there's a baby character: http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/precure/character/mahokai.php
• The human world is called "Nashimahoukai" or "No-Magic World".
• The foes appear to be called the Magic-Users of Darkness:
  • Leader appears to be Dokurokushi: http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/precure/character/dokurokushi.php
    • Is looking for the Linklestone Emerald to envelop the world in darkness.
  • Batty: http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/precure/character/batty.php https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Caf_1fSUEAAiF9X.jpg:orig
    • Works under Dokurokushi, appears to have been created by Dokurokushi?
    • Acts gentleman-ly, but will use any means to get the Linklestone Emerald.
  • Yokubaru: http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/precure/character/yokubaru.php
    • The Monster of the Week monsters. Apparently they're created by combining two things?

First episode details and screens: http://www.animate.tv/news/details.php?id=1454676827

It's called "The meeting was a miracle and magical! Precure of Magic are born!"

edited 5th Feb '16 10:28:54 PM by Meophist

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Ok, you might want to spoiler that. Many have expressed a desire to learn things for themselves. Be considerate.

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Yeah. Even though most of this stuff is old news people don't want spoilers.

That said, has anyone made a page for Maho Girls yet?

God No. Which title will we use? Maho Girls or Mahoutsukai?

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Considering there are male mahoutsukai, Mahoutsukai Precure is probably best.

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I think Magic Users Pretty Cure is good enough. I mean, there IS an anime called Magic User's Club (Japanese title: Mahou Tsukai Tai).

These two may literally be more bark than bite, but they are no less tenacious than everyone else.

We actually do have a page for Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure.

Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!

Actually, scratch that. Maho Girls Precure! is probably best: http://asahi.co.jp/precure/maho/img/top/logo.png

edited 5th Feb '16 10:35:01 PM by Meophist

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

Well yeah. Maho Girls Precure! is the official English name though the URLs use Mahoutsukai. I think the former would be better since we're an English wiki but if we already have a page with the latter then we don't really have much choice.

Final thoughts on Go Princess. What to say about this one? Well I wasn't looking forward much to this for two reasons. One, Happiness Charge had a terrible ending, washing away most of my goodwill for the franchise. Like, it was a stronger show than DokiDoki, but that ending dropped the ball so hard I thought the franchise was doomed to pink worship. Thankfully that fear ended up being unfounded this time for the most part. Second, nothing seemed interesting about Go Princess at first glance. We had the genki pink, ojou blue, quirky yellow, okay fairies and villains, a not very evil violin lady, and no real hook. Not a very solid first impression. But not horrible either.

So, Haruka. Who is she? A young girl (younger than the usual Precure lead I believe) who doesn't have any strong talents, but is full of energy and has a dream she's determined to see through. Sounds generic, but most of the leads sound generic on paper. What else does she have? Well, she likes princesses. A lot. And she wants to become a princess. And she's deluded enough to think she can become a princess. And that's about it. There wasn't really anything to make her stand out in a good way from the previous 3 leads, and her main unique trait was really silly. Nothing particularly good about her. She was a generic pink lead that did her job. She did it fine, but there wasn't anything to be enthused about. But, something happened.

Or rather, nothing really happened. She didn't meet anyone that brought out new hidden depths from her (her best relationship came from someone she met in the first episode). She never did something so amazing that I needed to reevaluate how cool she was. She never had a revelation that her dream was silly and not exactly feasible. The opposite happened in fact. Instead she did something very simple. She slowly but surely became a better version of herself. In the beginning she was stepping into a new world where she knew no one, wasn't proud of her dream, had no confidence in herself, and believed hopes and dreams were the greatest things ever. Over the show, she matured. Not in the sense that she changed who she was or found the world too harsh for what she wanted. Rather, she looked at herself and her flaws, and strove to improve as much as possible on all fronts. She worked hard on her schoolwork and her princess lessons. She befriended many people and helped them through their troubles and was helped in return. Rather than abandoning her childhood wish in favor of something not silly, she found the confidence to be proud of what she wanted and became even more true to her dream. And most poignantly, she never lost sight of dreams being a good thing to fight for, but instead accepted all aspects of them, both the joy of accomplishing your goal and the despair of failure. It was rather straightforward, but it worked surprisingly well. Instead of subverting expectations, she ran with them and made use of them as best she could.

Minami was another character who looked painfully generic on paper. A rich ojou, the pride of the school, smart and popular, yet secretly not all she's hyped up to be and finds comfort in a more down to earth friend. She hit all the tropes of a standard blue Cure and didn't bother to deviate from them. She didn't even have any particular quirks like Karen or Reika had to stand out. She was generic. She had typical blue type strengths and weaknesses, and she even had the same water/ice powers that have been plaguing a lot of them. Her most notable traits were being a touch harsh to make Haruka grow on her own (wasn't dwelled on much sadly) and liking dolphins and marine life in general. Nothing much to care about really. Until it was. At first she had a fairly unexciting goal of helping take over the family business, but soon she realized where her true passions lay. Marine life, which was built up all season. She had some trouble adjusting when she realized she had a different dream from what she proclaimed originally, but she came to accept her own desires as not a bad thing. It was actually a pretty good arc for her. Didn't make her not boring, but props for having something interesting towards the end.

Kirara was always going to be the star. She was certainly my favorite starting in the first episode, where she had barely two lines. It was the attitude and body language. From just looking at her she seemed like the type to dismiss others and care more about advancing her own goals and desires. And that's indeed who she was. She wasn't mean to anyone, unless you think giving everyone nicknames is rude. They were just not as important as making sure her own modeling career went off without a hitch. At least at first. She always had a conscience, which is why she stuck around for the Precure business she initially wanted no part of. And she hated half-assing anything. So when she decided to become a Precure and look out for Haruka, she did everything she could to not mess that up. She was very protective of Haruka, worrying about her almost too much at times. She projected a carefree exterior that made her look like she didn't care what trouble other people got themselves in, but when push came to shove she made sure everyone was safe enough to carry out their own dreams.

Kirara was constantly entertaining, snarking the best whenever someone else did something stupid. Unlike the others, her body language was very dynamic depending on the situation, making her the most entertaining to watch when nothing else was going on. She had a rival of sorts who was very funny and didn't appear nearly enough. What is it with yellow Cures and cool, underused rivals? She was self-confident in herself and maintained that she could and would do everything. That worked out for the most part until she had to choose between her career or helping a friend. In the past she might've ensured her own future, but by then she had grown enough to know that helping others in mortal danger took priority over her own ambitions. That was the one time her seemingly unshakable demeanor wavered, as she basically gave up on her dream to save the world. But she had always looked out for others to make sure they were happy with themselves, and they returned the favor by forcing her to admit she cared too much to give up. And so she did the unthinkable, she actually accepted the foreign trip to live abroad. Well it happened after the show ended so it didn't matter much, but it was nice to see someone who didn't pussy out because of friends. Kirara was consistently the best part of Go Princess, and that never changed.

Twilight was a boring villain. No real charisma when doing evil, her and backstory was just that she was kidnapped and brainwashed when she was a child. Very boring, and her redemption was just forced upon her instead of being earned. The she became Towa, an entirely different character. In a sense she was Haruka's ideal, a genuine princess. Mostly of the shy, sheltered type considering what she went through. Amusingly most people kind of went along with it. Not Kirara though, who seemed to determined to make sure Towa didn't get lost in her own world. As roommates the two of them had a rough start, but they pulled through and became strong buddies. Minami was more a guiding force to help Towa face her past. Haruka was... her savior? Kind of? I don't think the two of them ever quite decided who they were to each other besides friends. Haruka was probably the biggest factor in saving her, but they never got a solid relationship defining moment I thought. The episodes with both of them tended to focus on Towa attempting to redeem herself. Indeed, that was her main thing, making up for past sins and wanting to restore her own kingdom. She was pretty good in her own episodes, but she tended to be such a non-factor when others had the focus that she was kind of disappointing by the end. Not bad, but she needed to be the focus in order to shine. Oh well. At least she was decent when given the chance.

Yui was arguably the biggest surprise of the season. At first she was just Haruka's ordinary roommate with nothing extraordinary about her. And that's who she was, a genuinely normal person who had no business being involved with monsters three times her size, but she got herself involved anyway because Haruka was involved, and she didn't want to be useless. She was very nice for a more grounded perspective on dreams and the whole Precure thing. She wasn't particularly ambitious and didn't have destiny on her side, but she kept Haruka on the right path and made herself useful even though she couldn't fight. While Haruka sort of looked up to everyone else, Yui was Haruka's main buddy, and the two were great when just chilling together. By then end she had been attacked so many times she could break the cage on her and free everyone else before setting in motion getting the Cures their final form. Yui was the MVP of the season.

Other characters followed mostly the same trajectory as the main characters. Aroma was a snarky/grumpy fairy who had a hard time dealing with other people's weaknesses. And his own. He was decent overall, if nothing special. Pafu was cute, but annoying in how often she tripped over herself. But she befriended that one girl and didn't cause any problems, so she was alright. Shamour was the amusing teacher with the Frech accent, mentoring them both with princess duties and in general life. She was alright too, especially when she showed she could duel. Kuroro was just there, but he never really got in the way either. Kanata was bleh. Utterly boring and generic at first with nothing interesting about him. The he got amnesia and became the above + annoying with a lousy subplot to deal with. Not to mention causing Haruka some much unneeded headache. Once he got better he actually became less annoying though. I didn't mind him as a big brother and assistant hero.

Like the heroes, the villains did their job. To the show's credit the main trio all had something going for them. Lock was a gamer and proved to have his own ideas and ambitions. Definitely a bigger threat than he appeared at first. Shut was awesome. Not very threatening, but very funny, especially in his obsession with Twilight/Towa and how everyone looked down on him. And unlike Towa and Kuroro, he actually reformed himself out of his own volition and was a big help near the end. It was weird how he and Lock stayed on Earth though. Does Shut still have powers? And were he and Close ever part fairy? That was of weird. Well Shut lived, and that's the important thing. Speaking of Close, I always knew he would pull through. Unlike most first villains he had a sense of genuine menace about him, and his death felt incomplete. Sure enough her became the dragon to Dyspear and was overall the most dangerous and craftiest villain. He even got one final fight with his beloved Flora and managed to be talked into giving up. Not bad. Stop and Freeze were nothing though. Just there for extra muscle. Dyspear herself was nothing special. She was the personification of despair, and that's about it. Kind of an okay threat, but she went out kind of lamely for a big bad. Well, they can't all be winners.

Fights were one of the main highlights of the show. Toei cares enough to give a budget to ensure there's a decent fight every episode, and they were usually more than decent. I'm still not a fan of CG attacks, but they weren't ugly and were less jarring than last season at least. The attacks themselves were fairly decent, and there wasn't too much Flora pandering in them. Everyone getting the super form this time was very welcome. Maybe they'll cut back on the pink wanking from now on. I doubt it, but there's a chance.

Most seasons have a clear stronger first or second half. Here the second half was much stronger. Not because of Towa perse, but because the show really found its footing and executed on its cliches in strong and interesting, if not unique, ways. Plus the writing generally became better overall then, and the finale was strong too. Not the greatest fight, but it was good thematically. I didn't even mind Flora soloing Close, since that was less about showing how awesome she was and more about her coming to her own conclusions about dreams. The epilogue though... not sure how to feel about it. Everyone went their separate ways for their own dreams, and Towa and co. were locked away from Earth without any indication she ever managed to return. I'm not very fond of that kind of ending. More depressing in a way that I don't like. But it did help convey the message that dreams do end up separating people once they're met, so I guess it's appropriate. It still rubs me the wrong way. And we never did see if Haruka got whatever it is she wanted. Though that's something we probably don't want the answer to, and she seemed happy, so that's fine.

So everything seems good about Go Princess. The characters all had screen-time and development. The side cast was decently fleshed out. Fights were top of the line. It didn't chicken out on the themes. A lot of the weak parts look better in hindsight. So is it a contender for one of the best shows in the franchise? Maybe to some people, but to me, not even close.

Two reasons. First, the princess theme and goals were just silly. I know it's Precure and silliness comes with the territory, but they kept pushing princess status as something to really strive for instead of the fantasy thing that it is. It's nice that they stuck to their own messages, but I can't help but feel that it undermined the whole make your dreams come true thing by making the main character's goal something that will only happen in a dream. It did well with that premise, but I don't like the premise in the first place. Second, while the characters were generally well written, I could never muster up passion or care for them. I could see that Haruka went through some nice development and that Minami wasn't just a checklist of tropes, but at the end of the day I never got attached to them the same way I did to the Yes 5, Heartcatch, or even Happiness Charge crew. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because it took too long for them for most of them to come out on their own and shine in their own way, and when they did so I didn't have the satisfaction I get from characters I really like. Not the best reason I know, but I really could not care for the cast that much. The main exception was of course Kirara, who shined from the beginning. Yui and Shut too to a lesser extent.

So that's Go Princess Precure. Not quite the best despite having the writing and animation to stand at the top. If it had just a bit more of its own soul it could've been something really special. Still, it won me over from a bunch of generic drek with nothing happening to an entertaining show with well executed characters and themes with nothing but solid writing. Is it the best in the franchise? No, but I wouldn't mind putting it in the top 5. Toei has shown they can actually write and animate something that's actually good for a year long toy commercial. Now let's see if Mahou Tsukai can do something interesting with that talent.

Close. Close challenged her and her dream constantly and his rivalry with her is arguably one of the main driving forces of her character development which is why, personally, I don't mind that the final battle was a solo fight between the two of them.

Is that a thing? People say that Ranko is cool but I personally don't see the appeal. Same with Reina (I think that was Alice's rival.) to be honest.

She's not though. I've talked about this before along with how Seirin/Ellen and Eas/Setsuna aren't that different either. Towa might seem different on the surface but once you did deeper they're actually pretty similar.

I watched Gopri unsubbed starting from episode 5 so I don't know if this is true but I heard that the villains were created by Dyspear which would mean they were never fairies wouldn't it?

Ummmm I think Mahoutsukai has a different team of animators. However Yuuta Tanaka will be involved though.

And Sterok meant different from Twilight, not from her predecessors. And I think they didnt have her be friends with Haruka because the writers may have felt that they would be copying the Love/Setsuna dynamics. That's why I like that Haruka wasnt BFF's with Towa.

edited 6th Feb '16 7:40:12 PM by AegisP

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First episode of Magic Precure was a heck of a lot of fun.

That's my first impression, at least.

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x2

I'm aware of Sterok meant. I'm saying that Towa isn't different from Twilight just like Setsuna isn't different from Eas and Ellen isn't different from Seiren/Siren. Did you even read what I linked?

edited 6th Feb '16 11:13:21 PM by Chariot

Sorry! Didnt read that the first time. You are right.

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Moving a page to a new title isn't actually that hard.

"Yup. That tasted purple."