Pretty Cure general thread

12. Komugi and Iroha continue to have no brains. Someday they'll remember Komugi the dog is not supposed to be Komugi the human. Anxious Mayu is sad to watch. I say we get the Yuki reveal faster so that she doesn't have to go through too much more of it. Nice little horror scene when she was attacked. Oh violence how I have missed you. I'm sure Nyammy will learn the error of her ways and stop doing that in a few episodes, but until then I'm gonna enjoy someone actually throwing hands in this Precure show. Wonderful and Friendy should've run after her to make sure she knows what's going on, because Nyammy probably didn't get an exposition dump. It's gonna be real hard for Nyammy to not be my favorite Cure of the season.

Mmm. They seem to be going the Iona/Fortune route of Nyammy being an antagonistic Cure at first. I'd be surprised if she joins the team next episode but I can't completely rule it out. I do hope she joins sooner rather than later though just because Lillian has my favorite design and I doubt they'd pull a Suite or Happinesscharge and have her join before Nyammy.

Overall, I like the chase action mostly because the writers took the time to explain why the characters would do it and how it's effective according to the theme and message they wanted to send. The Puzzle Boss formatting truly sells it for me.

Plus, episodes 11 and 12 really show why the typical franchise violence does NOT work here (even if Cure Nyammy made it seem cool). Unlike the MOTW from every other Precure series, the Garugarus very distinctly feel the pain of battle and remember it well after being purified.

"Someday they'll remember Komugi the dog is not supposed to be Komugi the human."

That's a pretty poor criticism to be honest. One of the things the show actually get's right is that Komugi actually comes across like a dog in human form and not a human with token dog traits.

I knew Cure Nyammy was going to fight back, but even I wasn't expecting her to be that ruthless! She was totally prepared to kick that poor owl while it was down. The action in this episode was crazy — machine gun feathers, battles in the air...

I'm with aNinjaWithAIDS on this, though. Bouncing from Futari wa to Wonderful, the chase-action comes off as much more "thought out" and Puzzle Boss-like, which can be more fun to watch than waiting around for Nagisa and Honoka to stop beating around the bush, hold hands, and hit the Zakenna with the damn laser beam already. Futari wa focuses on fleshing out villains, which I love, but Wonderful puts that focus on the heroes, which I'm not as used to but find myself liking all the same.

Komugi continues to be my favorite dog this side of Mr Peanutbutter.

Komugi can act as silly as she wants. I'd hope that Iroha would be smart enough to remember that the dog being magical is supposed to be a secret. Though if she can't remember which animals live in the sea maybe I have too much hope for her.

The chase scenes would be alright if the Cures were more proactive in figuring out a way to calm the Garugarus down, but most of the time they've been stumbling around till it gets tired or Satoru tells them half of the solution. Just doesn't make them look cool. Though in the show's defense, Nyammy's debut wouldn't be this interesting if the Cures regularly used fisticuffs.

I think this could be Digimon Tamers, as in a dark and deconstructive season or at least the closest Precure could get to doing that (And no this is not me saying Precure is a show for babies only, even Otona the "season aimed at adults" didnt go as far) if Digimon Tamers wasnt made by an anti vaxxer. And no, I cant forgive anti vaxxers.

To play the advocate here, I feel like a show can only go so far with having a gimmick to their battles without tiring out and just going for just a straight up battle or just shorten the gimmick.

That said, having Satoru being the sort of Mission Control who assists by pointing out the quirks of the monsters is something that I wouldn't mind seeing happen in a show that, say, involves a hero fighting unique monsters based off mons...

Cures Wonderful and Friendy ARE proactive in trying to calm them down. Their main problem is how to approach each Garugaru to do so (the puzzle as I had alluded to earlier). Satoru is there to be an advisor so that said approach is never too difficult for them while teaching the kids at home about each of these animals. I tolerate this arrangement because it allows each of these "fights" to end in a timely manner instead of being unnecessarily stretched out across multiple episodes.

Also, lacking information does not equal lacking intelligence.

I don't mind the fights being puzzles I just think the show is bad at it half the time. Precure already struggles with keeping fights outside of the big episodes exciting a lot of the time, so the chasing is worse off.

I'm on the opposite boat, it's often a change of pace outside of the monster summon > transformation sequence (which often involves an awkward, songless transition dog to human scene for Koumugi) rather than spending every episode with a villain going:

"NOW THAT YOU ALL ARE A LITTLE SAD, THE DARK ENERGY WILL MAKE THE BAD GUY GROW STRONGER! MUWAHAHAHA! EVEN THOUGH I CAN CURBSTOMP THESE CURES, I'LL JUST SUMMON A MONSTER THAT, WHEN DEFEATED, WILL BRING THEM ONE STEP CLOSER TO UNDOING OUR HARD WORK!"

Edited by Psyga315 on Apr 21st 2024 at 2:14:19 AM

Only Smile fits that bill.

EDIT: No, actually you know what?

"MWAHAHAHAHAHA! I WILL FACE THESE SCHOOLGIRLS IN BATTLE DIRECTLY, AND THEN DIE, AND I WILL BRING WITH ME THE ONE MACGUFFIN THEY NEED TO RUIN THE BIG BAD'S PLAN. SURELY THIS MUST BE A TERRIFIC IDEA!"

I love General vs General fights but this had to be said. And in Fresh, the girls didnt actually improve the situation with each victory like in Futari wa, Splash Star and Smile did. Despite winning the day, the bad guys got irreversibly closer to their goal, and it wasnt until MUCH LATER that they actually stopped the villain progression.

Edited by AegisP on Apr 21st 2024 at 2:36:50 AM

To be fair lots of what the villains do make no sense when you think about. With the acceptation of the times the McGuffin is in the Precure's home town, the villains really don't have any reason to do their attacks in the one place their attacks can be foiled. Half the time they would have won if they just did stuff on the other side of the world to where Cures are.

Or on the times when the villains actually defeat the Cures, they just tend to wonder off and leave the Cures to their own devices.

Are these nit picks? Probably, they are ultimately things you have to suspend your disbelief for, in order for tropes of the genre to work.

Starting to continue my re-watch of Futari wa and yeah, it makes sense for them to go after the Prism Stones in the Cures' hometown... at least at first. I've no clue what the "Seeds of Darkness" are after besides reviving Jaaku King. How are they even supposed to do that? If it involves the Prism Stones, shouldn't they try to find the Garden of Light rather than do whatever in our world/the Garden of Rainbows?

(Maybe that's what Juna cornered Porun over, I'm just spitballing.)

Makes you wonder why the wolf guy in Wonderful keeps sending the Garugaru to Animal Town though. He wants to destroy the whole world and everything in it, no?

(Edit: Yes that's me! I'm also working on the character page as well. Episode 19 was so much darker in tone than the rest, haha. I may well have a couple of potential CM proposals once I'm finished with this and Max Heart, Pisard and Illkubo were some serious pieces of work.)

Edited by carduinal-cyn on Apr 23rd 2024 at 3:20:20 PM

You are the one filling out the Nightmare Fuel pages! I love your work. Even I didnt notice the nuances and dread of the Ilkubo arc, and how BLEAK the whole arc was.

Futari Wa REALLY needs more love.

Speaking of Futari Wa, it's funny how All Stars movies treat Nagisa as the unstoppable bad ass who can steamroll almost anything.

Since that's not really what she was in the og series or Max Heart. She was really more of the scrappy underdog, who faced a constant uphill battle.

What is it called when the CANON WRITERS get Nostalgia Goggles?

To be fair, they do the same with Cure Moonlight even more so.

I dont think Moonlight was as overromantized as Cure Black got, EVERYONE in the show knew she was the ultimate badass. I am not saying this as a Moonlight fan but noting Heartcatch hyped her even then.

I'm not sure if over romanticize, is really the right word to describe how All Stars handles Nagisa, given how sometimes a lot of her better qualities get lost in the depiction and at worst can end up flanderizing her.

In the OG series in a weird way her weaknesses actually showed just how brave and selfless a person she really was (much more than she could seems at a glance).

Or as a one Japanese twitter user put it.

"Cure Black's strong and cool side tends to be emphasized in Pretty Cure All stars movies.

However, my image of Cure Black is that she is trying her best and fighting desperately even though she is suffering like this."

Yeah, that's more like it. Nagisa is a surprisingly complex character and even Toei just goes with the Theme Park Version of her.

>What is it called when the CANON WRITERS get Nostalgia Goggles?

Pokémon. We get it, Red and Blue were great games, now could you stop shoehorning Charizard into every single new form you can?

(Sorry, I know that's off-topic.)

I personally don't find Nagisa all that complex, but that's only because the protagonists in these shows are inevitably going to be less compelling characters than the villains. She's got three major traits: athleticism, crushing hard on Fujipi, and losing her temper with Mepple and Ryouta. It gets the job done alright and gives the audience someone they can relate to, which makes her a serviceable lead. I've really liked seeing her friendship with Honoka evolve, and I think we can all see a little of ourselves in her.

And hey, even if she's not complicated, she's certainly more fun to watch than "Man, I sure am ordinary for somebody who solves murder mysteries on the regular", "I got the world's most broken superpower handed to me and the author still pretends my story has dramatic tension", or "Hehehe, they don't know I'm actually in my mid-40s, so it's fine for me to do my 15-year-old adventuring partner I've known since she was 9", at least! Protagonists are so hard to get right and so easy to hate!

Eh actually she pretty consistently subverts the usual traits one would of expect of her upon first impression.

She is usually pretty thoughtful and considerate towards others and generally pretty sensitive towards the feelings of others (providing they aren't actively antagonizing her) and will walk on eggshells to avoid upsetting someone. For example when a boy she wasn't into had a crush on her she would rather concoct a convoluted scheme to get him to not like her anymore, than hurt his feelings by telling him she isn't into him.

She actually suffers from the anxiety that comes, with being a magical superheroine who has to save the world. Her internal monologue at the start of every episode showing her as being worried about what will happen next and even outside of that context, she occasionally gets lost in thought over that kind of thing. Hell early episodes showed the she has nightmares about being killed the villains.

And as much of goof as she can seem, she's actually the most sensible and grounded of the main cast, at times bordering on being the only sane man. And she's actually very intelligent, just not in an academic sense. Or as I've described the dynamic in the past, Honoka is smart, while Nagisa clever.

She is actually pretty introspective

She has pretty low self esteem.

She takes any responsibility given to her seriously.

Ultimately while she doesn't set out to be the hero or to be the one who helps everyone on out like say Mana does, Nagisa, is actually just as selfless as Mana when push comes to shove. She can never turn down anyone who needs a hand and throughout the series really usually does put others before herself, both in Precurer duties and in life in general.

I think it would be a tad inaccurate to call her "complex". But she does have a quite a bit of hidden depths to her

Edited by Gaogaigar54 on Apr 24th 2024 at 11:49:17 AM

This is an awesome post and I agree with it but I will double down on what I said and point out Nagisa was "SURPRISINGLY complex". Pretty Cure has never been Anna Karenina or Les Miserables in writing complexity, but she's a very complex character for the show she's in.

One thing though, as much as I love the English Dub commisioned by YTV, I think most of her complex traits are shaved off. I am not saying anyone here is fooled by the dub,I dont think anyone is a dub fan at all, I am saying it is interesting how the dub deviated from the original.

EDIT: This part from is the perfect example of what I am talking about.

"She take any responsibility given to her seriously."

I think this applies more to Natalie than Nagisa. And its encapsulated by this line from the Kiriya fight

(Kirea/Kiriya tells the girls this fight has nothing to do with them)

Natalie: This has EVERYTHING to do with us! We are fighting to restore the Garden Of Light!

Compared to the less generic response Nagisa gives in the sub.

Nagisa: We are the only ones who can protect them. The Garden Of Light, Mepple, Mepple and their People.

Edited by AegisP on Apr 24th 2024 at 11:07:35 AM

I'd say it applies to Nagisa, but it's more something you see in her every day, if ever a parent or teacher ect gives her a responsibility or job to do, she does take the fact that she's been trusted with a responsibility seriously and does it to the best of her ability.

You can see this early on when she's picked to organize the field trip to the museum. Max Heart has a good example of this, mixed with her tendency to put others before herself. When as captain of the lacross team, she has to organize the training camp, she ends up working herself so hard, that she passes out, from shear exhaustion and the passage of indicates, she was unconscious hours afterward. It was both her taking the job she was given seriously and her trying to look out for everyone and come up with a plan that was best for everyone, while putting little thought into her own well being.

Edited by Gaogaigar54 on Apr 24th 2024 at 12:30:34 PM