Pretty Cure general thread

Come on now, Flower deserves her spotlight. Guess that is Tender after all. What took Mirage so long to pull her out? Oresky is out. Nice fight and stuff, though Un-Lovely was better. Probably because no one was holding back then. Blue trying to earn his paycheck. And failing. In theory I should like Mirage, but I'm really just meh on her. Not a smart idea to send one of your strongest brainwashed assets to where they're going to break free. Villains, stop doing it. A song for the new attack made me burst out laughing. Did not see that coming. This is what Suite should've been. Mirror ruining everything yet again. Maria is back. And gone next episode. Can't even keep her around that long?

Next season's title is finally here. It's called Go! Princess Precure.

edited 29th Oct '14 5:36:26 PM by Chariot

So the next batch of precure are also getting royalty?

I hope there will be an international team of Cures as main characters! That could work with a princess theme if they were all princesses or aristocrats from their individual countries and it had a lesson about international cooperation as a theme for the series.

Yeah, a Multinational Team of Cures would be awesome! Maybe throw in a few Language Barrier jokes as well.

Either that or they'll make the stereotypes like in Girls und Panzer. Toei declaired war on Aikatsu, after all. If they don't step up their game, the stagnancy might become so bad, people got bored and left.

You know, I'm a little worried with the possibility. If they all are going to be royalties, then how younger half of the demography are going to accept it? The foremost element of the Cures are that they are Audience Surrogate, not Wish-Fulfillment until at least the end of their personal arc. An ordinary student, going to school, have parents and maybe siblings, generally blissful with their lives. Even Ako and Hime are downgraded into ordinary girls at the beginning of the show because of that. Or perhaps they're going to wedding Peach route, only their Cure identities are 'princesses'?

It isn't stated that they are actually princesses, as we know nothing about it at this point aside from the title and logo. It's just a guess I had based off of the title, but the title could refer to something else in the story, like how in "Splash Star" the Cures didn't have power over water or stars, but the terms "Splash" and "Star" were used in many of their attacks (and many of their attacks looked like streams of water shooting out of their hands). Another example is Heartcatch where the title referred more to the plot being centered around people's heart flowers and heart seeds, but it had other major themes (flowers and fashion) that were unrelated to the title name of "Heartcatch."

If they did do a Multinational Team, I would personally hope very much that at least a few of the Cures' personalities would NOT fit their National Stereotypes, but that might be too much for me to hope for.

edited 30th Oct '14 10:22:39 AM by Rainbow

Whatever they do in the next series I hope they make the enemies seem threatening until the very end.

Near the end of DokiDoki I just couldn't take the enemies seriously any more, and that's why when Proto-Jikochu was trying to corrupt Heart's psyche I was thinking something like "Nah, she'll be fine. She's too perfect to get corrupted (and besides, it's the last episode, so there's no time for anything to happen)." Which was still better than HaCha.

We haven't even reached episode 40 and already the enemies seem like they are around just because of plot armor. I mean, the three generals were practically purified by Fortune even before the group got the Happiness Big Bang attack, and it's only because of only Deep Mirror's interference that they remained evil. The enemy generals and the Saiarks they summon don't seem any different than before while the precure are clearly stronger. At this point I want them to get finished with the small fries and move on to fighting Mirage and Deep Mirror. Unfortunately, based on the spoilers, it will be at least two more episodes before we get to that part.

I hope the enemies in "Go! Princess Precure" will seem like actual enemies the whole time and won't turn into ineffectual jokes after a while.

If they use the Rogue Gallery instead of sequential generals, then it's inevitable that they will be reduced to joke enemies for sake of episode quota. Even sequential generals sometimes can't avoid being a joke, though their threat level is definitely higher as their plot armor is limited.

Deep Mirror reversing the purification of the generals is like the Smile midseason finale. I'm a little disappointed the territory capture of the Phantom Empire is mostly informed trait, though. We have other generals going around in the world, we have world map showing several times. If they have that much resource and manpower, then general change might not be that bad, though there's always a chance they will turn replacement scrappies. We still don't get the exact reveal of who actually the Phantom generals are, after all. For they suddenly lose any of the hints scattered in previous episodes, the storytelling will be such a waste.

Well next year's series is supposed to be "unprecurelike" according to interviews so I'm curious to see how that will be handled given that the title and logo seem to be very much Precure in flavor.

So first we got Happiness Charge cribbing off Cure Happy, and now Go Princess is ripping off Cure Princess. Shouldn't be surprised. And I don't buy any comments about how it will be unprecurelike. They're not going to do something risky with a big cash cow. The big innovation of Happiness Charge was that the main character was blue instead of pink.

Pathetic villains is my one major mark against Hacha. I thought they were going to get some sort of upgrade 10 episodes ago, but they stayed pathetic and can't even pretend to be a threat anymore. The team may not have Mana, but they don't need her when the villains are still first 10 episodes level. And the likes of Phantom and Dark Tender can't show up enough to correct that.

So which series should i do next? So far I did Futari wa, Yes!, and Heartcatch, and liked Heartcatch the best. I'm thinking of Fresh, Suite, or Smile.

What about Doki Doki?

Would you recommend it?

Personally, I enjoyed it during the beginning, but it just fell under the weight of its own ambition.

Smile did not take itself seriously most of the time, and the characters are among the best in the franchise. If you love comedy, Smile is a must-see.

See my current avatar? She's actually my favorite Cure: Cure Peace, and she hails from this show. (Recursive Edit)

edited 6th Nov '14 10:07:21 PM by aNinjaWithAIDS

I'm of the opinion that DokiDoki is the worst of the franchise aside from maybe Max Heart. Mana gets unbearable, the other protagonists aren't all that great aside from possibly Aguri, the plot crushes itself under its own weight, the fights take a long time to get decent, and while it tries to make the sum of the show greater than the whole of its parts, the end result is a resounding meh. It's not terrible, but I struggle to find places to praise it compared to the other shows.

Fresh or Smile are my recommendations. Fresh for the drama and multi-layered characters, though the animation isn't up to par. Smile for the comedy and whimsy. It's main problems are that Miyuki is kind of uninspired, and the parts are stronger than the whole of the show.

I'll concede that Miyuki is basically Nozomi on a Fairy Tale craze, but she's still my favorite of the lead Cures because she already has a goal in life and pursues it — unlike Nozomi who had to find hers. Miyuki is the inspirational leader as far as I'm concerned; just look at how naturally she gave resident Fragile Flower Yayoi here the confidence she needs to have her talent published and realized. Simply put, Miyuki may be uninspired in concept, but she absolutely shines in execution.

Is Fresh the one where the villain is Labyrinth?

Labyrinth is indeed the villain of Fresh.

I may downplay Miyuki's inspirational stuff sometimes, but Nozomi, Love, and Mana cream her in that department. Miyuki's success in that area basically boils down to Yayoi and Candy, and maybe the Bad End Generals if I'm being generous. Nozomi does a better job of doing that with all her teammates, plus Coco and Syrup and even Bunbee to an extent. Love swayed the enemy over to her side by accident and got an oppressed nation to turn against their dictator. Mana of course is Mana. And execution is my biggest problem with her. Her fairy tail love is downplayed in favor of making her a Butt-Monkey, and she was constantly outshined by Yayoi in the emotional department and Reika in the awesome stuff. She was there, she did her job, and she left no impression on me. But I can see why others would like her.

edited 5th Nov '14 11:58:25 AM by Sterok

When I think of The Leader, I think of a person who has a goal, vision, or a plan. Without any of those in mind, why should (s)he have followers? Part of my problem with Nozomi as a leader is that she had no such thing for herself throughout most of two seasons, just the goal of restoring and protecting the fairies' homeworlds.

Part of why I liked Smile so much is that each of the Cures had her own Fatal Flaw to overcome in addition to the typical Magical Girl duties. In all honestly, not all leaders do their job as a means of staying ahead of his/her followers; rather, they lead to help said followers realize their own potential, and I think Smile portrayed that best. I will also concede that Akane, Nao, and Reika didn't exactly need Miyuki to be The Leader, but they still enjoyed sharing her vision and insight. It's subtle, but all three of them incorporated a bit of that idealism into their own lives.

She has something, but that got played down because precures are not suppose to have any romance.

Nozomi had a goal by the end of season 1. Become a teacher. That was half of her entire development in the first season. By Gogo Nozomi and Miyuki were in the same place in regards to their future, making small steps to a future far away. Nozomi was looking for a goal because she had not yet found her calling. Miyuki had long since found what she loved.

The reason I find Nozomi the best leader is due to how everyone got character development thanks to her, and in turn they all influenced her to become better, or at least less brain dead. Everyone quietly respected her even as they recognized her flaws. Love was good as well, but she lacked something for me. Not quite sure what. Probably has something to do with how Setsuna was the focal point of everything there.

Miyuki didn't exactly help drive everyone else's character development from what I saw, though that has more to do with Smile's episodic nature than Miyuki herself. Reika certainly had development, but not much of it had to do with Miyuki, at least not more than anyone else. I still can't figure out how Nao grew in Smile. Maybe Akane? I don't recall much there besides being good buddies. And it's hard to be a strong leader when everything is hitting you in the face.

I think the easiest place to see the difference between Nozomi and Miyuki is New Stage . There Nozomi got to make the big epic speech that turned around everything in favor of the good guys and was a wrecking machine during the big fight. Miyuki basically just stumbled and tripped. Poor girl. Never got any respect in her own show or the crossovers. Well, maybe from Ayumi.

Meanwhile, Megumi is here desperately trying to pretend she's the main character. And yet she never once felt like the leader. Which is fine, since that position should apply to Yuuko.

And there I was thinking we were supposed to be avoiding Smile like the plague.

Like I said before, part of being a good leader is about having a vision, goal, or plan that others can personally relate to. To that end, I'd say both Miyuki and Nozomi did a good job with what they had to go through; however, they succeeded in different ways.

Miyuki didn't need to drive Character Development for Akane, Nao, and Reika as those three already have their own strong, winning personalities. This begs the questions "Why aren't any of them The Leader, especially Reika?" and "What's the one quality that Miyuki has that the others do not?". Simple: it's the ability of always seeing the silver linings in life and in people. Being the constant Butt-Monkey is one thing, but to keep that idealism on your sleeves at all times despite that? That's something anybody would look up to. Sure, Miyuki was less competent than any of her other teammates, but she's the one the other 4 girls are thankful for because her ideology connected them and made their lives more complete. If you watched Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, think of Kamina. What are his best qualities, those that made him a memorable character and the one every other character wanted to model themselves after? Miyuki is strikingly similar to him if you give that question some thought.

I have no problem with Megumi as a Supporting Protagonist either. She's not there to lead because the story is genuinely about Hime and Iona, so I have no problem with the writers' downplaying her.

While Smile does have a Broken Base, I think it's for unjust and/or petty reasons. Smile knew how it wanted to present itself, and it clearly wasn't trying to be the new Heartcatch everyone was still getting all giddy for.

edited 5th Nov '14 3:43:08 PM by aNinjaWithAIDS

Kamina is more direct in his encouragement of others. He's very aware of what he's doing. Miyuki does it all by instinct. Not too comparable honestly. And I'm not too fond of him anyway.

I rank Smile squarely in the middle. It's very enjoyable and fun to watch. The episodes can get very creative, and it manages to bring out genuine emotion a surprising number of times. And Joker was a top tier villain. The problem is that the whole product doesn't come together all that well. Watching Nao may be fun whether it's episode 4 or 40, but when you realize she's the same person she was at the beginning it makes the show as a whole look weak. The actual plot remains firmly in the background until it gets brought up, in which case it's severely rushed. Ideas aren't explored enough. I've spoken about Miyuki several times. And Candy, the core of the show, really isn't as compelling as the show tried to make her out to be. She's no Hummy that's for sure. At least that's how I feel.