Being a Merchandise-Driven anime, the Pretty Cure franchises often releases toys and merchandise featuring the characters of new installments, as well as the members of the teams that join later on, weeks before they actually appear on TV.
As this is a spoiler trope, all spoilers will be unmarked.
General
- Some of the transformation devices and weapons can produce sound effects spoiling new characters and forms by pushing down on the buttons activated by the collectible item with a toothpick, pencil or headphone jack.
- However, some toys are secretive about this, such as the toys for Suite Pretty Cure ♪, where the collectible item for that season, the Fairy Tones, used batteries and not the actual attack and transformation items.
- The Smile Pact for Smile Pretty Cure!, which says "Pretty Cure, power up! Let's go!" for all upgraded Cure Decors that aren't the Rainbow Healing ones, since they require a separate toy to produce the noises for said power upsnote .
- This was entirely mitigated in the last few years, due to using RFIDs and QR codes, which cannot be spoofed using this method. The most recent series even used a PreData Memory, effectively an expansion card, so the mid-season upgrades (and following season outright) weren't even on the device.
- Occasionally happens with merchandise preorders for the actual series before the official website reveals the designs of the characters. This has happened twice so far:
- In November 2013, 3DS cases revealed the character designs for Cure Lovely and Cure Princess of HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!. Amazon pulled the preorders as a result.
- In December 2019, Amazon preorders for lunch items accidentally revealed the designs for the entire cast of Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure. The preorders were kept up, but the image was replaced by a generic placeholder instead.
- Beginning with Maho Girls Pretty Cure!, the merchandise releases became sneakier: Bandai would release a new version of whatever the item the Cures dance with in that season's first ending theme as a tie-in to the Sixth Ranger for that season, which plays music. One of the songs on said item is the second ending theme for that season, and the toys are usually released before the show uses the song. During the HuGtto! Pretty Cure season, they also included Emiru and Ruru's Image Song "Love and Love" weeks before it played on the show.
- The Korean dub merchandise of the series is really bad about this. Unlike in Japan, the merchandise for the Sixth Ranger is released the moment the series comes out in Korea. The same Cure is also featured on other tie-in merchandise such as stickers and books.
Season-specific
- A couple from HuGtto! Pretty Cure:
- A sneaky example of this was the idol singer minigame on the Mirai Pad, which showed Emiru's idol costume, but not the character herself, as you would need to insert the red Mirai Crystals to show Emiru in said minigame, as she will not show up if any other crystal is inserted.
- The PreHeart toy
released before the show's premiere has two extra pins to react with Mirai Crystals, spoiling the additions of Cure Ma Cherie and Cure Amour to the team, and doubly spoiling the fact that the team will upgrade to a Five-Man Band.
- Perhaps the most notable was the merchandise for Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure. Due to how easily the collectible items (Star Color Pens) could be misread, some fans claimed that their Cure Milky transformation pen or Gemini Star Princess Pen was misread as the pen for Cure Cosmo, the fifth cure. In addition, when the Star Color Pendant is switched on, it flashes in pink, green, yellow, purple and blue as the girls say "Star Color Pendant!", with blue being Cosmo's color. Fortunately, her identity was not revealed until her debut, with her PreCoord doll using her Mao form instead as the alternate costume.
- Another common misreading was for the Shiny Twinkle Pen, which has the ability to turn Fuwa into a pegasus when used with the Twinkle Book. This aforementioned form also showed up on a package of strawberry ramune candy sold at Lawson in July of 2019.
- Due to production delays resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure suffered from this a lot, resulting from numerous Delayed Release Tie-In:
- The Element Bottle for the Miracle Leap movie was released on the day the movie would have hit theaters before being delayed. Therefore, when inserted into the Healing Stick, it spoiled that Cure Grace got a solo attack called Time Illumination in the film if the person was using the Rabirin faceplate.
- Reaching for the pins on the Healing Stick revealed many things, such as Cure Grace, Sparkle and Fontaine getting a group attack called "Pretty Cure Healing Oasis", and also showed that the new Cure would be purple, called Cure Earth, and use Wind Element Bottle.
- A flyer handed out at the Pretty Store to people who purchased Healin' Good Pretty Cure items on the first day, prior to the pandemic, spoiled all the future elements, including three that were leaked by the Latte toy to be associated with Cure Earth.
- The Healing Room Bag toy revealed Cure Earth's design, as well as her real civilian name, Asumi, and the design for that form, as well as her Element Bottles, showed up around the time she was supposed to be introduced in the show (a rerun of episode 12 aired the week these items were released due to delays), as well spoiling Latte being involved in the transformation. Instead of delaying the release, Toei decided to throw the towel in and officially announce Cure Earth, along with the second ending theme's title, themselves.
- A commercial for Cure Earth's harp reveals her Signature Move "Healing Hurricane" before it appeared.
- Similar to the Star Twinkle Pretty Cure example, a mini-game glitch on the Mermaid Aqua Pot from Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure, an interactive jar of Laura, showed a QR code, leaking that she's the fifth Cure and that she'll grow human legs in place of her tail. Additionally, the fifth Cure's name was Cure La Mer, which is the last part of her Overly Long Name.
- Due to being hit with unprecedented Content Leaks, Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure's toys couldn't keep a couple of reveals a secret:
- An advert for the Heart Cure Watch accessory spoiled the fact at least Kome-Kome will have a human form (which was later revealed in the opening), with some of the trading cards showing Yui interacting with Kome-Kome as a human outside of the watch. The same watch was later used to find the final human form for Kome-Kome, which unlocks naturally within 3-4 months of constant play.note
- In Episode 3, Pam Pam reveals that Kome Kome has to learn how to speak human language over time. However, the talking Kome Kome toy has several phrases that are in Japanese, rather than the "kome kome!" speaking pattern it used in the show at the time the toy was released (prior to episode one's premiere). The Heart Cure Watch also spoils this fact, due to the fact you will always unlock her toddler phase in three days.
- The biggest, and worst leak, however, was when numerous details about the fourth Cure for Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure were found through the Heart Cure Watch, in a similar sense to Laura's early reveal. Not even a week after episode 1's airing, images of them as Cure Finale and Amane Kasai were leaked, and over the following weeks, their name, a brief biography and a simplified animatic version of their henshin were found out in short order, the henshin itself spoiling their voice actress, which revealed that Amane Kasai was an alias for Gentlu, meaning this leak far outstripped the previous season's.note
- Also, The assets for the hidden mode unlockable with Cure Finale's special Recipepe, involving picking up sweets from Fruit Parlor Kasai, was found through the same leak, including direct screen shots of the mode in action.
- Subverted with the second upgrade, unlocked with the Children's Lunch Recipepe, in that the recipepe in question isn't even on the watch, and the data is added by a dongle included with the upgrade set.
- The Heart Juicy Mixer's entire existence was spoiled by early images of the Cures holding them in a similar way to guns, with everything remaining about them leaked as part of a toy release schedule.
- The super forms for the season were revealed in a pajama commercial aired around the time they would have been shown in the series proper had it not been for an incident at Toei Animation where an employee accidentally downloaded malware that delayed their shows.
- With Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure, The Pretty Cure All Stars Mirror Pad strictly has only 77 Cures, omitting Cure Echo, Cure Mofurun and the HiroSky mid-season Cure entirely, ensuring that there will be zero leaks from the device.
- Unfortunately, the series itself went back to a pin-based henshin device, meaning that Cure Majesty's name and henshin sequence was revealed within days of it being released, along with the henshin sequences for Cure Wing and Cure Butterfly.
- Wonderful Pretty Cure! went in with both barrels on avoiding leaks, with only two Cures on the henshin device released at launch and the Mirror Pad still is completely leak-proof. However, that doesn't mean there's no leaks at all...
- The Friendly Tact's instruction manual includes information on all the Kirarin Animals and their abilities, despite being released at the same time as they debut on the show.
- A gift Mayu made for Iroha after her original leash was transformed into the Friendly Tacts, a walking outfit for Komugi, was spoiled by the toyline a month before the episode introducing it aired.
- A mock smartphone toy released in March includes buttons that have Cure Nyammy and Cure Lillian state their roll call lines, despite that they had not yet confirmed when they'll debut.
