YMMV / Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure

• Adorkable:
  • Ran due to her Cloud Cuckoolander tendencies, including using Purple Prose constantly to describe the tastes of food and making odd noises at seemingly random times.
  • Takumi attempts to be The Stoic as Black Pepper, which fail due to him continuing to blush thanks to his feelings for Yui/Cure Precious.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • Similar to another Toei show that aired around the same time as this one, the rest of the team doesn't know that Takumi is Black Pepper for most of the series. It takes until Episode 40 for the others to learn the truth.
  • Unlike nearly every other modern season of Pretty Cure, the villains never rotate between episodes until they're taken out of the action (whether by performing a Heel–Face Turn or by being Put on a Prison Bus), meaning that there are long stretches of episodes where the same one will always come out to confront the Cures each and every time, making them seem more repetitive than they otherwise would be. The repetitive issue doesn't help with the fact every single one of their battles took place in the equally repetitive Delicious Fields, a desert-like terrain (only two episodes prior to the Darkest Hour had this exception, and they were both exclusive to Secretoru).
• Ass Pull: The reveal that Kome-Kome can somehow travel through time comes out of nowhere, has no foreshadowing or build-up, and is only mentioned in said power's debut episode. This blogger's post about episode 39 explains in detail why this reveal just doesn't work on a narrative level.
• Better on DVD: Delicious Party is without a doubt the slowest paced Pretty Cure season thus far (for reference, it took seven episodes for the main trio to form compared to the 3-4, sometimes 5, episodes it usually takes for earlier seasons), not helped by the infamous Toei Hack that caused production to be halted by nearly a month. Having the complete series viewable on Crunchyroll helps mitigate the pacing issues that plague this season.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Cameo of the Star☆Twinkle, Healin' Good and Tropical-Rouge! teams via Stock Footage from their respective seasons at the very end of episode 29 comes out of nowhere and just serves as a promotion for the crossover short billed alongside The Movie.
• Broken Base:
  • The decision to use the "Delicious Fields" as a battlefield for most episodes has been a rather divisive discussion within the fanbase. For some people, they disliked how each battle felt repetitive (which didn't help matters that the villains didn't rotate unlike previous seasons). Additionally, they had felt like it was a blatant Recycled Set for a series well known for Recycled Animation. However, some fans felt like the In-Universe reasoning for the Delicious Fields was a reasonable one (to prevent civilian casualties), considering that many seasons (along with the following one) involve the Monster of the Week attacking civilian-filled towns. Some even felt like the battles had better choreography to make up for the fact the Delicious Fields were present, considering it a silver lining.
  • The fact that the villains don't rotate (unlike previous seasons) and have a set amount of episodes dedicated to them. While it has been present in ''Futari Wa Pretty Cure'' and ''Splash Star'', some had felt like the villain lineup easily overstayed their welcome after attacking the Cures consecutively as opposed to taking turns. Some fans did feel like it was a nice change of pace and allowed the season to focus on the villain in the spotlight (especially for Gentlu).
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • Gentlu revealing herself as Amane Kasai at the end of the eighth episode came off to no surprise at all, considering that her previous appearances were extremely suspicious to begin with.
  • Takumi also being Black Pepper was practically spoiled from Episode 1, despite making his actual debut in Episode 13.
  • Yui's late grandmother being revealed to be the Narrator All Along was called as soon as episode 1.
• Contested Sequel: Delicious Party is generally a very divisive season to discuss online, especially compared with other seasons aired around its time (especially the two seasons it's sandwiched between). Some detractors disliked the fact that the "rotating villain" format was replaced with a "one villain attacks" (along with an even more divisive villain lineup), the "Delicious Fields" that were present in almost every single episode making most battles feel repetitive. On the other hand, fans felt like battles had better choreography to compensate and also felt like Kokone, Kome-Kome, and Amane had a lot of better focus and were generally the strong parts of the season. Both sides generally agree that some characters, especially Yui (who happens to be the main character), Takumi, and Rosemary could've had more focus in general.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Fans commonly interpret Kokone as autistic, going off of the fact that she doesn't know anything about communicating to the point where she reads a book about making friends, and when she tries to do anything, she either overthinks or overdoes it to ridiculous levels.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Godatz's true identity has been hotly debated by the viewer base since the show's beginning. The suspect with the most evidence is Ginger due to his disappearance being an important plot thread, along with his appearance in episode 38 being distinctively cat-like, much like Godatz's avatar which highly resembles a cat's face, although the reveal in the same episode that he was genuinely a Nice Guy 20 years in the past to the point where he was responsible for the accumulation device's creation puts a hole in this theory for some.
    • Another suspect for his identity is Fennel because of his seemingly unimportant status as a side character in CooKingdom, along with his voice sounding somewhat similar to Godatz's own voice.
    • Ultimately, episode 41 revealed Godatz's true identity as Fennel all along, who had been acting undercover as The Mole. This means that Ginger was a Red Herring.
• Fan Nickname: Takumi's secret identity as Blackpepper had many people call him "Takumi Mask" due to the fact that he wears a, well, mask and snazzy white tuxedo.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Ever since episode 11, There has been plenty of fanarts that pairs Amane and Narcistoru together, and their interactions in episode 37 only elevated it.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Kamen Rider already is one to the franchise as a whole, but a lot of Kamen Rider Kabuto fans enjoy this season thanks to Yui's "Grandmother said this" line, invoking Tendo's image. It also helps thanks to the cooking theme, with Tendo being a Supreme Chef.
  • Cardcaptor Sakura fans have had the time of their life with this series, with many pointing out the similarities between the Yui/Takumi dynamic and Sakura and Syoran's, not helped by Amane Kasai's similarity to Tomoyo Daidouji.
  • Fans of Ultra Series, especially of Ultraman Nexus, got drawn into Delicious Party in no small part thanks to how Delicious Field can be seen as Shout-Out and Lighter and Softer version to Nexus' Meta Field. Unsurprisingly enough, they tend to give the polarizing Delicious Field a downright praise.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One fan ended up making a sweets/party themed Pretty Cure season only a handful of months before the trademark for this season was announced.
  • One of Energy Fairy is named Pam-Pam (or Pamu-Pamu) might remind Ultra Series fans of Hanejiro from Ultraman Dyna, whose real name and Pokémon Speak is Pamu. Just guess which Ultraman series got spiritually remade and homaged into a series that debuted around halfway of this anime airing, which also featured a Team Mascot based on the original Hanejiro.
  • Take one look at Madolche Puddingcess and try to say Cure Finale is not a carbon copy of her.
  • Takumi spends the whole show holding a seemingly unrequited torch for Yui, with only the smallest hints of a Maybe Ever After and Word of God confirming they Hooked Up Afterwards by the end of the season. Almost a year after the season ended, his voice actor announced his marriage to Rina Hidaka, who happens to have voiced Laura in the previous season. Seems he ends up with a Cure one way or another.
• I Knew It!:
  • When Amane Kasai was introduced, it was clearly obvious to several fans, she was related in some way to Gentlu. After Gentlu uses, in Episode 6, information only Amane had, she was revealed to be both characters. The following episode cements it even further, with her mentioning about the existence of Recipippis, using Ran to steal them, and even thanking her for stealing them.
  • Also, the moment that Gentlu was revealed in promotional trailers, people quickly suspected that she was going to be the fourth Cure for the team, with her being revealed to be such in Episode 16.
  • Even for the less sensitive fans, Gentlu checks all the boxes for a villainess that is on her path to Heel–Face Turn: about the same age as the main characters, in the main character’s school, has a famous seiyuu.
  • When Kome-Kome's human form was revealed, it was more a case of when rather than if the other mascot animals would get human forms, as well as Kome-Kome and/or the other two getting Cure forms. All three have Little Bit Beastly human forms in the movie, and all get henshin forms at the same time.
  • Some people had a hunch that Fennel was Godatz the whole time, even when a Red Herring was introduced a few episodes prior to the reveal.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • A common criticism for the three Cures is how they've reused the Pink/Blue/Yellow Main Trio color scheme which has been done in numerous other series already, including Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure, HuGtto! Pretty Cure, and HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! despite the fact that Cure Yumyum is orange-colored.
    • That said, the four cures color scheme (pink/blue/orange/white) and the theme song are similar to Suite Pretty Cure ♪... although the cures personalities and civilian forms are very different, along with Amane being a incredibly rare gold Cure.
  • Another common criticism is that this season has a similar theme as KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode that being food, despite the fact that Kira's main food was just sweets and this season would be all types of food. Interestingly enough, the Sixth Ranger Cure for both seasons is themed around parfaits, albeit with a completely different color scheme.
• Les Yay: Find some delight in these moments.
• Love to Hate: Narcistrou is a narcissistic Jerkass with zero redeeming qualities, but fans love him thanks to being an enjoyably malicious and hammy antagonist.
• Memetic Loser: Ran/Cure Yumyum can't catch a break, whether in the show or in real life. A general Running Gag with her is that she's about to enjoy her food when Gentle conveniently shows up and steals the Recipipis, therefore making her food nasty. And due to the slow pacing^note Compared to a few of the previous seasons, it took roughly 3-4 episodes to develop a full 3-4 person team (HuGtto! also had a large gap between its second and third member). This one took 7, although it's assumed to be due to wanting to focus development on existing characters first of the show, her debut (which would've been on March 20) got delayed for roughly a month due to internal issues with Toei^note Toei Animation became the target of an online hack on March 6 when an unauthorized third party attempted to access the company's network, which resulted in its online store and internal systems "temporarily shutting down as a safety measure." This delay also affected One Piece, Digimon, and Dragon Quest as well., making her butt of jokes on the fanbase as well.
  • Even when she does finally debut, it's after she is investigated over potentially being Gentlu, due to her constant posting of the exact things Gentlu stole in almost every episode, and then literally gets advice from Gentlu herself (as Amane Kasai) on how to attract more recipippins, causing her own family restaurant to be singled out ... and it's shown her social media account is bookmarked by Gentlu. This culminates in Episode 11 where she gets to defeat Gentlu personally before her purification by Yui.
  • It somehow got worse after the season had finished airing as, for part of the 20th anniversary, there was a big poster displayed that featured several cures, and they somehow put Cure Finale on there twice, completely forgetting Yum Yum.
• Memetic Molester: Though not to the extent as Daruizen, Narcistoru has obtained this status due to his insistence of keeping Amane tied down to her Gentlu persona. This reaches the point where, in Episode 24, Cure Finale, having got sick of it, point blank shoots him with her full power finishing attack.
• Memetic Mutation: Made from the freshest, finest media sources. Bon appétit.
• Moe: Kome-kome as a little girl from Episode 3 onwards. Isn't she just the cutest? Pam-Pam and Mem-Mem's Non-Serial Movie exclusive human forms are equally adorable.
  • Rin in the 27th episode is adorable in her completely innocent worship of Kome-Kome, right down to her showing off the fox headband and belt Ran invented.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Narcistoru crosses it when he shuts down Spiritoru after his third failure to beat the Cures.
  • Fennel immediately crosses it once he reveals that he's Godatz and proceeds to try to kill the Cures after he reverts them back to their civilian forms.
• Narm:
  • Upon the reveal of the names, a lot of people have wondered why "Yum-Yum" was chosen as a name for a Pretty Cure (although there is a brand of noodles called Yum Yum).
  • The group transformation is beautifully animated, especially once Cure Finale gets thrown into the mix, but many people cannot take it seriously due to their group pose being just them standing next to each other, unlike all previous teams which actually had a pose dynamic to work with.
• Narm Charm: In episode 18, Amane declaring that she wants to be a parfait is so silly, but given that it comes at the climax of her character arc and it also results in the Moment of Awesome that is her becoming Cure Finale for the first time, it fits snugly within the narrative.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • During Episode 10, Gentlu is told that exerting her energy can make her Ubauzos powerful. This energy outright tortures the captured Recipipis, which was enough for her to temporarily snap out of her brainwashing and show remorse.
  • The Ubauzos are more than capable of killing the Pretty Cures if they wanted to. Specifically a notable example is Episode 21, where an ice shaver Motto Ubauzo almost shredded a helplessly frozen Cure Precious, which would've happened if Black Pepper didn't save her.
  • The Bundoru Gang continues to show that there's no low they're unwilling to stoop to as episode 37 begins with them essentially sending assassins to murder Narcistoru while he's sleeping in his cell to keep him from leaking information. However, he manages to be crafty enough to get the jump on his would-be killers and manages to both subdue them and escape from his cell in the process.
  • Episode 41 brings forth a lot of parental worries along with dropping the bar even lower for the Bundoru Gang. There has already been implications that Fennel and Godatz are one and the same, but Fennel is built as a very trustable figure among Yui. Keep in mind that Mari, Cinnamon, and Takumi are all absent as well (they're busy going to a cave to heal Mari's broken Delicioustone), meaning that there's nobody to really intervene or notice something suspicious. Once Fennel reveals his true colors to the audience, his stoic expression becomes awfully nightmarish, with Yui outright trusting him to some rice balls. After Secretoru gets defeated, Godatz reveals himself, takes out the four Cures, and outright attempts to kill them right then and there.
  • Episode 43's preview reveals the stakes for the season, and in this case, it's global famine caused by Godatz stealing every single Recipepe.
• Older Than They Think: This is the second time someone who was a Phantom Thief becomes the Sixth Ranger Cure for their team.
• So Okay, It's Average: This is the general consensus toward this show. while the designs and characters were praised, it was also criticized for problems like its overuse of Delicious Fields, the abundance of fillers, and underdeveloped plot points and characters, especially the lead Cure.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: It has its own page here.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Due to the severity of the online hack, the series was shortened to 45 episodes. This affected many aspects of the series including its good plots.
    • It is never explained why Amane was targeted and corrupted into Gentlu specifically or why Narcistoru had a fixation on her villainous persona early on, which can make that plotline come across as an Aborted Arc.
    • The same can be said about Narcistoru's backstory, which aside from a very brief flashback implying some kind of Freudian Excuse, is never elaborated upon.
    • Even the Yui/Takumi relationship wasn't really elaborated much upon, although it was constantly teased throughout the season. The closest interaction thing they had to a "date" was in the ending montage of Episode 45.
    • Even though she quotes her all the time, we never get a proper explanation for how Yui saw her late grandmother, or how she processed her passing.
  • Another big criticism was the Delicious Fields. Although the In-Universe justification for the idea is good (they wanted to prevent civilian casualties, considering a lot of battles in previous seasons took place in cities and other crowded areas), every single one of the Delicious Fields ended up being the same exact desert canyon area. Many people wish that the Delicious Fields could've used better food-themed areas considering the theme of the show, and some wish it could've shifted between different terrains throughout different episodes.
• Vanilla Protagonist: While it's not the first time in the series, one of the common criticisms people have had against this show is how underdeveloped Yui is as a character. Aside from liking to eat and randomly quoting her grandmother, she has little to no personality traits or interests to flesh her out. It's also one of the reasons why some fans weren't into the Will They or Won't They? subplot with Takumi, as more often than not, they questioned what made Takumi develop feelings for Yui anyway.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Cure Finale's outfit and color scheme received some mixed reactions when it was revealed via a leak. While some people like her for not being another Sixth Ranger Purple Cure (there is shades of purple mixed in her design) and generally consider her color scheme to be gorgeous, there's some who think her hair should've been a different color and not blonde (which Yum-Yum already has). Some people also find her outfit to be way too colorful and pastel-ish.

---