YMMV / Go! Princess Pretty Cure

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Is Episode 8 about Haruka learning about the value of hard work (to an extent that ought to be considered unhealthy)? Or is it about Kirara having to trust Haruka in her capabilities?
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Back when the designs and the main story of the series were revealed in late 2014, many people wrote Go! Princess off for its over-the top Cure designs, perceived generic and cheesy premise, and the overly ridiculous dream that the main character had. As the show went on, it became progressively better received by the audience, and by its end, it is considered one of the best seasons that came out since HeartCatch Pretty Cure! and is the first season to escape said season's shadow in terms of critical reception. Unfortunately for the original shoujo audiences, this season has extremely frightening scenes making it one of the lowest ranking PreCure seasons in terms of TV viewership.
• Awesome Music:
  • The ending credits are absolutely beautiful.
  • The transformation theme, 'Princess Engage'.
  • Cure Flora and Towa's violin duet in Episode 22. For the first time, we hear that Twilight's creepy Leitmotif is a counterpoint to Kanata's violin theme, "Memories of Kanata"… and suddenly it's not creepy at all. The duet version is on the second OST as "Kanata and Towa's Melody".
  • The music tracks that accompany the girls' combo finishers, "Eclat Espoir" and "Grand Printemps", are grandiose and bombastic yet elegant and movingly beautiful, just like the attacks themselves.
• Base-Breaking Character: Towa/Twilight a.k.a. Cure Scarlet is this to an extent, as opinions about her tend to be split in the fandom. For starters, there are people who see her as an interesting character with likable personality who is considered a legitimate woobie due to her backstory, while others think her as a bland character with no notable quirks. Whether she is really necessary in the series is also up for debate as well, and some fans had lambasted her for taking over the focus of the show after her debut (although this gradually died down as the show went on to the end). Opinions tend to be split about her Cure design— while some find it gorgeous, others find it over-the-top and trying too hard. Then there is the whole comparison with her predecessors Setsuna/Eas and Eren/Siren, as some fans would have rather seen Twilight turn good rather than the reveal she was only evil due to brainwashing.
• Cult Classic: After many attempts to surpass the Tough Act to Follow HeartCatch, in comes Go! Princess, a Surprisingly Improved Sequel whose run also involved Hiroaki Shibata getting "promoted" to the Super Sentai division to Win Back the Crowd.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Yui Nanase is quite popular, with a lot of fan art expressing a desire to see her become an 11th-Hour Ranger by the series end.
  • For being introduced mid season and not being given much personality, the fans love Stop and Freeze just as much as the others with their unique designs, intimidating moments when they DO show up and their occasional moments of cuteness, such as their voices. Their outrageous poses don’t deter from this either.
  • Among the characters that show up to be the focus of an episode, Akehoshi Karin is easily this, what with her very sympathetic story and goals, and a cute design to boot. Her showing up in two episodes helps show off her personality a bit more than other similar characters too.
  • In terms of Big Goods, Kanata is among the ones with the most fans due to being directly involved in the plot and being a genuinely interesting character. It's saying something since a lot of fans pair him with Haruka, in a franchise that has a lot of Die for Our Ship fans.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: This Pretty Cure season and its movie Go! Princess Pretty Cure: Go! Go!! Gorgeous Triple Feature!!! has a surprising number of fans in the West.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • As mentioned on that season's YMMV page, HappinessCharge featured a character named Cure Princess. Now we have an entire season dedicated to them.
  • There were many fanmade Cure Mermaids before GoPuriPuri was announced, much like Doki gave us canon Heart and Diamond Cures, which had also been common before. And this isn't even the last time we'd get a "Cure" Mermaid, thanks to Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure introducing Cure LaMer mid season.
  • Princess Twilight's seiyuu is Miyuki Sawashiro, who also voiced Princess Twilight Sparkle.
  • Episode 37 has Kirara playing a witch in a stage play of Cinderella. One day later, the title for the next season was announced to be "Mahou Tsukai Precure!" ("Magic User Precure").
  • Kirara won't be the only Cure going to Paris post-series - the HeartCatch Pretty Cure! post-series novel revealed that Itsuki/Cure Sunshine was heading there for study.
    • The fact that Paris is mentioned at all is this, considering that the Heartcatch Cures have previously went there before. Add in the fact that Kirara is going to model there, and one would have the right to wonder if she will have an opportunity to work with Fairy Drop.
  • Haruka, whose greatest dream is to become a princess, is voiced by Yu Shimamura, who provided the voice for Princess Zelda in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and would later reprise the role for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
  • One card Yu-Gi-Oh! had released for way back in 2001 has the name Cure Mermaid in the TCG. For bonus points, its OCG name is Princess Mermaid.
  • Yui acts as a Secret-Keeper to the Cures. In 2022, Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure introduced a proper Cure named Yui (Cure Precious). Interesting, both Yuis have a surname beginning with "Na" (Nanase and Nagomi).
  • Kirara's Cure form is a star-based fighter named Cure Twinkle, and her Trademark Favorite Food are donuts (there's even a scene where she praises them over a space backdrop). Come 2019, and we get Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure, a space-themed Pretty Cure season that, once again, features donuts as a Trademark Favorite Food.
    • In Episode 5, the stylist Boan calls Kirara a 'star princess'. Come Star Twinkle and we have twelve of them.
  • Cure Mermaid's Premium Dress-Up Key is called Sango.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Haruka Haruno. What's notable is that she's paired up favorably with both people of the same gender (Yui, Minami, Kirara, and Towa) and people of the opposite gender (Kanata, Close, and Yuki), whereas Pretty Cure is usually known for its abundance of Les Yay.
• Les Yay: This show didn't waste its time in this department, to the point of having its own page, whether it be between boys or between girls.
• Memetic Mutation: See this page for examples.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Close crosses it by turning the Noble Academy house of dreams into a Zetsuborg.
  • Dyspear's moment comes when she's revealed to have not just brainwashed Princess Towa into becoming Twilight but also attempted to murder her by using the Black Perfume to drain her life energy.
• Narm: During Shut's dramatic dialogue, he is supposed to use his rose as a microphone, but instead he looks like he's trying to eat it.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Even though she was more of a quite contentious Base-Breaking Character rather than an outright scrappy, Haruka/Cure Flora received quite a lot of complaints back when the series was airing, mainly due to her nigh-unreachable dream, and how preachy she can get with it. Allegations of her stealing the spotlight were also thrown around, which do not help her case since her predecessors Mana and Megumi were particularly perceived as huge offenders of this act, one of the major factors why they were such polarizing characters in the first place. By the time the second half of the season rolled around however, Haruka had seen much more love from fans as she started growing out of the more hyperactive attitude she had in the first half of the show and developed a new perspective towards her dream. The wham episodes 38 and 39 pretty much skyrocketed her popularity, and the final episode just cemented the rise as a whole. In the present day, Haruka is not only one of the likeliest candidates to be named as a fan-favorite of the Go! Princess Cures, but is also one of the most popular and well-received protagonists of the franchise.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Many fans consider this season to be a MASSIVE step up over both Doki Doki and Happiness Charge.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: It has its own page here.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The first episode has some very nice animation, especially in the Monster of the Week fight.
  • The first ED CGI is absolutely gorgeous.
  • The second ED CGI cranks it up to eleven, with a varying solo verse themed after each Cure.
  • Cure Scarlet's transformation, first fight scene, and first usage of Phoenix Blaze are all spectacular.
  • This season in general in largely agreed to be the best Pretty Cure has ever looked. Whereas previous seasons tend to have animation quality fluctuate wildly between episodes, Go! Princess has largely kept stable with bouts of fluid movement and dynamic camera work punctuating most of the fights.
    • Episode 30 in particular is being seen as the best animated episode in the franchise to date, which is saying quite a lot.
    • Episode 39, if you can believe, has scenes that are done EVEN BETTER then episode 30. This speaks for itself.
    • Episode 50. The final fight with Close. That is all.
• Win Back the Crowd: Ironically, despite the previous two seasons being attempts at this, it was actually this season that's seen as the one that succeeded in doing this according to both the eastern and western fandoms.
• The Woobie:
  • Towa, who was manipulated by her feelings of self-doubt and unworthiness, lured away from her brother and her home, kidnapped, brainwashed, and raised by the Big Bad as her daughter for who knows how many years. As a result, she hurt countless innocent people and was indirectly responsible for the downfall of her kingdom. Then Dyspear further manipulated her into using the Black Perfume to fight the Precure, knowing full well that it would kill her. When she finally returns to normal, she loses both her brother and the only remaining door to the Hope Kingdom. Now she's stuck in a foreign environment with no idea what to do and has to live with the guilt of everything she did as Twilight. Someone give this girl a hug! Fortunately, she does graduate to Iron Woobie status upon claiming her powers as Cure Scarlett and she has been welcomed warmly by both her fellow Cures and Noble Academy.
  • Kuroro/Lock, who is was initially a painfully shy Shrinking Violet too shy to even say his own name. He just wants to go back to the Hope Kingdom. It doesn't help that he was brainwashed sometime before that or shortly afterwards to become Lock and help in the downfall of Hope Kingdom. Once the girls return him to normal, he doesn't remember anything about being Lock, making it all the more painful. Luckily, he gets over his depression thanks to Miss Siamour and the Precures.

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