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Smile PreCure!
(aka: Glitter Force)

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Smile PreCure!

  • Accidental Aesop: The amounts of times Candy and/or the other Cures find one of Majorina's inventions with them being affected by its powers can be seen as teaching kids to not pick up suspicious items.
  • Adorkable:
    • Miyuki is a cute and sweet girl who fangirls over fairy tales and is extremely clumsy. Episode 39 is pretty much the epitome of this.
    • Yayoi is a Shrinking Violet artist/Otaku who similarly fangirls over her hobbies when given the opportunity, especially in episode 35 when she gushes over getting to see a real life Super Robot.
  • Base-Breaking Character: While initially fully on The Scrappy territory, Candy has gotten less full-blown hatred over the years, and teeters more in the divisive territory. While some still dislike her, considering her useless and dumb, others like her cute demeanor and feel that she got way too much unjustified hatred.
  • Broken Base:
  • Complete Monster: Rascal, appropriately named Joker in the original version, is the main henchman to Emperor Nogo, but acts as the primary villain. Rascal's goal is to bring the world to a Bad End, an eternal state of despair, and revels in breaking people's hopes and dreams. Rascal's first major act is to kidnap Candy for something he thinks she has, and shortly afterwards he thrashes the Pretty Cure and takes their despair energy for Nogo's revival. In the past, Rascal has manipulated Ulric's, Brute's, and Brooha's rejection in the picture books to become his Bad End Generals; he later sends them to die in a stalling tactic. Throughout the series, Rascal tries to find the Miracle Jewel, which is said to grant wishes. When it turns out to be Candy, he tries to kill her, revealing that he just wants to destroy it to deprive them of hope. Then, Rascal sends the world into a state of despair, turning it into a wasteland. Even as he's dying, Rascal is laughing at the prospect of Nogo's revival destroying the world.
  • Contested Sequel: Due to its episodic format and the greater emphasis on fun humor (with the usual Myth Arc nonexistent), some viewers disliked it (however, this only appears to be the case of the western audience as the season and its characters are very popular and beloved in Japan and it was financially successful overall). Apparently Shōji Yonemura, the lead writer of Kamen Rider Kabuto (which suffers from the same plot problems) also wrote for this show and wanted it to be "simple".
  • Cry for the Devil: The three Bad End Generals redeeming themselves in episode 45 is enough to shed a tear.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Overall, it really says something when one of the most popular characters in the Pretty Cure franchise is a villain and not even the main one. Wolfrun has gained a surprising amount of popularity, almost to Draco in Leather Pants level. One day after the first episode, the Japanese art site pixiv already displayed about 5 pages of fan art of him, a lot of it even pairing him with Miyuki.
    • After episode 23, Majorina in her more powerful AND sexy form, is also getting this treatment, with quite a handful of Pixiv fanarts just hours after the episode aired.
    • Despite her limited screentime, Ikuyo Hoshizora is probably one of the most popular mothers in the whole franchise, thanks to her attractive youthful appearance and heartwarming moments with Miyuki. It's worth noting that she has more fanart than any other mother in Pretty Cure.
    • The Bad End Precures received fan art on Pixiv a week before their debut episode even aired. Their popularity is probably due to the fact evil Pretty Cures were already a very popular and beloved idea, as the Dark Pretty Cure 5 from the Yes! Pretty Cure 5 movie proved.
    • Despite his sparse appearances, Pop is also loved for generally being much more tolerable and mature than Candy, but not without being entertaining in his own way.
    • The FUJIWARA duo has a surprising number of fans, despite literally appearing in one episode. Heck, in the All Pretty Cure Mega-Poll done in 2019, Haranishi placed third among non-Cure characters.
  • Foe Yay Shipping: A lot of people on pixiv like pairing up each of the Cures with the villain they fought in episode 23. note ; The pairing of the Cures with their respective Bad End counterparts also generated quite a bit of fanart even before the latter's episode aired. note 
  • Franchise Original Sin: A lot of fans' issues with both KiraKira and Tropical-Rogue is that the two were Denser and Wackier seasons filled with a lot of Filler with no Myth Arc. However, the problems the fandom had with the two originated from here since Smile was also criticized for almost the same reasons. However, many felt that Smile was more acceptable since the series does balance it out a little from being too simple.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Episode 9 is an April Fools' Plot where Yayoi lies to Miyuki about becoming a New Transfer Student somewhere else. This lie soon spreads to her entire classroom since Yayoi is unable to say "April Fools!". Eventually they hold a "going away" party, and Yayoi is given the chance to admit this lie. However, she can't bring herself to do so because she imagined that it would go From Bad to Worse where everybody would abandon her for being a liar and that "They'll be really mad... They'll all hate her" and "nobody will talk to her anymore". The very next year, a show called Kotoura-san premiered with a Downer Beginning that made this nightmare a reality for its titular heroine in a much more dramatic sense. To top off the awkwardness, this doubles as an Actor Allusion—both Yayoi and Haruka Kotoura were played by Hisako Kanemoto.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: The fandom has adopted names for certain ships...
    • Nissan Combination for Akane/Nao note ;
    • 8:40 for Nao/Reika note ;
    • RGB Trio for Akane/Nao/Reika, for obvious reasons.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: Some furries have watched this show for no reason other than to see Wolfrun.
  • Lady Mondegreen: A mistransliteration of the kanji for "volleyball" infamously led a good chunk of the fandom to believe Akane was into ballet early on.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Nao Midorikawa. She is mostly shipped with Reika and Akane, but after Episode 18, Nao/Yayoi fanart began to surface, and after Episode 23, she gets shipped with the Beautiful All Along Majorina. And then there's Episode 25, which ignited more Nao/Akane shippers.
  • Les Yay: Oh boy. There's lots of them here.
  • Memetic Hair: All five PreCure do count, but the best examples are Cure March with her fluffy pigtails and Cure Peace with her banana hair.
  • Memetic Molester: Joker, it only took his voice and a couple of facial expressions in his debut episode for him to reach this status.
  • Memetic Mutation: See this page for examples.
  • Moe:
    • The show as a whole emphasizes Moe and Kawaisa elements more than other seasons of the franchise.
    • For a particular character, the fandom thinks of Yayoi as this, if the large amount of fanart she got on Pixiv after the first website update is anything to go by.
  • Narm:
    • Many fans felt that Joker's expressions and fake crying after his Psycho Rangers' defeat was actually kinda funny...then it morphed into deranged laughter and it wasn't so funny anymore...
    • The Latin American Spanish dub, partly due of the thickness of the accents of many of the characters, including having accents who are very out of place for their personalities, the worst offender being Reika, who sports a thick Colombian accent.note 
  • Narm Charm: The characters are almost self-aware that they are supposed to be larger-than-life characters in a fairytale, leading to this trope. Especially Miyuki.
  • One True Threesome: Appropriately enough, Akane's, Reika's, and Nao's hair colors (red, blue and green) are the primary colors for screens, which makes a shipping triangle all the more popular.
  • The Producer Thinks of Everything: A minor example, in the first ending's Cure Peace variation where she face plants, her face is red afterwards. This is the only time this happens.
  • Realism-Induced Horror: For all the Lighter and Softer episodic comedy Smile has, the Unexpectedly Dark Episodes are all based on very real fears a normal person might experience at some point in their lives, fear of letting a white lie spiral out of control, fear of disappointing others, fear of being separated from your friends, fear of losing a love one physically or spiritually, or having to live in constant fear because of factors outside of their control. Even Joker, for all of his supernatural theatrics, is a classic example of a sociopath who manipulates the fear of others to either break them or have them do desperate actions they normally wouldn't do otherwise. And despite all of this, it works in the show's favor, as it gives an underlying theme of learning to confront your fears, that You Are Better Than You Think You Are, and that you're never alone as long as you have friends and family that deeply care about you. A necessary heartwarming message considering this season was made in response to one of the most devastating natural disasters in modern Japanese history.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Nao/Reika vs. Nao/Akane.
  • Special Effect Failure: The Glitter Force dub includes new 3D CGI dance sequences, which look incredibly amateurish with creepy models. YouTuber CakeoftheMews goes into depth on the subject here.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: It has its own page here
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A lot of fans feel that the whole "fairy tales" theme was never really used to its full potential.
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
    • The CGI ending themes, with incredibly lifelike and fluid dancing movements topped by mildly-unexpressive anime faces, has a little bit of this effect, like people wearing anime masks. This was far worse in the American-produced Glitter Force CGI endings.
    • Candy's baby form has a very large forehead which could look strange to others.
  • Vindicated by History: Much like its predecessor, Smile! had a huge Broken Base during its airing. (But this is mainly among the western fans, since the show was always a favorite in the franchise back in Japan.) However, given the reception of some of the later series (with the exception of Go! Princess Pretty Cure, which was seen as a return to form), and the popularity of both the individual Cures and the villains, has Smile seen more love overseas over time into the point it became one of the more favored installments.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome:
    • Aside from the series animation being pretty good overall, the first ending's CG animation is GORGEOUS, rivaling big-budget movies. The animated movements are also amazingly lifelike.
    • The sword fight between Beauty and Joker in episodes 23 and 43 is generally considered among the most beautiful animated fights in the entire franchise, with even the Broken Base appreciating the Animation Bump that went into the battle. Hell, much of Episode 23's long-awaited battle against the Bad End Generals is truly beautifully animated.
  • Win Back the Crowd: For the most part, in Japan. After Suite Pretty Cure ♪’s drop in sales and ratings, Smile had proven to be a success in both categories, being the third most financially successful season in the franchise. Its Non-Serial Movie is also the first movie in the entire franchise to top box office sales in its opening weekend and despite the Broken Base, most of the western fans agree that it was good.

Glitter Force

  • Broken Base: The revelation of the Glitter Force dub went down about as well you'd expect when just the title and the involvement of Saban was all that was known. Then it came out that 8 episodes and the movie were being dropped. Some people were optimistic because at least it meant a new magical girls anime was coming to America, but many were still upset that a show in the 2010s was being released in the older, 90s style of heavy edits, undubbed episodes and movie, and Americanization at a time when even most kids shows were not dubbed like this anymore. It seemed destined by this group to become yet another example of an Americanized dub that would wreck the show then promptly crash and burn. Somehow this even revived the usual Subbing Versus Dubbing wars. The release of the first trailer did give some hope to people willing to try the dub due to the revelation of well-loved anime VA Laura Bailey as the voice of Emily/Glitter Lucky, showing there had at least been a lot of effort put into the voice production. However, it did little to convince fans that were already opposed to the idea that it was worth watching as it basically confirmed what kind of dub it would be and they wrote it off without even watching it.
    • When Glitter Force finally streamed, it was decently received by the fandom at the time, as long as the viewer was willing to overlook the many changes made. To this day there are still many that defend the dub as a solid adaptation under the circumstances and particularly praise the voice cast and some clever new jokes and dialog. These fans were happy that it was a good enough presentation of Pretty Cure that could lead to the show finally breaking through outside Japan or leading to future English releases. However, there were critical reviews of it in the press that specifically called out these alterations and in particular the insistence on the removal of Japanese names and culture in an anime airing in 2016.[1] Furthermore, plenty of other fans ultimately watched about one episode and dropped it over the new and perceived inferior soundtrack, the constant darkening of many, many scenes, the eight missing episodes and the movie, and particularly that any single moment where the girls weren't talking (especially the transformations) be filled with endless chatter. Since the end of Glitter Force, though, that reputation has declined as time has passed and especially when non-edited, full versions of later seasons started coming to the English market anyway.
    • A specific issue of the dub was the 8 missing episodes and the movie. Smile's episode total is 48 and 1 movie, meaning 8 episodes and 1 movie were skipped - this was later revealed to be done in an attempt to sell the show as two separate seasons to Nickelodeon, who only approved 20 episode seasons of all their shows (just ask Power Rangers fans how frustrating that is.) The episodes skipped are the ones about Okonomiyaki, Manzai, Lily/Yayoi's deceased father, Summer Festival, the visit with Emily/Miyuki's Grandmother, the filming of a Japanese Historical Drama, the Culture Festival, and Kelsey/Akane's first crushnote . (in the original run, they were episodes 10, 17, 19, 26, 27, 33, 34, and 36 respectively). Some believed it was understandable that the episodes and movie deemed skippable were mostly heavily Japanese while the dub was meant to be American. However, others pointed out that one of the dropped episodes and movie represented an overall issue with the show toning down any darker content by removing a storyline involving the death of a family member, especially when contemporary American kids cartoons were openly tackling the same topic and doing well both critically and commercially for it. This paired with the show embracing a Never Say "Die" approach to the other episodes as well as many cuts to remove or downplay any potentially sad scenes. Still others dislike that any episodes were dropped at all - people who wanted a dub weren't able to get a complete series while people who didn't want any dub saw it as yet another mark against the adaptation.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • While many changes were made in the dub, a common myth is that the location was changed to an American city. This is not true. While a park ranger does mention Newark in episode 10, the exact location of Rainbow Hills is never explicitly stated.
    • Some claim that Peace's Rock–Paper–Scissors motif was removed entirely. In actuality, the detail is very much still present, it's just made less obvious.
    • The cast was "whitewashed". Also not true. Along with the location of Rainbow Hills being left ambiguous, the characters' ethnicities are never brought up, nor would there be any reason to. A case could be made about the casting (Laura Bailey is of Filipino descent, for example), but that doesn't prove anything.
  • Gateway Series: If you've been a fan of Precure since 2015 and had a Netflix subscription, then chances are high that Glitter Force is probably what introduced you to Precure.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While Cure March was decently popular in Japan (In the sales of Smart Phones slips designed after the Smile Cures, she's the third most popular, only behind Cures Peace and Beauty at one point in time), she's the most popular character among children who watched the Glitter Force dub.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Both Miyuki in the English dub and the girl from episode 17 of Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure have the same name! And the one girl from Maho Girls Pretty Cure.
  • I Knew It!:
    • Since the revelation of Smile's original dub name "Gangnam Girls", many fans figured that this series would be the one dubbed, based on the description of the series.
    • Many fans called Episodes 10, 17 and 19 being removed due to their subjects, 19 especially.
  • Macekre: Troubled Production aside, Saban’s Glitter Force really exemplifies this trope. Most detractors would agree that had it been a fanmade love letter rather than an actual localization attempt by a professional company, their objections would be non-existent.
  • Mis-blamed:
    • One argument against the localization was that another Americanized, edited Pretty Cure dub would prevent the series from succeeding outside Japan once again. Ultimately this was irrelevant as the chaos behind the scenes with Glitter Force meant the show was doomed to fail no matter how many people liked or disliked it. Glitter Force was then blamed for killing any shot at the franchise getting future localizations... only for this to be disproved when Toei secured a deal with Crunchyroll in 2020 to begin simul-subbing the then-most recent season Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure. After the release of the already completed KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode and the continuing of the simulcasting arrangement for Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure, it seems that Glitter Force's unfortunate circumstances had no impact on anything but future seasons of Glitter Force.
    • The Glitter Force localization is often blamed by Italian Precure fans for being the reason the popular Italian localization ended at Heartcatch. In reality while this was a partial factor, the real reason was that Rai 2, the previous home of the show, cancelled its kids programming block and Rai management chose to stop importing anime entirely. Rai 2 management had attempted to move ahead with the series through Saban but being required to use the Glitter Force brand along with the lack of interest from Rai in general combined to kill the franchise. Since Rai has almost entirely stopped airing anime there’s been no momentum to restart the Precure franchise for Italian fans. Rai is the real villain in this story, but Saban usually takes all the blame.
  • Narm Charm: The dub in general sort of works, if you don't out-and-out hate everything about it, since it sometimes feels like an Affectionate Parody of magical girl anime, with the lampshades they hang, the Talking Is a Free Action during the transformation sequences, as well as Glitter Peace's catchphrase's over-the-top cutesyness (which is even lampshaded), the fact that it's called Glitter Force, and that they take any and every opportunity to mention glitter and sparkling (which is often everywhere in magical girl anime). The dub is so ridiculous, but yet, charming, if you aren't totally offended by it.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • The sudden darkening of many scenes in Glitter Force, presumably to avoid epilepsy, despite its own country having already strong guidelines to prevent such. The irony of a show called Glitter Force having all the glitter censored was not lost on many. It also ruins their Finishing Move, especially when they are in princess mode, which was originally a colorful spectacle, looks hard to watch when the screen darkens at random intervals. It's especially egregious considering Netflix itself has photosensitivity warnings on shows such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, making the decision all the more questionable.
    • Smile was the last season of the show featuring a score by powerhouse composer Yasunaru Takahashi (best known for his work on Fairy Tail), with Smile featuring a lush, full score that became one of his most beloved contributions to the franchise. So naturally, any replacement of this soundtrack would have gone poorly. Saban brought in their regular composer Noam Kaniel, who was best known for scoring the entire Neo-Saban era of Power Rangers as well as Miraculous Ladybug. While the final result was hardly a train wreck, it's been compared poorly to the beloved Smile soundtrack.
    • While the English dub of Glitter Force had plenty of defenders, that is not the case for the Latin American Spanish dub, which was universally loathed for being of exceptionally low quality. It was dubbed in Miami, Florida by The Kitchen, the same studio who produced the already controversial dubs of both The Fairly OddParents! and South Park. The heat over it was so intense that any discussion about the topic in some popular anime sites was banned.
    • Even the most diehard fans of the Glitter Force dub agreed that the new American CGI dance sequences that appeared later in the show were extremely low quality and creepy.
  • Woolseyism:
    • The dub's version Miyuki/Emily's "Kiai da! Kiai da! Kiai da!" when charging up Happy Shower/Sparkle Storm is her chanting "We've got spirit!" a lot like a cheerleader. Coupled with her saying beforehand that she almost made as a member of a pep squad once, it would be good way of pumping up energy.
    • The episode (#16 in the original, #15 in the dub) with the Akanbe/Buffoon asking questions had some revisions:
      • Instead of the Unexpectedly Obscure Answer questions from the original, the Buffoon asks more general knowledge questions, making the girls’ failure to answer correctly even more of an Epic Fail.
      • Whereas Reika was asked the exact same questions as her friends, Chloe instead gets a completely different set of questions on the same subjects.
      • The Buffon’s Japanese text on his chest was left unedited, but the final question he gives is changed to asking what it translates to in English, and Chloe giving the right answer allows her to hilariously retort that “You weren’t expecting me to understand Japanese.”

Alternative Title(s): Glitter Force

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