Pretty Cure general thread

I'm surprised too.

I'm also surprised that they were able to get away with the painting of Delacroix completely uncensored, especially since female nipples are censored even during Otaku O clock. I guess because she was a painting, Toei was able to get away with it.

I knew something weird was up. They probably aren't going to go that far, but damn I'm surprised my hypothesis wasn't too off.

To get off that...weird topic. Since we have more info on the Star Twinkle Cures, which one are you most excited for? I'm rooting for Erena because her backstory seems to be a mix of Nao and Tsubomi's.

Elena and Madoka are the cutest and I'm already shipping them. Though Elena being our first official dark skinned Cure (Since we got cheated out of Towa despite her being biracial.) makes me biased towards her as a dark skinned person. That and her having the best Cure form.

The full version of Hikisakareru Kokoro just dethroned A Tragic Memory as the most heartbreaking Precure OST. I just wish I knew what that means.

If this is the track you're thinking of (Hugtto Precure OST Volume 2, Track 8), then "Hikisakareru Kokoro" means "Separated Hearts" — according to the Pretty Cure Wiki.

Yeah, the song is indeed very good and sad.

When Pretty cure wants to have depressing music it can. I've noticed that no matter what season the music is always consistently good. Even lackluster seasons still have some music I like (Mahou's intro is catchy as ever and Doki Doki has a very nice soundtrack). I hope we get some more space-inspired tracks from Star Twinkle. I'd love to see what they do.

47. Always good to see former enemies coming into help during the big climax. That and Traum's apology to Daigan was neat. Fight could've been better, but Ange and Etoile got some good moves at least. I don't mind Listol being talked down as it shows you can't truly remove the heart from someone. I liked that Bishin lasted longer, but they could've used an actual fight instead of just crumpling like that. Onto the final fight, and the other Cures just open up George before getting jobbed, leaving Yell to fight him alone. And while this probably won't be as bad as Lovely vs Red, since Hana actually has a meaningful contrast to George, it's still pretty annoying, and I hope the others get to do something at least.

Yeah, I completely agree. I'm am NOT a fan of the pink leads getting the final blow. It feels to me that in a TEAM show everyone should get the final moment together. It really sucks that in recent trends they feel that the pink leads should be the only one to get to the final boss because it completely underhands the moments of teamwork.

Its the same problem I have with Mana. Why have this team if they're just going to have one character do the final job anyways? It's like having Nagisa defeat the Dark King without Honoka.

The one exception I give to this rule is Haruka and almost Hana because there is a deeper connection between her and George, but I stand by the opinion everyone should be involved.

48. What an underwhelming finale. The Yell/George stuff should've been a lot more personal than both sides spouting their personal philosophies at each other for the umpteenth time. The actual fight wasn't even good. Was happy that she destroyed his stupid book finally. The others coming back makes this not offensively bad, but still reeks of wasted potential. Pity, because there were good parts like seeing present George/Traum and everyone turning into Precure, cheesy as it is. RIP Cure Waffle. The last talk between Hana and George was nice at least, but this all could've been so much better.

x2

I honestly think it depends. Like I didn't like it with Mana and while I would have preferred it didn't happen with Megumi it felt more deserved than it did with Mana. Haruka definitely earned the right to face Close by herself though so I have no problem with that. I'm behind on Hugtto so I can't say if I'm okay with it for Hana or not but from what spoilers I know I'm firmly on the fence about it, though when I binge the last few episodes next week and see for myself I'll probably have a better idea on how I feel about it.

Considering what we saw this week, I'm wondering how they'll close this season. I'll leave my final thoughts until then obviously, but I do appreciate what they were trying to do, but I think it wasn't executed the best way possible. Which is a shame because while I do like Hugtto it definitely had it's flaws. Can't wait for the "epilogue" as I call it.

Heh, I don't know whether or not to find it funny or sad that Precure is pretty much the only MG show airing in Japan nowadays that isn't all cynical, grimdark, and angsty, but rather still girly, colorful, and idealistic. At least at the current moment.

Who knows. Maybe this franchise too will end up going for a more serious take. I mean, Kamen Rider does it sometimes.

It does. Heartcatch, Go Princess and the almost Finished Huggto are the 3 big examples, but even to some extent the Original series and Splash star weren't quite as fantastical or colorful as later seasons.

I see someone isn't watching Pastel Memories. Not that I blame you.

I don't know how legit or far-reaching this poll is, but I can say I approve of the top results.

49. Requisite sad bits as everyone says goodbye undercut by the random Star promotion. That felt tacked on more than the last two times. Didn't get me hyped up for her. Was nice to see all those side characters. Still liking this trend of seeing the Cures all grown up. Hana is a business woman. Didn't see that coming. Saaya is good at what she does thankfully. Not much word on how Homare is doing, but she looks well. Emiru looks off, and it's kind of bitter that she's not fully reunited with Ruru. I could question how the time travel works when everyone came back, but that leads down a hole no one should enter. As I'm sure everyone expected, Hana is indeed Hugtan's mother. Wonder when they figured that out. Guess they were doing Sailor Moon R all over again. They kept the father ambiguous, but looks to be the obvious suspect. So that makes the finale and overall series one hilariously convoluted divorce and child rights legal battle.

So, Hugtto. Didn't quite live up to its full potential, and there were some glaring issues, but I'm very satisfied overall. Not my top Precure by a longshot, but probably top 5. I'll give my final thoughts later, but safe to say Star Twinkle has some big shoes to fill.

I already posted a comment about it on another review, but I'll just paste it here.

Ahhh. Hugtto. A very flawed but fun season. I have to admit it became a bit meh towards the end, but overall it's pretty solid. I just wish it could of been better because the groundwork was there for something better.

The good:

Hugtto is best when it breaks conventions and when it's trying something new. Those moments of characters just interacting with modern concepts of the future and forgiveness are the best parts of this show.

The characters are also solid. Although they spent too much time on Emiru and Ruru I prefer they take the chance to show their dynamic rather than never have it at all. Hana is a pretty solid protag all around and Homare probably has one of the best written yellow cure arcs next to Yayoi. Saya got shafted but even then she still had good moments in her arc.

The animation was really good for the most part and the music is great. I also like how this series didn't immediately go into the same convention of saying "technology is bad, nature good". There should be a balance of both.

Harry is underrated as hell. He deserves the award for the best fairy partner.

The bad:

Man this season is flawed. The pacing is wonky in the second half, Saya becoming a doctor is stupid when she was originally only interested in acting and technology. And the use of power ups to quickly get rid of a problem was annoying as hell. There was no tension with using them which sucks because in Precure the power ups should be a last resort. But Hugtto basically turns them into a win-fight button. And yeah, the OG precures did this too, but at least there was some tension to it. Sometimes the moves didn't even work! I can't recall a single time that happened in Hugtto.

The villains as characters are fine, but their redemption arcs are lackluster. Charaleet's arc is fantastic so seeing everyone else have lackluster arcs is so disappointing. It's clear that they needed more time to flesh out almost 9 villians. Most of the time precure only has a few more than 3. That's too much already especially since you have 5 main characters a baby and fairy to develop. It's obvious the writers had too much on their hands. And as a result it got very muddied later on.

As I said before the pacing being wonky because they spent too much time on things that didn't matter. Which is weird because Hugtto has very little filler. But the problem is not the amount of episodes, but the episode run time which could be better spent on character development and foreshadowing rather than Emiru and Ruru having a falling out for the 10th time or a Halloween episode.

There were also plenty of plotholes that could've been explained better like the origins of the mother (I'm confused is she really Hana?) and how the technology of the future came to be. It's not that some of these aren't explained but they aren't explained well.

The meh:

The character designs for final form are okay.

The ending is cheesy but satisfying.

Overall, I do like Hugtto. A lot, but I admit it's not for everyone. The pacing can be really wonky and some character development is rushed, but overall it is an important milestone for precure. And I'm glad after the horror of Kira Kira they at least wanted to put the effort to be better.

Edited by Ducolamia on Jan 27th 2019 at 9:55:47 AM

So, there's a lot of unexplained things in the end, and this irritates me more than usual given how much the themes, motivations, and other interesting elements feel deliberately undercooked.

So the original timeline doesn't have all that much explained about it, but most of it isn't that important. What is important is that George's motivation is only half-explained. It's clear something happened with the Hana he knew, and if she was around I don't think he would be going for a temporal collapse. But we don't know what happened, and this is even more glaring considering the circumstances around Hugtan, so I'm not pleased with what we've got. Apparently there's an interview going around that says what happened, but I need a source before I consider that.

So what was Mother actually? Nothing about her was explained, so she just feels like a convenient deus ex machina. I've kind of got a theory, but that would just open up more questions.

Related, how did Hugtan get so powerful if she's just supposed to be a Cure turned into a baby? If George is her dad, she certainly had little reaction to him.

Less seriously, what kind of pathetic guy did Hana marry if he was late to his own kid's birth? That whole scene made it look more like Homare was the father. Which would almost explain why Hugtan's hair looks like it came more from her lol.

I mean the implications are that George is her husband in both timelines and that she died in the first/bad timeline but not the final/good one. Of course, that itself is a whole other issue.

I think it's safe to say that Space Does Not Work That Way will be in full effect for Star Twinkle.

The problems that Hugtto has that we might see in ST is that Hugtto has all these themes of being based around time but that's the weakest part of the show. It's similar to Smile in which the fairy setting in the show is incredibly underused. I'm not expecting a huge space drama but they could at least try to keep things more consistent. There's just a lot of things unanswered because you can tell that they wanted the time stuff as a backdrop. Which is fine...but it becomes a problem later when things revolve around the flimsy time excuse.

I hope ST balances out its themes well. Im already worried with the amount of forms and princesses we have to get through so I hope they can balance it out.

Final thoughts on Hugtto. KiraKira wasn't particularly good, but this series looked interesting on first impressions and had a good team behind it, so I went in optimistically. And in several aspects I wasn't disappointed. The show stretched the limits of what I thought Precure was willing to do and tackled some surprisingly mature themes for a kids show. Fights were back to good old fisticuffs, and there were some neat elements like time travel and robots to increase the spectacle. And then some surprises. Maybe they were a bit too bold.

As far as pinks go, Hana has definitely earned her place as one of the better ones. Oh sure she comes from the same mold as most of her seniors, but this time execution works out in her favor. She's gone through a lot of trauma, both in the past and during the show, which really tests her mettle as a hero. She's challenged not just physically, but on a fundamental level regarding her ideals. And she manages to push through, showing that hope is worth the effort and that the happy go lucky pinks still have a place even after overuse. She embraced the cheerleader motif very well, always helping others to move pasts their own doubts. She was rattled herself sometimes, but it didn't stop her. So yeah, good job there.

Saaya was easily the big loser of the season. Not a bad character perse, but for the most part her development felt obligatory to check off the usual blue Cure boxes. She certainly had her bright spots like her competitive streak and her fondness for technology, but her main plotline felt off. The actor stuff was interesting, but probably too much off-screen. And while her shift from actor to doctor was built up more than Minami's shift, it kind of fell flat. Partially because overall it's been done better, and partially because there are just too many doctor Cures now. At least the payoff in the final episode was good. Overall she was fairly by the numbers with a couple quirks to help her stand out.

Yellow is back in the spotlight with Homare. The early favorite got momentum early on and never let go of it. Starting off as a delinquent who is too depressed to get into her passions anymore really fit the season's themes. Her episodes in general were the most emotional, not to mention some of the best animated. The shift in focus from her skating to her feelings for Harry could've been a disaster, but it was handled pretty well overall, especially since it was long apparent that it wasn't going to happen. A mix of both cool and sensitive gave her depth that made her arguably the most engaging character from beginning to end. Plus she had the neatest powers and brought out the more introspective sides of the others. She's the winner of the season.

Emiru was a joy. As the second ever completely normal sixth ranger, her joining the team was an actual surprise. Or it would've been if not for leaks and her second major appearance cementing her as not just a character of the day. Always funny with her safety paranoia, yet endearing with her nano-desu and fondness of kaiju. Not just funny though, she also had to deal with an oppressive brother dictating how to live her life. But nothing that music and friends can't solve. So then comes Ruru, and her problems start. Her character was too attached to Ruru, which is a shame when she was very capable of standing on her own. That plus the idol/music stuff made her episodes repetitive sometimes. She's got a bit of wasted potential.

Speaking of wasted potential, hoo boy Ruru (Lulu? Curse Japan's L/R problem). Villains turned Cures are always a winner. Or they should be, but the personality shift tends to hurt their development. Ruru moved super fast from active villain to switching sides, mostly to facilitate her relationship with Emiru. Which means her bond with Hana suffered. After reforming she was stuck on the Emiru/idol train for awhile, which wasn't that compelling from her end. And she became the joke character. Not even enough robot jokes. Seriously, couldn't she have used her robot abilities more often in battle or something? Her relationship with Traum helped things by the end as she figured out how to forgive people herself, but it was a bit late on her part. Not terrible by any means, and she got lots of good scenes, but I wanted more out of the first robot Cure.

Side characters shined this season. Harry was a great mascot. Supportive, generally not withholding too much important info unless it's personal, not annoying, and overall fun to have. He had a pretty good arc opening up to the others, and knowing the villains personally helped him a lot. I'm not fond of the babies in Precure in general, but Hugtan was probably the second best. Avoided most annoying baby tropes and fit the future facing themes of the season well. Plus the ultimate payoff was pretty good. Henri was the standout character of the show. A side character who was multi-faceted and had interesting relationships with multiple characters, not just Homare. Plus he got a boyfriend, so that's a step above like 90% of the Cures themselves. And he got to be the first serious (sort of) male Cure with an actual name. RIP once more to Cure Waffle. Other characters were generally pretty good, either providing them with good advice or showing some maturation of their own.

Villains were abundant. Too abundant really. They did a nice job of representing various eras, like the boomers or the lost time, but they could've been condensed down. Charaleet was a standout starter villain. Appropriate threat level with an excellent defeat and redemption. Pupple wasn't as good, but she played her part alright overall. Daigan was a joke villain, and he was a good joke. Those three made better waves as redeemed supporting members than as actual threats. Traum was mostly pretty good, with his own sense of style and more personal connection to Ruru. But that should've been played up much earlier than it ended up being, and his defeat was just one big mess overall. Gelos and her lackies were maybe the biggest waste. Gelos started out well, but then suddenly got an edgier look and just fizzled out overall. The brothers were literally pointless and just annoying. Bishin was great with his(?) obsession with Harry and the hamsters in general. Yanderes are always fun. Listol presented a more serious side of why a once good person would join Criasu, bearing witness to how hopeless things can feel sometimes. Overall, these generals were decent, but too often they didn't have room to breathe competing against each other.

Georgy Boy huh. They actually went there. A more philosophical villain that the Cures need to challenge on a level beyond obvious platitudes. As far as development goes he was probably one of the better ones, as for once they didn't backload it all towards the end. His personal fondness and rivalry with Hana benefited them both immensely, and while we didn't get the full story of what happened to him, we can get the gist of it and at least properly sympathize with him. His monologuing was a bit overdone, and the actual fight against him was underwhelming. But on the whole he made for a good contrast to the heroines while remaining interesting in his own right.

Embracing the future and moving forward, no matter what hardships or uncertainty it may bring. Good theme overall that was woven into the fabric of the entire show without feeling overbearing. The heroes represented a positive thing about it and strove to move forwards always. The villains wanted to stop time so that they could keep the joy they had. Well integrated on both sides. There was enough complexity that the villains could be understood and not feel two-dimensional while still being clearly wrong. Plus it helped make the speeches not feel quite as cheesy as it could've been. And the payoff was surprising. So much from the themes to time travel to Hugtan to Saaya's new job built up precisely to when Hana gave birth to Hugtan, tying it all together that while it may be tough, it'll be worth it in the end. Always nice when a kid's show can push a main theme this well.

Biggest issue was definitely the pacing. Plot points could jump in fast without as much build up as ideal, and stuff like the idol shenanigans were far too concentrated in one period. And then some things could've been left in the oven longer, like George's motivation or the Ruru/Traum stuff. If there's a main culprit it's probably the crossover episodes. Oh sure it's cool to see the other Cures in the show itself. And I'm going to ignore related plotholes because there's no point in even trying. But in hindsight, while the Black/White episode was decently well-integrated, it still left Emiru/Ruru's growth and Pupple's flaw suffer from less time than they needed. And two whole episodes plus Traum's defeat was lost to an All Star film crammed into the main show itself. One of the biggest cases of something totally awesome being the last thing they needed. I get that Toei was pushing the anniversary celebration, but they really need to save those for the movies. Or just make a full crossover season if they want to. Not shoving it into a show that needs every episode it can get.

Overall, while not without some glaring flaws, Hugtto was great. Great characters both individually and as a team. Hana and Homare in particular should be fondly remembered. The plot itself was genuinely interesting, which I don't think Precure has had for awhile. While it had pacing problems, the plot itself wasn't the culprit I think. The random filler tended to be weaker this time when not focused on character development, mostly because the more serious episodes were actually good. Fights were consistently alright, though not exactly standout. This season made its mark by being bold in what it's willing to show (two births still shocks me) and at least trying to make each character interesting. Top 5 Precure easily. Star Twinkle has a lot to live up to in order to make this a streak.

Edited by Sterok on Feb 2nd 2019 at 7:17:33 AM

Time for some new stars to twinkle with Star Twinkle. Hugtto started off relatively grounded. It presented some intrigue about Hana herself to help make us get really invested into her character right away. This decides to screw it and go full sci-fi right away. Two motifs again with space and art. So does Hikaru's notebook have power, or is it latent within her? That first space trip was more weird than space-like. Likely longer foreshadowing. Hikaru might have an interesting family situation, so hopefully that's elaborated on. Fuwa acts childish, but they don't seem to be treating her as a baby, and she can talk, so hopefully there isn't more child care this season. What Hikaru lacks in depth right now she makes up for with her infectious glee about aliens. I'm glad to see them going full on alien attack this season. I guess fairies have their own universal translation? Or did Plonk take Japanese lessons? Lala is probably destined to become my favorite character, but she took a backseat this episode. Hikaru does seem to have a death wish. Very nice transformation for Star. Always love it when the enemy has mooks. Nice space fighting style. The rocket crash probably should've created a lot more destruction.

Good first episode. Not in the way Hugtto started off strong, as this relied more on flash than substance, but the flash was pretty good. Looking forward to this season, and I hope they go full space-opera with. Don't hold back on the cool stuff.

Apparently, Hikaru lampshaded the tendency for fairies to have verbal tics similar to their names when Prunce said his.

Edited by DS9guy on Feb 3rd 2019 at 12:44:36 PM

I know it's only the first episode, but I. want. this. soundtrack.

I agree with this assessment: all flair, and hardly any substance; however, the flair is very fun. Emphasis on "hardly" because I can imagine some drama happening between Hikaru and what appears to be her grandfather (which should be interesting). As for the antagonists' wanting to take over the universe, I hope there is proper motive behind that aside from "We're the bad guys!". However, my money is that they have not read How to Invade an Alien Planet at all.

Edited by aNinjaWithAIDS on Feb 3rd 2019 at 1:00:37 PM

Overall, I like this episode a lot. The animation was very good for the fight scenes, the characters while bland still have time to develop, and I'm liking the Sci-fi themes going on. The bursts of stars look very pretty. I do agree with the notion that is seems they are going for flair over depth, but even if that's the case I hope they make a fun series out of that since they do nail it.

The only thing I don't like is Cure Stars voice. It's a bit grating and from the trailers I knew I'd have to get used to it. It's just too high-pitched for my tastes.

This was probably the most solid way to establish everything on the get-go. Hopefully we get more stuff later on.