Pretty Cure general thread

So question. Given how the last Precure Figuarts was released nearly a year ago an we've heard nothing since, is it a safe bet that the line is dead?

Has there been any official word on the line being discontinued.

If so, an incomplete Hugtto line up is kind of a wet fart to go out on (they could at least release Ange just to round it out).

Edited by Gaogaigar54 on Feb 23rd 2021 at 3:51:09 AM

Healin' Good Pretty Cure Final Thoughts

After the craziness of Star Twinkle it figures that we'd get a more laid-back season to contrast it. This show very much wanted to be an Iyashikei anime about healing, feeling good, and enjoying life. Which is fine in theory, but it was still an action superhero show. It may not be impossible to mix and match these two genres, but it's certainly not an easy task. Certainly not made easier by the actual subject matter. Dealing with health and viruses will always be relevant, but the timing in which this came out with the real life pandemic certainly felt like a cosmic joke. So we got a show that wants to make us feel good while actively fighting a more relatable enemy than ever intended. Not sure they quite hit the mark, though even without reality butting in I think the show missed the mark on what it wanted to be.

Neduka, you need to Meguca. Whoops, wrong Aoi Yuki magical girl lead. Nodoka was someone we haven't seen in a long time, a pink who is not a genki girl. She still had most of the usual pink traits, but having someone calmer certainly made for a nice change of pace. In addition she came with a very compelling backstory, a sickly girl who just recovered from her deadly illness and now wants to repay the kindness shown to her by everyone. Sounds like both a good premise for an all loving hero who wants what's best for everyone while also giving her some personal struggles as she both physically and mentally heals from the years of trauma she suffered. Should be one of the best pinks, especially with that fantastic casting. And it would've been if they actually went that direction. The all loving hero part came across fine (with some caveats), but the actual healing? The part that was truly interesting and could provide unique challenges and messages? Didn't really happen. By the time the show starts she's already healed aside from some low stamina, so while she did have a slightly different perspective on why she should help others, her overall character didn't bring much to the table. Nodoka did manage to be an engaging character when the focus was squarely on her and her conflict of the day, but outside of that she was just there. In the first half of the show she wasn't bad, but she didn't bring nearly as much to the show as the first couple episodes implied. But just when it looked like she would end up as a dull pink, a certain twist completely shifted her character arc in a way I don't think anyone saw coming.

Every other year the blue is a pretty typical cool girl who is far above the others in some form, be it social status or general competence. Chiyu was the most archetypal character in the show, which was sort of a problem given how the cool blue is almost as worn out as the genki pink. She was the smartest, most physically fit, and overall competent Cure of the group by a wide margin. While her teammates were busy dealing with medical, mental, or existential issues, she got to be so awesome that she had to choose which successful life career she wanted, because all the options she wanted were open to her. She feels out of place with no health issues or personal healing to deal with. But maybe that was why she was the most consistent character. If it's not broke don't fix it, and the writers certainly knew how to keep her well written at all times. In her own episodes she got a simple, but overall well done arc about her two passions, culminating in her doing both because she's just that awesome. When she wasn't in focus she still got to be the sane one, was the best fighter, and had the best faces. Never expected a serious blue to have the most meme faces. Maybe she was meant to loosely relate to the Olympics via her athleticism, or perhaps she was just the comfort space for the writers. Either way, Chiyu may not be the most memorable Cure, but she was the one with the clearest vision behind her in the show.

Hinata looked to be the fan favorite early on. Quirky yellows are difficult to mess up, with Nodoka being quieter than usual she got to be the biggest source of energy in the show. She's hyperactive and good-natured, but didn't think her actions through and got off-topic easily. Far from being a nuisance, she was aware of her issues and was trying to better herself. She had plenty of great smaller character moments like how she uploaded cat videos and got distracted from studying by mobile games. Some even interpreted her to have ADHD, and while I won't go into that, I can see the subtext. With such an easy character to like being perfectly setup she naturally ended up being shafted. Oops. Apparently she lost an episode, but if they were willing to drop it it's hard to see how that one episode could've fixed how she didn't really have much of an arc. They kind of try to push something where it's okay that she follows her instincts even if it ends up being the wrong choice, but the lack of proper build-up just makes it fall flat. There was a solid concept behind her, but it never felt like there was a proper direction for her to go. Basically the opposite of Chiyu. Not a bad character by any means, but she really feels like a missed opportunity to deal with mental issues like how Nodoka could've (but didn't) deal with health problems.

Now Asumi, she is what I will kindly refer to as a mistake. There have been Cures with weird introductions (Ace) or bad characters (Milky Rose pre-transformation), but none that have had such bizarre concepts that I can't get into them at all. She's the first main adult Cure, at least physically, and that at the very least should be exciting. But her backstory is basically just, she appeared one day to bodyguard a puppy. That's it. With how single-minded she was to that objective she felt more like a robot than the actual robot Cure, and not in a good way. Her character arc was just learning the hooman, mostly in regards to emotive words. That got repetitive fast, and while she did progress from her obsession over Latte, she never grew into a compelling character on her own merits. On top of that was her living situation, a grown woman just bumming with Nodoka's family just because? It just felt awkward all the time and seriously hurt a lot of the scenes with Nodoka's family. Even graduating from being a jobless bum felt pointless since nothing was done with her job. Asumi's existence seemed like they just wanted to do something different with the sixth ranger without any idea of what to do with her, and the result was probably the most ill-conceived Cure to date.

The fairies were hyped up to be proper main characters and equal to the actual Cures. Which they delivered on, kind of. They certainly got plenty of screen time, and none of them were bad characters really. Rabirin was determined to fight the Byo-gens, but also felt guilty about dragging a sick kid into her war. Pegitan was a shy coward who learned courage from Chiyu. Nyatoran had a good and fun attitude about the situation and was always supportive of Hinata even with her faults. But there in lied the problem. They may be good characters in isolation, but in practice they just robbed their respective Cures of valuable screen time, and they themselves were just not that compelling. Chiyu wasn't hurt much by this, but Nodoka and Hinata really needed that extra time focused on their personal thoughts and feelings, not what their plushes think about them. An episode that should've focused on Nodoka's struggles after a big revelation was instead mostly taken up and wasted by Rabirin worrying over the wrong thing. I'm not saying the fairies should have no screen time or arcs (like what Happiness Charge did), but they're not the interesting characters and need to be treated as the side characters they truly are. Latte meanwhile was the third baby fairy to look after in a row, and I'm beyond sick of them. At least she wasn't annoying and didn't become a cult leader, but they need to lay off the concept for a few years. The families were fine, but the human side characters as a whole didn't leave much of an impression.

During the duller portions of the show the villains were kind of carrying it. Daruizen was a smug and lazy asshole who just wanted to make the world comfortable for himself and got a kick out of tormenting Nodoka specifically. That was enjoyable enough by itself, but his rivalry with Grace grew in very unexpected ways and was one of the highlights of the show. Shindoine was the epitome of simp to win, which made her an easy villain to root for. All she wanted was her toxic love. She ended up being a surprising threat, making way for the Byo-gen's big power-up, and her dedication to her king made her the penultimate boss in a neat twist. She was kind of wasted in the end, and I almost wish she was the final boss, but on the whole I'd say she was a good villain. Guiwaru wasn't just a dumb brute. He was a dumb brute who thought things through. He actually came up with some interesting schemes. While he was never as compelling as his fellow generals, on the whole he was a good complement to the main villain trio. Batetemouda was a weird filler villain that came in, acted differently, then died without contributing much. He'd be the weak link if it wasn't for his boss. The past few seasons have tried to either make the final boss a compelling character in their own right (Elisio, George) or at least gave them a strong presence with what limited time they had (Ophiuchus). King Byo-gen was such a boring nothing villain who should've actually died in Guiwaru's scheme so that a more compelling baddie could've carried the finale. Even accidentally being a manifestation of the pandemic couldn't save him from being a bore to punch down.

Production wise the show looked fairly solid overall. Aside from the lower episode count I hardly noticed it had been affected by the pandemic. The music was solid as usual, and the first ED in particular was such a banger. Fights had a good mix of fisticuffs and beam spam, though the Cures needing to hold their wands all the time made them feel a bit constrained. Once again there were a bunch of attacks that could've spiced up the action but ended up being underused. That's been the trend for awhile, so I'm not surprised. What I am disappointed in is the lack of any big sakuga moments. The action was ranged from poor to solid, but there weren't really any moments that the fight itself was amazingly well-done. The better fights were carried by the emotions surrounding them. I can't recall much in distinct fighting styles, which is a disappointment after Start Twinkle managed that much. Fontaine was the best at first, but the initial three were overshadowed by Earth when she appeared. Even after Earth stopped completely dominating, she was clearly the strongest in the team. While I appreciate her not getting the obligatory nerf sixth rangers usually get, it made Grace, Fontaine, and Sparkle into jobbers more often than was necessary.

Since Healin' was in the title, the story was about fighting sentient viruses, and the Cures were presented as doctors, you'd think the main theme would be centered around health. How to live a healthy life, stay safe, and building a healthy environment for all. Which they sort of did, kind of? Actual health topics were only briefly touched on, which was a massive shame given Nodoka's condition. This environment in particular would make the show want to promote how to deal with viruses, but that didn't really happen. The environmental stuff ended up getting the most attention, which may not be necessarily bad, but then they should've made this more of an environmental show from the get go. If there wasn't much about healing others, how about healing yourself? That should've been a big thing with Nodoka, but since she started the series mostly healed it wasn't dwelled on as much as it should have. We're sick of blues becoming doctors, but in the most appropriate of seasons no one even thought about that career path. Just another weird missed opportunity. Thematically the show was unfocused and left the show with not much of a theme to go off of. All the aspects are there, but never coalesced into a proper message to leave the viewers with.

It probably would've helped if the day to day episodes were more interesting. It wanted to be a feel good Iyashikei show, but also an action show with heavy conflict. The end result meant too many episodes where everyone was just meandering around doing stuff that wasn't particularly engaging from either perspective. Especially with the fairy focused episodes. Not all the episodes were like this, and most of them were at least competently written, but a few too many episodes just didn't have much going for them, making them feel like a drag. Even the better episodes struggled to stand out as amazing, something the much less consistent Star Twinkle managed to achieve. Aside from Asumi the show really wasn't bad in most aspects, yet without many highs it all felt too middle of the road. The blend of Iyashikei and magical girl superheroes made a show surprisingly bland, and that is by far my biggest problem with the show.

That being said, there was one plot point that made the show genuinely captivating. When Daruizen was revealed to have been the one to have infected Nodoka during her childhood, there was some grumbling about how blaming it on a fictional disease lessened her conflict about healing. Which was true in one sense, but at that point that potential had long since been squandered. Now Nodoka and Daruizen's rivalry was personal, and the vitriol that had for each other became all the more real. For once the lead did not sympathize with her main enemy, but instead despised him and wished nothing more than for him to go away. Meanwhile Daruizen took joy in making her relive her days in agony, complete with her giving birth to a new enemy that she swiftly terminated. Then when he got into trouble he tried to twist her values and gaslight her into helping him. The disease stuff got pushed into the background and was re-contextualized as Nodoka surviving someone who assaulted her and moving onto a better life with friends who cared about her. Now she can tell him she won't let him hurt her again. She was hurt by her tormentor, but with proper support she healed and became a stronger person who understood her self-worth. I didn't know it was possible for an abuse metaphor to come across this plainly in a magical girl show for kids, let alone be handled without an unearned redemption. For once they broke Pretty Cure's general ethos, and in the best way possible to boot. It was amazing, and if there's anything the show should be remembered for it's this. For this, Daruizen should've been the final boss to really end the show on a feel good point. Had the show focused more on Nodoka, I think she would've come out as one of the best pinks in the entire franchise.

Healin' Good had plenty of good points, and one amazing part that nearly elevated the entire show just by its own merits. But it wasn't enough. Too many characters and themes were left underdeveloped, and at a time when they should be resonating the hardest. Nodoka's arc was excellent, but after that the show lost all steam, leaving the finale and epilogue to end on such a whimper. And it wasn't even much of a feel good in the end, because the last messages the show left us with was that humans kind of suck and are the real virus, having to fight and destroy to get their comfortable lives just like the Byo-gens did. It didn't come across well since we never saw humans being bad, but the point was made so late that there wasn't enough time to say that we'll improve and learn from our mistakes. Coupled with the Cures killing the villains for the first time in years, and it's a show that felt oddly cynical by the end of it. Which isn't a bad thing by itself, but clearly not what the writers were going for. Overall it wasn't a bad show by any means, and I'd probably put it in the mid-tier of Pretty Cure seasons, but it somehow ended up being a bigger disappointment than Star Twinkle. Whether it was a lack of vision or the writers just writing bland stories, very little lived up to its full potential. It's worth a watch for the subject matter it tackles well, but as shown with Nodoka it could've been so much better if it went fully in on its concepts. After such a heavy season I'm ready for some more fun times with Tropical Rouge.

Gotta disagree with you about wanting the fairies to have less screentime. The healing animals being major characters in their own right and acting like true partners was one of the big highlights of the show for me.

(also that Batetemouda slander... smh)

Edited by Moth13 on Feb 24th 2021 at 4:39:05 AM

I'm not going to get an answer am I?

What did you like and dislike about Star Twinkle?

x3

This. I didn't like Rabirin or Latte but the Hinata-Nyatoran and Chiyu-Pegitan relationships are some of the best parts of the show.

And Batetemoda is basically wasted potential. Like the way he was written he could've easily been the final boss either by betraying King Byo-Gen or having his body hijacked by King Byo-Gen but instead the show killed him off unceramoniously.

Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure OP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P-TbnY8F0M&ab_channel=Gian

Villains are a Crab, Sea Slug Doctor, Sea Horse Butler, and Shrimp Maid.

Oh that opening is super super good. Love how much personality everyone has.

So going by the clip of the first episode Minatsu can apparently do acrobatics and flip between the decks of a ship while wearing a heavy back pack.

Even if it was for comedic reasons, we might have new grand champion of the Cures when it comes to Charles Atlas S Uperpower.

Well episode 1 is now available to be watched and legally from the get-go. Discussion on it will be tomorrow.

1. After we all stayed indoors for a year, don't you just want to take a vacation to the tropics? Manatsu seems alright. I'm game for someone more energetic after Nodoka. Definitely absurdly athletic. Surprised they let her explore a city she's completely new to all by herself. I paid very little attention to the previews, so I was under the impression that the mermaid was a Cure, but Laura's the primary fairy? Huh. Well at least for now. She's definitely the highlight so far, being much more vain and selfish than the typical fairy. Apparently she was born to be a Cure with how she instantly acclimated to it. The evil queen having no motivation to work the day was funny.

Solid first episode without anything to worry about. Seems to be one of the goofier seasons, which I'm down for.

Interesting how Manatsu forgoes the high jump moment or any how do I shot web moments that lead cures usually get and instead just got right down to kicking the monsters ass.

I'm pretty sure Peach is the only lead Cure prior to her to do that.

Hearing more and more about others opinions I am seeing similarities to Happiness Charge possibly. Laura being Hime and Manastsu being Megumi. I could be wrong.

The colourfulness of this new season really hits when compared to how drab the palette of healin good was. The mc of this one is genki as hell, but I find her way less obnoxious than Hikaru was.

A season that starts without an aggressive collision and a "Eh???? What am I wearing??????" is new for me but I won't complain. Animation has an abundance of goofy faces and Laura's a bit scummy in an endearing way so I think I'll at least have more fun with this.

If there's one thing I'm not sold on, it's the mash up of tropical + make up motif with the motivation theme. Feels a bit forced but at least it's pleasing to the eyes

Edit: actually I do have another complaint- the ed is by far my least favourite precure ed ever. I don't think I've ever been so unmotivated to listen to an ed in this series before, they're all usually at least a little bit catchy but this feels so by the books.

Edited by Mami on Mar 1st 2021 at 12:40:58 PM

The big question now is whether or not we'll see Laura become the Sixth Ranger.

I'd be more shocked if she didn't. It would at least be better for a character with focus from the start to be that rather than them bringing a new one in

Well it seems Laura being the sixth range has already been leaked thanks to tooth pick guy hacking the toys again. Given that the sixth ranger is called Cure La Mer and she sounds like Laura's VA

The moment the opening ended I'm pretty sure everyone started counting down the days till Laura becomes a Cure.

2. I appreciate that Manatsu is trying to be responsible about her ordinary life. Since Laura hasn't really impressed her much about how dangerous the enemy is, I'm not going to get on her case about not taking Cure duties seriously for now. Laura needs some video games to keep her entertained in the Pot. Manatsu having an internal monster radar is a welcome convenience. Not a bad episode, but it didn't show us much about Manatsu or Laura that we didn't already know, so not amazing either. Meanwhile, Sango exists.

I wouldn't say it shows nothing new, since it seems to showing a bit more of their dynamic. And makes it have a lot more shades of Ankh and Eiji from Kamen Rider OOO.

This episode was pretty fun even though I found Manatsu's declaration that Laura was important to her a bit heavy but eh.

Sango is kind of...weird? The fact that she's always smiling gives off some odd vibes, but that might just be me being incompatible with those character types.

I find it a bit surprising that Sango is so soft spoken compared every other fashion obsessed Cure. Seeing that love of fashion be associated with some specific traits throughout the franchise, makes that change of pace catch me off guard.

3. So Sango is a conformist who hates being seen as the odd one out. Not a bad archetype inherently, but she runs the risk of fading into the background. I just hope she actually goes somewhere (that isn't just Manatsu's shadow) and isn't too passive over time. She's trying at least. Coral's attack was weird. Once again Laura was the true star, getting annoyed and trying to speed up Sango's development. Need the full team assembled before I judge anyone, but so far Laura looks like she'll have the best relationship with everyone.

Edited by Sterok on Mar 13th 2021 at 6:39:49 AM

4. Didn't expect a Pretty Cure episode to open with talking about knifing someone to death. The Little Mermaid getting brought up is obvious, but I wonder if it means anything other than being the most famous mermaid story. Sango actually came across well this episode as the straight man, though she needs to assert it more. Minori seems to be Komachi 2.0, which is cool since we haven't had Komachi in a long while. I hope they do more with trying to separate reality from fantasy. She's got a more concrete arc and mystery set up, so I like her debut more than Sango's. That is certainly a unique transformation she has. Taking up Lovely's eyebeams of doom earns her extra points. Another solid debut, but she's the first Cure this season that has me curious as to where she'll go.

I was very excited for Minori's debut for I thought she was the cutest of the bunch but I was not expecting such sad stuff from this episode. I will look out for cute stuff but assert cute stuff.

Edited by Matchingbone on Mar 20th 2021 at 11:33:30 AM

I still don't really understand how the make up aspect is meant to intersect with getting motivated and doing what you want to do but I enjoyed this episode. I can relate to it somewhat as someone who struggles with my own self indulgence leaking into my works and the shame that accompanies that.

Also I adore Minorin's transformation. Manatsu's was a bit simple and Sango's was stilted and kind of awkward looking. The pep in her's is a nice contrast to her normal personality. I don't know if it's because the choreography in healin good was so consistently mid or if this is just early season good vibes but I've been enjoying the fights this time around.

On a side note, it's really sinking in that Laura is the fairy helper and it's weirdly amusing. I might enjoy her as much as I did Harry

Edited by Mami on Mar 21st 2021 at 1:38:58 PM