Forum - View topicREVIEW: Futari wa Pretty Cure Streaming
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2477 Location: United States |
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I've only seen the first episode of this series, both in Japanese and English, but haven't watched the entirety of it due to other obligations, and the bad sound and video quality is mostly Toei's fault, because they don't think Precure will do well in the US. At least, that's what I've heard anyway. Even the English dub has better video quality, and fansubs are pretty common even today.
I didn't watch the Precure franchise until Heartcatch, and that was because a blogger friend of mine was praising it up the wazoo, and I eventually fell in love with it. The other series I've seen aren't as good, but they all have their own good and bad qualities that make them stand out from the rest. My personal favorites I've seen are Heartcatch, Go Princess, Splash Star, Suite, and Smile. I haven't seen Fresh, Max Heart, Yes, or the current Mahou Tsukai, but I think the worst series is Happiness Charge. It had so much potential that it wasn't able to utilize, Megumi, Yuuko, and Red were annoying, poor excuses of characters, and it never seemed to know what it wanted to be. But you're right in that in most of the series, there never seems to be any sense of urgency or actual danger when the villains get involved. Unfortunately, I had some REALLY BAD experiences in the Tumblr portion of the fandom. The people there were annoying, hypocritical, self-entitled social justice warriors who dominated everything, even demanding that people write fan fics in the way they wish or else they're super irredeemable bad people no matter what. They just go WAY too far in their demands for representation or diversity and all that stuff. Things got really bad when they made a huge deal out of my fan fic not writing sensitive issues well, making it out to be the Holocaust all over again, instead of, oh I don't know, talking to me about it privately in a civilized manner! And dismissing it as an abusive grimdark and edgy after school special and making it out to be worse than Hitler's reign. The whole thing got too toxic for me and others, so I left, and I don't plan on going back anytime soon. But yeah, the Precure series is good when it wants to be, and even its duds aren't BAD, per se. I honestly hope Glitter Force does well in the US. I'm sure it won't reach Pokemon levels of popularity, but it seems to be doing fine so far. Granted, I haven't seen the dub yet, and don't really plan to anytime soon, but I'm sure others will like it. |
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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For years I had no idea that Precure and Pretty Cure referred to the same thing. There is nearly nothing written (including this review) that makes the connection.
As for the review itself I pretty much agree: it is all pretty much as bland as an airline magazine. |
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DmonHiro
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As a self proclaimed Precure expert, allow me to throw my two cents in the pot. The original Precure, while nothing spectacular now, kind of set the groundwork for the new, modern type of magical girls: the kind that will kick your ass if you don't listen and behave. In fact, they had to tone down the physical contact in the sequel because parents complained that the battles were a tad too violent for little girls. And they're right, some of the fights are brutal even if no lasting damage is shown. Cure Black and Cure White relied mostly on hand-to-hand combat, having only one special beam-like attack in the beginning. Even in the All-Star movies (special films where Precures from all seasons battle together against a powerful foe), Cure Black and Cure White are often depicted as having preposterous physical strength, way above the newer Precure.
One particular battle stands out, against spoiler[Kiriya]. Not only is it brutal, but also way too emotional for something aimed at little girls. So yeah, the first show can get strangely dark once in a while. One other thing I will give it praise for is the development for Nagisa and Honoka's relationship, which in my opinion was handled very well. So well that there way nothing much to develop on the sequel, Max Heart. I'm sad to hear that the legal streaming is of poor quality, especially since non-legal alternatives have been around for almost a decade in very good quality. In conclusion, if you want to see how this mega-franchise got started, or if you just want to see cute girls kicking ass in true DBZ fashion, you should check out the one that started it all: Futari Wa Precure. |
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Kimiko_0
 Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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Maybe I missed something, but where is this streaming? Seems like an important detail..
And regarding FWPC Max Heart not adding anything, even if it doesn't (which I don't agree), it's still nice to see the characters getting more time to develop. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2652 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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It's streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu as of this review. Generally speaking, since streaming rights aren't permanent, we don't mention sites in streaming reviews.
HaruhiToy, that's a good point about "PreCure" and "Pretty Cure." If I get the chance to review another one (I can dream, especially about Max Heart), I'll be sure to mention it. |
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MajinAkuma
 Posts: 1199 |
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My, my, Cure Black. The only Cure who literally kills a major enemy right after said enemy hurt her little brother.
No other Cure has ever done that! |
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johnnysasaki
Posts: 946 |
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despite the streaming quality,it's still better than watching Glitter Shit in full HD...
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NJ_
 Posts: 3101 Location: Wallington, NJ |
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That's not the reason at all, the first Precure was one of several shows that Toei had put up for streaming on sites back in 2008-2009 and ALL of their other shows, including Fist of the North Star, Captain Harlock, Digimon Adventure 02, Galaxy Express 999, Slam Dunk & Air Master has the same video & audio problems as well. |
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Chrno2
 Posts: 6172 Location: USA |
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When I first decided to check into Pretty Cure back when I used to biTorrent, all I could say is GAWDDAAAAMN!!! Talk about cute gals f***ing bad guy s*** up. I'm actually surprised that I stayed the course as I normally don't watch "shoujo" type shows. But when fist meets face whether you're man or woman, oh hoooo I'm there.
I'll have to admit I was surprised at the huge following this show had. And the fact that there was all this buzz around it of a possible chance of a western localization, that didn't ever seem to happen. I remember some years ago I attended a small Japanese festival here in NYC, being held in Grand Central Station. They had booths for Toei and they were presenting Pretty Cure. So I had wondered if during that time were they using that as a sort of marketing aspect. They talked about 4C as well and showing what they were all about. Introduced some Patlabor, and other shows. They presented an episode of Pretty Cure. And my first thought is that anyone there who's Japanese and brought their kid, oh they know the deal. Then after that things went silent. But it's good to see the show get streamed. It's a fun show, 2 huge seasons. I mean almost 50 ep for PC and then another for PC:MH. And the series would continue from there. Pretty Cure Splash Star, was definitely not like the first show. I mean talk about toned down. And it's funny because I read an blog from a guy on AnimeNation who's avatar was Afro-ken. He did a write up on PC some years ago. And how Daisuke Nishio, of DBZ directed it. I wonder if that explained the fight scenes. He then went on to explain in another write up in response to those not favoring PC:SS so much. The situation was, that the production team wanted a more kid friendly version as they they wanted to cater the series to a much "younger" demographic". Because the "progenitors" were JHS students. So while the old series had a more mature themes revolving around relationships, whereas PC:SS, revolved around friendship. So just the basics. And that hand holding in the OP. LOL. So they had to tone down the "beat downs". Then they sort of went back by the time they got to PC:5/G. But nothing beats the amount of a$$kicking in the original goddess dished out. But I haven't watched anymore of the franchise. |
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DmonHiro
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Chrno2 is right in that the beatings went down after Precure and went back up at around Yes! Precure 5. After that, they fluctuated wildly. The best Precure series for me remain HeartCatch, which was basically perfect. Not only were the characters well developed, but the theme was slightly darker, with more mature themes like loosing a loved one. No magical resurrections in HeartCatch. And the battles were some of the best ever. Looking back at the season when HeartCatch aired (The beginning of 2010) it literally had the best battles out of all TV anime airing.
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pcj
 Posts: 94 |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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For a brief second I was reading "Futanari Wa Pretty Cure". I don't know why that was though.
I always though all magical girl manga/anime was for little girls except Madoka. I know all of the Precure francise are targeted at the tween demography. There's even a live sort of idol cosplay dance group that travels round Japan where most of the audience is Junior Primary School girls and their parents/ guardians. This was highlighted by NHK World's ImagiNation a few years ago where the producer stated he makes a new series for every new generation of tween girls and will continue to do so as long as he is able. I only ever seen the first one and I agree the development between Nagisa and Honoka was the central hub of the series. spoiler[There was even a scene where Nagisa has a go at Honoka about being a Cure and quits to leave Honoka on her own to continue fighting. ] To me that was a very real slice-of-life situation and a poinient moment in their relationship. Correct me if I'm wrong here as it has been quite sometime since I've seen this. but spoiler[ didn't Nagisa's crush finally find out she was the magic girl, Cure Black, when she had to save him from a Darkness attack?] Last edited by Mohawk52 on Thu Feb 25, 2016 3:10 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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DmonHiro
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Correct, but it has a huge second demographic: males between 16 and 30+ years. No, really. They are called "big friends" in Japan. And they're just as numerous as the intended demographics of little girls. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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To that end, I recall once reading news of an obscenely priced Precure collectible item. A figurine or something akin, clearly of a monetary value far exceeding the budgets of the supposedly young target audience.
Good heavens. |
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1846 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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I've only seen Pretty Cure dubbed in Tagalog on Hero TV. Shame they never bothered to dub the sequels/follow-ups. IIRC, Toei Animation Philippines (TAP) did a lot of the grunt work for this
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