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Pretty Cure 101: Everything You Need to Know And Some Things You Don't


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Saffire



Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1256
Location: Iowa, USA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:25 pm Reply with quote
Great article. I've been working my way through Healin Good and A La Mode and I'm enjoying both, but Heartcatch remains undefeated on my rankings. Hopefully they get everything up one day.
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catbot158



Joined: 04 Mar 2017
Posts: 232
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:27 pm Reply with quote
Saffire wrote:
Great article. I've been working my way through Healin Good and A La Mode and I'm enjoying both, but Heartcatch remains undefeated on my rankings. Hopefully they get everything up one day.


Agreeing with Heartcatch. It's the Digimon Tamers of the franchise, in that it's one of Precure's darker entries. Highly recommend if you're more of a Madoka fan than a Sailor Moon fan...and if you like flowers and fashion. There's quite a bit of those.

I also liked Maho Girls PreCure and HappinessCharge Precure. Also check out Smile Precure's English dub (under the name Glitter Force) if you wanna see a dub reminiscent of early 2000s 4Kids.
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TsukasaElkKite



Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Posts: 4022
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:47 pm Reply with quote
I'm unashamed to say that as a 32 year old woman, I love Precure.
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Kimiko_0



Joined: 31 Aug 2008
Posts: 1796
Location: Leiden, NL, EU
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:50 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, just about every season has its group of fans. Someone's first season is often a favorite.

I'm surprised HeartCatch didn't appear on your list of recommendations though, since it's been pretty consistently ranked first or close to it in popularity polls.

The only seasons I wouldn't recommend starting with are Max Heart and Yes! 5 GoGo!, since those are the only two sequel seasons (to Futari Wa and Yes! 5 respectively).

Bonus points for not mentioning Netflix's cut up versions of Smile and Dokidoki Anime smile
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FireChick
Subscriber



Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 2488
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:15 pm Reply with quote
Personal favorite season is Heartcatch, with Splash Star, Suite, and Go Princess close behind, though Healin Good is starting to climb its way up there. I didn't like Happiness Charge, though. But yeah, Precure as a franchise deserves more love and appreciation than it gets here in the states. Though maybe some seasons appearing on Crunchyroll might be a sign of things to come.

And dare I think it...maybe some faithful dubs and BR releases in the future???
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cyberdraco



Joined: 30 Jun 2013
Posts: 643
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:23 pm Reply with quote
Wished this article mention Glitter Force cause I quite liked it(haven't seen DokiDoki yet though its on my queue). I also wished that the original Pretty Cure English dub becomes legally available in the future.
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Abraham Omosun



Joined: 05 Mar 2020
Posts: 158
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 4:24 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
didn't exactly set little girls on fire

I don't know why I laughed so hard when I read this lol


As a fan of action animation, Precure was a sorta of goldmine for me. I remember watching the first episode of Go Princess and seeing the fight against the giant paint monster and being blown away. One of my personal favorites was this one from Precure all star Dx 2: https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/13775
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AkaRed



Joined: 13 Jan 2016
Posts: 411
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 5:19 pm Reply with quote
As a 36 years old man I love Precure because its my dose of optimism I need in this sour world.
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RetroWinnipeg



Joined: 07 Dec 2010
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 6:56 pm Reply with quote
Didn't this show flop on YTV?

They aired the first entry in 2009...and somehow ended up dumping the last few episodes of the run on some summer afternoon in 2010.
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Haterater



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1728
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 7:18 pm Reply with quote
Sad to hear about that. I really enjoyed and glad they showed that.
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Siegel Clyne



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 201
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 8:30 pm Reply with quote
I used to regularly post weekly anime television ratings in Japan on another anime forum back during the mid to late 2000s. I used Video Research Ltd. as well as other sources.

Dragon Ball Z director Daisuke Nishio directed the first two seasons of Pretty Cure, Futari wa Pretty Cure (2004-2005) and Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart (2005-2006).

In the Kantō region* of Japan, the Pretty Cure TV anime series has aired weekly on Sundays on TV Asahi, from 8:30 AM to 9:00 AM JST, since the first Pretty Cure series debuted back in 2004.

The first two Pretty Cure series directly followed the Kamen Rider tokusatsu series, which aired weekly on Sundays on TV Asahi at 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM JST at the time.

(Beginning on October 1, 2017, Kamen Rider moved to airing after Pretty Cure on Sundays on TV Asahi, from 9:00 AM to 9:30 AM JST.)

According to Japanese TV ratings demographics I followed at the time, many Japanese boys stayed on watching the first two seasons of Pretty Cure after they had watched Kamen Rider. The action sequences in which Cure Black and Cure White actually punched and kicked their opponents proved to be a heavy draw for many Japanese boys to Pretty Cure, which was - and still is - aimed at Japanese girls.

As you know from just Japanese fighting games and fighting game series (Street Fighter, Tekken, SoulCalibur, The King of Fighters, Dead or Alive, Persona 4 Arena, BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, Granblue Fantasy: Versus, etc.) alone, Japanese teenage boys and Japanese men like to see teenage girls and women, Japanese and non-Japanese, punch and kick and strike with weapons and so forth.

And on the other hand...

Japanese female virtual YouTubers, or Vtubers for short, often play violent games, Japanese and non-Japanese, on PC and console.

I just watched earlier today on YouTube Kaede Higuchi (樋口楓, Higuchi Kaede), one of the more popular Nijisanji Vtubers, stream live playing Titanfall 2, a violent American first-person shooter game on Windows PC, "【TITANFALL2】BTくんって、Lスターよりアツい。【にじさんじ / 樋口楓】".

(Who still says that Japanese don't play PC games? PC gaming has seen a resurgence in Japan the past few years.)

*The Kantō region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa.


Last edited by Siegel Clyne on Fri Oct 30, 2020 9:26 pm; edited 11 times in total
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Yuvelir



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 1625
PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 8:37 pm Reply with quote
I can't believe it has been almost 8 years since I marathoned every series...
Cool article, it covers more stuff and more finely than I expected.

But about that list of recommendations...
The first two are very obvious contenders for the stated reasons (although Fresh always warrants a warning about its visuals, but it was a blast), and while the third wasn't stellar at anything (except Twinkle's theming) it was competent enough at everything.
But it misses the always favored Heartcatch, which is by far the most popular one among people not so willing to watch every Precure season (or kid shows as a whole).
And then it's StarTwinkle and À La Mode? Sure you have a point about the former but it was very back-loaded and À La Mode... I personally abhor À La Mode, it was so dull outside some moments of brilliance and the all-permeating sugary treat theming was incredibly overpowering from episode 1 (plus it traded fistycuffs for cream beams, that must count as a crime against humanity).
No buts about the last though since it's so far a very solid season and it's usually less daunting to start with an ongoing series than a finished 49-episode bunch that is just part of a 800 episode behemoth.
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Actar



Joined: 21 Nov 2010
Posts: 1074
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2020 3:03 am Reply with quote
Heartcatch is THE best, bar none. It was my first series and I cannot recommend it enough for any beginner. Tsubomi/Cure Blossom has stood the test of time to remain my number 1 favorite magical girl character to this day. I love her and the series so much I even made my car into a HCPC itasha.
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H. Guderian



Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 1255
PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2020 4:55 pm Reply with quote
Heartcatch was the best. I mean I've rewatched other seasons for kicks, but HCPC's emotional core was so much more...More. Not to mention the art style and fairy poo.
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5206
PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2020 10:59 pm Reply with quote
I'm a bit surprised Hugtto didn't make the list as I recall it was pretty popular when it aired even among casual magical girl fans that didn't normally watch Precure. It was certainly one of my first Precure shows though I had seen some of the original and Smile before Hugtto came out.
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