I’m not a big fan of obsessing over tropes. The way people might try to fit everything into a TVTropes category bothers me, and even when asked questions about what kinds of character pairings I prefer, it always greatly depends on context and execution. Despite this, I do enjoy occasionally watching Overly Sarcastic Productions’ Trope Talk, and after watching their recent episode about the “Dreaded,” I found myself wondering what might be my favorite example.

The answer, as with so many things, is Heartcatch Precure!, the 2010 entry in the Precure magical girl franchise.

According to TVTropes, the Dreaded is “a character or a single, unified group whose primary characteristic is the fear the other side has of them.” Examples include Darth Vader, All-for-One from My Hero Academia, and perhaps even Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. In terms of narrative the way the character’s reputation precedes them adds to the sense of anticipation for when they do show their full strength, and as the Trope Talk video points out, a character can also lose their “Dreaded” aura if they are overused or mishandled.

The reason I love Heartcatch Precure!’s version of this is that there are two “Dreaded” characters, and the way the series handles them both is just magnificent.

WARNING: SPOILERS

The series begins not with girls who would become the main characters, but a clash where a warrior named Cure Moonlight is defeated by a formidable foe named Dark Precure, who seems to mirror her abilities. Before all hope is lost, Moonlight’s companion mascot, Cologne, sacrifices himself and creates an opening that will allow a new generation to take over the fight. In the first two minutes, Dark Precure is established as this overwhelming entity who crushed Cure Moonlight, but then Heartcatch! does something important: Dark Precure doesn’t show up, at least for a long time.

And so the new heroes, Cure Blossom and Cure Marine, discover their new abilities and find their footing as they repel the enemy’s minions and monsters time and again. Then, Episode 10 hits, and Dark Precure appears, beats them down, and makes all their efforts and progress look hopeless. The first episode established her as a dangerous foe, but this just shows superior she is compared to Blossom and Marine. It does a great job adding to Dark’s aura of dread.

But when nearly all hope is lost, a high school girl they met earlier shows up and does the seemingly impossible, blocking Dark Precure’s finishing blow. This girl, Tsukikage Yuri, is actually the former Cure Moonlight, and she’s using the broken remnant of her transformation stone as a shield. This is when Heartcatch does something that pushes the Dreaded trope to the next level: Upon realizing who it is standing before her, Dark Precure reacts with a caution so different from her previously stoic attitude that it immediately makes clear what a force Yuri is. With just a fraction of her strength, she makes a seemingly unstoppable villain hesitate. 

Heartcatch Precure! thus establishes its Dreaded characters: one on the side of evil, and the other on the side of good. What’s more, both their stories play important roles long term in various ways. Relative to each other, they establish a deep sense that they are each others’ true arch enemies. To the main heroines, Dark Precure acts as a litmus test: As the series continues, the girls go from being outclassed to being able to at least hold her off—not enough to diminish Dark’s status as a Dreaded. Yuri, for her part, is part of a vital part of the story: It’s through the efforts of the others that she slowly regains her conviction to fight and to stop blaming herself for the death of Cologne. When Yuri finally transforms into Cure Moonlight again, all the anticipation that comes from her reputation pays off in spades.

The presence of a trope does not make anything inherently good or bad, and 90% of its effectiveness comes from execution. They’re descriptive rather than prescriptive, and Heartcatch Precure! uses both its Dreaded characters to both entice and reward its audience over time. It’s just one of the million reasons I still love this magical girl series so much.