Category Archives: mahou shoujo

Memoriam-o-rama: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for April 2023

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April is cherry blossoms in Japan, and their fleeting nature is associated with an aesthetic valuing of the ephemeral in Japanese culture. I normally don’t get all poetic about it, but recent events have me reminiscing and feeling the passage of time. One month after the death of Matsumoto Leiji, one of my favorite character designers, Kimura Takahiro, passed away. Ash Ketchum is being retired as the lead of the Pokemon after two decades. Not one but two VTubers are graduating: Heavenly King Mirai Akari and Pikamee Amano, one of the lights of the early COVID pandemic. And just today we learned that Sakamoto Ryuichi of Yellow Magic Orchestra passed on the 28th of March—the second member to go this year after Takahashi Yukihiro.

To my April Patreon subscribers, thank you:

General:

Ko Ransom

Diogo Prado

Alex

Dsy

Sue Hopkins fans:

Serxeid

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

Blog highlights from March:

Farewell to One of Anime’s Great Character Designers: RIP Kimura Takahiro

I was devastated.

La+ Darknesss: Hololive’s Tiny Dancer Extraordinaire

My attempt to explain why I love La+’s dancing so much.

Pallet Cleanser: The End of Ash Ketchum as Pokemon Protagonist

Looking back on 20+ years of Pokemon anime, and Ash’s ride into the sunset.

Kio Shimoku

Kio tweeted a lot about Spotted Flower this past month because the latest volume came out on the 31st.

Apartment 507

My thoughts on Akiba Maid War.

Closing

Another new season of anime is upon us?! Already?! And it’s filled with a ridiculous amount of highly anticipated shows??!!

Rediscovering the Sea of Stars: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for March 2023

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The end of last month hit with some tough news as the world learned that Matsumoto Leiji had passed away at the age of 85. I’m still thinking about what an end of an era that is, and I’ve been spending time with his works. In addition to finally watching more Space Battleship Yamato 2202, I decided to revisit my favorite anime of all time, 1979’s Galaxy Express 999. It’s as gorgeous as the day I first saw it.

Thanks to my March Patreon subscribers:

General:

Ko Ransom

Diogo Prado

Alex

Dsy

Naledi Ramphele

Sue Hopkins fans:

Serxeid

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

Blog highlights from February:

I Almost Forgot the Power of Tsundere, or “Ogiue and Me”

Thinking about tsundere in 2023, and the long-term appeal of Ogiue.

Don’t Watch on an Empty Stomach: Delicious Party Precure

Great and inspiring show, but it’ll make you hungry as heck.

New Paths: Pokemon Violet

The most fun Pokemon game in a long time.

Kio Shimoku

Kio posted a ton of awesome Genshiken art this month.

Apartment 507

Hype for the Rokudo no Onna-tachi anime!

Closing

As stated last time, it’s the dawn of the final month for Love Live! School Idol Festival. The queen is dead; long live the queen.

Don’t Watch on an Empty Stomach: Delicious Party Precure

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As someone who loves to eat (and seeing characters who love to eat), it was all but inevitable that I would enjoy Delicious Party Precure. But my appreciation goes beyond nailing its general food motif, as the series also successfully balances a number of different elements to make a fun and thrilling show. Whether it’s revisiting established tropes of the Precure franchise, reviving old ideas from magical girl anime of years past, or taking steps towards inclusivity, Delicious Party Precure is a pleasure to watch.

Strong Theming and Characters 

Sometimes, Precure series don’t fully commit to theming, which makes for incongruous mishmashes of various marketable elements. This issue largely does not apply to Delicious Party Precure. Its characters, from main heroines to supporting cast, are all about enjoying and cherishing food. Its story is about magical girls fighting food thieves who are literally trying to steal tastiness in the form of food spirits. Every episode watched while hungry is basically torture, as it makes every dish look like the best thing ever. The adorable mascots are food fairies from the CooKingdom, each of whom are based on a particular carb—there’s nothing quite like a chubby little ramen dragon who shouts, “Wontooon!” during transformation sequences.

That said, the series has a sub-theme if wearing makeup that’s carried over from Tropical-Rouge Precure, but it kind of falls flat here. There’s one aspect of Delicious Party that makes it work to some extent (more on that below), but even the show itself emphasizes it less and less over time.

Characterization here isn’t as deep or profound as Heartcatch Precure! or Hugtto! Precure, but it’s still quite good and never drags the show down. The basic idea of them all having different loving relationships with food is simple, yet robust. Their different relationships with food create opportunities for joyful expression, human connection, and personal growth. One missed opportunity is that it doesn’t embrace the international food theme with a more ethnically diverse cast—despite the heroines Cure Precious, Cute Spicy, and Cure Yum Yum representing Japanese, European, and Chinese food respectively, all three are Japanese. 

A Balanced Diet of Old and New

Delicious Party features a few tropes that would be familiar to fans of Precure and its genre progenitors, i.e. magical girls and sentai tokusatsu. There’s an eventual “sixth ranger” (in this case “fourth”). The series also revives the “Tuxedo Mask” along with an extra dash of romance—a relative rarity in Precure. But Delicious Party also pulls them off, integrating them into the overall story without ignoring their histories, making them useless, or having them hog the spotlight. These are known recipes, so to speak, given enough customization to taste pleasantly different.

Another part of the successful balancing act of Delicious Party is that it embraces both its kid appeal and its capacity for more mature messages. The series has some of the best villains ever, and much like Hugtto! Precure, they seem to provide more of a connection for parents and other grown-up viewers. Even with fairly sparse moments of characterization, you get a strong sense of who they are and why they turned to the dark side. Their concerns feel more adult, highlighted by the contrast between the Precures’ youthful enthusiasm and the bad guys’ jaded cynicism.

The team shot at the end of group transformation scenes encapsulates that older-younger dual appeal. Right after a collection of exciting and silly poses mimicking the shape of riceballs, sandwiches, and noodles, it finishes with a basic arms-on-waist stance viewed head on. The switch from dynamic and playful to very direct and straightforward gives what I think is broad appeal. Truly, this is a show for all ages.

Precure Says Trans Rights 

One area in which Delicious Party Precure deserves praise is the steps it takes towards inclusivity. Building off of Kira Kira Precure a la Mode’s romantic tension between two girls and Hugtto! Precure’s (unvoiced but heavily, heavily implied) gay male relationship, this series introduces Rosemary, a CooKingdom “Cook Fighter”/mentor for the Precure who is clearly trans or nonbinary. While the show is never specific, it slso goes out of its way to never gender them, and other characters don’t question Rosemary’s appearance or behavior—not even the villains! There are some hints that Rosemary has struggled with gender identity, and this is the one area where the makeup sub-theme has any legs. 

The heroines all admire Rosemary’s strength, wisdom, beauty, and heart—and in a time when trans people are unjustly labeled as predators, I think this is no small thing. I find it notable that as the author of one of the biggest fantasy series in history continues to descend into trans bigotry, that Precure progresses slowly but surely.

Following Through to the End

While Delicious Party Precure has its fair share of mostly self-contained episodes, the general food emphasis always makes them a pleasant experience. And when they tap into the larger plot being woven over the long term, they help to build towards a satisfying finish. While it doesn’t quite hit the tippity-top of my Precure rankings, I can find very few glaring flaws. It was one of the highlights of watching anime every week, and the overall story is full of mental and emotional goodness—providing a balanced media diet.

Rise of the Bread Dogs: Hololive, Precure, and Pokémon

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There must have been something fermenting in the collective imagination of 2022. Last year gave us not one, not two, but three different forms of media featuring cute dogs combined with bread. And as many minds landed on this same idea of oven-baked canines, they all appeared to be guided by more than merchandising power alone.

Sanallites

The first bread dog of note is an embodiment of the Sanallites, the fanbase for the retired VTuber Tsukumo Sana from Hololive. The reason her fans are portrayed as bread is that Sana herself would express how much she loves bread, even going as far as doing a bread horoscope in an early stream. And because Sana herself is an experienced artist, she used her illustration chops to solidify the design as a whole loaf with an adorable flat face.

Sana’s bread dog comes from a warm and comforting relationship with her fandom—the kind of personal-feeling connection that you could only get from a streamer.

Pam-Pam

The second bread dog is Pam-Pam, a sandwich-themed dog fairy from the magical girl anime Delicious Party Precure. Here, Pam-Pam is the mascot sidekick of the bread-themed Cure Spicy, and contrasted with a rice mascot and a noodle mascot for a trio of staple carbs. This all plays into one of the themes of Delicious Party Precure, which is teaching kids to eat balanced meals and learn to appreciate all types of food. Pam-Pam transforms into a little sandwich with her dog head sticking out, meaning her bread elements come out primarily in battle.

Delicious Party Precure’s bread dog is a way to convey a theme of good nutrition. The decision to design Pam-Pam in this way is the result of trying to prepare children for the future.

Fidough and Dachsbun

The last bread dogs are the new evolutionary line from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Fidough, which resembles unbaked bread, evolves into Dachsbun, whose Baked Body ability makes it actually immune to fire attacks. They have more of an active bread motif than Pamu Pamu but retain more dog features than the Sanallites.

These two are actually just a couple of the many new Paldean Pokémon with a food motif—others include hot pepper plants, olives, and more. The Paldea region is based on Spain, which has a rich and diverse food culture, and both bread dogs reflect that aspect.

The Yeast They Can Do

Combining fluffy bread with furry dogs seems like an obvious winner, and these examples are certainly not the first. But to see three big franchises implement the same idea within the same year feels like a tiny miracle. There’s a surprising amount of versatility to be found in the bread dog concept, and should there ever be a true bread-dog boom, I doubt anyone would mind.

Otakon 2022 Interview: Voice Actor Ise Mariya

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This interview was conducted at Otakon 2022 in Washington, DC.

My first question is about a role you had in the Precure series, Cure Lemonade. Precure is a very big and popular franchise in Japan, but at the time you played the character, it was still a young series. Was it like to play the character back then, and how does it feel to return to the character for crossover movies and other material?

Ise: I was in the third generation from the start of the series, and right around the time I was voicing the character, it was starting to pick up popularity in Japan.

So as you know, it’s about to approach its 20th anniversary, and I had no idea back when I first started that it would be this popular. Part of that is due to the fact that, yes, this is a children’s anime, but it also gives dreams and hopes to adults as well, and that’s probably what has led to it being so popular.

My next question has to do with the series Panty & Stocking. It’s quite popular with American fans—even more than I’d expected—and a lot of people are happy to see the series come back after 10 years. What was it like voicing Stocking, such an unusual and foulmouthed character?

Ise: I still don’t know if I’m in it, but if they reach out to me to play the character of Stocking again, I’d look forward to it.

I thought it was an interesting series. Panty and Stocking are angels in training, and they take off their panties and stocking and turn them into weapons to defeat demons.The vocabulary they use is rather…tricky?

Ise’s Manager (via webcam): Crazy!

Another character you’ve returned to in recent times is Dragon Kid in Tiger & Bunny, after a decade. Has your approach to playing her changed from how you first played her?

Ise: Tiger & Bunny 2 is 10 years after the original, but it actually hasn’t been 10 years since I’ve played Dragon Kid. Within that period, I’ve done drama CDs and movies, so it doesn’t feel like there was a 10-year gap. But even though Dragon Kid hasn’t aged after a decade, I have, and my voice has deepened and become more adult, so it adds another dimension to the role.

Watching Tiger & Bunny 2, she comes across as more of a senpai—which she is. I think the deeper voice lends itself to that role.

What was it like to play such a bizarrely inhuman character as Foo Fighters in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure? How do you perform when the character is in no way, shape, or form a human?

Ise: Let’s see. When Jolyne and the others first meet her, Foo Fighters is a plankton-like lifeform. At the time, she’s like “Uju! Uju, uju!” in a low voice when she’s just a stand. She isn’t quite human, but she’s intelligent and clever, so I didn’t feel that much difficulty playing the character. After she borrows Atroe’s body, Foo Fighters has a childishness about her and a sense of growth she shows alongside Jolyne and Hermes, so I was conscious of conveying that innocence. 

I really enjoy your role as Ray in The Promised Neverland. It’s maybe a somewhat different character from what you normally play, as well as a heavy work. What was it like to voice Ray, especially because he does age over the course of the series?

Ise: In the first season, Ray is willing to sacrifice everything in order to save Emma and Norman—to help them escape. He lives for that, but there’s a darkness about him, and he hides his true thoughts and feelings. He planned things with all this in mind, but when he’s able to confide his secret to the other two and speak those true feelings, it lifts a weight off his shoulders. In the first season, he’s full of heavy and dark feelings. But his position changes in the second season, and he becomes more cheerful.

A less prominent character you’ve played is Akagi Sena the fujoshi from OreImo. Were you familiar with fujoshi and BL culture before the role?

Ise: In Japan, when girls who love anime and manga reach middle school, they’ll—well, I wouldn’t say it’s guaranteed—they’ll start to develop some interest in BL. So I can really understand the feelings of those we call fujoshi, and I myself read BL in middle school. It didn’t feel difficult to relate to Sena.

From what I’ve heard, you put a lot of thought into your roles—it’s very clear from your answers. My last question is, what are some lessons you’ve learned that you think would help new or aspiring voice actors?

Ise: In America or in Japan?

It’s a pretty open question.

Ise: Tough question. Being a voice actor involves using your unique voice, but it’s actually not a job that’s only about your voice. Just like a live-action actor, one of the best ways to inform your acting is to gain a lot of lived experience as the foundation for your performance, and it’s good to want as many experiences as possible. When you’re in your teens, you should do the things you can only do at that age—school, friends, falling in love, doing everything someone in their teens does. This will help to inform whatever it is you’re performing as a voice actor.

Thank you! This was a great interview.

Ise: Thank you very much!

Summer Cure Makes Me Feel Fine: Tropical-Rouge! Precure

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Precure is not exactly what you would call a dark franchise. While it’s capable of addressing serious ideas and can communicate mature messages, the brightly colored heroines and generally upbeat tone bring a certain expected level of happy enthusiasm. Even within this context, 2021’s Tropical-Rouge! Precure is by far the most energetic Precure series to date. From its delightfully spastic opening to its ever-active and ever-cheerful protagonist, the show radiates positivity. But Tropical-Rouge! also proves itself to be capable of tackling tough subjects and giving hope to viewers that they can take steps towards their dreams, whatever those may be.

Premise, Motifs, and Themes

Middle schooler Natsuumi Manatsu has spent most of her life on a tropical island, but has recently moved to Aozora City to live with her mother. There, she encounters a real-live mermaid named Laura, who aims to become the next queen of her people by finding one of the legendary Precure: warriors who can stop the dreaded Witch of Delays from stealing people’s Motivation Power. Manatsu turns out to have what it takes to be a Precure, and transforms into Cure Summer to defeat the Witch’s Yaraneeda monsters. Full of pep like no one else, Manatsu has always wanted to do all that she can, and now that includes being a Precure. As she recruits others in school to become fellow Cures, they form the Tropical Club, a kind of “do anything and try everything” group that’s eager to help others.

Tropical-Rouge! Precure is mostly episodic, so the series operates mostly as a showcase for its cast’s distinct personalities with some occasional Big Plot or Character Development moments that give a bit of forward momentum to the narrative. The primary motifs are makeup and tropical imagery, while the main theme is the struggle between finding the inner will to go and just do “stuff” and feeling the desire to put things off in ways that prevent people from resolving issues in their lives. Not all of it meshes together neatly (the makeup aspect can often feel tacked on), but the way each character navigates the motivation/delay dichotomy makes for a robust cast with complex feelings who have more dimensions to them than their frenetic presentation in the opening might suggest. 

Characters and Motivations

Of the main cast, there are those who try to figure out what path they want to take but are having trouble figuring out what speaks to them, and there are those who know full well what their goals are but are prevented from moving forward.

The fashionable Suzumura Sango (Cure Coral) and Manatsu are examples of the former, with Sango gradually learning that not every dream needs to involve being in the spotlight. Manatsu, for her part, is one of the best executions of a “heroine without a concrete direction” I’ve seen in anime. It’s often easy for that kind of personality to feel flimsy or emphasize their generic “everyman” qualities, but the message conveyed by Manatsu is simple and profound: Even if you’re not sure what you want to be when you grow up, you should at least do what you want most in the moment. You remain motivated by staying true to yourself, and the learning process is a reward in itself.

Meanwhile, the athletic Takizawa Asuka (Cure Flamingo) and bookish Ichinose Minori (Cure Papaya) are great examples of those who feel their dreams may be last. As revealed later in the series, Asuka had a falling out with a friend that led her to stop pursuing tennis, and their soured relationship stems from a disagreement over how to react to an injustice done to you when your decision can affect others. Minori wants to be an author, but a bad experience with her old literature club has led her to put down her pen—and has her worried that she’s limited by her focus on reading about the world instead of experiencing it.

The stand-out character to me is Laura; I even picked her to be one of my best of 2021. Laura’s  charming-yet-abrasive personality regularly steals the show in more ways than one, and I love how her identity as a mermaid isn’t forgotten or minimized over time. At the same time, you really get the sense that not all mermaids are like her, and that her confidence and ambition are wholly her own. And unlike the others, she understands perfectly well what her dream is (becoming queen) and will do all that she can to achieve it, but the lessons she learns about ambition and sacrifice end up being surprisingly profound and defy the notion that you should be forced to choose the path that causes the fewest waves (no pun intended).

And amidst all these different dynamics, what’s impressive is how Tropical-Rouge! animates its characters such that their general roles are emphasized while avoiding having them fall too neatly into their designated archetypes. Manatsu’s a whirlwind of expressiveness, but she isn’t just blindly optimistic, and this comes across in the fact that her reactions, both happy and sad, are nevertheless big. Minori, in contrast, is often not as outwardly emotional as the others. However, one gets the sense that she has a rich inner world, and that she isn’t stoic—she merely doesn’t react as powerfully on the surface. In this way, the characters feel multifaceted but also easy to understand even for younger viewers.

Best Precure “Villains” Ever?

The strength of the cast even extends to the antagonists. The Witch of Delays’s henchmen—including Chongire the crab chef, Elda the (extremely adorable) shrimp maid, and Numeri the sea-cucumber doctor—are some of the most entertaining villains ever, and it’s mostly because they’re not that dedicated to their cause. 

All of them come across as stealing Motivation Power from people because that’s part of their conditions for serving the Witch, and they’d really rather be doing what they were originally hired for—or in the case of Elda, play with dolls because she isn’t that into being a maid either. Seeing Chongi-re stop a fight because he needs to go check on something cooking really says it all, and what I love about that is it gives the bad guys a bit of depth while contributing to the generally lighthearted nature of Tropical-Rouge.

Final Thoughts

Tropical-Rouge! Precure is the kind of series whose unbridled energy can be both empowering and exhausting, like having a friend who’s eager to contact you anytime to see if you’re up for going out. They have a million possible plans, and you’re not sure where they lead, but one thing becomes clear as you try to find your way. That is, there are many possible paths to take—gentle ones, steep ones, straight ones, winding ones—and none are necessarily wrong as long as they encourage continued movement. 

“Moving water never grows stale,” as the saying goes, but neither does the water need to be a rushing current. Between Manatsu, Laura, Sango, Akira, and Minori, viewers can witness a variety of different personalities and how they handle the unique challenges that face each of them—as well as how they can help one another along.

Best Anime Characters of 2021

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BEST MALE CHARACTER

Ikari Shinji (Evangelion 3.0+1.01: Thrice Upon a Time)

For as many strong and unique characters as there were this year, there’s really only one right choice for me.


Shinji was never my favorite Evangelion character. However, seeing his transformation from the original TV series all the way to the final Rebuild of Evangelion movie feels nothing short of profound. It’s almost unfair to compare him to other characters because of this long arc of this through multiple versions, but the way he finally comes into his own after 25 years of being the poster child for emotional and psychological turmoil in anime makes what was already a lasting impression into something even more enduring. The boy became mythology in the most unexpected way.

BEST FEMALE CHARACTER

Laura (Tropical-Rouge! Precure)

In the Precure franchise, there are rarely characters of Laura’s disposition. A mermaid with ambition to become the next queen of the seas, Laura is a haughty and proud sort whose closest equivalent is Milk from Yes! Pretty Cure 5. One part of what makes her work as a character is that she fluctuates between earned and unearned confidence, and her friends are there to teach her when the latter occurs. 

But what I think seals the deal for Laura is the fact that she overcomes one of the most common pitfalls of mid-season Cures, which is losing much of her original identity once she joins the team proper. While she gains legs and learns how to live in human culture, her mermaid origin still plays a significant role and gives an extra facet to her character. Laura has to navigate the worlds of both land and sea, and that process is both endearing and hilarious.

Final Thoughts

There was no shortage of strong characters this year, but in the end, I felt that both Shinji and Laura both showed an immensely satisfying amount of growth in their own ways. For Shinji, it’s arguably unfair to be tapping into something with as much history as the Evangelion franchise, but it really feels like Eva has the closure it needs, and it comes courtesy of the Third Child(ren) himself. Laura meanwhile all but perfects the “unusual sixth ranger” by making sure the show doesn’t forget what made her an interesting character in the first place. 

I won’t say who they are, but a few characters got real close to taking the top spots. Some of their stories are still ongoing, so we’ll see if they make it to the top of the list in 2022.

Wellness for the Self, Wellness for the World: Healin’ Good Precure

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Healin’ Good Precure might be either one of the best-timed anime ever or one of the worst. With themes of environmentalism, medicine, and even personal wellbeing, the anime began in February 2020 right as the threat COVID-19 was starting to increase. As a result, the series lost about a month’s worth of episodes (ending at 45 instead of around 50), and the pandemic only further increased the importance of its message. As it came back from the production delay, I myself wondered if the series would change anything to directly address COVID-19, like facemask equipment or social distancing beams.

The answer, it turns out, is “not really.” In hindsight, however, this might not be such a bad thing. Although often fairly simplistic in its messaging, Healin’ Good Precure focuses less on harsh and gritty truths, and more on the idea of trying to take care of both people and the planet together, with a few surprisingly insightful gems along the way that I hope the kids watching take to heart.

The premise: Hanadera Nodoka is a kind and gentle middle school girl who, not long ago, was hospitalized with an unknown illness. Having finally recovered and now moved to Sukoyaka City with her parents, she looks forward to doing all the things a healthy person does, but her life changes when she encounters a magical rabbit. The rabbit, named Rabirin, is one of three “healing animal” trainees who have escaped from the Byo-gens, virus-like invaders whose goal is to “undermine” everything they infect. Bonding with Rabirin to protect the healing animal princess Rate, Nodoka becomes Cure Grace, one of the legendary warriors known as Precure. Soon, she’s joined by other girls at her school who also bond with healing animals, and they fight to treat the Earth’s maladies.

In terms of overall cohesive storytelling, Healin’ Good is not one of the strongest Precure entries. It takes a mostly episodic approach with major narrative developments at mostly abrupt and expected intervals, and some of those developments are actually kind of bizarre if you think too hard about them—like something that could be read as a pregnancy metaphor but probably isn’t supposed to be. 

That said, the series sports some impressively expressive animation, and the fights often feel like the characters have some real heft to them—not always the case in Precure. The main cast of characters are also interesting, relatable, and inspiring enough to make the watching experience enjoyable overall. The contrasts between the three main Cures—Nodoka, Chiyu, and Hinata—mean that each girl has their own challenges they need to face and overcome, though the amount of attention paid to each of them can feel weirdly lopsided. More episodes seem to be devoted to Chiyu’s more ambitious goals of becoming a competition high-jumper and family innkeeper, though I don’t know if that’s just a result of losing those five or so episodes to the production delay.

Another factor to its credit is that I think Healin’ Good has not only some of the least annoying mascots ever, but they’re also some of the best support characters Precure has ever seen. Rabirin, along with her companions Pegitan and Nyatoran, act as both foils and complements to their human partners, and their desire to get stronger in order to keep the Earth from experiencing a fate similar to their own world feels genuine. Moreover, Rate gets a surprising amount of development that’s actually welcome rather than overshadowing the Cures.

While the series takes a fairly kid-gloves approach to the challenges it presents (not surprising from a kids’ show), there are aspects of Healin’ Good that I think are meant to teach the young viewers to face up to a world that’s increasingly headed towards multiple disasters both potential and real. When the Byo-gens infect an area of the city, failing to stop the infection only makes the monsters stronger. In this, I can see a metaphor for climate change and the need to slow it down as soon as possible, because while keeping the Earth from warming up to the point of substantial environmental change is a monumental task, it’s a lot easier than trying to bring the Earth back from that point. Additionally, all the doctor imagery strewn throughout Healin’ Good, from parents’ professions to the idea of “treating’ the planet to even the girls’ transformation lab coats might encourage more girls to go into pursuing careers in medicine and fight the sexism that pervades medical schools in Japan. In that sense, I think it builds on some of the positive messages found in its immediate predecessor, Hugtto! Precure.

It’s also notable that those very same kid gloves start to come off towards the end. There is a moment late in the anime where Nodoka is faced with the dilemma of trying to help an injured enemy who is responsible for much of her pain. But where many past stories would make its heroine some kind of saint, Healin’ Good emphasizes the need for self care, and that there is no requirement to lend a hand to someone who has harmed you, especially if you only end up feeling more hurt as a result. In other words, kindness is not a resource that should be exploited, and girls should not be expected to sacrifice their well-being because they’re supposed to be “caring.” Similarly, the environmental message calls out the complicity of humanity by the end, though is ultimately positive, as expected.

As much as I would have found it interesting, I realize now that Healin’ Good Precure did not need to tackle COVID-19 head-on. Face masks are already commonly accepted in Japan, so there’s no need to encourage people to wear them. The infection rate, although a real concern, is not nearly as bad in Japan as it is in other parts of the world (especially the good ol’ US of A). And as for not emphasizing social distancing, the series was probably created with the hope and expectation that we’ll eventually be able to return to some semblance of our former life, and that kids should be able to see what normal social interaction looks like.

Instead, we have a Precure anime that aimed to tackle some of the biggest issues facing the world through an approachable lens of the familiar magical girl tropes. Although the final product doesn’t have the riveting and finely tuned narratives of some of its predecessors, that’s not the only measure of an anime’s success—and no, I don’t mean toy sales. What Heain’ Good Precure has in spades is ambition to make improve society by encouraging a positive and humanitarian spirit in its audience. The world thirty years from now will hopefully be a better place.

A Beam Rifle in Precure?! Z Gundam’s Iconic Sound Effect

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Mobile Suit Z Gundam is a classic anime series, a successful sequel and a template for other 80s robot anime. One aspect of it that really sticks in my mind but is less talked about is the sound design. In particular, the sound of beam rifles in Z Gundam is rather iconic, as it’s noticeably different compared to every Gundam anime before and after.

I basically never hear that distinct Z Gundam beam rifle sound anywhere else (that’s not just featuring the Z Gundam itself), with one big exception: the fighting magical girl franchise Precure.

I can’t recall exactly when I first heard the use of the Z Gundam beam rifle sound in Precure—I think it might have been in Kira Kira Precure a la Mode—but ever since then, I can’t help noticing it. In Episode 32 of Healin’ Good Precure, the monster of the week makes pretty much that exact sound when firing a blast of energy (see 17:43 in the link).

It’s so strange to me. Of all the places for the beam rifle to show up, why Precure? There’s no studio connection (as Gundam is from Sunrise and Precure is from Toei Animation), so they’re not necessarily working from the same stock library. You won’t even find the sound in other mecha series—though maybe hearing it in a giant robot anime would bring up too many comparisons? I wonder if the sheer genre distance between the two allows Precure to use the SFX? Or could there be some Gundam fans in charge of sound production at Toei who like to incorporate the beam rifle into episodes. For that matter, I think I’ve even heard the classic Newtype flash on occasion while watching Precure.

More broadly, this all makes me want to know why the Z Gundam beam rifle sound just never really went anywhere beyond that one series. Personally, I think it has a great tone that sounds like a powerful yet precise weapon. Perhaps it was too iconic for its own good, but I guess for now, it’ll live on in the battles of modern anime’s most prominent transforming heroines.

Healin’ Good Precure and the Age of Coronavirus

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In recent weeks, many of the anime that were on hiatus due to COVID-19 have begun returning, and one question that arises is how these series might be affected by the delay going forward. Many, like Demon Slayer: Mugen Train and The Millionaire Detective, are adaptations, and so wouldn’t be affected content-wise. Similarly, historical fiction like Appare Ranman! can easily ignore current events. But there is one series I’m looking at as potentially being deeply impacted by coronavirus on a story level, and that’s Healin’ Good Precure.

The main motifs of Healin’ Good Precure are healthcare and the environment. The girls essentially act as doctors trying to heal different Earth spirits when they fall ill, their interactions with their fluffy mascots take a veterinary angle, and their magical dresses briefly resemble physician lab coats during transformation. It’s an incredible coincidence that this would be the Precure series we have in the middle of a global pandemic, but here we are.

The Precure franchise as a whole does not have any source material—the anime are the original works. Everything else, from manga to video games, are subordinate to it. What this means is that there’s no source material to reference or adhere to, so it likely has a degree of flexibility in terms of potentially changing its story. The fact that Precure shows are typically around 50 episodes also means there’s plenty of time to pivot and try to take into account current trends and real-world concerns. Also, while the series was on hiatus, the official Precure LINE channel actually had videos featuring Precure stuffed dolls talking (via the voice actors) to kids and playing games with them, so i think there is an awareness that children are feeling the effects of self-quarantine and the like.

While I don’t think Healin’ Good Precure is going to do anything as drastic as explicitly introduce coronavirus into the show, I do wonder if they’re going to try and incorporate some of the good behavior into the girls’ special moves or equipment. For example, what if one of the mid-series upgrades are special magical masks that give the Precures enhanced powers? What if the girls learn a special attack that requires them to stand six feet (or two meters) apart from one another? Of course, it’s also possible that the show will keep ignoring the environment created by COVID-19 in the hopes of giving young kids an image of how things are “supposed to be.”

Regardless of how far Healin’ Good goes to address current events, Precure’s general positivity and supportive messages are very welcome. I’m just waiting to see how far it goes.