Category Archives: pretty cure

Well They Do Say That Presentation Matters

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A recent episode of Iron Chef America had veteran Masaharu Morimoto taking on Chopped judge Geoffrey Zakarian in Battle Sardine. Morimoto, whose specialty is not only Japanese food but fish in particular provided a formidable challenge for Zakarian. During the tasting portion of the competition, Morimoto served “sardine tacos,” held together with what appeared to be colorful paper. Upon closer inspection however, the paper started to look a lot more familiar.


Milky Rose?!

Ladies and gentlemen, the US TV debut of Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Go Go!

Now as to why in the world Iron Chef Japanese would be incorporating a popular mahou shoujo series into his plating, I don’t have an actual idea, but I do have a few theories, some more outlandish than others.

Perhaps he has a daughter who’s a big fan of Precure, and this is his clever nod to her. Or perhaps Iron Chef Morimoto is himself a fan of the series. It could also possibly be that he chose it because the girls of Precure have colors which match well with the sardine tacos.

Or maybe he just grabbed whatever he could and this was the result.

Still, I think a lot more food could stand to be served on top of anime.

Neither Generically Exceptional Nor Exceptionally Generic

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See if the following descriptions sound familiar to you:

1) A young boy uses his mysterious abilities to fight against the forces of darkness alongside his close friends. Though he’s short on brains, he’s long on potential, and as the series progresses you see him gaining more and more power at incredible rates.

2) When a young girl meets an adorable magical creature, she is transformed into a beautiful and striking figure. Together with her friends, she fights the forces of darkness while still finding time to have fun with her friends and care for her parents’ shop.

Most likely, the two images that popped into your head were the most generic shounen fighting anime and generic mahou shoujo anime ever , respectively. However, the two shows I was actually describing are Kekkaishi and Heartcatch Precure.

Kekkaishi and Heartcatch Precure are both series that are firmly rooted in all the tropes one expects out of them. Kekkaishi involves fighting progressively more powerful opponents as our heroes improve their abilities to keep up. The male main character has a lot of “power” while the female protagonist has “finesse.” In Heartcatch, there’s bright pastels and an entire flower motif and transformation sequences. Both series involve Monsters of the Week. But while they are definitely “generic” in a sense, I really believe both to be pretty exceptional, and it mainly has to do with the way both series approach characterization.

In both cases, the strength of the characterization stems from the interaction between the central characters. For Kekkaishi, it’s the subdued and yet progressive romance of Yoshimori and Tokine. For Heartcatch, it’s the budding friendship between Tsubomi and Erika.  And when you look at both, you see just how well one character complements the other, the way their similarities and differences provide sparks of clever interaction. It’s what sets them apart from other series in their respective genres; the characters feel significantly more fleshed out and three-dimensional than the usual fare, and in a way that I think people who don’t religiously follow shounen fighting or mahou shoujo can appreciate.

At the same time however, I think that for people who don’t really look for that sort of thing, both series can still come across as incredibly generic. And for people who outright despise the genres of shounen fighting and mahou shoujo, no amount of smart writing in these shows can make up for the fact that what aggravates them about shows like these are still present in full force. That is, unless the thing that aggravates them is a lack of good characterization.

If You’re Looking For an Additional Reason to Wear Green Today…

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Incidentally, the other vital component of the day appears to have a similar effect on people.

It’s Fresh Precure, and it Finally Has Character Designs

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The fine folks over at Toei Animation have recently revealed that their newest Precure series, Fresh Precure, is more than just Very Orange as its official website used to indicate.

We’ve got some main characters now. Momozono Love is Cure Peach. She’s a dancer! Aono Miki is Cure Berry. She’s athletic and wants to be a fashion model. Yamabuki Inori is Cure Pine. She loves animals! All of them are 14 years old, in their second year of Junior High where almost all Precure girls start.

If you’ve ever wondered why I take an interest in Precure, it partly has to do with the way it’s alchemically fused girls’ anime and boys’ anime and otaku anime into a golem of profit and merchandising, all while still being reasonably enjoyable. What steps has Toei taken to continue to ensure profitability? Well, the new costumes seem to have a sort of maid theme, and I have to wonder if that delicate balance of fanbases is leaning ever-so-slightly towards the “otaku” side. The girls are leggier, look older than previous Cures despite being roughly the same age, and even appear to be bustier.

It might not be easy to notice the disparity off-hand, so I’ve provided a comparison image below.

The Precure girls post-transformation have always had more athletic builds, so the disparity between regular Nagisa and regular Love is even more pronounced.

Is it a new character designer or is it the same character designer with some modifications to her art style? Is this a reflection of the increasing average height of Japanese people? Or is it just part of a greater strategy to target people who have a thing for legs?

We’ll find out February 1st, 2009.

Precure Crossover Movie Trailer: Has a Newer, Slightly Different Title

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It’s not Pretty Cure All Stars, it’s Pretty Cure All Stars DX: We’re All Friends – The Miraculous All-Member Grand Gathering with the DX pronounce “Deluxe,” which shouldn’t come as a surprise for anyone who played Game Boy Color re-releases of classic NES games or watches videos of Japanese Smash Bros Melee.

The trailer uses the same theme song as the crossover game, and the movie is set to release March 20, 2009.

With a (sort of) movie budget and Precure’s trademark well-choreographed fight scenes combined with the sheer appeal of the Crossover, I am looking forward to this.

And maaaaaybe like one or two people were concerned about this, but according to the trailer Saki and Mai still have the ability to turn into Cure Bright and Cure Windy. Not that anyone watched Splash Star.

SHINJIRARERUKA KONO PAWAAAAAAAAA

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I made mention previously that Pretty Cure is getting its own special crossover movie, combining the Precure girls from every series so far. What I didn’t know is that there was already a Nintendo DS game establishing the concept. Better still, it actually got its own custom opening.

I’m glad to see the concept of the Epic Crossover extending beyond the realm of Manly Men Anime, and Manly Men Anime FIghting Manly Men Video Games, and into the territory of magical girls with the ability to roundhouse kick you down the Grand Canyon.

You smell that? That’s progress. Though there is some precedent for it.

Also I keep rewinding the video just to see Cure Bloom make that Bruce Lee face.

0:57 in.

Additional Note: The song is actually sung by all four women who’ve performed Precure OP/EDs. Damn that’s some good fan-appeal.

Thanks, Anime

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It’s an interesting time in anime, and there’s plenty of stuff to be grateful for.


Thanks, Anime, for providing affordable DVDS of series loved by all types of otaku, from Gurren-Lagann to Ouran High School Host Club to Aria and beyond.


Thanks, Anime, for making strides to becoming more accessible. Strike Witches isn’t what I’d call a show I’d recommend to others, but I commend GONZO for putting itself out there. And while some of you may have made a few missteps, like Sony with your super-expensive PS3 episodes of Xam’d, I’ll still be there to buy the DVDs.


Thanks, Anime, for having an incredible season this year with something for everyone, with fine work in practically every genre and sub-genre. With this, I have no regrets.


Thanks, Anime, for your plans to give us an Ultimate Crossover Pretty Cure Movie that we’ve been waiting for since Max Heart ended. I look forward to the 11-girl Ultimate Crossover Pretty Cure Finisher. It’s also thanks to this image that I realize that the more athletic Precure girls have tanner skin. You learn something everyday.


Thanks, Anime, for slating a Professor Layton Animated Movie scheduled for 2010. I’m not even kidding.


And finally, Thank You for an incredible year of Ogiue, JAM Project, good friends, good opportunities, and so much more.

Futari wa Not in America

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Apparently 4kids dropped the license for Pretty Cure after years of holding onto it and doing nothing with  it. I don’t know why 4kids let such an obscenely successful franchise out of its grasp, but I have my suspicions.

1) Pretty Cure’s primary audience is girls, young girls.

2) Pretty Cure is a fairly VIOLENT show aimed towards young girls that would have probably aired on a non-cable network like Fox or the CW, which cringes at too much violence in shows.

3) Anime licensing costs being what they were back when Pretty Cure was licensed, Toei probably cost them enough arms and legs to cripple the Hecatonchires.

Knowing what they did with Doremi, I’m not that sad to see it go, but Pretty Cure is the type of show that needs to be on a normal network to succeed. Here’s hoping someone else picks up the ball.

The Active Pursuit of Anime and the Effects Thereof

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Anime fans in the west have had a long history of actively seeking out their anime. Be it trading tapes, taking time out of your day specifically to go to anime clubs, figuring out the arcane secrets required to get shows off of irc, learning how to use bittorrent, or even searching on Youtube, there has always been the push to find more anime. There is a sort of mental devotion, however small, to finding new shows or finding more of a particular show, and I believe that just as much as it is a reflection of the hardcore fan’s mindset, it can also influence that mindset as well. It is both cause and effect.

When one downloads or otherwise looks for episodes of Pretty Cure, there’s some sort of labor involved, and from that labor it makes sense to want sufficient value in return, to (misappropriately) use some of Karl Marx’s terminology.  Thus, when that episode of Pretty Cure has no progress, when it feels like the last episode, disappointment occurs. Then you might think, “This show isn’t worth my time.” And it might not be. However, keep in mind that most anime in Japan is shown on TV, and the TV acts as a passive medium for most mainstream shows. Anime like Pretty Cure air on weekend mornings, so there’s no need for staying up late or setting a VCR or Tivo. It, like so many other shows, becomes simply a part of a weekly routine, something that can be enjoyed in addition to other activities by the viewer, such as eating breakfast.

It becomes a custom, like saying hi to your neighbor every morning (feel free to substitute neighbor with anyone else). Anyone who woke up for Saturday Morning Cartoons is probably familiar with this feeling. Sure, there are shows you like more than others, or would have to sacrifice one for the other if they aired at the same time on different channels, but the familiarity makes it less of a new shirt and more of a warm blanket.

Having started to watch Eureka Seven in Japan, I originally thought it was going to be a warm blanket, that Eureka Seven would be mostly episodic and carried on the characters’ strong personalities and their interactions. When I noticed those interactions causing permanent changes in those characters, I became more involved, and before long it started to become an active pursuit, where I would purposely go to sleep early on Saturdays to catch Eureka Seven early Sunday morning. I think this gradual shift from blanket to shirt is part of what made me so fond of the show.

I think some of the success (or lack thereof) of anime aired on TV in the US has very much to do with being situated in a way that makes them accessible to passive viewers. Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing aired at convenient, after-school time slots. Cowboy Bebop was on around midnight, when it’s late but not too late. Gundam SEED was saddled by a poor time slot that got progressively worse. Adult Swim seems to be pushing Code Geass off a cliff with a 5am time slot, and I think they are well aware of the active/passive fandom dichotomy that occurs. I mean, you could say that viewers should just set their vcr’s to record, but then that involves labor, and the viewer then pretty much has to be a fan.

And while it’s great to be an anime fan, not everyone who is a potential viewer or a potential fan starts off this way.

Filler is Not the Iru: Shugo Chara Thoughts, Yet Again

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It’s recently come to my attention that a lot of the viewers of the Shugo Chara anime are disappointed at the amount of “filler” in it, especially when compared to the manga. I do not see what the fuss is all about.

I have not read much of the manga, so I do not have that basis for comparison, but I find the show at its current pacing to be very satisfying. Some episodes advance the overall plot, while others are fairly episodic and resolve themselves quickly. Either way, I get a delightful 20+ minutes of Cool & Spicy, and really, as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t mind at all if the entire show was episodic.

Are people upset about diverging from the manga too much? The Cardcaptor Sakura anime took a lot of liberties with the source material. If you compare the Clow Decks of the manga and anime, the anime’s Clow Deck is practically triple the size of its manga counterpart. That is a lot of added material! The character of Li Meiling didn’t even exist in the original manga.

People are even complaining about Shugo Chara getting a second season, for fear of even more filler. Worrying when a good show gets more episodes is ridiculous. This is par for the course for magical girl shows. Considering recent examples of other magical girl shows which got extended, I see no harm. Pretty Cure only got better when it became Pretty Cure Max Heart (I know there are other Precure series, but they use completely different characters), and Fushigiboshi no Futagohime Gyu! is just as good as the first Futagohime series.

I see no reason to despair. More Shugo Chara is good. Shugo Chara at its current pace is good.