Category: Heartcatch Precure

Most kids’ shows face the problem of how to prevent sensible adults from taking over the series, most of the time this results into them getting dumbed down beyond belief, just to let the kids shine, and even when everything makes sense, people like parents, teachers and grandparents are often reduced to completely unimportant and unimpressive. Heartcatch Precure avoids this with its rule that only certain girls can become Precure, along with the fact that Grandma is just AWESOME.

She can’t transform anymore (of which this episode actually provided a pretty interesting explanation), and yet she acts as a good mentor to the lead characters here. Usually she’s nice and supportive, but this episode was very interesting as she tested their resolve to see if they were worthy for the power with which she once failed to kill Dune.

Also, I may be an idiot, but the plot twist in this episode hit me completely by surprise: I did not suspect it at all, but the mysterious identity of the mysterious man who has been protecting Cure Blossom and Cure Marin was awesome beyond belief. I never considered the possibility, but with the way that the creators have kept building up the great Koppei, it makes sense for him to be able to do such a thing. His actions throughout the series also make perfect sense now.

Oh, and this episode included “the power-up”. I already said before that I don’t really like those practices, but this episode handled it tastefully. It’s not just another “Princess Mode”, but instead there are some definite risks involved in using it (as shown by grandma), in order to balance out the new powers. Using it at the same time provided an excuse for the return of Cure Moonlight, so I guess that this episode couldn’t have let things play out any better than that it did.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

And here we have it: the upgrade episode. Both the bad guys and the good guys received new powers. Now, as much as I like this series, I’m going to be critical again here, because there are a few questions that bother me here:

– In this episode, Sabaaku hands Sasorina, Kumojacky and Cobraja a gem that lets them upgrade their desatorians. Where did he get that and why didn’t he use that before?
– How do Precures discover new abilities anyway? Do they just… “level up” and instantly know how to use new powers? I mean, the golden Precures here… where did they come from? Did they just think of this in the heat of the moment or something?
– Why is there a fanclub for the biggest geek in the school?

Those gems… I have this hate love relationship with them. On one hand, they did make the fights more interesting. On the other hand: Sasorina was about to develop, dammit. I really liked how she was changing at the beginning of this episode, and here that damn evil Sabaaku had to step in and do something about it.

Still, the above questions were the things that you could expect from a mahou shoujo. It in any case didn’t prevent this series from being excellent again, especially since it took Yuri under the loop again, and especially the relationship between her and Tsubomi. This episode definitely succeeded in giving a bit of colour to her character and it made her more than the angsting Yuri.

On top of that, this episode carried on the theme of the previous episode of the loss of fairies, as the characters thought of the possibility of losing Chypre, Coffret and Potpourri. Always great to flesh them out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

This episode reminded me of a mistake a lot of the bad mahou shoujo have made: the mascots. A lot of creators seem to believe that as long as you have them act brightly enough all the time, they’ll end up enjoyable. Instead of portraying them as cheerful characters, they take this way over the top by making this cheerfulness their only character trait. When the series also starts putting these mascots into central roles, you’ve got your recipe for disaster. I think the best example of this is Lilpri, which started airing during the past spring season: what could have been a fun and over the top idol series got completely out of hand when the creators suddenly found it a good idea to make these really badly characterized mascots the lead characters.

Chypre and Coffret know exactly what they are: support characters. They never get into the spotlights, they do their jobs by alerting Tsubomi and Erika as fast as possible about any desatorians, and while both are cheerful, they also know how to… you know, act normally. Then Potpourri came, and seemed to be doing the complete opposite, and she actually got a few episode parts in which she was the central character. Granted, because she was only born recently it makes sense to portray her as a little kid compared to the more “professional” Chypre and Coffret, but something in me didn’t really get used to her. So when this episode again promised to be another arc about her, I had a bit of doubts.

But god dammit, what a sweet episode it turned out to be. I knew from the moment that Potpourri and the little girl stopped playing that my fears were wrong, but even then I was surprised at how GOOD and sincere this episode was. Cure Moonlight’s return alone was already awesome enough, but I love how well Potpourri and that little girl she met acted and made up.

I mean, this show is actually setting out to be even better with its second half than its first half here. There was a far bigger contrast between the light and dark parts, but I like how at the same time the creators aren’t forgetting to keep this a bright and fun series. The creators had a lot of fun with the facial expressions in the bright parts here, not to mention how well the fight was animated (seriously, show: screw the magical beams and instead keep with the martial arts: those really show off how good the animation here is). On top of that, the creators also made excellent uses of Cure Moonlight here, by having her remind her how close Itsuki would have been to losing Potpourri.

I also wonder when we’re going to see the mysterious grandfather again. He hasn’t appeared in ages, but that just shows that he hasn’t been needed, and how the cast has grown.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

The episodic stories of this series are possibly even better than the multi episode arcs. I know that there have been a few lesser ones, but episodes like this more than make up for it. This show is excellent at portraying the normal problems and worries that kids might have without degenerating in the emo territory, but this episode was an exceptionally charming one.

It was about a boy who set himself a challenge for the summer holidays: bike a whopping 500 kilometers between Tokyo and Kyoto. From the moment that he finished this task it was already clear that he cheated somewhere in the middle: the way he acted, the way in which he wasn’t tired at all or the injury, they all pointed towards this, and the guy himself acted this out really well.

I loved how the episode played around wit this and really portrayed his worries as genuine. You could see that he didn’t like the support he received from everyone, and how he must have felt horrible inside that bus. On top of that, people were actually inspired by him to set their own challenges: Tsubomi set her own challenge of creating her own clothing (which looked awesome, by the way, and I liked how the creators sneaked a bit of character-development into this episode as well).

Now that Itsuki is pretty much walking along with Tsubomi and Erika (also, is it me or does Tsubomi still have a crush on Itsuki), I wonder what these kinds of episodes are going to look like when Cure Moonlight is going to return. Is she also going to run along with them? Either way, in the way that Itsuki managed to change this series, I’m really looking forward to seeing what her more mature presence is going to do with the mood of this series.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

For an episode that was about such a seemingly dull subject (summer homework), the creators somehow did it and made the characters even more adorable than they usually are. I mean, wow. You often see kids worry about summer homework in anime, but I like the twist this episode gave to it, when Cobraja got the chance to collect the desatorians of hundreds of kids who were worrying about not finishing it.

I mean, I’m really surprised at how well this episode worked, as it pretty much is a staple of the more cheaper kids’ series: a character is really lazy, slacks off and postpones this homework for way too long, or has some other fit saying how he or she hates homework. At the end of the episode then some message follows preaching how good it is to do your homework, etc. This episode handled it very tactfully though: instead of talking to the viewers, it talked to the characters. It was instead about this bridge that all kids their age need to cross: just doing the homework already.

Erika really was adorable in this episode, especially in the way that the creators portrayed her. I mean, there are so many different characters in anime complaining about homework, but this energy of her made her so enjoyable to watch as she throughout the entire episode tried to run away from it.

And by the way, this could be me because Cure Marin was having a bad day, but am I the only one who is seeing Cure Blossom changing? I mean, to me it really seems like she’s more and more able to follow Cure Sunshine, and actually learning from the way that Cure Sunshine fought. She feels much more controlled now. I think that’s because as a shy person, she often gets caught up in the pace of the one close to her. Previously this was Erika, but now that she really has gotten close to Itsuki it feels more and more like she feels closer to Itsuki now, compared to Erika. It may just be this episode though, which went out of its way to set Erika apart from the two others.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

This episode rocked because of so many reasons. I mean, the creators picked the perfect episode to start off the series with. Transfer students are obviously a staple for anime, but this episode reminded me of actually how few series actually try to explore the past of the transfer student, before he or she came to live at her new home. The best we usually get is a brief mention, if anything gets shown at all.

A full episode dedicated to the memories that Tsubomi and her grandmother left behind though. That really was a pleasant surprise for me. Especially grandmother’s younger version was awesome. To think that she also had a background in karate, but what was really adorable was how she grew to love her husband. I also love how Tsubomi immediately recognized her grandfather as the guy who has been saving her over and over. Take that, Sailor Moon!

A major part of this episode was also about another childhood friend. Another cliche that was handled surprisingly well here. I mean, it hasn’t been too long ago, and the guy obviously still likes him (mostly thanks to that music box, I presume), but for Tsubomi he really is someone she left behind, and she’ll probably occasionally see him again. At the end of the episode where he tried to confess, it’s not like he got cock-blocked like you’d expect in your average romantic comedy. Instead, he chose not to confess his feelings.

As for Sasolina, it seems she’s fine at this point, though I can’t help but feel that that point at which she undid her hair was some kind of symbolism. Anime loves to play with hair in terms of symbolism to character-development.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

An adorable episode to close off the first half of this series. Nothing really major happens, though we get to see more about one of the members of the fashion club, which is always nice. It’s a simple story about a shy girl who has trouble talking to the person she looks up to, but quite effective.

The battles in the meantime are getting a bit boring at this point though. It’s clear that at this point the creators still are very much building Itsuki’s role into the team, but the battles have now a bit degenerated in to the Precures spamming attacks until the other side either goes down or teleports away. In her first few episodes you could really see Itsuki using her martial arts background into the fight, but this episode this wasn’t really apparent. Kumojacky in the meantime feels like he attained a new ultimate technique for the umpth time.

Instead this episode was all about Naomi and the rest of the gasshuku. Not a lot to say, but still really charming.
Rating: * (Good)

With all of the careful build-up of Cure Sunshine, it’s a bit ironic to see that the creators have no intentions to get Cure Moonlight back into the series. But you know what? This is even better news here. Especially considering that Itsuki really became a main character here, instead of some side-character who is doomed to remain in the shadows of Blossom and Marin. If the same is going to happen to Cure Moonlight, my guess will be that the series is going to get quite a bit more mature, as we now really have the contrast between the two innocent characters of Tsubomi and Erika, and the more matured characters of Itsuki and Moonlight.

But yeah, this episode already showed what a major impact Itsuki has had. The bad guys now really need to take more risks, resulting in that Sasorina nearly got caught. I’m not sure if that scene was building up to something, but if it was then it’s going to be awesome. What I’m hoping for the most right now is that the creators won’t pull some sort of deus ex machina that won’t give Tsubomi and Erika some amazing powers to match Cure Sunshine. I really hope that that’s going to be one of the formulas that the creators will be able to avoid. In fact, I can imagine that with Cure Moonlight, the combination of the four Precures will be about as strong as Dark Precure, which will probably result in some epic battles. Make Tsubomi and Erika too strong, and that whole balance is gone again.

The best part of this episode was the gasshuku, though. It’s great to see the fashion club again, and it’s great to see that all of the members have been portrayed really well as girls of their age. It really helped to show Itsuki’s development, and how people are starting to see her beyond her image of the student council president, while she at the same time doesn’t try to be someone she isn’t.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

As awesome as they look, I do hope that from now on the creators are going to limit the different transformation scenes in each episode. I mean, they were still fine when it was just Blossom and Marin, but now that Sunshine has arrived these scenes are starting to dominate the episode: in this episode, we had Sunshine’s transformation scene, the scene in which all precures announce their names, then there also was the part in which the heart seed was “born”, two times Sunshine’s special attack, then there’s Blossom and Marin’s special attack, plus another special attack of Blossom… it’s just too much. But I think that the creators realize this as well.

To make up for it, this episode featured the inclusion of a few new soundtracks for the series, and they really rock. They’re going to be great additions to the series’ second half. On top of that, this episode also introduced flying capes, so we’re probably also going to get a lot more aerial battles from now on. Sounds promising. Either way, I’m very curious to this second half: exactly how far will the creators go in shifting the direction of this series after the half-way point?

Anyway, about this episode: it was mostly meant to protect the Heart Tree, and prevent the bad guys from going after it in the second half. With this, we’ve also closed off the “Sunshine introduction arc”, and the next episode should give some hints about what the rest of the series will look like. The fight itself wasn’t the most interesting due to the above-mentioned transformation scene abuse, but this really was meant as an episode to introduce some of the new stuff here.
Rating: * (Good)

Now, with all that build-up, this episode had better be worth it: we finally see the entrance of Cure Sunshine! And indeed, the animators were at their finest, and they really made sure to give the third Precure an adorable entrance. The entire episode was really well directed, with some top-notch jokes, instant chemistry between Potpourri and Itsuki and gorgeous transformation scenes.

Seriously, Sunshine’s transformation scene completely blew that of Cure Blossom and Cure Marin out of the water. Talk about fluid animation here, this looked even better than some of the best animated scenes of the Precure DX movie! The rest of the visual direction of this episode perhaps was nowhere as fluent as that, but there were a ton of interesting shots and angles, without going over the top.

What’s also interesting is the following: since Cure Blossom and Cure Marin were the two weakest Precure ever, this addition of Cure Sunshine is bound to throw the plot into a new direction. After all, Itsuki isn’t just great at martial arts, she also contains a shield. She was easily able to beat something that Blossom and Marin had a ton of trouble with. Now, there is no way that the creators are going to have nothing happen at the villains’ side: they need to include some sort of a reason to give Itsuki a challenge. Whether this means that Dark Precure will come more into action, or that it’s going to be something else, I really sense that something is going to happen that will turn this series a lot less linear now.

As for Itsuki’s brother, I can understand his fears of going into surgery, which make him forget to be that cool brother that Itsuki always looks up. His angst was well delivered… and why did this episode end before he was turned back?
Rating: *** (Awesome)