Category: Heartcatch Precure

Seriously, when was the last time a shoujo-series aired that kicked this much ass? This episode yet again had some wonderful action, probably amongst the best I’ve ever seen in a mahou shoujo-series. This episode that focused on Cure Moonlight was everything I hoped it to be, and a worthy closure of the first quarter of the series. Now the question remains: what do the creators have in store for the rest of the series?

This episode made me think a bit: there aren’t that many single mothers in anime, are there? Usually when characters have a dysfunctional family, it’s either both their parents who are gone, or the mother simply isn’t there. Yes, that “all mothers are weak” stereotype seriously needs to freaking die already. In any case, out of all the dysfunctional families, I’ve noticed that the single mothers are often portrayed the best. This episode was no exception. Heck, I’m really surprised that the creators even gave Cure Moonlight a family: usual anime don’t bother with those kinds of things for characters of her calibre. It added so much to her character, though. That bond between Cure Moonlight and her mother was subtle yet awesome.

One issue I did have with this episode was that it did fall into one particular cliche (very rare for this series to slip up like that): the “I’m about to kill you but I won’t”-stereotype. The reason the creators provided didn’t make too much sense: Dark Precure is about to kill Erika and Tsubomi, but her boss stops her from doing so because he ordered her not to involve herself with Cure Moonlight anymore? What do these things have to do with each other.

Nevertheless, this episode had really well directed action. The camera-angles, animation, it all fitted. Let’s hope that Toei can keep up this standard for the rest of the series!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Sappy, but in a good way. This episode was all about a genuine love drama between a couple that’s about to propose to each other, where our heroines take up the role of matchmakers. The plot really took a back-seat here, and we didn’t really learn anything new, but it was a good and charming episode nonetheless.

Well, okay. That nothing new happened isn’t entirely true. We now learn a bit more about that strange power that Tsubomi keeps using to get rid of the desatorians, which is some sort of extreme make-happy-and-relaxed beam. Seeing as how Erika also was hit by it this time, we learn that it’s quite a bit different from your average mahou shoujo godmode beam. Whether it’s going to come back later in the series, I don’t know, though.

In any case, what this episode also stressed was how important family is. One of the big nonsensical stereotypes of anime is that kids with normal parents are really rare: we either have one parent, or no parents at all. With Heartcatch Precure you can really feel that the characters have their own families, however. That’s also one of the things I liked about such a series as Telepathy Shoujo Ran. Sure, its plot was ridiculously stupid, but Ran’s family was really well portrayed.

Next up: episode 13, the climax of the first quarter of this series. I’m very curious what the creators have in store. You could really see that these past thirteen episodes have been building up. If the creators really know what they’re doing, then it’s there where we should see the first hints of all the pay-off of this build-up. What I want to see is a new direction in the next quarter: something new and fresh that we have yet to see in the past thirteen episodes. Whether it’s about revisiting past characters, developing them even more, a more linear storyline or more daring concepts for episodes. Surprise me, Heartcatch!
Rating: * (Good)

Ah, a martial arts-themed episode. It follows a kid and his younger brother who are practicing Kungfu. At first I feared a boring training-arc (after all, the previous episode did show Tsubomi and Erika losing pretty badly). But this episode actually broke a ton of martial-arts cliches and stereotypes in the process.

What I loved about this episode was that it did not overestimate the powers of kungfu. Sure, when you master such a martial art, you can do some pretty neat stuff. However, it takes years before you’ll be able to understand it, and even more years before you’ll end up fully mastering it, especially as a kid. Most of these martial-arts arcs are very shallow, in the way of “ZOMG, I knowz kungfu now I iz awezome fighterzzz”. While in fact, a weak kid who knows a few years of kungfu still remains a weak kid.

This episode avoided making the mistake in having the episode end with the kid, taking revenge on his bullies by kicking their ass. In fact, his problems were perfectly normal: he stood out with his new hobby, and suddenly everyone expects him to be able to fight really good. Even though there’s no way that he’s going to be able to Judo away such a big kid. Instead, the creators had him take on one of those weak minions from the bad guys; you know, the things that anyone could take on. A clever way to show that he does have some guts when it counts. The entire episode also was not about him learning to fight and beat all bullies: the tensions between him and his classmates still exist at the end of the episodes and there was nothing like that “ah, I see you’re a good fighter now. Let’s all be friends and forget that we ever bullied you”-crap. Instead, this episode was all about that little brother who looked up to someone.

It’s because of these small twists that I love even the uneventful episodes of this series. You can really see that the creators put thoughts into how to make this work best, while not upsetting the already established fan-base of the Precure franchise by keeping true to mahou shoujo formula. In return, Tsubomi’s ideas of how kung fu works were a bit stupid. But can you blame her?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Wow, what an episode! It’s here where the creators show how good they actually are. This episode was both beautifully animated, hilarious and tense. It’s here where the Precure are proven to be completely useless and not god-moded at all when it comes to defeating the biggest threats. In typical mahou-shoujo fashion they were saved by some mysterious guys who are also on their sides, but then again: these two high schoolers look so much more interesting than your average prince on the white horse, even though we don’t even know anything about them.

The combination between the incredibly silly henchman and the actually competent dark Precure turned out to work really well: because of that we didn’t get a sudden episode full of angst about this unbeatable opponent, but instead the creators balanced the light-hearted parts (and that strange football match) well amongst the darker parts in which that Dark Precure appeared. And remember that we’re only at 1/5th of the way: there’s still plenty of time left to actually develop them.

And the animation! It wasn’t just absolutely gorgeous, it also brought out the best of the characters! That’s really what I consider to be animation at its finest: not the kind with the biggest budget, but one that actually makes its cast alive when it counts. And this episode did that so well: it was full of interesting camera-angles, the characters were full of different emotions and even the action was continuously fun, both in the small down to earth parts as the soccer match, and the over the top parts where Dark Precure stood in the spotlights. Seriously, if this is only a taste of what the creators have in store for us, then I’m really curious to the rest of this series.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Another excellent episode, there’s no other way to it. Tsubomi’s relationship with her parents got under the loop this time. On top of being quite a sad episode, it’s awesome to see that the creators have no intention to forget about the parents this time. You often see series gloss over the lead characters’ parents in anime, but showing these things can give such a good insight on how they decided to raise their children, explaining why the character in question grew up the way he/she did.

The way that they were once workaholics, who eventually chose their child over their jobs is perhaps nothing new, but it added so much to Tsubomi’s character. I really felt sorry for her to have to sit alone on a bench for years. It’s interesting how her grandmother also didn’t seem to have time for her, or stimulate her to go and play with other kids. You can see that she still fears that her parents are going to go away again, up to the point at which she even was too afraid to explain it.

with this, the story of the baseball boy also isn’t such a filler anymore. Instead, the creators meant to introduce someone who Tsubomi could feel vaguely familiar to, and they meant to show her a case in which a child did not want to get in the way of his parents’ happiness. In a way, Tsubomi’s parents are now also trying to make up for the time that they couldn’t be there for her.

The animation during the fights was also very well done, and you can see that the recycled scenes are getting slightly shorter with every episode. There’s one thing I still don’t get, though: the heart seeds. Perhaps it’s something I missed from a previous Precure series, but why are these farts so important? We’ve hardly seen them used, and the recycled scene around it didn’t make sense in this episode: we see it appearing at a point at which neither Tsubomi nor Erika could have been near it to store it in the… “heart seed container”. Or however it may be called.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I really love this: the creators could decide to go lazy and instead animate a bunch of random stories. Instead, it’s focusing its first quarter at establishing every major character. This time, it’s the turn of Erika’s sister, building further upon the third episode in which we learned about how jealous Erika is of her sister.

Again, this episode didn’t claim to fix everything. The Desatorian was created through Momoka’s stress, just at a time at which she happened to be feeling down. It’s not like Momoka needed the help of the Precures to know how to fix her problems. In fact, the reason that these desatorians help is by alerting the people around it about the person’s problems; it’s all about communication.

So, while this episode wasn’t as enjoyable as some of the others of this show, I’m happy enough with it due to its build-up. With every of these episodes I’m getting more and more curious as to what the creators are planning to do with the rest of this series.
Rating: * (Good)

Agh, no. They’re going to animate the the Precure Allstars Movie in 3D. The promo that took this week’s episode’s OP’s place looked horrible because of it. I really hope that Toei isn’t planning to do that with the Kaidan Restaurant Movie. I’m actually looking forward to that one.

In any case, that student council president! Her story came way earlier than I expected, and it was also completely different from what I expected. She quite forcefully jumped out of her role as romantic interest when her gender was revealed (in a quite funny way, actually), breaking yet another shoujo stereotype in the process.

Her story also contains the opposite of a well used trope: the weak younger sister. Instead, the student council president has a weak older brother. Refreshing; I haven’t seen that since watching Otogizoshi. Her story was well told. It’s also nice how they managed to tie the fashion club into her story: at first I thought it was just going to be a pointless gimmick to keep the characters busy, but it actually contributed to her development a bit.

I also wonder: will the fact that that bishie got smashed have any effect on the rest of this story? Knowing the creators, they might actually include the consequences of having these desatorians turn against their creators.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Again we focus on a random kid, and again it’s not a total waste of time at all. Note how this episode revisited some of the previous victims, showing that they’re still alive. That’s rare, even among the good episodic mahou shoujo. This episode also showed a bit more about that mysterious guy, who against my expectations might not be the student council president. This episode also made sure that the battles aren’t going to end up incredibly repetitive by revealing the powers of these mysterious heart seed as sources of random powers. With a bit of creativity this can lead to pretty nice action scenes.

We’ve often seen school photographers in anime. Her story wasn’t as good as last week’s, but it still was well thought out: it’s not exactly like she was feeling down because she was terrible at making photos: she had the right intentions, however by capturing people’s accidents she just carried out her hobby in a bit of a wrong way.

This episode again was great on the visual expressions of the characters. Also, take a look at the student council president’s aikido: that’s not just good animation, but you can actually see that the animators spend time at studying how to perform these techniques. They’re all just hints at how much effort they’re putting into the production of this series. I’m also not sure for how long this is going to continue, but this episode introduced yet another transformation scene. Weren’t these scenes originally intended as a means of laziness? 😛
Rating: * (Good)

Did you know that a Precure Movie is going to premiere in a number of weeks? Well, if you didn’t know, the OP is here to remind you.

In any case, while the previous episodes have all focused on the lead characters themselves, this was the first episode to completely focus on a random kid who feels down. It’s a staple of most mahou shoujo, and especially the thing that kills most of the bad ones. The mood of this episode is completely different from the previous ones and a lot of the comedy is gone now to focus on a more serious story.

However, despite all that, this episode passed its test with flying colours. With this episode, it completely trashed all of the bad episodic series, by showing how simple it is to make a great story out of just one episode with a random character. With just a few modifications to a really overused formula, it showed the power of episodic stories.

Tsubomi really wanted to help Miura, who had a very mundane problem; as he grew up his father couldn’t give as much attention to him because of his ramen shop, yet he couldn’t say anything about it because he didn’t want to disturb his dreams. I’ve seen this used quite a few times now, but this episode made it so genuine that it actually works. Being turned into a monster didn’t necessarily make him stop angsting, but rather it alerted his father about what made him worry, which lead to a pretty heart-warming conclusion.

Also, with these monsters you usually see them wreck random buildings and people that nobody is going to care about. And here this guy was, about to hit his father! That’s some hardcore stuff for a kids’ show.

And also, mind that we’re only at episode five yet. We’ve seen like, four monsters at this point, and yet this episode introduced yet another villain, instead of letting the previous ones try again. Could this be another sort of hint?

NB. At this point, when it comes to the currently airing season, I actually consider Toei to be my favourite animation company. Bones, David Production, Brains Base, A-1, Madhouse and SynergySP may also do a great job this season, but they all have just one amazing series that’s currently airing. Toei has three of them: Kaidan Restarant, Marie & Gali and this one. While all three of them may just be kids’ shows, they’re all amazing in their own way, and for once they’re kids series that don’t look down on kids by making cheap stuff, but instead try to make something actually good and engaging.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I’ve tried watching a Precure before, but the furthest I got was with Fresh Precure (the one of last year), at around episode 6. The thing with that series is: there was just no conflict! The three main characters had no worries, flaws or anything negative. Especially Love, the lead one: she was just having fun every single day, ran around with a random idol, and because of that the battles felt as mundane as having lunch. Talk about contrast with Heart Catch.

This series surely wastes no time with the character-development, seriously. I expected this episode to be just a random monster one, and but instead the creators don’t intend to just waste these episodes and instead build further upon the chemistry between the two lead characters. The result was such an adorable episode, and I’m growing to like Tsubomi more and more.

That really begs the question: what ever could the creators have planned for the rest of this series? I mean, there still are what? 46 episodes left? Most mahou shoujo of this type generally use these first number of episodes to flesh out their cast, but this episode went much further than that. I see this as a hint for some very interesting plans for this series’ latter half.
Rating: ** (Excellent)