Go! Princess Precure

Ever since she was young, Haruka Haruno has always aspired to become a princess. Despite being mocked for this seemingly childish wish, Haruka perseveres to make her dream a reality, ultimately culminating in her acceptance into the prestigious Noble Academy—the birthplace of people's fantasies.

When Haruka arrives at her new school, a chance encounter with a pair of magical creatures influences a series of unbelievable events, and Haruka awakens as "Cure Flora," the princess of blooming flowers. After two of Haruka's classmates also transform into legendary princesses, a story of self-discovery unfolds as the newfound team "Princess Precure" carries the responsibility of protecting everyone's dreams. Engaged in a battle between hope and despair, Haruka may find the key toward becoming the princess she has always dreamed to be.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Haruno, Haruka Main

Shimamura, Yuu Japanese

Amanogawa, Kirara Main

Yamamura, Hibiku Japanese

Akagi, Towa Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Kaidou, Minami Main

Asano, Masumi Japanese

Shut Supporting

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Puff Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Nanase, Yui Supporting

Yoshimura, Haruka Japanese

Kanata Supporting

Tachibana, Shinnosuke Japanese

Lock Supporting

Kaida, Yuki Japanese

Haruno, Momoka Supporting

Matsuura, Ayu Japanese

Takahashi, Tomoko Producer

Shibata, Hiroaki Producer

Uetsuki, Mikio Producer

Tanaka, Yuuta Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Assistant Director

Reviews

Sep 17, 2018

MetaThPr4h

Recommended

Dreams are beautiful and worth protecting, something that moves forward people and gives us a goal to reach in our way to happiness. Poor/unappealing execution and disliking the characters aside, the theme of "working hard to reach your dreams" is one of the most compelling ones there is to me, and well, here is an anime where the characters having a dream and the enemy trying to take them away is the main theme! I was already hooked from the start, and the execution couldn't have been better.

“I want to be a princess!” Said our clumsy, but hardworking and absurdly lovable protagonist Haruka when she ... was a kid, the rest laughed at her for having such childish dream, maybe you did you too after reading this thinking about how absurd that might be, but that hurt her, a lot. Thankfully, one day she met a mysterious person who looked like a prince and he cheered for her dream and that she could become one, and that moment is what pushed her to stay that way and continue having that dream she wanted to reach all the way to when she joined Noble Academy, a school where this fantastic story is set.

In this entry, the antagonist side is an organization called Dysdark, that focuses on bringing despair to the people by locking away their dreams (and them in the process inside of a cage), they already showed their power by taking full control of Hope Kingdom and the people living there, with the few who managed to run away asking the Precures of this entry for help. While some comedic interactions with the girls are still there, I have to say that Princess clearly went more serious when it comes to showing the villains as the evil force they are, and how threatening Dyspear (the main antagonist of the story) is definitely helps on that.

And this is where the Precure come to action, and what a nice job they made, the cast of this anime is so likeable and this is especially true for the main characters of this story and Yui, another student who isn't a Precure but is always with the girls, we follow them in their way to accomplish their dreams and this includes all the happy, sad, and very emotional moments of that, it's so easy to root for them and each episode is really enjoyable no matter who takes the spotlight, I was hooked to this anime from the first episode and it only made but get better, reaching godlike status in the last cour where it became a string of amazing episode after amazing episode into a conclusion that left me immensely satisfied.

The animation of the series is fantastic, especially delivering hard in the transformations and action scenes that are characteristic of the series, it's honestly surprising how consistent the quality is considering that Precure never really stops airing.

With that said, it's time to tackle the only negative I can think of this anime: some use of the CGI. Together with the “real life looking” issue I have with the toys the franchise obviously wants to advertise to keep going as mentioned in my Heartcatch Precure review, the magic spells and the CGI models that come along with them can be pretty jarring, but it really becomes a minor complaint when everything else in the series was just so great.

The series is also very solid in the music department, and god, I love the second ED of the series so much even if having the issue I mentioned, it's a great song and it also has different versions (one for each of the Precure), alternating between them, most of the time fitting with who was the main focus of the episode, it was unskippable and a fantastic way to end the episode.

Princess Precure is no anime “just for kids”, the themes of the story and how well they are handled are made in a way that anyone can enjoy this anime and feel connected with the cast and their dreams, maybe also being able to relate with your own ones and feel an extra push for your objectives. One of the best series I have watched and an anime I can't recommend enough to everyone.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jul 26, 2016

ZettaiRyouiki

Mixed Feelings

Ah, Go! Princess Precure or hencefort GoPri for simplicity. Quite the popular and beloved season for some reason. Most fans say this is one of the if not the best reason. However, some of us believe this is quite the opposite and this is easily the WORST season from the franchise. Why? Just keep reading...

WARNING: This review has SPOILERS all over! Nothing extreme, but spoilers.

Story - 4

The story in GoPri is already one of its weak points. For starters the main structure is exactly the same than in DokiDoki, that aired two years ago. And before you go "But Zettai, every single season from Pretty ... Cure follows the same structure" note I don't mean one or two minor things like having the new Cure join midway. I mean like the whole thing!

To wit: The first episodes are the various Cures joining with the last one taking extra, then episode 11 has the first big fight with one villain that can transform and is vanquished with the shiny new combination attack, then another new villain fixated into the Pink Cure appears, then said villain eventually gets one big fight halfway, then the Red Cure joins, then we have another decisive battle by episode 30 won with another new combination attack, then we have some more stuff, and finally the finale with the last battle being just the Pink Cure against the final boss. See? They are the EXACT SAME THING. No other season was this bad, not even Smile the uncreative ripoff season.

On top of that the plot has other issues too, like the plotline being about following your dreams and then giving us one of the dumbest goals possible for the main character, who naturally never gets over this, or anything and everything involving the fourth perfume. Let's just say the series forgets Scarlet should not exist to begin with and therefore everything involving her just keeps causing giant gaping plotholes.

I mean, Pretty Cure is for little girls, but that doesn't mean the plot should be this lazy. Even the terrible DokiDoki was not that bad. At least that tried, which is more GoPri did.

Art - 6

The art is alright, and this season had few QUALITY episodes which is surprising. But there are still problems with it. For starters the 3D looks tacky and out of place, like it was bad when HapiCha did it and is bad now. Glad that Maho Girls got over that. Furthermore most battles are lazily animated, with very few punches and kicks and too much finisher and combination attack spam. Somehow these battles are highly praised among the fanbase, dunno why. Also many of the special attacks and finishers are really long, and the canned animation abuse makes the whole thing feel cheap. Though being fair most recent Cure seasons do this, not just GoPri.

Moving past the animation there are the character designs, and these have issues too. Most are alright, but two stand out as being horrible. I'm talking about Cure Flora and Cure Mermaid like many might have deducted. Flora looks ridiculous with her half-blonde half-pink hair without any rhyme or reason, with her bangs looking like she pasted colored putty on her forehead, while Mermaid has hair that doesn't look like hair AT ALL and just looks plain creepy. Everyone else looks fine, Dyspear's ridiculous cleavage keyhole notwithstanding.

There are also the costume variations. Not only we have Elegant Mode where the girls get longer skirts when using special attacks, presumably to tack on more canned animation, but also each Key meaning special attack gets its own variation on the costume. The problem is these variations all look identical save for one or two accessories and just feel like Toei trying hard to sell extra figurines and costumes, especially after HapiCha actually went and gave everyone two unique extra costumes plus the shared upgrade.

Sound - 7

The songs and everything else are fine. The only problems are the OP being slightly longer than usual for yet more resource saving and Haruka's annoying constant yelling.

Character - 2

And this is where everything fades and crumbles. The cast from this show is terrible, albeit mostly due to Haruka the worst Cure from the franchise.

Ah, Haruka... Remember when Mana was mocked and derided for being Mana Sue? Well, Haruka is like Mana but without Mana's few positive traits and made dumber. At least Mana was oddly competent for her Cure color and that made her stand out. Haruka is the generic dumb Pink lead except she can somehow excel at everything if she tries, to unrealistic levels. One early episode was about her making her own party dress AND still doing well in class AND saving the day during the monster of the week battle even though she was really tired. Like they could have made it so she didn't fight and the other two handled the monster themselves, or fight but only cause problems, but they had to show how Haruka is the greatest thing since sliced bread. There are far more problems but I don't want to drown this review in spoilers. I'll just mention like half the episodes revolve entirely or partially about Haruka in some way or another. And here I was thinking this franchise was about friendship and teamwork.

For the other Cures... Minami is basically Generic Blue Cure. If you saw one Blue Cure before and was not Erika then you saw Minami already. She is smart, leads the student council, has water and ice powers, affinity with water, fears ghosts, and is basically all the previous Blue Cures all together. Very lazy. Kirara is awesome and the only Cure that had some effort put into being unique, and thankfully she's most popular too. Towa is basically every former enemy turned heroine put together, again showing zero creativity.

The rest of the cast is alright, with Kanata being better than the previous bishounens but still being quite the pointless love interest. The villains are okay but you can tell Close was also the darling from the writers with all the attention he gets. Details would involve spoilers but let's just say he's basically Villain Haruka with all the love he gets.

Enjoyment - 6

GoPri is the worst Pretty Cure season. It's not horrible, but it has the weakest fights, the weakest cast, and the weakest plot. Many things feel recycled from previous seasons and the few exceptions aren't that great either. The fanbase constantly shiilling it while bashing and deriding the superior HapiCha didn't help matters either. I suppose it's fine if you have never seen another Cure season, but then you should start with something good like Fresh and not with this... thing. The franchise is unique because it focuses on tough girls, and the princess motif does not fit one bit with this.

Overall - 6

There were some enjoyable moments, Kirara was amazing, and it makes for good mocking material. You could do worse than GoPri, but considering this is the same franchise that had pearls like Splash Star this is quite the downgrade. Avoid unless you love princesses and stock animation battles, or wanna watch everything Pretty Cure for some reason.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 6, 2024

ProudElitist

Not Recommended

Preliminary (17/50 eps)

Go Princess Precure, A.K.A. the (mostly) well-animated "story" (even if there's no actual plot of any kind here, but whatever) of boring Mary Sues (the three main cures, all geniuses with genius parents who destroy all the opposition by flinching an eye) raised to the square doing fights recycled from the Kamen Rider and Super Sentais in a long line of Mary Sues from the very first Pretty Cure Series (I'm talking about the already perfect in all regards Honoka and Nagisa, of course) doing the same stuff. Boring Mary Sues that are all the contrary of the philosophy of deconstructing Shoujo Mary Sues to ... make them relatable to the public Toei animation expressed from the very first Majokko ever put on screen (Mahou Tsukai Sally) to the unsung and extremely underrated Ojamajo Doremi, akin to the change of heart Disney expresses through their unneeded, unnecessary Live Action, modern-era tailored renditions of their Classic with a Capital C animated movies. What happened, exactly? it is because of the success of the highly-overrated and equally boring Kamen Rider Kuuga - which had a similarly boring, irritating and nonsensically (nonsensically because there was no point whatsoever behind him, unlike the one present in Avataro Sentai Donbrothers) Gary Stu as a protagonist - that Toei decided to take this path? or it is because somebody suddently became enamored with the Usagi Tsukino and Sailor Venus as depicted in the terrible SM manga? I sincerely don't understand it. Check this series (and, I guess, the Pretty Cure franchise on the whole) only if you have a specific case of hard on for Mary Sues being as powerful and as unstoppable as it can get while (again, mostly) crystal clear animation and catchy OST in the background try to cover up for the atrocious writing on display, if you're not that kind of person chances are you're going to be bored to death like it happened with me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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