Ranked #2079

Suite Precure♪

I think people tend to forget that Pretty Cure is intended for children, specifically, little girls. Yes, it appeals to a wider range of viewers, including adults, but, at its heart, it is intended for a very young audience. Sure, the situations where Seiren and Trio the Minor try to destroy Hibiki and Kanade's friendship might seem cheesy, over-the-top, or unnecessary, but that's how we see it from the perspective of an older viewer. When you're trying to make a point about friendship to a young audience, you can't necessarily be subtle about it. Also, could Hibiki and Kanade avoid 99% of their conflicts by simply talking to each other? Yes, but then the show would have a lot less going on, and it would lose a lot of its appeal for its target audience.

The plot of Suite Precure is simple, but, again, it's a show for children. You can't really expect anything incredibly complex in a children's show. Basically, Hibiki and Kanade need to learn to trust each other and get along so they can fulfill their roles as Precure, and so they can collect all of the notes to complete the melody of happiness. Simple and straightforward. They have numerous run-ins with the bad guys (Trio the Minor and Seiren), who try to trick the girls and turn them against each other. In a lot of these situations, I wanted to say, "Come on, just talk about it!" but, while it seemed obvious to me that the solution was to talk about why they were upset, it probably doesn't seem as obvious to the younger viewers. It also wouldn't be as interesting to the target audience if the girls just talked about their problems and moved on.

I can understand why other people seem to have a problem with the whole "sad music vs. good music" theme in the show. Happy music isn't the only music that is good, and sad music can be just as enjoyable as happy music. However, do you really expect kids to get something like that? I'm sure older kids can understand that, but for the target audience, something like "happy vs. sad" is easiest to understand. As the children get older and listen to a wider variety of music, they'll come to that realization on their own, that happy music is not the only kind of music that people can enjoy.

I think the music is great, but I'd certainly expect an excellent soundtrack from a show that uses music as its main focus. There is a variety of background music that fits the scenes well, and the instrumentation is varied. The transformation music is really upbeat and catchy, and the background music for the attacks is great as well. I'll admit that I'm not experienced in critiquing music, but I've really been enjoying the music in Suite.

I really like Hibiki's and Kanade's characters. Hibiki is the tomboyish, sporty type, while Kanade is more studious and enjoys baking. Hibiki is goofy and silly at times, but serious when needed, and Kanade can be quite stubborn and assertive, especially when Hibiki is being particularly dense. The way they interact really reveals a lot about how close they are, even early on when they spend a lot of their time arguing with each other. As the story progresses, they argue less and are able to spend more time together as true friends. I've really enjoyed seeing them interact, from the time when they argued all the time to now, when they're getting along well. There have been many moments that have just made me go, "Awww! :D"

Hummy is dense. There's just no arguing that. I think she can be a bit annoying at times, but I think that has more to do with her ultra mega high-pitched voice than her actual character. I think she was purposely made extra dense in order to contrast with Seiren's calmer, more calculating personality. Hummy and Seiren play off of each other quite well; sometimes it almost feels like I'm watching a comedy routine. The mini-arc about their past together in Major Land, how they became friends, and how Seiren turned against Hummy, was rather well done, in my opinion.

Trio the Minor is basically your group of evil underlings who are actually just a bunch of derps. They're goofy, they sing when it's not really necessary, and their plans always fail. They make me laugh. Mephisto does too, as he's also goofy. I've read complaints from people, saying that they don't like Mephisto because he's not threatening at all, but I think that's the point. Considering what's happened in the past few episodes (29+), I don't think he's the "ultimate evil", so to speak. There's someone, or something, above him, and THAT's what's going to be truly threatening...or, as threatening as something can be in a children's show, anyway. I could be wrong, but that's just what I think.

I'd say my main problem is that I feel like the "mystery" of Cure Muse has gone on for long enough. Who is she? I don't know, just tell us already! I feel like they've already made her true identity very clear, but I'm saying that as an adult who can draw conclusions more quickly than the average child can. The younger viewers are probably still completely puzzled, and eagarly awaiting the moment when Cure Muse's true identity is officially revealed.

I like the bright, vibrant art style in Suite. Everything is colorful and eye-grabbing, even the bad guys. The transformation scenes are pretty, and, for those who are concerned that they're "too long", they do get cut down eventually. The attack scenes are also very impressive, visually. The animation generally feels smooth, and I haven't noticed too many "lol quality" scenes. The ending themes are really cool, too, with their 3D/CG animated dance sequences. I actually watch the ending each time, instead of just skipping past it like I usually do with most other series! It's definitely an interesting and different approach. (I know Suite wasn't the first Precure season to use 3D/CG animated endings, though.)

My overall enjoyment of Suite Precure is very high. Maybe I'm biased because this is the first Precure season I watched, but I love it, flaws and all. It's light-hearted and it makes me laugh. I really look forward to watching each week's episode. Suite may be unpopular with the general Precure fanbase, but I think it's great. read more

Suite Pre­cure had two things going for it. The bitchin’ trans­form­a­tion sequences and the CGI dan­cing in the end­ing song. Ser­i­ously, those things are so god­dam pretty and col­our­ful. Com­bined with the epic musical score, the bitchin’ trans­form­a­tion sequences were the high­lights of the epis­ode. The CGI dan­cing end­ing was pos­sibly even more awe­some. Anime always needs more dan­cing, but those I’ve gen­er­ally been presen­ted with haven’t been up to scratch. I can under­stand that the obses­sion with the Haruhi end­ing dance is pre­cisely because it’s so easy, but you can hardly call that a proper dance. That’s just a bit of hand wav­ing. Suite Pre­cure is a proper dance. Anime still hasn’t quite got the hang of CGI mecha, but they’ve man­aged to get dan­cing magical girls look pretty damn awesome.

Prob­lem is, these two scenes made up about 4 minutes of a typ­ical epis­ode. I was often temp­ted to simply fast-forward to them and call it a day. The series star­ted off fairly well, albeit in an utterly bizarre sort of way. The open­ing 8 minutes of the first epis­ode were like some bas­tard child of Rain­bow Gate, Mazinka­izer and Jew­el­pet Twinkle. The altern­ate magical musical land and the pre­pos­ter­ously ridicu­lous bad guys, I laughed the entire way through the scene. But nope, can’t be hav­ing that. This is a magical girl series. We need to have human teen­age girls for the young female view­ers to con­nect with and for the dirty otaku to pen dirtier doujins of. Which is a shame, because I would have so watched a series of that magical musical land, provid­ing it too had CGI dan­cing end­ing songs and bitchin’ trans­form­a­tion sequences.

The main prob­lem is the incred­ibly lame attempts at cre­at­ing con­flict between the main two char­ac­ters. Hibiki and Kanade are our two heroines tasked with the respons­ib­il­ity of defeat­ing massive cakes and viol­ins who have been infec­ted by ebul musical notes. To do this they have to dress in pre­pos­ter­ously fanci­ful dresses and hair­dos as Pre­Cures and com­bine their powers as fight­ing machines. How­ever to suc­cess­fully com­bine their powers, they have to be as good friends as pos­sible, to teach young girls about the import­ance of friend­ship and to give smelly middle-aged males a chance to don their yuri goggles. This would be fine and all if the meth­ods they used to cre­ate con­flict between the two weren’t so dumb. The reason the two had fallen out of friend­ship in the first place was because one of them stood under the wrong tree by acci­dent. Which, while face­palm worthy in itself, the lead up to the reveal with two other little girls in the exact same pos­i­tion simply amp­li­fied the retarded­ness of the situ­ation. The next few epis­odes all revolve around cre­at­ing equally con­veni­ent obstacles for them becom­ing proper friends. None of them felt in the remotest way genu­ine and simply felt like Hibiki and Kanade being massive idiots.

Besides, I have a massive prob­lem with the entire plot of the show. I can handle a cat from a magical musical dimen­sion turn­ing two unsus­pect­ing teen­age girls into fight­ing machines. I can equally handle the vil­lains being a cat and a trio of goons who sing their responses, although I do believe the show missed a massive trick by not hav­ing them being a barber­shop quar­tet. Nah, my main prob­lem is the whole good music vs ebul music thing. What hap­pens in the plot is the ebul bad guys sing sad songs that make every­body all depressed. The good guys only cre­ate happy music so every­one is joy­ful all the time. The show even goes out of its way to say quite blatantly that music is only there to make people feel happy. I can’t be the only one who has a prob­lem with this, right? Sad music has every right to exist and has a highly import­ant place in soci­ety. It’s a strange thing to com­plain about, and maybe the show changes its tune (har har har) later on in the show to reflect a more even opin­ion, but the entire show centres around music. So blatantly say­ing that sad music is ebul grates on my nerves. Sad music needs love too!
read more