Smile Precure!

Please bear with me as this is my first review for this site.

Smile Pretty Cure is among the best in the franchise alongside Heartcatch and the original Futari Wa Pretty Cure not because it tries to outshine them but rather it explores our imaginations and emotions like the way Disney would. Case in point, it asks its viewers (both children and young adults) "What is happiness? Where does it come from? Why are dreams and goals so important in the grand scheme of happiness? What do friends have to do with being happy?" These are very deep questions, even for young men to bear; but ... for a kids show, its a brilliant concept because its the kind of thing these developing minds need to ask themselves so they can find their answer and be ultra happy themselves. While the story is great, its major downfall was its downplayed fairy-tale/children's literature theme. It's there, but not prominent enough to be a true interaction to any kind of viewer like the way Suite's musical themes or Heartcatch's floral themes were. Story 8/10.

The art is absolutely beautifully drawn and animated. The show's vibrant and lighthearted atmosphere fits its fairy-tale theme very well. The comedy really drove the show's pace and carried our hearts into it. If you don't laugh at any time during the show, you will never find your true happiness. period. The visuals have effort simply bled into them, especially the finishing attacks and transformation sequences. Art 9/10.

The voice acting and sound effects felt very natural and worked seamlessly. The characters' personalities and emotions were excellently expressed and felt like they were true teenagers. As for the music, all I can say is this: Yasuharu Takanashi-san, you impressed me with Heartcatch's soundtrack. I was thrilled with Suite's soundtrack as well, and you've certainly met my expectations here with Smile. The music played here just outright shines for each moment that accompanies the track. Believe me, as a fan who thinks each song is its own story, that speaks volumes of the incredible power behind the music. If anybody doesn't know what I'm talking about, then going through the soundtrack should yield some favorites even to someone that never watched the show. Sound 9/10.

The characters are just great balls of fun and joy, even the villains. Every one of the main characters contributes to the show's comedy and they are such goofballs to the point where even Miss Serious Business, Reika, cannot even begin to ruin the humor but only add to it. The clear winning character is Yayoi Kise/Cure Peace. Why? I feel is because she represents that overly shy, yet cute, archetype in a very humanistic manner and then developing it into someone that isn't afraid of the world. She also displays very realistic reactions to being a superhero and having to fight villains who are willing to hurt and destroy on massive scales. Writing about it is one thing, but having to experience it first-hand was quite the "shock" to her (pun intended). Joker also made a GREAT villain. He is everything every previous Pretty Cure villain wasn't: competent, clever, disturbing, threatening, and nightmarish. He was ALWAYS taken seriously despite the fact that he looks like that "other" Joker and certainly did not disappoint. This was a much needed character for the villains' line up and a breath of fresh air when it came to having a truly evil villain for the franchise instead of the typical gag villain we've come to expect from the franchise in general. Characters 9/10.

Overall, I give Smile Pretty Cure a 9/10. This is one show you will see yourself watching in rapid succession like I did should you be into either the comedy, magical girl, and/or action genres. If you find yourself smiling and being ultra happy, then you should have absolutely no problem finishing this show.

Have you ever watched a show that is so clearly just trying to have as much fun as possible? That is for the most part so light and fluffy that it doesn’t have a care in the world? That’s the type of show Smile Precure is.

Miyuki Hoshizora and her friends Akane, Yayoi, Nao, and Reika have been enlisted as Pretty Cure to help Candy, the fairy from Marchenland, resurrect the Royal Queen who sacrificed herself to stop the evil Pierrot of the Bad End Kingdom from painting a bad end across the world. Pretty Cure must collect the various decor that hold the Queens ... power, while the other villains of the Bad End Kingdom seek to gather Bad Energy from people to revive Pierrot. Always spouting her catchphrase of "Ultra happy", Miyuki takes on the challenge with glee.

Smile is a simple show. It does away with a lot of the typical character drama present in other seasons and is much more comedy focused with lots of silly fun and wacky hijinks, a lot of your enjoyment of the show is going to depend on what you personally find funny and entertaining. The characters themselves are rather simple even for Pretty Cure and their relationships and bonds with each other, while they grow stronger, don't ever really change or develop. However this isn't really as bad as you might think. The characters are still plenty fun, cute, and likable. They all have their own brand of silliness that fits in perfectly in Smile. And although simple they aren't completely flat, their characters still get fleshed out and expanded upon over the course of the season and there is more to them than just what you see in their introductory episodes. The characters development just isn't that big of a priority in Smile. This isn't inherently bad it just means the show has a different way of handling its characters and what it's trying to do with them.

However, despite the lower focus on the characters and their development Smile still has character arcs that cover the entire season and all build up to big individual culminations of the girls characters, and also about them finding out what is truly important to them. The arcs just aren’t as explored or visible as in other seasons and until the end of the show usually don't impact episodes outside of the arcs. There’s also a heavy theme of friendship in the series and each girl realizing what the others mean to them. As well as a theme of the girls protecting and reaching towards the future and saving it from the Bad End the villains want to bring about.

Surprisingly the character whose development is a big priority and focus in Smile is the fairy, Candy. Candy starts off as a pretty typical fairy for Pretty Cure, but somewhat more useless and cowardly. She even manages to be rather detrimental to the Cures on occasion and largely is a bother, and can frankly just be annoying. However, when Candy starts to change she never looks back. The story of Smile is just as much her journey as it is Pretty Cure's. She develops into a capable fairy who no longer cowers and instead of trying her best and making things worse, she tries her best and succeeds. She becomes a much more active helper to Pretty Cure and is more integral to the plot, while still getting real development, than most other fairies.

As for the main plot of Smile the show essentially treats it like a joke. The villains actions are so nonsensical and often so hilariously over the top and stupid that it often seems like Smile is a parody of the typical Pretty Cure plot. The show gets serious at important moments but most of the episodes are played for comedy and are often highly energetic and loads of fun. The problem is that Smile doesn't have much in the area of over-arching subplots. Individual episodes will tie into the main plot but will have nothing more going on in them other than whatever random thing is happening in the episode. Because of that Smile is even more episodic than the average season of Pretty Cure. These individual episodes could be good or great but getting long stretches of them all at once can make the show kind of drag.

Because so much of the show is unabashedly silly the more serious moments can occasionally clash with the otherwise light-hearted nature of the show. However, Smile is surprisingly good at pulling off these serious moments. When it wants to be sweet it can be sweet, when it wants to be sad it can be sad, when it wants to be awesome it can be awesome and it somehow manages to excel at these things despite first and foremost being a rather silly series. The show is able to draw up a surprising amount of emotion from the characters that allow these serious moments and episodes to always be done nicely.

And then we have the villains in the show. Wolfrun, Akaoni, and Majorina make up the Bad End trio, the flunkies of the Kingdom essentially. At first they start off as pretty dull but as they interact with Pretty Cure and each other more they become much more entertaining villains. They are often hilarious and have great chemistry with each other, some of the best episodes are ones that have all of them interacting with Pretty Cure and each other at once. Over the course of the series they also develop personal vendettas against Pretty Cure, some of the battles end up being much more personal and have great impact.

And then there’s Joker. Joker is Pierrot’s right hand man and the second in command of the Bad End Kingdom, and is a very entertaining and more interesting villain than the others in the show. Although he initially appears with a carefree attitude and generally acting like a weirdo he is in actuality a very sadistic and evil villain. Especially by Smiles standards. Just downright creepy at times and even cruel to his comrades, whenever Joker appears before the Cures it signals something much more serious and dangerous than normal is about to happen, and unlike the others he often partakes in psychological games with the Cures, attempting to break their will to fight and crush them mentally. By the end of Smile Joker had become one of the more disturbing villains in the franchise.

The monsters of the week in Smile are the Akanbe. Clown monsters, as is fitting of Pierrot himself being an evil monstrous clown. While their designs can be lacking and are often just blocky there are a fair amount of nonstandard Akanbe that have special forms or gimmicks that you wouldn't see among the monsters from other seasons. There are multiple different types of Akanbe depending on the color of their nose and they all have a different color scheme, clothing, and facial expression to further differentiate the types. The Akanbe are also made from the decor Pretty Cure needs, so they have to defeat them in order to revive the Queen.

When it comes to the fighting in Smile there's actually quite a lot to talk about. The quality of the action is all over the place and the style of fighting quite varied. There's not a lot of the typical straight forward action in Smile, especially earlier on, and while there is some very good fast-paced hard-hitting action it is few and far in between and usually saved for the more serious episodes. A lot of the action in Smile is focused on gimmicks. There are a lot of Akanbe made around a certain gimmick that will also occasionally tie into the episode in some way, whether it be a lesson or some sort of physical object that 's important to the episode. We have one Akanbe that quizzes the girls on school subjects and if they answer incorrectly they get trapped in a big red X. There are multiple fights like this throughout the season and even some episodes with no actual fighting to speak of and the girls will defeat the Akanbe through other means. The sheer variety of the fights is unlike any other season and keeps the battles from ever becoming stale but if you're looking for more of the straight forward action typical of other seasons you may be disappointed. It also takes Smile a little while to really get into its groove when it comes to the action so the fighting in the earlier episodes is pretty bland and more about being silly and comedic. The fights in Smile in general have a more comedic and silly tone to them, partially because the Akanbe are clowns after all, so aside from the more serious episodes don't expect much seriousness in the other fights. Pretty Cure also all have their own elemental powers that they become better at using over the course of the show, they start out unable to really use them aside from their finishing attack but soon can do such things as powering up their punches with fire and using ice to debilitate the enemy. They become more intelligent and crafty with their elemental powers in short time.

What's more to the fights is that decor are also occasionally used to help the girls out in them. Each decor has it's own ability, whether giving the girls wings for flight, or just giving Candy some food to chow down on. Later on the show actually manages to tie the use of decor in the fights into Candy's character development. She starts to actively participate in the fights by using the decor to help Pretty Cure whenever she can and the decor begin to get used in the fights much more frequently. It's all a part of Candy and Pretty Cure combining their powers, Candy isn't satisfied just powering up their attacks so she starts to help them out whenever possible.

In the beginning of the show the girls start off as horrible fighters. By far the most incompetent team of Pretty Cure ever assembled. Weak and unable to use their attack more than once without getting tired, and sometimes failing to even get the attack to work in the first place. But over the course of the first half of the show you see them improve tremendously, their teamwork gets better, they become stronger, they gain more stamina, and they learn how to fight for real and eventually become a real team that can truly stand up to their opponents.

The music is pretty good but not too spectacular for the franchise. The ending themes are very nice and have several different versions that focus on different characters.

There are also just a lot of nice little things about Smile. The different endings, the fact that you can play Rock, Paper, Scissors with Yayoi every time she transforms, just nice little things added into the show to make it a little more fun.

Smile has a fairytale theme to it but it doesn’t really give a whole lot of attention to it. There are lots of little references to various fairy tale's scattered throughout the show but the fairytale theme mostly just hangs in the background. There’s always some fairytale aspects present in the show, such as Wolfrun, Akaoni and Majorina all being fairytale characters/creatures as well as some other things but these are never really focused on or given any thought outside of “These are fairytale references.” Despite a lot of general references Smile rarely takes the opportunity to do anything special with the fairytale theme. And it’s a big disappointment for the show. In the end instead of being an ever present theme like music in Suite or flowers in Heartcatch fairytale's in Smile are more like a recurring motif that's very important to some characters and helps set up and tie certain points of the story together.

While Smile's plot is really simple and linear by the time the show is coming to a close there are a surprising amount of elements coming to a head all at once. There ends up being quite a few things to be resolved and taken care of. The build up to the finale is pretty good, there's a nice flow into the final arc and the episodes are used to foreshadow some important events later on as well as give the characters their resolution that helps them face the eventual hardships. The finale itself gets pretty crazy but there are some unfortunate hiccups in it and several sudden revelations and plot events that aren't given the necessary time to really be focused on well enough and have as much impact as they should. However the final showdown is very intense and awesome, you see how far the girls have come in their journey and the themes of the show are displayed excellently. Despite some problems Smile manages to have a very emotional and sometimes heart-wrenching finale.

The epilogue is very sweet and manages to give us one last moment of silliness that perfectly fits the show.

Smile Precure is aptly named. It's cheerful, bright, energetic, and the whole show feels like it's just trying to make you ultra happy, laugh, and put a big smile on your face.

Just as a warning, this is a review of Smile Precure and not from the dubbed version of the same series called Glitter Force, which I haven't watched (and for what I know isn't exactly loved by the fans, in any case I recommend this one).

After having watched and loved some of the more serious Precure when it comes to tone (Heartcatch, Hugtto and Princess) I was curious and somewhat worried about how I would feel for one that goes more for the comedic aspects of the franchise, well, there was nothing to fear because this one delivered hard!

Smile Precure uses the theme of fairy ... tales for its story, with the elements that the series plays around being based on picture books, including the villains who are looking for a "bad end" to the world and its all up to the Precures to stop them, the series provides a lot of variety and fun situations with this idea.

Unlike other series from the franchise, Smile introduces the main cast from the start instead of giving a new addition to the group later on, with one episode after the other bringing a new character until they form the group of five that will stay until the end of the series. This is somewhat of a risky move since that means that there is no new character to keep things fresh and give some focus on for a good amount of episodes later on, but the idea paid off thanks to how lovable they are, the character interactions between them are so solid and consistently funny, all while also giving each the needed amount of spotlight to shine and develop as a character, making me so attached to the cast not only for the character who got the focus, but also for the group as a whole, they are such great friends. I will still mention that I can definitely see some people disliking Miyuki (the adorkable and really clumsy protagonist of the series) and the mascot of the series, Candy, for their way to be, but I personally liked their interactions with the rest a lot, and even then the others can make the series really enjoyable nonetheless.

The villain side of Smile is so, so goofy, yet scary at the same time due to a single character being there: Joker. While most episodes will be focused on one (or rarely more than one) of the other three baddies going to fight the Precure with the help of the monster of the week character, failing miserably and more often than not adding to the comedy Team Rocket style with their stupidness and weird strategies (special mention goes to Majorina, who creates devices that lead to really interesting episodes when the characters have to deal with whatever situation is created by them), things are very different whenever he decides to strike, be by giving upgrades to the enemies or being the one who attacks, leading to way more serious episodes that together with some of the character focused ones were the highlights of an already really consistently nice anime.

If I have to be honest, the story was far from amazing, and while I still absolutely loved the final stretch there are things that the ending could have handled better, but I personally don't think that this was an issue at all as it could have been with the other Precure I mentioned at the start, this anime was to me what a cute girls doing cute things comedy anime has to be (with the bonus of also having awesome fights!) And despite its lightheartedness, Smile delivers as hard as the other Precure entries whenever it goes for emotional episodes.

The animation of the series is solid, always looking good and shining whenever it's needed for the fights and important moments, the music of the series is nice as well, with a good amount of memorable songs that I loved to listen to, it also reminded me a good amount to Heartcatch Precure with some of its themes if that interests you. I also want to mention that I love the opening and endings of the series, they are so catchy, and the endings also feature fantastic CG dances while providing some fun interactions with the cast, with the most important Precure of the episode having extra moments in them.

In conclusion, Smile Precure is a fantastic comedy with great interactions and emotional moments for each character, pretty much every episode was a blast to watch, one of the most consistently nice series I have watched so far.

Oh, and you can play rock-paper-scissors with Cure Peace whenever she transforms, isn't that amazing? She stomped me by the way.

(This review may contain spoilers. Please do not read until you've watched the entire series.)


Smile Precure is the fifth season I watched in the Precure franchise. Prior to my viewing I already had a brief experience with one of its episodes, before I started watching Precure. So I was excited about what this season had to offer.
In my opinion, if you're just getting into the swing of things and need some good old Precure tropes and what the franchise is about, Smile Precure is a perfect way to demonstrate that, with its story and its immense humor.


Story: 8.5/10
The Precure franchise has always kinda targetted a ... much younger fanbase. This season's theme and simplistic story match that well. A fairytale involving the Precure, a magical land, and of course, fairies, this season brings a laid-back sort of feeling where mostly you can just sit back and relax as the show plays. It has quite a variety of traditional Precure episode tropes and utilized each Cure's personality nicely. The mid-season finale (Episode 23) and the upgraded Smile Precure Decor arc (Episode 40 to 44) are fantastic examples of the season's strong emotional points.
For those who may find the story a bit too basic, the slice of life isn't half bad either. Everyone has great episodes where we see their growth as a team and in themselves. The team dynamics are among the strongest out of any season of Precure I have come across so far. All the Cures and even the fairies have their great moments in the show and of course bittersweet moments. Add some comedy into the mix and you've got quite a good base recipe for a Precure season imo.


Art: 9/10
Smile Precure has a very nice artstyle for its time. It is very pleasing to look at and sometimes the animation has some nice details. Plus, the attack animations, especially Rainbow Burst are of wonderful quality. Certainly not too amazing when you're looking at it 8 years in the future, but its not anything terrible either.


Sound: 10/10
The sound mixing was very good and the background music is a blast to hear to brighten up the mood or do the opposite when needed.


Character: 8/10
The season placed a good focus on trying to develop the dynamics between the members of the team and with their fairy friends, all while helping them develop inwards too.
Miyuki being the leader of the crew, delivered as being a very righteous Cure who is trying to see the best in everything. She can get quite clumsy at times but it was what made her character humourous and I love that.
Akane and Nao received good development, both being sporty and all. But besides their competitive selves, they also shine through as being powerful and easygoing.
Reika being the typical straight A Cure had a very interesting and surprisingly deep arc, tying in the purpose of learning and laying down one's path for the future. It's a very cool concept for people to touch upon.
Yayoi's arc hit me the hardest as I relate a lot to her shy self. Her arc sees her coming out of her shell and standing up for herself and I really admire that. Her charm and her desire to defend the right makes her such a likable character.
Now, why did I only give an 8, then? This is due to the very awkward and kinda dumb villains this season. Most of them don't exactly know what they're doing and just decided to wing it for most of the season. As villains play such a key role in the development of Precure this was one thing that was really detrimental to this season in its reputation of being a standard of what Precure is all about.


Enjoyment: 10/10
The humor this season can be cringy at times (Episode 17), but it was nonetheless entertaining to sit through as a whole. Plus, this season was just like other Precure seasons, being very light-hearted. A happy story with a bittersweet ending, I couldn't help but continue watching to see how much more joy and awesomeness the show could bring to the table.


Overall: 8.8/10
Smile Precure is a standard for the Precure franchise and gives a great impression of what the franchise is all about. While it is not the best season, it is worth the enjoyment and it can help ignite your optimism in life when you're at your lowest points.




But don't take my word for it- Go see what other people think too!

This show is incredibly fun. In a sea full of melodramatic, complex, gritty, mature shows, every now and then you just have to sit down and go for some stupid mindless entertainment. Smile Precure is just that, a better than average entry in the popular unironic magical girl series Pretty Cure that has the themes of comedy and fairy tales.
Even among its own series it's really lighthearted, and after dragging its feet for the first half dozen episodes it immediately goes into all kinds of wacky, fun, isolated plots for nearly every episode except for the mid-season climax and the final cour. Some would ... argue that it's its weakest point, as some people get pretty invested in the plots of these shows, but I'd argue back that it's not the point. It's a comedy season, made in response to the big tsunami that happened around that time.
As far as the content of the show itself, it feels like everything clicked into place, which is pretty miraculous after the snorefest that is Suite Precure and the aforementioned tsunami. I didn't pay much attention to the first time of what happened until it suddenly clicked with me when the episodes were in the 20s, but rewatching it ended up opening my eyes to how genuinely good the writing was. The character development for the lead character Miyuki, for example, is shown through a lot of small jumps in the way she speaks to other members of the team, starting out incredibly awkward and scared but by midseason she's already commanding like a seasoned war strategist. I absolutely adore all the characters in this series, both the heroes and villains alike, except for the big bad himself who's just kinda there so the show has a reason to exist.
The actual comedy in the show is done well and in good taste, though comedy is always subjective. It's got jokes kids and adults would like together without being the 90s and hiding sex jokes where kids wouldn't understand. Anybody could laugh at anything in this show. I'd call it one of the more Japanese seasons with the amount of cultural references it crams in, but you wouldn't need to know anything about the country itself to get the point of what they're saying (it sure makes the show even better on re watch though). One of my favorite things to do in these shows is crop out badly drawn frames or faces in people in the distance and laugh at them, and sadly there isn't much here. Instead, I end up sharing funny frames with actual good art to them that were intended to be funny.
The soundtrack is pretty alright, generally not the kind of music I'd listen to while jogging but it's an accumulation of all the best songs they used from the last 3 seasons together with its own good stuff too. I smile when I hear some specific tracks play because I know what's going to happen afterword through the atmosphere it provides, or it's about to show one of my favorite characters on the screen. The only other show I can think of that made me feel this way was Spongebob, the greatest anime of all time. If I had to describe the OST in one word it'd be 'genki', it gets you pumped.
And that's pretty much all I got to say that I can think of. When I seen Smile I was looking for a magical girl series to watch after Sailor Moon and Madoka, and given the timeframe when it was released I'd say Smile Precure is the Anti-Madoka. Watch it if you're depressed. Watch it with your kids. Watch it when you're stressed out. These girls are adorable and likable, the villians are likable, the show itself just wants to be cute and put a great big smile on your face. To this day Smile remains one of the most liked entries in the Precure franchise.

Smile! Smile! Smile! Smile... Purikyua!

Smile precure... Is a cute Magical girl anime that will make you smile a lot,laugh and of course, will make you Happy!

Story:
The story is about a magical "creature" named candy, search a legendary warrior, called, Pretty cure. And then candy meets 5 girls that will save the world. this is a magical adventure, with a cute 5 girls that fighting monster, and spreading happiness in all episode's.

The story was very good, and is more nicer, and happier than other magical girl series in year year before, that have so many violance, fanservice, and darker plot.

Art:
Beautifull, nice ,cute, and funny. The ... art of the girls was nice, candy art was cute, and the evil character art was funny and nice also.

Sound:
the op and ed, was good, and you will like to hear it! and the BGM, was nice, and fit for the situation.
The character voice are really good, and kise yayoi was voiced by the cute ika musume. And candy voice was really kawaii like a stuffed animal :3

Character:
They are moe's! With round and sparkling eye! LOL.

Miyuki is really innocent and look always say cute thing in this series. she likes to say ultra happy and like's to day dreaming with fairy tale's.

Akane is look like a joke master, and like to give a joke in here, she's athletic and always act before think. and always cheerfull like Miyuki.

Yayoi is shy, cute, and crybaby girl, but talented at drawing manga.

Nao is serious, have a leadership and also athletic, and really care's her family.

Aoki is smart, talented, and look like a rich girl and care's to everything. She's always think before act and look like a big sister.

Candy is cute, Innocent and always scared with the evil character.

The evil character's are: A big bad wolf, A stupid looking red devil, and a scary grandma.

Enjoyment:
I enjoy the series, i laugh a lot. However, this is really make's everyone smiling.

Overall:
Everything was good and the plot was really full of happiness!

this is only a review of episode one as that's all that's out when I'm writing this. So far this puts out some good concepts but toei may be running out of steam. Miyuki is kinda a clutz and can't control her powers right when she gets them. Candy and Miyuki do make a comedy team for this episode but I'm not sure how this is not the best first episode in the pretty cure series. I may update this review later but if I were you I'd wait to see if this one how this one runs before judging the whole ... series.

After watching Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame in cinemas and saw the female Avengers such as Captain Marvel, Shuri and Scarlet Witch, this spark my fascination on female heroes kicking the villain's butt and brought inspiration to watch Smile PreCure!/Glitter Force.

*Warning! Review may contain spoilers*

Story: The series setting is on a fictional city of Nanairogaoka, Japan or Rainbow Hills, New Jersey, USA where our heroes lived in a peaceful life. Enter Miyuki/Emily, a young middle school girl having a strong fondness of fairy tales, where she saw dreams about becoming a legendary magical warrior alongside with others fighting evil. On her way to school, she saw ... a flying book where it comes out a pixie named Candy. Upon arriving at school, she attends as a transfer student where she met the same people on her dream, an energetic student/volleyball player named Akane/Kelsey, a shy girl named Yayoi/Lily who also turned out to be a talented manga/comic book artist, an ace football player with a huge family named Nao/April, and a beautiful girl named Reika/Chloe who is also turned to be a student council vice president. Later, Miyuki/Emily entered the Magical Library/Library of Legends where she read about the crisis on Märchenland/Jubiland where its queen got weaker and it took advantage for the Bad End/Shadow Realm on invading the kingdom by spreading a bad ending and it will do the same for Earth in order to share the same fate. Miyuki/Emily, Akane/Kelsey, Yayoi/Lily, Nao/April and Reika/Chloe are chosen by Candy to become the Precure/Glitter Force and they're destined to defend both worlds from the shadow of evil to prevent a bad ending from happening. The story itself is a mix of coming-of-age story where they must develop and set apart their differences in order to defend both worlds from an unknown shadow force.

Characters: The characters have different personalities but they must set it apart in order to work together and use the power of friendship to defend the two worlds from destruction. I like the character development for each character. The villains and monsters of the week brings the color of the story.

Art and Animation: Smile PreCure/Glitter Force was animated by Toei Animation, one of the greatest anime studios in Japan that brings you Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon. The animation for the series is awesome especially the magical transformation and fight scenes. The character designs for all five main characters are very cute and beautiful at the same time plus the magical girl outfits are well-designed. The problem for international viewers is the flashy color effects especially during finishing attacks that totally hurts the eyes and may have seizure attacks (blame that Electric Soldier Porygon of Pokemon) so they darken it for a bit.

Sound and Music: The Japanese version's music rocks and the ending music videos makes the child viewers imitate their dance steps. The series sounds are awesome especially during transformation and finishing attacks. The English version is no slouch especially for the opening and ending music all thanks to the Asia super group, Blush.

Voice Acting: The Japanese voice actors express their emotions very well especially for the main characters thus giving a cute feeling to most viewers. The English voice acting is no joke because the cast members are from very famous anime series like Naruto such as Laura Bailey (Emily) Kate Higgins (Chloe), Danielle Judovits (April) and Colleen Villard (Kelsey) plus a newcomer Alex Cazares (Lily), give a girly and cute feeling to the viewers. Tastes Like Diabetes indeed for both versions of the anime.

Enjoyment: Smile PreCure/Glitter Force is very enjoyable not only for magical transformation but also for asskicking action scenes for female main characters which totally puts shounen heroes to shame and it totally reminds of female superheroes like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel and the female Avengers. The funny scenes makes you roll on the floor for laughing so hard and I like the heroes vs villains concept because I'm a superhero fanatic.

Overall: The series is very enjoyable to watch for all ages and for superhero/magical girl fans. I'll recommend you to watch this for younger audiences especially children.

Starting from the 70s and 80s, kids shows, especially in America, cared more about selling toys than allowing animators to create the stories they wanted and develop characters. The more toys that sold, the more money went into the cartoons. But characters would be given the shaft in favor of new ones, and the stories were very basic, the characters being boring and flat, and being aimed mostly at children. However, nowadays, even shows that come off as toy commercials are putting in more effort to just tell a story and create characters that audiences can care about, rather than just making a show just ... for the sake of selling toys. Anime has been doing this for a while now, probably since Pokemon, so it's no slouch in the animation and storytelling department. Some examples of good kids shows that are made to sell toys are Pokemon, Jewelpet, Digimon (some of the time), Sailor Moon, and Pretty Cure. In Japan, Pretty Cure still reigns supreme as the number one show for girls, and has done so for decades since its inception, even if it does have its drawbacks. However, even big franchises aren't immune to having their duds. Smile Pretty Cure is a good show that can appeal to a lot of people, but it unfortunately is being held back by a lot of flaws that prevent it from being truly great, although it's definitely not the worst I've seen.

Miyuki Hoshizora is a happy, friendly, amiable girl who just moved into a new town, and is excited to start a new chapter of her life. One day, a cute fairy named Candy appears before her, telling her that she and four other girls have to become legendary warriors called Pretty Cure, in order to save her world, Marchenland, from villains from the Bad End Kingdom and ressurrect her queen. Miyuki accepts and becomes Cure Happy. She and four other girls have to defeat the villains, collect Cure Decor, and ressurrect the queen of Marchenland before Wolfrun, Akaoni, and Majorina ressurrect their own master, King Pierrot, and save the world from heading towards a bad end. They are determined to make sure their story has a happy ending, just like the fairytales Miyuki loves and cherishes.

For the most part, the animation is pretty good. Nothing stellar, but the colors are bright, the transformation sequences are well animated, everything is smooth, there's lots of energy put into it, and the sparkles and the brightness adds to the show's goofy, light-hearted tone, even if it can be rather hard to look at sometimes. Yeah, this show is VERY bright and riddled with bright colors that'll hurt your eyes if you're sensitive to light. The music, while also nothing stellar, does its job well. Then again, Yasuharu Takanashi is well known for making good music and making sure they fit the show in every way, whether it be in tone and atmosphere. I hear this series used a lot of music from Fresh Pretty Cure, but I haven't seen that series so I won't comment on that.

The characters...well, I'm not gonna lie, most of them are pretty bland. They stay the same throughout the entire show, not really changing much. Miyuki is the happy-go-lucky friendly girl who loves being kind to people, Akane is the hotblooded sporty girl, Yayoi is the shy artist, etc. I will admit, the show does care about wanting the audience to see what the characters are like outside of fighting, showing that they have actual lives outside of being superheroes. I feel that so many shows nowadays forget that while people can be superheroes, they're still human. Smile Precure does a great job at showing that outside of their superhero business, the girls are just that. Young girls who have their own problems and worries to deal with in their lives, and yet...even with that, they barely develop in any meaningful way. What little development they do have is so predictable that anyone can see it coming, and as a result, they still come off as bland. The only character I can think of who actually got good development was Yayoi, the yellow Cure. Seriously, I love this girl. She is basically me in a nutshell: shy, cries a lot, loves to draw, loves cartoons (though she likes robot shows and I don't), has trouble making friends, tries to do whatever she can for others and herself, etc. She's pretty much the best thing about Smile. I like Miyuki and all, but I do kinda wish Yayoi was the main character. The others...stay the same, Reika especially. I like her, but she's pretty much a blank slate, and rather static, suffering from the worst of the show's characterization problems. She starts off and ends the show being the same calm, smart girl who doesn't know what she wants to do in life. Also, Candy is annoying and always causes trouble for the girls, almost ruining Miyuki's social life in one episode where they switch bodies. The villains are pretty goofy and not very intimidating except for one, but that's a spoiler.

The story, well...there is no story. There is, but its extremely basic: all the girls really have to do is collect decor, save Marchenland and the queen, and deal with the Bad End Kingdom. That's seriously it. 85% of the show is filler, 10% character development, and 5% storytelling. While I appreciate the show's attempts to get us to care about the characters, in doing so, it completely hurt the story. The worst thing about the story and the show in general? There's basically ZERO sense of urgency. The villains sans Joker and Pierrot are all goofy goofballs, the series is very episodic in nature, the girls battle a bunch of monsters, and because the show chose to favor just showing the characters having fun, villains included, and because of this, there is still little reason for us to care about what the characters go through. My problem with slice-of-life shows or most kids shows nowadays aren't that they're kiddy or marketed at kids or giant toy commercials. It’s the fact that nothing happens. I want to sympathize with the characters, but for that, they need to be put in danger. I don’t really care about characters who spend their time eating cakes at a summer festival, or something. Same with romances. I want to see the different characters face challenges, put their lives on the line, that’ll make me care about them, if done well. Smile attempts this, but unfortunately, it falls flat on its face in doing so. There's also a lot of melodrama, over-acting from the actors, and cheesiness. Still, I don't hate Smile. In fact, I like it. I'd definitely take Smile over Happiness Charge any day.

Smile isn't the best Precure series, but it's a perfectly safe, carefree show for kids that your daughter, sister, niece, or that kid you're babysitting can definitely enjoy. I do feel Smile could have done a heck of a lot better though. I haven't seen the English dub, Glitter Force, yet, nor do I plan to anytime soon, but I hope it'll pave the way for Precure to be successful in the US.

Okay, this is my first review, so, i'm sorry if there's wrong english in here.

Story:8
Smile precure is the new precure series after Suite precure. Smile precure have a good story. However, I think the story are look like an average Magical girl, like an talking animal, founded by a girl (mostly, junior high school girl). And the girl will be a magical girl, her friend also be a magical girl. But, something that make this special is, the atmosphere is cute,funny, colorfull and ULTRA HAPPY. It's different than mahou shoujo series that make a hit in 2011, that have a darker plot, with gory death ... and despair.
Whenever the story is more colorfull, it's have a good action and funny hensin. And still stay in kids magical girl genre, funny and eyecatching.

Art:9
Colorfull,Nice and Kawaii. Beautyfull art's make's this anime have a good score in art.
The artwork in this anime are more childish,good looking and Beautyfull.

Sound:7
The OP is nice to hear, The ending too, the character voice is nice too, nice sountrack, nice voice for the monster (?), and the evil pne's have a good voice too. The character voice is cute and cheerfull.

Character:7
Okay, Why i give this a low score? The answer is, it's look like an average mahou shoujo character. The first main character, Miyuki, is a cheerfull, happy and innocent girl. It's a bit same like other magical girl series, many mahou shoujo anime have a pink haired and cheerfull main character. Other, like Aoki, Is a big sister tipe that smart and talented. There's so many mahou shoujo anime that have a big sister type in the group.
But, it's still have an unique character inside, so it's still an unique character inside.

Enjoyment:6
Funny,have a friendship thingy, and fighting scene, it's still a good mahou shoujo anime. Whenever, sometime's they have a bit average scene, it's still fun to watch.

Overall:7
Good, and nice mahou shoujo with less dark and despair theme, and fun to watch.

Smile Precure was the very first anime I ever watched. I was pretty young when it first came out, and it was later dubbed and localized as Glitter Force on Netflix. A lot of people bash on dubs, so this one is no exception. After all, the localization also resulted in a ton of episodes being removed from the run. So, obviously, the dub isn’t well-received by Precure fans. However, I have to say that I really love the dub. I just love this anime in general. It is just the perfect magical girl show with tons of lighthearted slice of life moments and action-packed ... battle scenes.

Each of the characters were likable in their own way. I honestly can’t bash on this series too much, considering how much I loved it as a kid, but I can’t deny that while the characters are likable, they all are pretty one-note. I’ll use Yayoi as an example, since she was my favorite as a kid. Her entire personality boils down to the shy artist. There aren’t many other traits that can be said about her, as much as I love her. That being said, all the other characters are similar. It’s really the villains where the show shines

Precure is known for its gag villains. Being a kids’ show, you can’t really have serious villains without that one kid having nightmares. While the gag villains were great, I personally found the Joker to be the best character in this show. It’s nice to have a truly evil villain who manages to be likable without having a soft spot or being reformed. I remember him scaring the heck out of me as a kid, but now, he’s just so much fun and a fantastic villain.

And then there’s the pixies. While I did talk a lot about the villains above, the pixies are undoubtedly my favorite part of this show. They are absolutely adorable. That’s really all that can be said. I want to hug them so bad. You don’t even know.

That’s all I really have to say about this show. I honestly had a lot of trouble reviewing it seriously considering how dear it is to me, but I can say that whether you are a kid or a full grown adult, this show is tons of fun and worth checking out.

NOTE: I HAVE ONLY WATCHED THE DUB, SINCE I AM NOT YET FINISHED WITH THE ORIGINAL VERSION. KEEP IN MIND.

I always remembered this anime to be the very anime to introduce me to Pretty Cure Franchise, and didn't quite know what pretty cure was until I looked "glitter force". I would remember my confusion on my face when I found that out lol. To be honest, while there were some downsides I would like to explain, overall it was pretty enjoyable for me especially when I was younger and never felt at home with dubs, and I still don't exactly prefer subs over dubs. Both ... are equally good. However, I will only do the dub as I said at the beginning. So let's start;

STORY:
The story is very good in my honest opinion. The nice thing about this season that set itself apart from the others was the fact that no mid-season cures were introduced, which kept it simple to avoid distractions. I feel like it was just right. Most mid-season cures I hate so I am happy.

ART:
The art for this season was incredible. It felt like a traditional but modern feel at the same time. The amount of detail I could see in every frame was impressive. The eyes looked so lively and detailed, and the colors were bright and happy, just like the season's motifs.

One thing I did enjoy was the CGI. Don't even get me started on that. The CG is done so perfectly, the movements were smooth, and the faces actually looked like they wanted to be there dancing on the flowers (Ending Two had the flowers)

SOUND:
This is probably the thing I could say was not the best. I did not exactly enjoy some parts of the first ending, but why would it matter at this point? The second ending was outstanding.
The character insert songs were happy.

CHARACTER:
To me, the characters felt a little cliche. I mean, we got the usual Genki Girl, Athletic Kid, Shy and Artistic, A Walmart Copy of Athletic Kid (You'll get what I mean here, sorry Nao/April fans..), and the Smart Member of the team. Pretty stereotypical if you ask me. The characters felt so unrealistically perfect, except for a few characters, that actually had growth.

ENJOYMENT:
I enjoyed this anime a lot! I rated this an 8/10 for a reason XD

EXTRA REVIEW:
So because this is a dub, I would like to mention things like voice acting, the editing and whatnot. Here are some things that really annoyed me throughout;

-THE DARKENING: If it has to be one thing (which there isn't), it's the screen darkening. Screen darkening will basically dim the screen excessively on any scenes in which there are quick movement, or actual bright colors. Saban claims to do this to prevent seizures, and while I understand, why this low? Not to mention how no Japanese viewers were harmed in any way. Especially since Japan knows better ever since the Porygon Pokemon incident in which many kids went to the hospital due to epileptic seizures from a certain scene in Pokemon. You will not be able to enjoy the transformation scenes at all, so I would watch YouTube videos of them instead if you can only access the dub version.

-THE WHITEWASHING: This is a pretty big pet-peeve of mine. I understand young viewers will not understand how to pronounce the character's names, and that is alright. It does not mean Saban has to change the names of everything and completely wash away the Japanese cultural references, such as food names and the names of events. In fact, one episode about the Summer Festival was cut out because it featured Japanese culture, which I think is very disrespectful. Does foreign culture scare Saban? Younger viewers would not care, and in fact, would love to be introduced to foreign things they are not used to. It helps teach them about the world.

-NO EMOTIONAL SCENES: Come on Saban. At least include the crying scene from the final battle. And while I did enjoy the happiness of this anime, I would have liked to see growth from characters. It does not make sense how nobody would even tear up after finding out their world might just be destroyed.

Now, while there were three downsides, I would like to list the major up-side of the dub that not everyone would find interesting.
The custom endings were pretty cool in my opinion. Although the CGI was bad and at times glitchy, I loved most of the songs sub viewers would miss out on, especially Believe In You. I remember always listening to that song on repeat and nothing else.


OVERALL:
You will enjoy this anime if you ignore the major pet-peeves I did not like. But if you are someone who was unaware of the fact this was a dub, you will like it more. I feel such nostalgia every episode, so I want it to stay on Netflix. The sense of enjoyment I got despite these just made me happier. It's very cheerful sub or dub.

Better than Suite , the cast is great and this was made after the earthquake that killed over 20,000 Japanese people
Toei really hit the nail with shows like Kamen Rider Fourze , and Pirate Sentai Gokaiger , Smlie is about getting to the happy endings in life with many hardships to get to it , the villains are also great with this season , one major downside is this season was about Fairy Tales , and yet there not much fairy tales anything in this season , maybe next time , Smlie Precure is a must watch Precure season , don’t watch the dub ... too , that my review of Smlie Precure