Smile Precure!

I've watched a good number of magical girl series in my 12+ years of watching anime. It's probably one of my favorite genres, tied with shonen and sci-fi. Some of these shows are just fun, some are profound, some are classics in the genre.

Smile Precure isn't any of those.

Story (3/10): If you've ever traversed near the Kamer Rider fandom, you've probably heard the meme 'Decade has no story'. That's as close a descriptor to Smile if I've ever heard one. Also, it's fairly ironic, considering that that show was also written by the same person that wrote Smile (well...the second half, but easily the worst ... half). But your enjoyment of Shōji Yonemura's works isn't what I'm here to talk about.

Smile Precure has the most bare-bones plot of any Precure series that I've seen. A good chunk of the show is easily considered filler, the entire premise of fairy tales shows up once in a while (if at all), and what plot there is is just boring. I can understand that this is written for younger girls, but that's not an excuse for relying on the Monster of the Week formula so often that you could, in fact, call the entire plot of the episode before even watching it. Plus, I do know about the ending and how it rips off 3 different Precure series/movies all at once, and that's kind of insulting, since it does seem like the writer just saw the previous seasons and said 'Hey I'll add that in!'.

Art (6/10): The art of this series is probably the only saving grace that I can think of. All of the Pretty Cure's designs are actually quite cute, along with having some very pretty power-ups and attacks. But being pretty can only go so far.

Sound (5/10): The music in the show was OK, from what I remember. It just wasn't anything that I would write home about. The opening was, to be fair, quite catchy and got me to smile (ha, pun). Otherwise I think it was fine for what it was.

Character (3/10): This is another one of the big problems with this season. The characters are really just so stagnant that it's almost like character development just slips right off of them. Our main heroine Miyuki is easily the most annoying leader Cure yet, with the groups fairy Candy being somewhat cute but mostly useless. Akane, Yayoi, Nao, and Reika are somewhat interesting (and less annoying), but it seems like they get stuck in their stereotypes more often than not. The Cures are also so prone to holding the Idiot Ball at any given time that it's not even funny.

There is also little to no secondary characters, so there's nothing really to say about that. And the villains? So ineffective and nonthreatening that when they decided to show some kind of challenge, I was more mildly amused than anything. The only one that seemed to act like a villain was Joker, and he was probably the better part of the show.

Enjoyment (4/10): When I watched the first few episodes of SP, I was waiting for the traditional fun of the Precure franchise to take hold. And it really never did. This show ultimately bored me and never made me want to actually take the time to watch it. Plus, the complete retcon that occurs in episode 24 pretty much told me what I wanted to know about the future of this season.

One thing that I was stunned that this show got away with was that there were never really any fight scenes, which is a guaranteed fan favorite staple of any Precure season. It was always 'say catchphrase -> get beat up slightly -> fire off finishing attack -> collect thing'. Hell, they never even took part in the Precure tradition of beating the crap out of their foes until like episode 22 and 23! That's seriously crazy! Actually, the opening has far more action then a regular fight scene has, if I'm being honest.

The season does have it's funny moments, but when I could read the summary of an episode and not even be inclined to watch the corresponding episode, that's just not worth it for a couple of laughs. Granted, some of the things I've seen of later episodes do, in fact, look amusing (but again, that's not enough to make me want to watch when, in the end, it's all filler). There is also the point in that it fails on holding onto it's own premise, even down to the collectables that they need: Heartcatch = flowers + Heart Seeds / Suite = music + Notes / Smile = fairy tales + ...Decors?

Overall, I'm sorry to say that Smile is just not a good entry into the Precure franchise. It has really no plot to speak of, little character development, BARELY any good ol' beatdowns that it's predecessors are famous for, and is generally too reliant on the MotW formula. You can be lighthearted and funny, there's nothing wrong with that at all. But when 3/4 of your series is filler and easily skipped over, you have a problem.

(I really and truly apologize for this review being overly negative, but...this show kinda annoyed me.)

After that 2011 earthquake incident in Japan, the staff must replace Waon and Seika to Ellen and Ako for another 2 Cures in Suite Pretty Cure, and many rates it as poor series, but I disagree. Because there's even more horrible series that forgets and reuse any idea in the previous franchise, Smile Pretty Cure.

Why I rate this series as horrible? Well, here's the reasons:

- Story: The staff forgets the questions they appeal in the previous episode. This was more broader because Royale Queen didn't know what's her relationship with Joker, and in Episode 48 Candy forgets that she is the new Royale Queen in ... epilogue (if that's so, then Miyuki will meet Pop alone instead of meeting Candy together with the other 4 in my opinion). And the story focus more on character development than fairy tales, very terrible.

- Copy: More severing, remember that the staff decides to reuse ideas? Really, most copy episode are very blunt and horrible, which is another worst point in the series. Like in Episode 34, where they reuse the idea from Heartcatch Episode 36. And they forced to do that for promoting 'Warau Waraeba Waraou' and really didn't match the vocal (really!). The other severing points will be explained in the next section, and moving aside is the positive points. Episode 29 is the best summer episodes despite of reusing Yes! 5 GoGo! Episode 36 and 37 because it has a story 'playing around in summer holiday until they forget the homework', which I agree.

- Reuse: Smile Pretty Cure has borrowed some motif from Gokaiger and some to Kyoryuger (Pop and KyoryuCyan), and so far Smile has reuse the most from Gokaiger. You'll remember the most are from Episode 31 in both series and Episode 22 in Smile (for Episode 31 - return to previous form, and Smile Episode 22 and Gokaiger Episode 31 - Gai Ikari and Pop falls down first following the others and must suffer the unconscious and despair respectively). Moreover, the character profile reuse to another I can feel the most so far are Joe Gibken and Reika Aoki. If you watch both series at the same time and in whole, you'll know the similiarities of the both series.

- Character: As usual, the main characters are 5 similiar to Yes! Pretty Cure 5, which are: Miyuki Hoshizora / Cure Happy, Akane Hino / Cure Sunny, Yayoi Kise / Cure Peace, Nao Midorikawa / Cure March, and Reika Aoki / Cure Beauty. The most developed one is Yayoi, followed by Reika and Akane, Miyuki and Nao is bad. Came to the villain, the trio weren't bad, but Joker and Pierrot is the worst due having no background. That's what I shorten the review about character.

However, most fans refers this series as excellent, causing this series to have two sides: praising the character development or scolding most of copy episodes and the story makes no sense.

Overall, I recommend watching this for the starters to find the pro in the series, but for you who hates any suffer of fear by the important episode, and hates a disappointing series due for being too many copy episodes, please refrain from watching this one.

To begin the final rating of Smile, I'm going to begin by stating that the season quality has been inconsistent as a whole, which can make this type of analysis somewhat difficult; there are an equal number of moments from the plot that are both highly remarkable (even for a franchise such as Precure) as the number of moments that makes one wonder where exactly they were heading with this season. To begin with, it seems that a lot of elements from the series had potential which never saw the light of day, or rather, weren't accurately touched upon in an in-depth manner. For instance, ... several elements (such as the various-colored clown noses) weren't utilized to their full potential and seemed to only be used as a plot device in order to increase the difficulty level; however, this never felt like taking a drastic step, as the Cures were still able to defeat them as always with their standard attacks. Other elements that seem to have been forgotten about were the bookshelf which allowed one to travel anywhere across the Earth, which is a feature that was only utilized to the potential it had in a single episode. As for villains, Majorina and Akaoni unfortunately failed to invoke any form of terror whatsoever; Majorina's plots simply revolved around continuously losing plot-related items, causing misfortune for the Cures, whilst Akaoni had an even less defined theme of simply destroying things. Wolfrun, to me, was the only enjoyable member of the trio, as he seemed to at least be somewhat intelligent and cunning. However, the worst villain of the series was Pierrot; after finally being awakened by Bad Energy, he was on-screen during the midseason finale for approximately five minutes and was promptly defeated, only to return in the season finale. However, even by this point, it was too little too late; his presence in the series as the "big bad" was almost nonexistent and when defeated a second time, he vanished into thin air in a manner of seconds.
As for Joker, I would like to say that Joker was, unexpectedly, quite a competent villain...Mostly. Able to manipulate the Cures' fears, hopes and dreams to his will, as well as having direct control even over seemingly all of the other villains in the season, even Pierrot, this was not the extent of his abilities; he was able to create powerful illusions and items to various effect (such as the Sloth Ball or Bad End Precure) as well as having a very high amount of tangible power during his fights. This leaves the question of why he was left with the fate of being absorbed inside Pierrot; I believe that if given the proper opportunity, Joker would actually be able to defeat the Cures, had he not succumbed to his fate. The fate and backstory of the other three generals was given far too little, too late; by the point in the series that it was revealed, there's not enough time for their words to create impact, and their "reform" felt highly rushed and didn't make much sense, as it seemed to come completely out of left field. While I did mention that Pierrot was wholly incompetent, I do believe there was a character worse than him, even; the Royal Queen of Marchenland. Several times the Cures completed the "layers", if you will, of Decors, only for the Queen to be almost completely inert and unresponsive and halfheartedly tell them that she needs more power. Even after gaining enough Decors to fully awaken her, she had almost no impact on the battle besides helping the awakening of Royal Candy. I also believe that Pop accomplished nearly nothing and only existed to attempt to order the Cures around as well as provide plot information.
While it may be said that the season suffered because of real-world events, I disagree; even so, there were numerous episodes when the writers had an opportunity to create wonderful, wholesome moments, only to plunder it on nonsensical filler episodes which amounted to almost nothing in terms of character development (this is mainly in reference to Majorina). Some of these include episodes based on the following premises: the characters turning invisible, Miyuki being transformed into a Transformers-esque fighting robot, the characters shrinking to a size smaller than ants, and becoming children, to name only a few. Had the series been properly able to utilize the elements it had set up in order to create an effective story, I believe it could have fared much better. As well, the visual comparisons to Yes 5 only serve to distract rather than entice, as it makes similarities in personalities only even more transparent. As it has likely been stated numerous times as well, the Cures feel significantly weaker than other Cure teams. I would like to give the series an overall rating of 4/10.

Smile Precure, known on Netflix as Glitter Force, is the most overrated Precure series. I pity those who have this one as their first Pretty Cure show, because it is among the worst. The characters are generic and forgettable, and there are absolutely no mature messages. There’s just a furry that everyone pairs with the characters, who are little girls.

• The most well written character is Cure Peace, but she’s only well-written in one episode. That one episode explains how she has had to struggle being raised by a single mother and how her father’s death affected her. But after that ONE episode, never ... again!

• It just goes back to the characters being their generic archetypes. Cure Happy, being the happy-go-lucky, childish one. Cure Beauty being the smart, beautiful, and good-at-everything character. Cure March being the athletic one who gets spooked easily. Cure Sunshine (a Cure Black clone) is the loud, second athletic one who works at her family business.

• And, Cure Peace is just the shy, artsy one, that gets only an episode of development. If you think that those characters sounded archetypal as fuck; you’re not alone! I did, too! I mean, there’s not terribly much to be gleaned from this series, since does primarily seem focused on children. But, this is worse quality than Digimon.

• I did not like the villains, they were among some of the most boring Precure villains that ever came into artistic existence. I tuned out whenever they were on screen. I have no idea why Smile is such a huge otaku phenomena; it garners such a massive amount of fan art on Zerochan, I don’t understand! I know their character designs aren’t bad looking AND they have dark alter-ego forms. But, you know which Precure show did that infinitely better and has less of a fan reception: fucking Heartcatch!

• The ending is a cope-out. It’s one of those conclusions where the mascot cries and says, “Once I go over to my world, I’ll never see you ever again because the dimension portal will be cut off.” And then you know what happens… the show pulls an asspull like Kyoukai no Kanata and brings the little fucker back in the end. Just when I thought the show was addressing mature themes about people having to live apart and possibly never see each other again!

• I was duped! What does the little mascot say when he breaks all of the show’s logic and causes little girls to cry, is is just like, “Just kidding guys, I just like little girl tears! Hehe?” Aside from my ramblings about the terribad ending, Smile Precure is such a hollow kid’s production that I could barely make it through most episodes without wanting to drop it or go to sleep. I give Smile Precure a 2/10.