Happiness Charge Precure!

Ah, Pretty Cure. It has never failed to make me amused. I'm always excited for a new episode to come out and I always enjoy it. Now that another season finished airing, it's the time for me to write my review.

Story: Young Megumi Aino, age 14, and Hime Shirayuki, age 14, bump into each other unintentionally. They become friends. Soon, Megumi meets Ribbon, her mascot. She is given a Pretty Change Mirror (PreChan Mirror) to transform into the tough Cure Lovely. Hime, who was already a Cure, transforms into Cure Princess. They fight the Saiarks and save the city from destruction.

Overall: 9/10

Art: This...style is extremely ... unique from other anime. The animation makes it look more cartoonish but with an anime feeling to it. Every episode, the art gets better and better. Never has it been a horrible style. Plus the CG was AMAZING. It was like the endings of Pretty Cure, but this time, it was inserted in the middle of the episode.

Overall: 10/10

Sound: The OST was so beautiful. Each episode had a different sound track and no sound track was the same. The opening and endings (Especially Pretty Cure Memory) are as catchy as burrito. The voice acting was SPLENDID. Back in the beginning of 2014 I was scared because Megumi might have a squeaky voice. NOPE! They made her be voiced by Megumi Nakajima, who was an idol girl.

Overall: 10/10

Character: Megumi Aino is a young girl who, like every other cure, is energetic and fun. Then there is Hime Shirayuki, a shy, timid princess girl. Then, there is Yuko Oomori, who is the sweetie bell of the season. Lastly, there is Iona Hikawa, the boyish of the season.

Overall: 9/10

Enjoyment: This was a WONDERFUL season and the second best season out of all. I give this a 10 out of 10! Which means, THAT WAS THE BEST THING I EVER SAW!!!!!!!!!1!!!!1!!!!!

At this time precure is all but not original. Toei is taking ideas from past seasons to make a new one. This time, Happiness charge looks very similar to Heartcatch precure.

Story: 8/10

The story is the same as always: some evil people attack a kingdom and wants to conquer earth. Only because they hate love, kindness, hope and all that good feelings. But they wont have it easy: precure will save the day!

One thing that I like is the new addition of the show: they put international precure: no matter in which country you are. A group of precure will save the day: India, Japan, Texas, ... Spain... Because, why only the evil organization attack one city if they can attack at the same time all world?

One thing that they used in the first half of the anime is that: if you collect enought precards you can wish something. In the second part this thing was forgotten. At the end its only a cute thing only to collect and use. Why: the cards are clothes and with magic you can change into the clothes that are on the cards.

Art. 7/10

Art and animation aren't good enough. Past season have better animation and character design. But again, a new addition is now on the series: CGI animation on when the precure attack. Yes, its cheap CGI, but is something. For the 10th anniversay of pretty cure the animation is really lame, with episodes that you can say: "what... where they lazy or don't have enough budget to animate this episode."

About the character design its not bad. Its cute but to be honest to childish and "sweet". You can say, "hey, its a kids show" yes, but I have seen several animated kids shiw and they have better.

Character. 9/10

The character is one of the best points of the show. They're aren't perfect ith a lot of cualities and no defects. megimu is a little dumb about love and she doesn't have any dream. Iona hate Hime becouse on her own version he has the fault what happened to her. This 3 characters have bad and good feelings.

But I really don't like too much Yuuko. She is always kind, likes food and thinks all the time about food and honey candy. She sings good and is the perfect lady: knows what she wants, and help others.

Talking about other characters, I also ike Blue, the Earth god. He search for kind girls only to become them precures. He has doubts and secrets. And you know that will be problems when the four protagonist know what really happened.

Enjoyment. 8/10

In overall, I enjoyed the anime. Ignoring bad animation (is bad in several episodes not in all) I really liked this season. but I really wish that toei, in some parts the story were superficial. They can be better.

I've seen a lot of Precure fans saying "Happiness Charge Precure is too sugary and sweet" or "It was good, but not as good as some of the other seasons". Despite this, I really liked it.

The story was kind of weird, with plot twists and such.

The animation was good enough, and the art style is cute. The CG effects are very good. There are a lot of bright colors, glitter, and effects.

The opening song and both ending songs are spectacular. The voice acting is okay.

The main character Megumi is kind of a stereotypical "Help everyone and be kind to others!" pink main character. ... The other characters are also cute and funny. There are also some shojou romance-type moments thrown in as well.

I really enjoyed Happiness Charge Precure. It is funny, fast paced, action filled, and will keep you watching to the very end. You will definetly enjoy it!

Update, 9/5/2020: Redid my review.

Wait, didn't I already review this back on my LiveJournal when it first aired? Yes I did. But after rewatching it and doing some thinking, I decided to lower its rating, because out of all the Pretty Cure seasons I've seen, I feel Happiness Charge is by far the weakest. But before I elaborate, I want to explain something: Some people I've talked to a few years ago have gotten the impression that I hate light hearted magical girl shows and only like stuff that's dark and gritty, but I'd like to clarify that that's not true. I like Madoka Magica, ... but not because it's dark. My favorite magical girl anime of all time is Fancy Lala, and some of my other favorites are the Pretty Sammy TV series, Cardcaptor Sakura, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, and Princess Tutu. I watched the first episode of Magical Girl Site and I absolutely hated it because of how over-the-top dark and violent it tried to be, and it was clear it was only doing it for the sake of being as violent as possible and nothing else. I don't go anywhere near the Nanoha series because of its more fanservicey elements. The point I'm trying to make is that I like both happy and serious magical girl shows, but I also like my magical girl anime to have substance. I want magical girl anime, nay anime in general, to be more than just a sugar fest or a grimdark violence fest. Magical Girl Site is obviously the latter, but having watched Happiness Charge Precure in its entirety...I won't say it's the worst show I've seen, nor even the worst Precure series out there, but to put it plainly, Happiness Charge is trite, uninspired, hollow, and superfluous, encapsulating the overall franchise's worst problems.

The story is about Hime Shirayuki, a princess of the Blue Sky Kingdom. Her kingdom was attacked by the Phantom Empire, and despite becoming a Pretty Cure, she is utterly hopeless at fighting, and has to go to Earth for her own safety, accompanied by her friend Ribbon. Her rival--Cure Fortune--blames her for everything and Hime is at a loss as to what to do. She does, however, find a new friend in a young girl named Megumi Aino, a happy-go-lucky girl who is obsessed with love and making people happy. Megumi actually winds up becoming a Pretty Cure alongside Hime--Cure Lovely. Together, along with two new allies, the girls try to fight the Phantom Empire's minions, the Saiarks, and try to stop them from spreading despair. But there's a lot more to the Phantom Empire than meets the eye, and there are many secrets to be revealed.

The animation...fluctuates a LOT throughout the series. Some episodes, it's good, other episodes...are pretty badly animated, with kooky faces with parts out of place, movement being stilted, the animation style being really cloudy and too cartoony for my tastes (but I got used to it), etc. The budget for the episodes is clearly limited, but when they use it, boy do they use it! Hime's transformation is the most well animated and visually pleasing transformation in the entire series, and that's saying a lot. But other than that, the show's animation is sub-par. The music...I don't know what to say about this one. The opening theme is too bubblegummy for me, the ending themes more so. The actual soundtrack...ugh, to be honest, I can't tell if the show even has its own pieces at all, because since the show has the same composer as Doki Doki Precure before it, the anime reuses pieces from Doki Doki in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE! Now, if the show was a direct sequel to Doki Doki, I wouldn't have a problem if they're the same series taking place in the same universe, but HapiCha is an entity completely separate from Doki Doki, so the fact that they reuse music from Doki Doki makes the production team really come off as lazy and uninspired. I get that there are budget issues involved, and other series used music from other series too, but at least Suite made sure to not use Heartcatch and Fresh pieces in EVERY episode.

The characters...are arguably a mixed bag. However, before I get to the bad, I really need to talk about what I feel is THE best part of the entire show: Hime. She is by far the best main character in any anime I've seen. She's well developed, has plenty of flaws and weaknesses, good qualities and strengths, has the best executed character arc in the show, is proactive despite her royal upbringing and occasionally selfish personality, grows as a character throughout the series awesomely, and has more spotlight on her than the pink character. The show seems to be making her out to be the main character, even though it's sort of not the case. And seriously, why can't Hime be the main character? Because she's easily the best character in the entire show even though she's made of traits that people would absolutely hate if done wrong, and Hime's character is done so right it's not even funny. I'm glad the writers really pulled out all the stops when it came to Hime. Also, Glasan is awesome.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the other characters. Now don't get me wrong, they're not bad. They're all engagingly flawed...except for Yuuko. I'll get to that in a bit. One thing I like about the series is that the characters all come off as annoying at first, but when you least expect it, the writers realize it and completely redeem them for you. I used to hate Iona for being a straight up jerk to Hime for plot reasons, but she dropped the act and realized her own faults as well. The other characters all have engaging flaws...except for one: Yuuko. Sorry, guys. I hate to admit it, as I like her too, but there's no denying it: Yuuko is woefully underutilized, and because of this, she comes off as extremely perfect. She's unfailingly kind and friendly, loves food and rice to insane levels, doesn't make any mistakes, all of her potential flaws are presented as cute character quirks instead of realistic flaws, everything she does is praised by everyone, she's always in the right, nobody questions what she does (save for a few, but even they change their views later on), and she's loved by everyone. Her character writing is one of the show's low points, as a character like Yuuko just isn't very interesting, and her focus episodes were all poorly executed, especially the cheesy episode 31, with the fact that the entire episode implied she had a love interest that turned out to be something else entirely. Both her character and that episode could have been handled so much better. But I do appreciate that she contributes no more or less than any of the other characters, that her attacks aren't foolproof, and that she's still on the same level as the girls, so I can give kudos to the creators for that.

The villains are pretty much the same. Mirage and Phantom are the only good villains in the show, whereas the bumbling bad trio are the worst. They're never developed, their backstories aren't elaborated on, and they're very bland, one note characters who don't do much throughout the entire show. They were the biggest waste of characters ever. Also, I absolutely hate Hosshiwa. Her voice was annoying, her character was annoying, her personality was annoying, her evil laugh was annoying, God everytime she opened her mouth I just wanted to deck her! Another contender is the final villain. I won't spoil anything, but he is the whinest, most annoying, most pathetic villain I've ever seen. He constantly whines and moans about how love is bad every five minutes any time he's on screen! He doesn't even do anything really threatening, just brainwashing people and being annoying, and he REFUSES TO SHUT UP!!! Seriously, I can write a better villain character than him! And the thing is, the show constantly builds him up as being this really dangerous, threatening force, so when it turns out he's little more than a whiny simp, the show basically crapped on all of the build-up it used for him and made it all go to waste.

That said, the main heroine of this series, Megumi, is also one of the show's biggest detriments, especially compared to other leads in Precure shows. Now, Pretty Cure is notorious for being very clingy to its own formula, rehashing the same character archetypes, color schemes, and personalities all throughout their shows, with only a few changes every now and again. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but using the same character type over and over again gets boring. At times, Toei knows this, and one of the reasons seasons like Heartcatch and the original series are so popular is because they had stories and characters that were different from the typical klutzy, cheerful, always happy archetype. Nagisa was tomboyish and could be a brat. Tsubomi was shy and timid. Hana from Hugtto Precure, behind her cheerful facade, was deeply insecure and felt like she couldn't keep up with the other girls as a Precure. Even the current series, Healin Good, has Nodoka, who is nice and kind, but also down to earth and frail because of having been sick for most of her life. People love magical girl shows that take risks and give their characters flaws that they have to overcome in order to grow as people. Those make characters interesting and relatable when done well. Watching those particular seasons, you can tell right away there was more to the characters than just one basic trait. The problem with Megumi is that the creators were less concerned about making her interesting and three-dimensional, and more with making her as over-the-top cutesy and nice and sweet as humanly possible, having her say her catchphrase "Shiawase Happiness" every other episode and having her talk non-stop about love and kindness and how being nice is good just for the sake of it. Even during episodes where she's supposed to experience real character growth and mature as a person, the writers still insist on having her act extremely childish and nauseatingly idealistic, like they're convinced children can't handle human characters who don't spout cutesy catchphrases all the time. Think Charlie from Tim Burton's Willy Wonka movie level of overly idealistic. For example, when she finds out Hime is running away after finding out the truth about why the Phantom Empire attacked, what does she do? She magically puts on a cutesy wootsy dog costume and chases after her. She basically comes off as an overly saccharine five-year-old in a 14-year-old girl's body, almost a caricature, and kids don't like having over-the-top sweetness and sugar shoved down their throats. And no, the show being a giant toy commercial is no excuse, because there are plenty of toy-based shows that actually put in the effort to write nuanced characters when they want to. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and hell, even several of the early Precure shows, are great examples of this. And no, this also doesn't mean I hate cheerful, perky, happy characters. I just don't like it when writers go way over the top with it and have it be their only character trait, and amping it up to ridiculous levels. My point: Have the cheerful characters act like people, not like hyperactive five year olds who do nothing but spout cutesy catchphrases all the damn time! But I know there are people who like Megumi and the rest of the cast as characters, so if you like them, cool! More power to you. This is just how I feel about the cast as a whole, not me dissing anyone who likes them.

Which also brings me to the show's biggest flaw. Now, let me say this: when it knows what it wants to do, Happiness Charge is great. But when it doesn't, it sinks. Hard. What do I mean? Well, some episodes are written well, while others are very poorly executed, like the writers were battling over what the moral of the episode should be and wind up making an episode that's a big mess. Unfortunately, Happiness Charge is pretty guilty of this. Episode 17 is one such example. To me it looked like the moral was going to be about Hime learning that it's okay to share your friends with other friends, but Megumi and Yuuko force Hime to support Seiji's karate tournament, and at one point Hime says "Curse you, Seiji!" for no reason at all, implying that she secretly hated him. I won't go into detail about other episodes, as it'd take waaaay too long. But yeah, it's like the show is at a fork in the road and it goes on one road, only to constantly zigzag between that road and the other, and in the end it finally decides on a road, only to still have doubts and regrets and the feeling of not having reached their destination. That's how Happiness Charge's filler episodes are to me. But different strokes for different blokes, I suppose. Plus, all the romance was really forced, and in a way, it didn't really need to be there. My mom often says "don't buy the car if you can't drive it." For this series? Don't try to write about something if you're going to write it badly...or in this case, indecisively. So lack of focus is Happiness Charge's biggest problem. But there are shows that did this far worse, and when the show knows what it wants to do, boy does it shine! I only wish it was this focused during its filler episodes, too.

That said, even its main plot suffers from lack of proper planning. For one, Happiness Charge establishes that certain items and plot points are important very early on, the PreCards being one of them...but then completely forgets about them by the show's end, never doing anything with them. I hear a lot of the show's problems are because it's meant to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary, and because the creators knew fans of the franchise love Heartcatch, they tried emulating it in a variety of ways. But that decision really hurt the show's quality, as Happiness Charge's lack of focus, tendency to forget important plot points or not mention anything until the last minute, uneven character writing, and shallow storytelling make it utterly unable to stand on its own two feet as a Precure series. Thankfully, the creators seem to have realized this, as the next season, Go Princess Precure, was a vast improvement over HapiCha in every way, even though it also reused Doki Doki's music at times. Plus, other magical girl shows, and other shows in general, tackled Happiness Charge's premise and did them better. Toei, if you really wanted to celebrate the franchise's tenth anniversary, this was NOT the way to do it.

I don't know if I would call this one the worst season, as I haven't seen every Precure season. But having seen a good chunk of them in their entirety, this one included, I really didn't enjoy Happiness Charge Precure at all. Not only is it overly saccharine and milquetoast compared to other magical girl shows, hell even compared to other seasons of its mother franchise, it simply tries too hard to be something its not. It's definitely not one of the better seasons, and I wouldn't recommend wasting time on it in any fashion. It's still better than Magical Girl Site, though!

If I could use one word to describe Happiness Charge it would be consistent. It's pretty much always a fun and entertaining show at the least, while there are parts that are better and worse than others its highs and lows aren't particularly extreme ever. I could always count on each episode to be basely enjoyable when I watched it even if I didn't expect much else.

The characters are fun enough. They have good chemistry with each other and I Hime in particular is great, she's definitely the stand out Cure from this season to me. Something of a problem though is that the show ... doesn't really balance out what it does with each girl. Yuuko feels like a prop for the first 30 episodes of the show and in the second half Hime is just kind of there. Not every Cure needs to have some sort of important side plot or be directly related to the main story in some way like Hime but there is really nothing going on for Yuuko and Hime at large stretches of time. Not only that but Yuuko's character is hardly expanded upon at all in the first half. Not counting Cures we have Seiji, Megumi's childhood friend. He's a pretty good character in his own right, and he becomes a nice support for the group of girls later on.

More than any other season Happiness Charge has a big focus on romance and love. It's pretty refreshing seeing this as a theme for Precure after so long. But it's not exactly done the best. A lot of it just ends up being characters agonizing over feelings and there not being good resolution on most things. Hime's potentially burgeoning crush on Seiji is wrapped up in the most disappointing and anti-climactic way possible, and in the worst case a possible love interest for Iona comes out of nowhere to enable a power-up and disappears just as quickly. For a show where love is such a big deal it really drops the ball in a lot of places.

In general the show is very quick to finish one thing and then move on to the next. Mostly in the second half. It will do something interesting and shocking for one episode and then it's done, time to do something else. The "Unlovely" event, which could've been expanded on so much more, and the resolution of Cure Tender are treated this way and it's a bit anti-climactic once again. The show does have a bit of a bad habit of bringing up supposedly important things and then just forgetting about them or seemingly thinking that they never need to bring them up again.

For a season where there are many different teams of Cures fighting around the world this wasn't really utilized much, they travel once and that's it. It's just kind of a shame they didn't really get to know that many other Cures well.

And then there's the CGI stock footage transformations. It's probably the most unique thing about HapCha compared to other Precure seasons. The girls each get some form changes and when they use them we get CGI stock footage exactly like the ending songs. They're very disappointing. The attacks themselves are basically pointless in the first place, very rarely do they even have an affect on anything other than the small monsters the Cures will be fighting. It basically just amounts to a weird cut-scene, "Oh. That happened.", and then they get phased out as the show goes on and we never see them again, it's basically just a waste of an idea. This only applies to the form changes used for battle though. The regular civilian changes are good, the girls get a wide variety of different outfits like ninja gear. It's one of the better realized parts of the show as they're always transforming into something cute.

The action in the show is overall the best we've had in Precure since Heartcatch. There's a lot of energy and excitement in the fights and the Cures are always inventing random attacks and throwing energy blasts and stuff that make the fights more fun. There's not really a ton of exceptionally well animated fights though but the show makes up for it I feel.

The animation isn't the best to be sure but the characters are very expressive and I feel the style and atmosphere of the show balance this out. I never found myself caring much about the general animation outside of fight scenes because Hime's exaggerated motions and such kept me entertained.

The villains are quite varied. The minion trio, like we've had every season since Fresh, is not particularly good. They have their fun scenes and are kind of basely entertaining but there's nothing else to them. They just kind of get worn out after a while. It doesn't feel like they have much of a rivalry with the Cures or anything and they aren't given backstories or any real development until much later than necessary. This makes the inevitable final fights with them just feel hollow.

Phantom is a better villain but still bland for most of his run. He later gets some development and what we learn about him makes him quite interesting but he's still not particularly compelling or fun to watch as a villain. Mirage is also pretty good and interesting herself but she just doesn't do much. The fight with her is indeed quite great though.

Deep Mirror is easily the best villain of the show. He also ends up as just being one of the most thought out, complex, and well realized villains of the franchise.

The finale is good definitely. Relatively well built up, intense, awesome, good villains to deal with, shocking reveals, it pretty much has all you could want. However. Megumi is the only Cure to be even remotely relevant to anything going on in the last part of the show. She does everything important basically. I don't know if I should be angrier at Doki for starting this terrible trend or HapCha for blindly following it. At least HapCha doesn't go out of its way to make things revolve around Megumi when they shouldn't though. She just... happens to be the only important one at the end. It's honestly kind of annoying.

The show uses a victim of the week format at a very loose level, we don't really get to know the people made into Terribads for the most part and they don't have to be sad or having a problem of their own like in other seasons. It's just a quick way to create a victim and a monster for the show and it's kind of nice truthfully, it at least means they never half ass the victim of the weeks story and they can still have important people made into monsters.

The normal non-cgi stock footage in the show is pretty good. All the transformations are good, Lovely and Princesse's duo attack is awesome, and the final group attack... well it's certainly unique I can tell you that much.

With all this being said the last thing about HapCha I can say is that there's just a feeling of staleness to it. Watching it I can't shake that it just all comes off as kind of bland to me. Probably having to do with Megumi's character, as fun as she can be, being really typical herself. But it's other things too that I can't quite describe, just a feeling the show gives off. But perhaps this is only because it's been ten years of Precure.

I would never rate Happiness Charge as one of the best or worst seasons of Precure. It's fine. That's it. It never evoked feelings of love or hate. But I could watch it and enjoy it again one day.

If you like the original pretty cure, your bound to love this one. Like the original, it takes a fair time of their lives and the fight.
This pretty cure is perfect on keeping the characters in the "right spot"(by that I mean they never act differently than you'd expect someone to be. Example: An evil queen giving money to the poor for no apparent reason).
I liked how they made part of it in 3-D(I would say specifically what part, but I think that'd be a spoiler). I also like how it ties all the pretty cures together(again, spoiler). Every single detail makes sense. ... Whenever there's an argument between the characters, it explains why they're mad at eachother.

All I'm going to say that this season isn't the best, but not the worst. I think it's meant to take references from the past Precure shows like power-up cards, turning people into monsters to celebrate its 10th anniversary. I enjoy some minutes of it. The characters are passable as far as stories go.

The story is more sugar than the previous shows but have some humor, and plot and character development is done well.

The characters are OK. Megumi just barely knows what she's doing when she talks about love, even when she fills in as a leader. I don't hate her. Maybe it's because leaders ... in the Precure series are intentionally meant to steal the spotlight. Hime is a the best developed character than the Cures in the show. It must have took her 23 episodes for her to get over her mistake of opening Axia. Iona is awesome too, but I find her just pretty harsh towards Hime, even if Hime is partially responsible for what she done. It's really low when she made Hime cry that you'll might hate Cure Fortune. At least that changed when Iona finds out that Hime was tricked into letting evil loose in the world, making Iona feel more ashamed as Hime, which is getting even. Yuko talks nothing about food but not in a same way as Osshiwa.

The animation is done well, even some of the CGI in the EDs and attacks. And those self copies that appear inside Hime's and Megumi's mouth is unique as Siren from Suite Precure, like they're screaming on the top of their lungs.

Overall, I called this as a promising season of the Precure series that I know you'll like it. If you're a fan of Magical Girl animes that you don't care which of them is you're favorite, you're going to love this. 7.3/10

For context, I'm watching everything Precure in release order. Having said that, this was the most difficult Precure season to watch. I'll do my best to explain why without spoiling things.

Visuals: inconsistent and sloppy

Sound:
1) legendary seiyuus were cast, along some with very little experience. Usually in Precure this is just a fun fact as everyone delivers their lines quite accurately. However and in this particular season, not every seiyuu can do the range that some scenes demanded
2) the soundtrack is bad imo

Story and characters:
1) unlike previous seasons, none of the main characters are captivating enough. It's the same characters, different visuals ... everytime but this time, I just couldn't care less about either of them
2) the trope where 14 year old kids fall in love with adults is plain disgusting and it needs to die asap
3) Masuko Mika's past with Precure was changed to accomodate the new Precures, which is plain stupid
4) each episode is as generic and repetitive as can be. It's like, there's no real effort to bring something new and memorable to each Precure season but this one has been far the worst because it feels that each episode is the same as the previous one


Unfortunately, it's a 3/10 for me

Happiness Charge Precure! Now this season is another mid season for me , Smile is again better than this one , I like
Happiness Charge more than Doki Doki , this show animation really goes to the many cameos you see before the Opening theme , the plot is bear bones , the Cures are almost copies from past Cures , The final few episodes animation got better , Happiness Charge Precure! is a low quality show for Pretty Cure at the time 10th Anniversary
It’s the Kamen Rider Decade of Pretty Cure , at least the All Stars movie was good ... , Happiness Charge Precure! got a good successor in the form of Go Princess Pretty Cure , that it for my review on My Anime List

Happiness Charge Precure is just an animated toy commercial―more or less. Despite it being the first Precure series that I watched, it is one of the weakest that I’ve seen in terms of narrative and visuals. The only character that was more than a one-dimensional archetype was Hime, who had to evolve from being a spoiled princess and accepts the guilt of disappointing members of her kingdom. It’s a kid’s show, so it didn’t dive much more into that; that and the series’ primary focus is on love, crushes, and advertising new toys.

• There are obnoxious, card-based transformations that revolve around dancing, so there might ... be an Aloha transformation when one of them is a hula dancer, or a ballet card, etc. In general, I don’t like it when cartoons incorporate a card-based system to a series like Precure, that doesn’t need cards, because it’s just an excuse to sell more things! To the creators: If you make a good enough series, with memorable designs, people will want to buy the trading cards! Having the characters use a transformation device that requires card input is an obvious marketing ploy! I felt that there were so many toys advertised in this series that it distracted from the actual plot!

• I know the Precure franchise didn’t become an enterprise without shilling and selling tons of toys, but when you make an entire series―Shill: The Animated Series, it’s going too far. It’s like the series didn’t want to pay for television advertisements, so they put them in the series as a means of subliminal messaging. It’s best to go the simplistic route, like the series that aired the following year, Go! Princess Precure, that just has a CG castle that the characters turn a lever on―that’s obviously supposed to be a marketable toy, or the weird Heartcatch Precure spinning wand where they scream to invoke its magical powers and because of the campiness, the scene blended so well with Heartcatch’s obscure, otaku atmosphere.

• For those who were fans of Heartcatch’s character designs, this series copies that and creates something with a similar art style, but far less quality. From beginning to end, this series is almost filled entirely with stock CG scenes and product placement. It wasn’t so bad at the beginning, but I can barely remember the plot towards the middle of the series because it was so much of a commercial!

• There’s an addition of “international Precure(s),” so I guess even if you’re a child living in the United States, you can still be a Precure? This Precure series commemorated Precure’s 10th anniversary, so if any of you are hardcore Precure fanatics, there are small vignettes before every episode with each of the old Precure(s) introducing themselves and sometimes saying something quirky, like Erika from Heartcatch. If you don’t want to watch Happiness Charge to see these anniversary specials, there’s a compilation of them online!

• In a nutshell, the characters in the show, other than Hime can be described as this: Megumi (main girl, tomboy), Yuuko (sweet girl who literally likes making sweets), and Iona (girl looking for revenge, rival with a soft side). If you haven’t seen all of those worn archetypes a million other times in anime, then perhaps, you will enjoy this series more than I did.

• Overall, some of the animation looked good, but the budget was noticeably frugal. If you want to see good animation in a Precure series, watch Go! Princess Precure or Heartcatch Precure. The romance arc between Megumi and Seiji is the only thing that the series really cares about in the end, though implied Hime and Iona is very close to being a canonical pairing. I thought Queen Mirage was a cool villain who was overshadowed by Phantom; her gothic aesthetic and powers reminded me of Queen Nehellenia from Sailor Moon SuperS, who I thought was one of the best Sailor Moon villains. This series isn’t really worth watching as a whole, there’s far too much filler. In the end, I give this corporate product a 4/10.

this season was literally so overhated i dont get why, everyone keeps saying “oh it’s a heartcatch ripoff” but if you’re using that logic, smile precure is a ripoff yes precure 5, all of the precures were likeable too the only weakness this season has is it’s designs and (SOMETIMES) its fight scenes, otherwise its a decent season, even tho i found the scenes between blue and megumi weird, if you ignore that the show is good, i especially liked iona because even tho she was rude to hime, she had a reason to be, also queen mirage might be one of fave precure villains, ... hime was also one of my faves because shes funny and she’s literally so relatable, the soundtrack is decent too, especially the op and the second ending, plus the animation doesn’t even look THAT cheap, even tho i wouldn’t recommend someone who’s new to the franchise to watch this season, i personally like it so far

If you're looking for a pretty cure series so bad it's past the point of even being a parody - congratulations, you've found it.

STORY: 4

It's an indecisive mess.

They collected dress up cards, then seemingly forgot all about them because I guess nobody cared enough to actually buy them in stores.

There's a love triangle that makes you want to slap all involved because, ew, and also, you're like 10. It also can't go far, because this is Precure, and Japan's laws don't like dating on kids shows. So why they felt the need for a love triangle, I really don't want to know.

The character ... arcs... they tried. Oh they tried. But they mostly just ended up recycled from Heartcatch only much, much more candy-coloured and sickly sweet rather than taking anything seriously. So no, no thank you.


ART: 6

There's some horrible decisions - like making 'lazer eyes' and actual attack (ugh) some 'well they tried things - like giving the girls navy/black vests to make them look more uniform - and some 'huh, that's cool things - but frankly, there weren't many.

The transformation sequences were creative, but the CGI elements just looked cheap and trashy in a way precure almost never does.

SOUND: 5

This being an anniversary season, they... 'recycled' old music. Yeah. Hugtto did that too, but they did it specifically in crossovers, or just for effects. HapCharge just doesn't care, and uses whatever it wants, whenever it wants, resulting in it all feeling recycled and out of place.

It has some new sounds, like the eds and op, but they're entirely forgettable.

CHARACTER: 6

As I said about the arcs, they at least tried. Not hard, but they did.

The entire cast is like Cure Happy on steroids. They're overly eager, exaggerated, and honestly rather clown-like and shallow.