Happiness Charge Precure!

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.

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