Hug tto! Precure

[Spoiler Warning]

One year ago, smart PreCure fans were devastated. KiraKira had been terrible and hurt the franchise for all time. But there was hope left, for Hugtto was starting. Surely a more traditional season that brought back physical battles would be much better, right? ...Right?

Huh...

Story: Easily the worst part of this season. The story is awful beyond words. Now I'm not expecting any masterpiece from little girl anime created to sell toys, but at least some sort of consistency and logic and basic writing skills are expected. However series composer Tsubota blows her nose at things like proper writing and consistency. The series is choke ... full with Deus Ex Machina and too many things are solved just too easily, both small and big things. Besides that you have things like the personal storylines from the main cast. One girl solves her personal plot when she joins right at the start of the show and other girl solves her storyline in the most ridiculous way possible simply because similar characters from seasons before had a similar resolution.

The themes of the series are parenthood, jobs, and doing anything, and oinly the first one was handled okay sadly. Jobs gets forgotten and the way the anime shows the last one is the most ridiculous scene from the entire franchise. The series also involves time travel and does a terrible mess with that since apparently having consistent time travel rules is really hard. Some individual episodes and scenes are good, but that's about the best we can give this show. It's better than KiraKira for all that helps, since at least this gets the basics right, but every other season is far better.

Art: Animation and art are usually on point thus good. However the fights are pretty boring and also often unrelated to the plot of the episode. It's not like Toei can't make good fights since the cameos get those, meaning they're holding down either because of budget reasons oir angry parents who complain about violence but not about bad writing. Maybe both. Either way these subpar fights certainly are not pleasing. Also the ending dances are getting really tiresome.

Sound: It's not bad. The song that resembles Corridors of Time plays every now and then and still feels jarring. The voice actors are fine, but hearing Yui Ogura not use her usual cute voice was real weird even if that shows she has range. And poor Yukari Tamura being in this bad season...

Character: Another big issue for the show. The main Cures feel split into two groups since the two that join halfway barely interact with the original trio. The original trio also gets the shaft for story except for the pink one, who has the usual Pink Cure Bias the franchise adores. And then there freaking was Henri the worst character from the entire franchise. He exists solely for pushing the agenda from the series composer on gender roles and the like. The problem is the guy was written horribly and the way he's handled looks more ridiculous than anything else, making the whole issue not end serious. And yes, like you probably heard he transforms once. However it's really forced and the guy does nothing, meaning no matter whenever you like the idea or not this does not delived one bit and just fails. Just like the rest of the series.

Enjoyment: The show is probably alright if you pay zero attention to the plot. Otherwise any older season will serve you much better. Except KiraKira for obvious reasons.

Overall: Star Twinkle better improve, since we've got two messes consecutively. This mess has better moments and really bad ones, instead of just awful mediocrity, but it's very much a mess and thus better avoided. We really need a rival magical girl show to give Toei scares and get them back into actually putting effort.

I've watched everything Precure up to this season and got excited about this one after looking at the average MAL score. However, it was a major disappointment and I'll explain why.

Visuals: pretty but very inconsistent

Sound:
1) rookies and very experienced seiyuus share the main roles, which is somewhat surprising considering most of Precure seasons. In fact, some of them have worked on the same projects before this one. I think they all did a good job, though
2) too much singing

Story and characters:
1) I'm really sick and tired of baby characters and this one didn't shut up and became very, very annoying ...
2) the monsters are back to feeling Precure-like which is awesome
3) Emiru is one of the most obnoxious Precures ever
4) 19th episode - this is meant to be a children's show in Japan but it delivered a truth bomb so casually: "Boys can be princesses, too". I never thought I would see this type of message in a "kiddie" anime but I'm glad it happened. We need to spread more tolerance and acceptance towards people. People need to understand that life's too short to not live up to your own expectations. Any expectation others might have of you, it's their problem. Not yours. When I was a kid I was too exposed to sexist bs and ended up being sexist myself until I grew out of it eventually but it did a lot of damage to my self-esteem.
5) 30th episode: a baby is dressed like Marilyn Monroe and another character goes "sexy adorable!". This has to be most disturbing, disgusting, infuriating, sickening and outright unnaceptable thing I've ever seen on a "kiddie" show.
6) It kind of took the "anyone can be a Precure" a bit too far with one character being a legit Cure Something for a day
6) Not a fan of the weak nostalgia attempt at including characters from past seasons. That's what Precure All Star Movies are for.
7) Another season, another 13 year old girl falling in love with a magical hamster. -.-'


In my opinion it's just another mediocre Precure season. 5/10