Fresh Precure!

It's time to review Fresh Precure! Another fantastic season and the one to praise for introducing a successful formula that most later entries followed in terms of villains and story.

The story this time is set in Clover Town Street, a very cheerful place where the main characters live. After the protagonist of this entry, Love, gets involved in the attack of the enemies from this story during a performance of the unit band Trinity, becoming a Precure in the process, she and her friends will have to fight to save the world from a bad ending.

The cast of Fresh is one of the strongest from ... the franchise IMO, this time the main trio (the cheerful and passionate for dancing Love, the kind and animal lover Inori and the fashion fan Miki) were already friends from before the start of the series and they really felt like a group with their interactions. Due to what happened at the start they also started to practice dancing with the help of the leader of Trinity and that gives them another point to work hard together that gets really nice use through the story.

While the main trio is solid (although I'm not that big on Miki, who honestly suffered from lack of spotlight) and I really like Love, it's with the fantastic side cast that the series really shines. The main villain trio of the story for example are characters I grew to love a lot. Wester is a super goofy character that delivered tons of laughs with his personality, Soular is the serious business one of the group that gave great challenges to overcome for the Precure with his plans, and lastly there is my favorite chracters of this entry: Eas, who had an incredible and emotional arc that I absolutely adored. The story does a great job showing the place and situation this characters come from and it's hard to not grow to love them as the episodes pass, maybe even more than the main trio.

And I still have to mention other great side characters like Daisuke, who is a great love interest for Love and forms part of some of my favorite episodes of this entry with the focus on those two, and the mysterious Kaoru, who gives as many laughs as donuts he sells. This entry also has two of my favorite mascots with Tarte and Chiffon, the first feels very different to the usual mascot as Harry from Hugtto did due to his personality, and Chiffon is really freaking adorable. I can perfectly understand the dislike for baby characters (I'm not that big on them either) but this one particularly stood out in the positive side, being 99% aww 1% cry.

Now it's time to talk about the art and music, Fresh is actually the entry that looked the least appealing to me visually from the few info I saw from each before starting, but I ended up being pleased with what I got even if I liked others more. The color palette of this entry is less colorful than usual, and while this entry had good quality overall, it rarely stood out as others did with fights outside of two or three very nice moments. The transformation scenes and stock footage attacks are solid although I feel that this entry suffered from the second ones being too long. Overall it could definitely be better but it was consistently good. When it comes to the music, this entry has one of my favorite transformation songs and nice OP and EDs, that together with some nice songs through the episodes made me satisfied on that department.

Fresh Precure is one of the best choices for first Precure to watch thanks to the great execution of the formula and the lovable characters it has, I really recommend to give it a chance!

O.o Lets begin:

The story of this anime is simple: labyrinth wants to find "infinity" (even they don't know how it looks like) to govern all words. Tart, a fairy of the Sweets Kingdom has to find the 3 pretty cures. For a magic girl for little girls the story is simple. But sometimes you can say: O.o That was a surprise, I didn't believe that... In all 50 episodes we know all about the present and past of the cure's, what are they afraid etc. The story is also full of comedy become the enemies (they're in part silly) and tart

If you see other pretty ... cure season, the art of this very showy, with too much shiny color and very attractive. The mascots here are also attractive. Tart may look like a ferret, but he is a very proud fairy and he will not get tired to say it. The villains design are also attractive, Soular and Wester look like a shoujo manga man: very "bishounen', but too silly.

About the sound, I really like both versions of the opening (I like better the hybrid version of the opening) and the two openings, but the soundtrack isn't any special. Comparing with the OP and Ed, the soundtrack is simple and boring.

About the animation is good, but sometimes looks so lame, and ugly. And if you put attention the perspective of sizes sometimes is incoherent. But this only happens in the first episodes. When they transform and when they are fighting with the enemy the animation is great. Also I lime the CGI ending dance. Is good to see all ending dance, you will enjoy it.

About the characters, as I said, the anime really one strived in showing all the personality of all the characters. What they like, they efforts to become they're dream come true, what are they afraid and other things about their present and past, how they interact with love prospective and all things what a girl of 14 years old do. I really like this.

About the overall and enjoyment some of the episodes you can skip them, some of them are really boring and it won't affect if you see them or not. Fresh iOS one of the seasons of pretty cure you have to see: is funny, really enjoyable 9most of the episodes an (98% of all) and has a great and epic final.

The themes remind me of the thought of communism, which is giving up individual personality traits, for an "ideal" life (Labyrinth vs Pretty Cure) and it can be a pretty difficult subject to broach, especially in a kid's anime. I think technology was definitely an important theme, as it emphasized how machines are meant to be top quality, instant results types of things, but it sacrifices individuality: memories, the ability to make a lasting impression on your or someone else's life. I could probably write an entire essay on the topic of Fresh Precure alone, but I'll try to keep it brief. First off, Eas' ... arc. While I think that Splash Star was pretty good on Michiru and Kaoru learning the error of their ways, this was a huge jump from that, one might even argue a jump that, if done wrong, could not only be a bad story arc, it could even create unintentional themes of negative consequence Precure didnt mean to dive into (i.e., that it's okay to cause destruction and chaos as long as you apologize, etc.) I am happy to say that Precure did a great job not only emphasizing, but understanding the morals behind Eas decisions, her motivations. The season finale in my opinion has been a slow boil from episode one, although a moment never felt dull here. It's great that Moebius' arc is essentially caused by humans, since this is a realistic theme of humanity to advance and evolve.
Precure also did an outstanding job in taking the piss out of themselves: making fun of their own tropes and themes from past seasons, things that have seemed contrived from out of nowhere (such as the theming of seasons themselves; Flora barely had a part in her own season finale despite the entire adventure being about the Cure Rose Garden), and even the subversion of typical monsters-of-the-day into HELPERS-of-the-day, which I believe is a first in magical girl history to subvert this trope in this type of way. My point is, Fresh knew exactly what they wanted to get out of this show going in, and as a result they were able to build up not only tension, but make important moments completely iconic without wasting time. This is why no episode got a 1: they were extremely careful with not only giving characters time to build up and develop, but how they develop. Take Miki, a typical fashionista sterotype, who had to confront her fear of octopi and had the help of Setsuna, and managed to fight an octopus monster alone. Or Buki, who had a semi-irrational fear of ferrets that actually strengthened her and Tart's bond to the point I'd say she and Tart were closest by even midseason. Not even a single side character annoyed me this season, nobody who I wanted to throw in the Delete Hole, not even the crushes or even Kaoru. In my opinion, this is peak Precure: it has hit its Golden Age.

The Precure franchise is one I've talked about pretty frequently. I started with Doki Doki and then I went back to the beginning with Futari Wa and I've been going in order since. So far about half of the franchise has been really good (Futari wa, Splash Star & Doki Doki) and half has been mediocre (Max Heart, Yes Precure 5 & Yes Precure 5 Go Go). When I talked about Go Go, the topic came up about how it nearly killed the franchise and I speculated that the likely cause was that the characters in Yes Precure 5 weren't strong enough to carry a ... second series. Hell, they couldn't carry a single series and have it be good. Well, Fresh Precure was the series that revitalised the franchise and ensured that it could keep going even to this day. So, I'm pretty excited to see this one.

Story:

Tart and Chiffon are two denizens of the Sweets kingdom. Tart is given two important tasks, find the legendary warriors, Precure and look after Chiffon. The pair wind up in Clover Town where they meet up with Momozono Love, a girl who loves dancing and her very close friends, Miki and Buki. Obviously, all three of them are Precure. The three of them have to defend Clover Town from the denizens of the shadowy, mysterious labyrinth who are trying to fill the sorrow gauge to locate Infinity, while also seeking out the fourth Precure.

The only real criticism I have for the narrative of this one is that I think the fourth Precure's integration into the group and redemption are a bit too easy. I don't want to go deep into spoiler territory, but this girl starts out more in the lawful evil alignment and just transitions to lawful good really quickly and immediately redeems herself. I get that it's a series for a younger audience and they don't want to be too fixated on a long redemption arc but I also think even Splash Star had a more gradual, stronger redemption story for Kaoru & Michiru and that a couple episodes where she has to really prove herself and work for that redemption would have done wonders.

With that said, the series has a lot of strong twists and turns. The whole theme about cooperating as a group but still being individuals versus complete conformity is an interesting one and the series handles it well. The series even takes digs at being overly individualistic when our heroines decide that they're going to hone their own individual strengths only to realise that they're stronger when they work as a unit. I also do love the whole ending sequence. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but what happens with the girls and their families as well as the way they affect Labyrinth once they go there and the truth about Moebius are all pretty brilliant. This series also has a strong subplot where there are some boys who are romantically interested in our heroines and we see them look for ways to let them down kindly without anyone being treated like "the bad guy" in that situation. The series also possesses a great sense of humour. There are a lot of strong comedic moments. The writers also knew how to pace things so that there's a steady progression but there's also plenty of time for the girls to face various monsters of the week, have light-hearted fun moments and build their relationships with each other.

Characters:

The Precure are all fantastic. Peach, Berry, Pine and Passion. They have strong personalities with plenty of information and build up for their back stories that help craft characters that are surprisingly complex. Fresh also does a really good job of building up their parents as characters. We get to meet Love's, Buki's and Miki's families, see how they interact with each other and get a strong sense of the parents' personalities. Which really pays off during the ending stretch when we get that excellent scene with the parents. This is also the first Precure series where all the heroines seem to be in a polyamorous grouping with each other. They have strong interactions and they're very yuririffic. We saw the same thing with everyone except Ace in Doki Doki but this is clearly the instalment that started it.

I also do appreciate the antagonists. The whole Eas, Wester & Soular trio is really strong. Wester is actually kind of a delightful goofball. Moebius has a compelling back story and motivation once the series gets into it and stops having him as a shadowy villain figure. Northa and Klein are kind of the weaknesses there since they're both a bit boring but the series actually explains why the pair of them aren't complex and it's in a way that works.

Art:

The character designs are fantastic. I especially like Cure Passion's costuming though they did an excellent job of giving all the Precure costumes that are kind of similar but have their own individual touches. The monster designs and action sequences continue to be strong. The dance choreography we get in various episodes and with the ending theme tune is really good. The one criticism I can offer is that the series might spend a little too much time on the stock footage. Though this one spends a lot less on that stuff than Go Go did.

Sound:

The acting is excellent. Oki Kanae, Kitamura Eri, Nakagawa Akiko, Komatsu Yuka, Matsumoto Yasunori and the rest of the cast do a really good job and they all play off of each other like they're performing a stage production instead of voice acting. The music is amazing too.

Ho-yay:

There's a lot in this series. Every member of Precure seems to be romantically interested in every other member. It's especially true with the other three and Love but they get their moments with each other as well.

Areas of Improvement:

1. Cure Passion's redemption arc could have used a few episodes that explored the whole thing more deeply.
2. The series could have benefited from abridging the stock footage a bit more.
3. Maybe a bit longer for the epilogue.

Final Thoughts:

It's pretty obvious why this series brought the franchise back. It's excellent. The characterisation, action, sense of fun, just about everything in the series works really well. Yes Precure 5 may have been the first instalment in the franchise to put the focus on a group dynamic but this was definitely the first instalment that did it well. My final rating is going to be a 9/10. If you're a fan of magical girl stuff, especially when they're heavy on les-yay, this is one for you.

Story: 8.5

Ho-ly! Of all the Precure series I've seen - which is to say, all of them - this one still has the absolute best writing in terms of character development, emotional attachment, and consistency. Unfortunately, the last 4 episodes tried a bit too hard and threw logic right out the window, which, while it makes sense with context, definitely keeps it from hitting a 9 or a 10.

Characters: 8

The characters - and more specifically, their relationships - is where this show shines. Love, Miki, and Buki all know each other prior to the series' start, which is a unique take for Precure, and this ... familiarity is clear in all their actions and affections. Setsuna's treatment by the crew - no spoilers! - is realistic, and unexpectedly heartbreaking at times. There's so much more emotional maturity than in many adult shows!

Art: 7

I'll be honest here - Fresh is very clearly a product of its time. The CGI endings, while unique to Precure at that moment, make for cringe-worthy viewing today. But you have to appreciate it for trying to do it while it was new, if nothing else.

The character designs are definitely unique, and much more mature than earlier Precure. The overall scene designs are pretty fine, as are the villains. Nothing bad but not exactly memorable, either.

Sound: 7

Once again, it's good for what it is. The general score is good, but nothing memorable. Unfortunately, the Openings sound like the poor singer is yelling at times, which is uncomfortable, but the ED's are the perfect blend of dance and chill, they're super catchy and demonstrate the show's atmosphere really well.

I finally made it to Season 6. Let's begin!

Visuals:
1) not much difference from last season
2) I didn't enjoy the transformations sequences compared to previous seasons
3) characters look more like 16 year olds than 14 year olds. It's just 2 years but in puberty 2 years is a lot
4) there's a few continuity errors. This is better explained with an example. On the 3rd episode, a character and a dog go play in a water area where the water level reaches this character's ankles. A few minutes later, we get to see an actual truck fall in and it sinks completely.
5) inconsistent ... animation, sometimes sloppy


Sound:
1) top notch casting as usual for most roles
2) dialog and animation aren't always in sync
3) it's much more enjoyable when cutesy characters aren't voiced by male seiyuus forcing their throats to give us a very high pitched sound
4) soundtrack is forgettable

Story and characters:
1) I was super into this up until episode 12. It felt somewhat fresh (no pun intended) and it was pretty funny, too. However, the vast majority of the episodes after that it so predictable, boring and repetitive that my interest and level of enjoyment died down. It felt like every episode was the same. 50 episodes is too much for this type of show.
2) There's this guy character that's meant to be a love interest for one of the girls. He's pretty annoying and I can't relate or sympathize with him. However, this guy confesses his feelings for this girl and because the world is going into chaos, they postpone the answer. Finally the world is back to normal and... THE GIRL TELLS HIM "I'm not going to answer!!! :D" as if it's an acceptable response. This ruined what was being a very average ending to this season.


So, despite the promising start, it still ended up being a disappointment. It's a 6/10.