(spoilerish)
I'm not gonna lie, this was a terrible show that I enjoyed sitting through. But it. Was terrible.
If you're unfamiliar with Precure, I'll give you a rundown: Toei Magical Girl Cash Cow about girls who fight evil by utilizing powers bestowed onto them by little floaty creatures that are usually some brand of sugary cute. It's standard shoujo, extremely formulaic, and often features stories of friendship and Girl Power (tm). Think Sailor Moon, but with new stories and continuities every season. You're free to look up the movie poster for Pretty Cure All Stars Haru no Carnival♪ if you want to know the beast you're dealing with.
Mind you, standard Mahou Shoujo isn't a /bad/ thing. Don't let any fans of the Seinen variations tell you otherwise. Is it feminist inherently? No, of course no - arguably, it isn't feminist at all. But, in it's purest state, there is nothing wrong with little girl animes for little girls. The issue comes in when producers underestimate the intelligence of their audience, or get a bit too creative while also trying to appeal to their audience. And failing. Badly.
DokiDoki! Precure is the latter case.
This season mixes the creative minds behind The Visions of Escaflowne and One Piece, to create a truly bizarre hybrid of shoujo and shounen that comes out incomprehensible and disappointing.
DokiDoki! Precure revolves (and I do mean /revolves/) around Aida Mana and her friends Hishikawa Rikka and Yotsuba Alice, and additionally big-name idol Kenzaki Makoto after she warms up to the gang. As Precures, they fight the Selfish, who are...selfish. This season's visual theme is Poker. I wish that was an exaggeration. Everything else you can probably look up. Technically, every episode in this 49-episode season is plot related, which means you have to decide for yourself what's filler and what's not. I did not know this coming into DokiDoki! Precure.
The Plot is pretty much about a single person. Who is actually three people. Yeah, we're at that level of convolution. In a time of trouble, the individual divided her soul into two parts, and her body reincarnated as a freakish baby. The majority of the plot points revolve around at least one part of this trinity, and it really is exhausting. Due to this focus on this character & triad, every other character's development suffers. Unless that character is Mana, of course, as this series suffers from serious Pink Shoujo Protagonist syndrome (the pink protag is a huge, powerful mary sue that nobody ever faults, even if they are acting like a huge jerk). We're sorry, Makoto. You didn't deserve this treatment.
The animation is extremely variable, but the art is bogged down by busy character designs and dead eyes. You see, they decided to go with a design theme of asymmetricality, but they just didn't know when to stop. It's something you just have to ignore while watching, so if you're really particulate about art, stay far away. You can tell exactly where they allocated their budget, and man, is it unequal. There are /visible/ animation bumps and valleys, to the point of disorientation. It's like being in a car with a teenager learning how to drive, who's too afraid to get in an accident, so they're constantly slamming on the breaks every second. When it's good, it's REALLY good. When it's bad, it's REALLY bad. If you care about design aesthetics, stay away from Doki. For your own sake.
The music, for Precure, stands brightly. Hiroshi Takaki did the BG music (the wikipedia article is inconsistent on who did the music, and lists Hiroshi Takagi. Which is physically impossible), and did a heck of a job. Although some of the tracks are somewhat bland, the transformation music blares triumphantly and memorably. If there was any music in Doki I didn't like, it was Kenzaki Makoto's idol songs. Oh, she's an idol, by the way. Her singing isn't...great. Besides that, Takaki managed to make something good for something that probably didn't deserve his composing.
Now, onto the main reason why I wanted to shit out this review: Cure Ace.
I'll start by saying that she's...extremely attractive, in my opinion. Yes, your character design is excessively busy and doesn't make much sense geometrically, and you kind of resemble an arrowhead for some reason, but I'd still take you out for dinner and treat you in a respectful manner. However, that's kind of the problem. The character who is Cure Ace? A ten year old who ages up in transformation.
Now, a lot of magical girls have age up transformations. A lot of magical girls have age up transformations into overtly sexualized women. However, those are typically in Seinen, where it's at least logical for that genre. Mind you, Cure Ace's outfit is more going for beautiful than ""sexy"", but her demeanor during attacks and transformations shows a flirtatiousness that's out of place with her comrades. Out of place for someone who's actually /ten/. It makes things extremely awkward, from seeing her at one moment applying magical lipstick and blowing out a death kiss, to drawing a picture of her mom for an elementary school project and refusing to eat carrots. Like, it might have been one thing if she were a high schooler, much like Cure Moonlight from Heartcatch, but...she's a little girl.
This seems just like whiny feminist complaining on my part, but she gets almost all the animation bumps. Her transformation sequence is honestly one of my favorites, and her attacks are fun as hell to watch, but WHY does she get so many animation bumps? As a character, she's extremely obnoxious and show stealing, and pretty much all attention is directed to her after her introduction. Her extremely shounen introduction of showing up out of nowhere, blasting the guts out of a strong opponent, then leaving immediately. She constantly bosses around the other characters, and takes credit for their character non-developments. So, clearly this treatment isn't due to her lovely personality.
It should be important to note that the writers originally planned to have Mana in a relationship with a man twice her age, but the female writers smacked that idea down fast. With that in mind, the coquettish focus on Cure Ace, reveals not only pandering to the adult audience of Precure, but a strange preoccupation with the sexualization of girls. This probably leads back to the idea that girls should follow gender roles and tolerate the advances of creepy men (Joe is a creep, I will always stand by that). However, maybe I'm just reading too much into it. We could talk about the character Regina, who stole almost as much time as Cure Ace did, but we'd be here longer.
The story has convoluted plot twists, the characters are poorly developed, the art lacks consistency and flow, and the people in charge seemed to care too much about what they wanted (or what they thought the audience wanted) to actually produce something good. Is the show enjoyable though? Honestly, it's a guilty pleasure. Are there episodes I will always skip? God yes, even with all the plotty episodes. Are there characters I thoroughly wish didn't exist? Several. Would I sit through Dokidoki! again? Maaaaaybe. Is it the worst Precure? No.
The season didn't become awful until half-way through, which gave enough time for the characters to endear themselves to me. It lacks the hammered heteronormativity of Yes Precure 5, and not everyone is annoying like in Happiness Charge. Although there was a definite 'darker and edgier' feel, it didn't really cut out the show enjoyment. Belo and his evil gang were entertaining, and though their schtick was tired after a while, they kept me going. So, yes, I did enjoy Dokidoki! Precure. Even though it's a pile of crap.
And since it is an enjoyable pile of crap, I'll give it a 4.5/10.