First of all I adore Pretear and writing a review about it should have happened years ago but I always ran out of words to describe this anime.
The synopsis is rather simple, Himeno moves into a mansion owned by her new step mom and two step sisters where she has a hard time fitting in with her new reality. One day she meets 7 Leafe Knights who tell her she has special power needed to save the world which requires her become Pretear together with the knights, each knight acting as her armor, sword, and shield. The highlight of Pretear are the transformation scenes and the emphasis on character interaction and development. There is hidden depth in how the main characters and her family grow to understand and love each other.
In Himeno's case she had a hard time fitting in with her new family, and her school mates spread rumors about her behind her back. It's lonely to be in a new place with no one to call friend. As I continued to watch Himeno's strong resolve to improve herself so she can better understand her new family made me a sympathizer to her cause. Himeno's father adores her in his own way, and I enjoyed their father/daughter interaction where he makes sculptures of tulips naming it Himeno and she smashes it in rage. Himeno's step sisters obviously dislike Himeno as the interloper in their house. They are spoiled rich girls who think less of Himeno's upbringing. However Pretear excels in masking motivations of seemingly shallow characters and unearthing them later, suffice to say I really couldn't find it in my heart to hate Himeno's step sisters.
For a 13 episode show Pretear covered character development for Himeno's family and found time to develop the villain's character and story. Unfortunately this meant cutting off the character development for the Leafe Knights. Hayate and Sasame are the primary love interests in Pretear and their story gets fleshed out a bit more while the remaining five Leafe Knights only played minor roles in the show and part of their purpose was simply to act as wardrobe to make Himeno's magical girl transformation look prettier.
Music in Pretear is very good in my opinion. This anime has a extremely good OST, the opening and ending songs are both extremely attractive to the ear. The character songs in the ost are all good, my favorite being Sasame's song that is used as a theme during the anime a few times. One of the reason this anime has remained in my memory for so long definitely has to do with the opening song White Destiny which I can still hum it even ten years later.
I can definitely say I enjoyed this anime way above and beyond the rating I gave it. On top of the surprising depth and how much I liked each of the characters, Pretear had a very fairy tale romance to it that really got to me like no other anime has. Like the story of snow white where the princess is awakened by a magical kiss, sometimes a simple fairy tale rooted in reality is more beautiful than any fantastically spun story.
To summarize while Pretear doesn't go above and beyond what one expects of a typical magical girl anime, its good points are the fact it is short and to the point with no unnecessary dragging of the plot via character intros and monster of the week. The story starts off being very run of the mill but it does offer unexpected depth with its theme focusing on merging of families and the harsh reality that comes from moving to a brand new place. Later the plot starts to introduce the villain and that's where this anime really picks up. Finally music is definitely one of the reason to watch this anime in my opinion.
"The snow falls. The snow of miracles fall all over. But there is one heart which has not been saved."
Overall Pretear is a very good magical girl anime and one of my favorites to this day. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for a fairy tale/fantasy theme anime with emphasis on character and costume/outfits.
