Pretty Cure

I’ll be like “Geez, this is like the 30th episode in a row where they used the Marble Screw OMG THEY’RE GONNA DO IT YAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUS!”

—a younger jp captures the experience of watching Pretty Cure.

I like Pretty Cure. I decided this during December, watching the second episode, when White and Black halted a falling lift by tying themselves to the broken cable, locking arms and bracing their feet against opposite sides of the lift shaft. I’m over halfway through Max Heart now—I’ve watched about eighty episodes of this—and I still like it.

It’s certainly as action-packed as I had heard (primarily from Evirus, via). Every episode serves up some fighting as an appetiser for the exciting pose-and-shout stock-footage. If, like me, you’re easily amused, there’s some mileage in the joke that little girls shouldn’t be this martially competent, in this much danger. Something I think Pretty Cure plays to with images like this one of Nagisa all comically limbflung and bug-eyed. Oh, and Rideresque Kicks appear frequently, though sadly not as finishers.

Rather, Pretty Cure is the finisher: since it started in 2004 it has wrapped up a Sunday morning block of kids’ programmes including the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai of the moment. Which puts a different spin on all the frilly fisticuffs. They might seem tame after Dekaranger and Kamen Rider Blade. But then I’ve no idea how this was watched when broadcast: did children sit there and absorb whatever was on, or was there a changing of the gender guard at 8:30 when Super Hero Time ended and the magical girls began?

Anyway, apart from the genre of the (sentai-hybrid?) magical girl, another way to talk about Pretty Cure would be as a toy show. Transformations, mid-story upgrades and toyetic, cardtacular, button-festooned gear are PreCure‘s stock-in-trade. They’re also all staples of mecha anime and Kamen Rider. In this connection I suppose I should gesture helplessly towards videogame and cardgame shows, of which I’ve seen about none. But I’ve read suggestions—from Brack, and more recently from Ghostlightning—that they’ve largely taken over the merchandise-vehicle role from robot material.

Come to think of it, Kamen Rider Decade, Blade and Ryuki all have something of the cardgame about them too. Hm.

If anyone’s wondering whether this is related to my remarks about Madoka, or rather about problems with the discussion of Madoka, it isn’t particularly. But, while we’re on the subject, if you’re watching Madoka can you examine this and tell me if Kyubey has left you Ruined For Porun?

Further Reading

Discussion of PreCure is persistent, but slow. I get the impression that a reasonably large number of people have had contact with some incarnation of the franchise, but at the end of the day what is there to say about it?

• I know the recently-finished Heartcatch was a hit with various people, including psgels.
• Mostly oblique posts from sdshamshel; interesting observation about Fresh‘s designs perhaps marking a shift in target audience.