Day number four already? Wow, time flies. Anyway, today's review is for the
first season of Pretty Cure, another series I watched over the summer.
Futari wa Pretty Cure (We Are Pretty Cure) is one of the million magical
girl series on the market, and very much geared for children.
Two girls, Nagisa Misumi (a very sporty girl) and Honoka Yukishiro (a
science nut) each receive a small “cell phone” which is really a living,
100% adorable creature from the Garden of Light, which is in terrible danger
of being destroyed by the forces of darkness. Nagisa's is Mepple and
Honoka's is Mipple.
Basically, they have come to earth to find a number of gems they need to fix
their world, and they require the help of Pretty Cure in order to do so of
course Nagisa and Honoka become this team as Cure Black and Cure White,
respectively.
The goal of the series is simply to protect and restore the
Garden of Light.
The Characters: Futari wa Pretty Cure
One of the points the series makes is friendship, like so many other series
meant for kids.
This time the point is Nagisa and Honoka learning to get along and become
best friends despite how different they are. Futari wa Pretty Cure splash star.
The two girls are complete
individuals, and watching them develop together (particularly watching them
mature) is somewhat interesting.
However, the more entertaining characters are really Mipple and Mepple, if
only because they're so cute besides, it's their world that needs saving.
The few others you see from the Garden of Light are interesting in their own
right.
Then there are the villains...all right, to be honest the villains here can
be sort of difficult to take seriously, one has a completely predictable
storyline, and the main villain is called the Dark Lord (I realised how much
of a Harry Potter geek I am when I saw him and proclaimed “He looks nothing
like Voldemort!”).
Still you live with them. But really, it's all about
Mipple and Mepple:
The Magic: Futari wa Pretty Cure
Unlike in Card Captor Sakura (an anime I will review sometime next year)
where the magic is controlled solely by Sakura, or in Sailor Moon (which I
love but may never review) where the Sailor Scouts all fight but only Sailor
Moon was really capable of destroying the enemies, in this series the
heroines are seriously useless without each other.
The magic granted to them by the Garden of Light can only be used to defeat
the villains if the girls are together, as the attacks require the combined
magics of both Black and White.
As much as it would have been nice if they could have done something without
being together, it was also nice to see a series where teamwork was actually
necessary instead of a single character receiving all of the real glory.
Conclusion?
Obviously if you aren't into magical girl anime, you won't like this series
at all.
It's very friendship-oriented, as mentioned, so if you're sick of
those, that's another thing that suggests you wouldn't be interested in
Pretty Cure anime. However, it does have its merits.
As mentioned it has the value of really
requiring the girls to work together, and another thing that's good about it
is that it's pretty true in terms of the vague “romance” that it exists.
Nagisa has a crush on a certain boy, but it doesn't make her world revolve
around that, and she does get nervous around him. It's just like normal for people of that age (middle school).
So for
light-hearted, well-done magical girls, this is pretty good.
My rating: 7/10
For me, I went in with high expectations. I remember having watched a little
of it years ago and I loved it then.
Now I guess I was so set on my love of Sailor Moon that I thought it would
live up to that. Maybe I would have liked it better if the girls were a
little older?
Futari wa Pretty Cure | |
| Episodes | 49 |
|---|---|
| Genre | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Magic, Shoujo |
| Aired | February 1, 2004 to January 30, 2005 |
| Directed by | Daisuke Nishio |
| Producers | Toei Animation |
| Opening Theme | Danzen! Futari wa Precure! by Mayumi Gojo |
| Closing Theme | Gecchuu! Rabu Rabu?! by Mayumi Gojo |
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