First Impression – Smile PreCure!
Because Bad Ends suck.
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Just when you thought first impressions were over, a new challenger has appeared! Smile PreCure is here~! I’ve been way more excited for this than I should be, so I figured I would bring some mahou shojou to Metanorn. Plus it’s a group of 5 again! The last Precure I’ve seen was Yes!, so I wonder how this will compare to that. |
Smile PreCure combines not just one, not two, but FOUR classic mahou shoujo cliches with the heroine, Miyuki (who is your typical ditsy, but cheerful and optimistic character), being a transfer student and late on her first day. While running to school (no toast in the mouth unfortunately), a flying book comes out of the sky and from out of it come some… thing that’s probably supposed to be cute, but fails miserably. The whatever it is introduces herself as a fairy named Candy, but she runs off like someone with ADHD seeing something shiny after Miyuki gets distracted, so Miyuki figures that it was all a dream. Yes, because people normally fall asleep in the middle of the street.
Miyuki finally gets to school, but is extremely nervous and stumbles through her introduction to the class. Luckily for her though, a genki girl named Akane takes the opportunity to say how lame Miyuki’s introduction was. Akane then decides to introduce the other main characters of the series: the reliable banchou-like Nao, the cool beauty Reika and the crybabyYayoi (all of them easy to spot by the way that none of them wear the school uniform properly. That, and the oddly coloured hair). Nobody else in the class gets an introduction because they don’t matter. Anyways, everyone accepts this interruption like it was no big deal and Miyuki is less nervous, so she introduces herself again. This time, adding in the fact that she has an obsession with story books. She gets the stereotypical main character seat in the back of the class by the window.
In class, Miyuki sees Candy from outside the window and thinking that seeing fairies is no big deal, decides to announce it to the rest of the class. Akane doesn’t see it though and so Miyuki goes running off to find Candy after class. She winds up in the library, where she finds a glowing book. Despite the likelihood of it being radioactive or something, Miyuki picks it up without much thought. Other books start glowing and after shoving books aside in a certain order, the entire shelf starts glowing and she’s sucked inside some glowing technicolor vortex. Inside, she finds some place filled with books and she puts the flying book she found earlier onto the shelf. Afterwards, she sees Candy running about the streets yelling something about a bad wolf.
Miyuki pushes the books aside again in a magical order and is transported to the street where Candy is. There, some flying wolf opens a book saying that he’s going to send the world to a bad end and he uses the book to make the moon come out in order to summon his evil master or something. The next thing you know, people are OTL ing all along the street saying that they give up. Candy starts telling the wolf off and then Miyuki joins in saying that everyone should work towards a happy end. Just before she’s attacked for preaching, Miyuki starts glowing. Conveniently for her and Candy, she’s actually a PreCure and a defender against bad ends. Miyuki transforms into Cure Happy while the bad guy patiently waits until the transformation sequence is over before attacking.
Using fairy tale logic, Miyuki hides behind a brick wall since the bad wolf in the 3 Pigs couldn’t destroy the brick house. However, Wolfrun has the ability to use Pokemon and summons an Akanbe (the name of the monsters of the week in this series) house to attack. After running around uselessly for a bit, Candy says that Miyuki should use Happy Shower, some magical ability that PreCure have. However, the advice is pretty vague and Miyuki can’t do it. It’s not until she puts her feelings into the makeup compact that’s hanging on her waist, can Miyuki use her vague magic girl powers and purify the evil house. For her efforts, Miyuki receives some sort of …strawberry …badge …thing. Wolfrun decides to give up for the day and leaves.
The mahou shoujo Kamehameha
Happy End!
You can’t go wrong with fabulous bad guys like these. Just look at that caveman oni and spandex clad wolf.
IT’S A FOOLPROOF PLAN!
You KNOW things have gone awry when there are houses chasing you.
COME AT ME, BRO!
Best set up for PreCure yet. Though I haven’t seen Fresh through Suite yet, so I’m not really the best judge. Plus I can’t take the original Futari wa PreCure seriously anymore because the crappy English dub that came out here gave the characters the most retarded localized names ever. “Misumi Nagisa” somehow became “Natalie Blackstone” and “Yukishiro Honoka” became “Hannah Whitehouse”. At least they tried to make them kind of sound similar, but I’m not a big fan of dubs changing things because they don’t think children can handle foreign names. It’s like changing Harry Potter to “Satou Hiroshi” or something ridiculously common like that because the people in charge of localization don’t think that the Japanese youth can handle some katakana. Dear lord, this is turning into a rant. I’ll stop here.
ANYWAYS, back to my first point, I like the set up for this version of PreCure. I’m not entirely sure what Miyuki was doing with the magical glowing bookshelf at all, but I like the idea of fairy tales and bad ends as a whole. While this is pretty similar to Yes since there are 5 of them (though hell, all of the PreCure seasons are pretty similar), the storyline actually manages to be somewhat unique. The animation is also a HUGE step up from Yes. When did that happen? Suddenly my desire to watch Fresh through Suite increased. I would still like this even without the clean animation, but it certainly helps. The ending song that was 99% CG didn’t make my eyes bleed either. Success! While the songs for both the OP and ED aren’t really anything special, I’m just happy that the visuals are nice to look at.
As for characters,I love them all (minus Candy, but I don’t like mascots in general). For once, the overly genki character doesn’t piss me off and Miyuki is just adorable. She’s actually a pretty funny heroine from some of the reactions she has. Also, the facial expressions are hilarious. Though if I had to choose favourites, Cure Sunny/Yayoi (the yellow one) and Cure Beauty/Reika (the blue one) look like they’ll be mine. …Cure March/Nao is voiced by Inoue Marina, so she might make it on to the list as well. Though like I said before, I like ALL of the characters so far. But lol, does their hair ever get ridiculous in the mahou shoujo version of themselves.
Yes, it’s stereotypical mahou shoujo. It’s going to be cheesy as hell and everything will be done so it can be marketed. I seriously doubt that we’ll be getting any Madoka-esque plot twists or any extremely deep and contemplative thought in the plot line. Plus this is supposed to be aimed at young children (lol yeah I’m not going to comment any more about that. I’m watching this and I’m almost 19), ignoring the other, more questionable anime airing for the Japanese youth to view, this is supposed to be kid friendly anime. However, for the PreCure universe this is fantastic and I’m going to be enjoying this anime immensely.
So, umm, now that I’m done ranting, am I the only one here who gives a crap about this? Lol, I feel so alone. Let me know what you think!
Preview: Cure Sunny is up next. Gosh, I wonder who her real identity is.
IT’S NOT MAHOU SHOUJO WITHOUT EXPLOSIONS!
About Karakuri
University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Remember kids, to brush your teeth three times a day, and after sugary snacks, like Smile Precure. You can stop tooth decay.
I don’t have any intention of watching this. I loves me some Magical Girl, but Madoka put payed to me for the genre; nothing will ever scale that peak.
I don’t even think my 13 year old will watching this. Thou she might. Heck she might get me to watch it; she got me into both idolm@ster and Hanasaku, both great recommendations.
::sigh:: I’m to darn old.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
I guess this is cavity inducing level sweet, isn’t it.
Ahaha to be fair, I started anime by watching mahou shoujo, so I have a long and very biased history with it. Madoka or not, I’ll be watching magical girls. If you do watch it, great! If not, then I don’t blame you.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 109 comments
@Karakuri i enjoyed it very much and i love the idea of the fairy tales also i dont know if you sew but this monster was henzel and gretel house.and you will continue do reviews for this next week?
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
I didn’t notice that it was from that tale so much as I noticed that the enemy was a GIANT WALKING HOUSE. I really like this series so far! Hmm, not sure if I’ll be doing this weekly or not. I was thinking of making this a monthly thing since I don’t expect much to be going on.
POWUH: iLurker with 2 comments
Until 2 years ago, precure is still an anime that I considered too shiny & colorful for my eyes that it bleeds whenever I watch the precure series. For some unknown reason, last year I stumble upon Suite Precure and viola… I’m not totally hooked.
As excited as I am, Smile precure 1st ep works perfect for me especially a long day at office. I’m 26, and at my age I’d worry about something else but perhaps because the older I gets, the more I come to enjoy simple things like the simple plot of Precure.
Madoka is overrated. I’m still waiting for my Magical Lyrical Nanoha Vivio. I’ve come a long way from watching this Mahou Shoujo series starting from Wedding Peach & Sailormoon till the present. Anyways, I’ll be expecting good stuffs from Precure!
You should watch the Precure All Star Movie… is awesome beyond words!
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Ahaha well it’s good that you picked it up! Yeah, the plot is extremely simple, but there’s something nice about not having to think while watching and just enjoy the anime for what it is.
I liked Madoka and I liked Nanoha (YES!!! MLN VIVIO!). I absolutely love mahou shoujo. My very first anime was actually Sailormoon xD.
That’s the one that they all appear in, right? I’m planning on waiting until I finish Fresh through Suite so I know who the characters actually are.
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
Let’s say I wanna watch PreCure. What’s a good series to start with? Cause I know there’s a bunch of 40+ episode PreCure series and some other movies, and I get the sense that the series aren’t connected in a way where I’d have to watch them all.
Note to self: Ask Amuro1X later about this.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Er, seeing how I’ve only actually watched 2/8 (not including this one, as it’s the 9th) of the series, I’m probably not the best person to ask. And yeah, really this is all connected by the theme of having magical girls. None of them really cross over until the movies where you have like, 20+ magical girls on screen then like some sort of convention.
Yeah, he’d know waaaaay more about this than I would.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Wait, that’s a lie. I guess with the sequels, I’ve seen 4/8. Still, I’m not the best judge.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 304 comments
Ohhh, I love mahou shoujo~ It looks so girly! I really wanna watch PreCure, but I have NO CLUE where to start.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
It is really girly, but it’s so great~! Uh, you can start anywhere pretty much. Though if you watch chronologically (Futari wa PreCure + the sequel, Splash Precure, Yes Precure + the sequel, Fresh Precure, Heartcatch Precure, Suite Precure and then this one) the animation gets increasingly better and easier to watch.
Or at least I assume it does. There is a HUGE difference between Yes (the last one I’ve seen) and Smile, so I figure that had to have happened somewhere in between.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 304 comments
Ah~ This helps! Whooo! I can never have to much girly, sparkly mahou shoujo!
POWUH: 700-799 and Horror Expert with 701 comments
asdfsfs; there’s a green one this time!? *goes to watch*
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Yes! There’s a green one! xD
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 323 comments
what is this !! everything is so pink and yellow , I need to go to the dark side …the last time i was this kind of anime ~~~~ 5,6 years ago , now i have to watch it again
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Ahaha pink and yellow=mahou shoujo. Er, well, pink normally more than yellow. Wow that’s a while. Hopefully this lives up to it’s older predecessors.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 323 comments
why !! i need my potion ..~~~(MAHOU SHOUJO EXPLOSIONS!) ARRgghhh …wrong potion
POWUH: 400-499 with 489 comments
another season or following of pretty cure. The never ending magical girl anime
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Ahaha yeah I can’t see this stopping. Ever.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Woooo hoooo! This wasn’t a bad episode at all! And you are right Miyuki is a great main lead character with some of the best facial expressions…I was laughing the whole time when she was trying to transform and the magical girl Kamehameha? LOLOL SO EPIC! One thing they do well in precure the fighting is always goooood!
I just finished watching Suite Precure with my brother, things got good at the end of that series. The only downfall of every other precure series has to be the repetitive nature! Like monster shows up = girls defeat it repeat for 40ish+ episodes.
Course like you said this is aimed for the children and 15+ fans! But I will watch a few episodes, usually it gets really good about mid way after the girls upgrade their powers.
YES! Cure Sunny is my favorite basically that is Ika Musume’s voice actress <3 <3 So I will definitely be watching just to see her and the fire one? WOOOT! I really like that orange color xD
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Awww yeah, Fosh! Magical girls represent! Yes the fighting! Sooo many sparkles! I can’t believe that someone else on Metanorn actually watches this! Yay!
Was Suite good overall though? Yeah, they get extremely repetitive, but I don’t really mind the monster of the week formula in light, non heavy plot things like this.
Ahahaha… too true. Though I know a few 20+ RL people watching this, so I guess it’s popular for all ages? (Though half of them are lolicons LOLOLOL).
…I still need to watch Ika MusumeSunny’s character looks so cute! Plus she’s an artist, which = instant points with me lol.So if red things go fast, does that mean that orange things go kind of fast? xD
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Orange = SUPER FAST! Cause we all know red cars with fire designs = faster.
POWUH: Occasional (51-75) with 71 comments
HEARTCATCH is where things are at. Shame on anyone not watching it.
Suite got decent near the end, but it was pretty much average through its run. Kanade and Hibiki squabbling over the most TRIVIAL of things can get grating in the first half, for example.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 109 comments
@karakuti look how much popular pretty cure became in japan you wont belive to what you see http://www.pretty-cure.it/curiosita/…e-in-giappone/
page 2:http://www.pretty-cure.it/curiosita/…ppone-parte-2/
page 3: http://www.pretty-cure.it/speciale-r…arte-3-finale/
POWUH: 800-899 and Flying Sage with 856 comments
Well, I wasn’t going to watch this, but that wolf villain is actually a pretty funny idea, so now I’m gonna have to watch it after all.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 109 comments
@karakuri can you do a review of episode 3 with cure peace first apreance since there is many things to say about her?
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
I’ll be doing a mid series review sometime in the future~.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 109 comments
@Karakuri actully the intresting episodes that you will need to do a review for them for now are episode 12 which they will get new attack episode 16 with the queen and episode 22 with pierrot revive so when one of those episodes will come can you do a review of him?