Do you remember when you watched the first episode of Pretty Cure (the original series, that is)? Well, it doesn't matter if you thought it was shit (like a lot of people did) or not, given that you haven't been following this series nonstop, if you were to watch the first episode of Pretty Cure 5, you'd very likely be blown away. I sure was. Sorta.

Jesus bleedin' Christ what merchandising can do for a franchise. I will forever wish the VVV anime had a budget like the one of this children's show. But I digress..

The stage this time is Sankurumieeru (I know that transliterates to something, but damned if I'm gonna figure it out) Academy, which like the original series, is a girls' school. If the title doesn't give it all away, Pretty Cure will now be a group of 5 girls, instead of the regular two, and the occasional third wheel. Our group of girls is as follows.

Nozomi Yumehara is a girl with a name full of puns. Also, like many classical mahou shoujo leads, she's an idiot. But though she may not be very good at nearly everything, she is a girl of pure intentions, and is quite bent on finding something of her own that she can do. Meaning this show could possibly go into the 100's of episodes. She will transform into Cure Dream.

Rin Natsuki is Nozomi's althletic childhood friend with a good head on her shoulders. For the first time, the popular sports wiz of the group actually isn't made the character the show focuses on, which I think is definitely for the best. I really like her -- she reminds me of Ichino from Battle Athletes. She will transform into Cure Rouge.

Urara Kasugano is a child actress who just transferred into the school as a first year. Before I watched the show, she seemed like the "spunky younger character that talks in the third person a lot"-sort of archetype, and I thought I wouldn't like her. However, I was surprised to see that she actually seemed to be a very mature, almost serious character. I now look forward to seeing her go crazy underneath the pressures of stardom. She will transform into Cure Lemonade.

Karen Minazuki is definitely the "Sachiko" of the group. She's a third year student from a wealthy family, student council president, and is also pretty no-nonsense. I like her alot. Conflicts between her and Nozomi (especially when on Pretty Cure duty) will be inevitable. She transforms into Cure Aqua.

Komachi Akimoto may not fit the bill looks-wise as much as her best friend Karen, but she'll probably be this series's new Honoka. She's polite, soft spoken, and a member of the Library Commitee. A tough job, I'm assuming, as this school has a library that can quite possibly put Congress's to shame. Might I add that between her and Karen, there are yuri vibes that are off the chart, but I've learned not to hold my breath when it comes to this show.
Though she seems gentle, according to the site she can get pretty angry sometimes, which I'm looking forward to seeing like all hell. She will transform into Cure Mint.

I also think I should mention that while in the library, she notes to Karen that Nozomi somewhat resembles her(Karen). And I can see it now -- though they won't actually be the best of friends most of the time, Karen will probably be one of the characters that resembles Nozomi the most in that although she excels at and has been thoroughly trained since birth in about everything, she too won't really know what she truly wants to do. She might realize this eventually, but probably won't admit it..

..Or at least that's just what I saw. Maybe it was just me.. I feel safe stating these assumptions now as there's a good chance I'll never blog about this series again.

So anyway, in addition to the amount of characters, the show's mascots are also different. No, they're still annoying balls of fluff that say their names after just about everything they say, but now they actually have the ability to transform into people instead of just cellphones. Very handsome bishounen, in fact. And the main character actually developes a crush on one of them (yes that's right. you didn't read any of that wrong).

The villains also seem a little scarier this time around. While watching, I was beginning to wonder if this show was still okay for young kids. Though that may be because I'm a wimp.
Like the 2 series before it, Pretty Cure 5's villains have a token monster they use to take care of their dirty work that has a name with a not-so hidden meaning (Zakenna → Fuzakena, Uzaina → Urusai na). This time we have Kowaina, who I think is an improvement on both. For one thing, it doesn't explode into apologizing stars when defeated, and secondly.... it's pretty darn creepy. Jeez, If there's anything that might make me stop watching this show, it would be so I wouldn't have to hear that thing's voice..!

So all in all, I was pretty surprised by this show's first episode. I may end up watching more episodes of it than I origianlly thought. At least more episodes than I did Splash Star.
Though the similarites are there, at least this time around, the characters aren't so blatant clones of our original Pretty Cure duo. Which I think is good. And though I'm sure a number of people don't really like the idea, but I think the fact that there are now 5 girls has it's upside. For starters, there's a lot more things you can do with this amount of characters. So while I think Splash Star may have been a bit of a filler series, at least this time we may be up for a run that could challenge that of the original show.

I hope I'm not getting and SS fans mad now. I didn't watch much of the series, but I'm sure it was lovely... in it's own way.
....Let's just come to an agreement that the original is still the best.

We miss you, Nagisa and Honoka. Please make a cameo as background characters in this show or something. (;´Д`)

Labels: Pretty Cure

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