 Time for this years' contribution to the magical girl genre, this time
featuring a lead bad guy that look like a reject from 80's rock band KISS... As for the magical girls, they are Pretty Cure
1 - Us, Tranform?! This Can't be Happening!
Meet Nagisa Misumi (sporty type, not much good in class, gets lots of
love letters - but sadly only from other girls) and Honoka Yukishiro
(class brain, often found blowing up the chemistry lab). So far, so
sterotypical. Seems a lot of shooting stars have been falling round
their town lately - tradition says this is a sign of bad fortune, so
you can figure what that means in a mahou shoujo show... Later in the
day, one of the 'shooting stars' lands in Nagisa's bedroom - except
it's not a shooting star, it's a cellphone. It talks, contains a
world-class-annoying mascot creature, and inadvertently leads her
straight to lead bad guy Piessard (the one in the KISS
makeup). Meanwhile, Honoka finds a box at her home containing a similar
phone, and it has led her to the same place as Nagisa... Following
instructions from the creatures in the 'phones (Mipple & Mepple),
Nagisa & Honoka transform for the first time, becoming Cure Black
& Cure White. And so their battle against the Powers of the Dark
begins...
2 - Give us a Break! The City Targetted by the Dark
Piessard's back from his initial defeat, looking for another way to
wreak havoc in his search for the remaining two Prism Crystals, and
chooses to empower a usually-harmless domestic appliance with the power
of the Dark (there are seven crystals, the Dark King already has five,
and the bad guys are using dark energy in their quest to recover the
other two - any of this sound like Sailor Moon
yet?). Meanwhile, Nagisa & Honoka are coming to terms with their
fate - Nagisa's really not keen on carrying on with this mahou shoujo
stuff, while Honoka's having great fun. When Piessard begins his
attack, Nagisa's initially determined not to get involved - but when
two of her classmates are caught up in the attack, it's time to take
action...
I'm going to get the stock criticism out of the way here: PreCure
is derivative, suffers from sub-par animation in places, has
stereotypical characters and annoying mascots, and just about every
other idea from recent mahou shoujo, all recycled into one bunch. Put
all that together, and a lot of people give up & go home - I know
of a few people who have passed on PreCure based on those reasons.
Me, I love it. :) Maybe it's the little kid in me, but I can't
resist mahou shoujo... ^^; That said, I can't give you any good reason
why you should watch it instead of any other show this season, other
than that it has an innate sense of fun to it which is strangely
infectious, in spite of its downsides. That said, Mipple and Mepple
(aforementioned mascots) need to die, quickly - they're easily the most
annoying magical creatures I've come across (Nagisa & Konoha should
really use their sleep cards more often), and the unoriginal nature of
the setting & story will be a big downside to some, but give it a
chance - PreCure may surprise you... |
