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Now in Japan
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Written by maehara
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Thursday, 27 April 2006 00:00 |
 Some series just seem destined to run forever, and Futari wa Pretty Cure is giving off signals that it intendes to run for years. I can live with that - but all long-running series need a bit of a refresh every so often, so it's out with the old (wave bye-bye to Nagisa, Honoka and Hikari, everyone), and in with the new. Although I'm the first to admit I'm having a hard time spotting the difference...
1 - A Surprising Reunion! We Are... Who, Exactly?
Saki Hyuga's a true sports nut, and the ace pitcher for her school softball team - especially when the prospect of ice-cream is dangled over her as a reward. Mai Mishow has just moved back to town after several years away. The two girls run into each other in a forest on the edge of town, where they had first met briefly five years earlier - although it takes them a while to remember that. No sooner have the two met again, than two strange little creatures - Flappi and Choppi, who claim to be from the Land of Fountains - appear before them and ask them to use their powers to save their homeland. All very well, but... what powers!? When a strange force approaches the forest and Flappi and Choppi encourage them to transform, they find out, as they become Cure Bloom and Cure Egret, the new Pretty Cure...
2 - The Welcome Party at Pan-Paka is a Premonition of a Storm!
Karehaan returns to Akudaikaan's lair to report on the appearance of Pretty Cure. As excuses for failing in his mission go, it's one of the better ones, but Akudaikaan wants results, and he wants them soon. Saki, meanwhile, is preparing a party to welcome Mai back to the town. They're both a little confused about what happened the day before, so it falls to Flappi and Choppi to explain Akudaiikan's plans to take over the World Tree and bring darkness to the universe. Later, Karehaan interrupts Mai's welcome party with a rather large welcome gift of his own...
Taking the role of bad guys this series, we have Akudaikaan, the overall baddie and leader of the Dark Fall, and Karehaan, the current evil minion of choice who will no doubt fall out of favour soon before meeting a colourful end at the hands of our heroines. For the good guys, Flappi and Choppi are just as annoying as Mipple and Mepple (oh joy) and fill pretty much the same role. Saki is so close to Nagisa in appearance and personality that it's impossible to tell the difference, but Mai at least seems to have a little more force to her personality than Honoka did - meaning there's at least some difference here. I'm still wondering what the point of changing the lead roles was, though, when they're for the most part carbon-copies of the old cast.
What hasn't changed, though, is the guilty pleasure that comes from watching Pretty Cure (which reminds me I must catch up on the original series and Max Heart at some stage.. ^^;). The production values seem to have been ramped up a bit for this incarnation - although that may be just the new-series budget splurge you get with some shows - while the basic formula of the show has remained unscathed. A real case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", and there's nothing wrong with that.
"More of the same" does mean, though, that if Pretty Cure never managed to get its hooks into you with the first two seasons, this one's unlikely to turn you into a die-hard fan - but for those of us who enjoy our magical girls, it's all good. |
