Thursday, December 30, 2010

Heartcatch PreCure! Heartfelt Review!


Heartcatch PreCure!



Director:                   Tatsuya Nagamine
Production:               Toei Animation
Original run:             07 Ferbruary 2010 - 30 January 2010
Episodes:                 49

Tsubomi Hanasaki is a 2nd year middle school student who loves plants. One day, she dreams of a mysterious flowering tree that wilted, causing fairies to disappear. She also saw two mysterious people fighting, one wanting to destroy the tree and one protecting it. When she transfers to Myodo Academy, the fairies that she saw in her dream appear. They beg her to become a Pretty Cure to protect the Great Tree of Hearts, but she refuses. However, a mysterious enemy called the Desert Messengers came, and the Heart Flower of her new classmate, Erika Kurumi, is stolen. To save Erika, she has to become a Pretty Cure and fight.



It's hard to get more magical girly than the Pretty Cure franchise. All of the key elements set forth by such predecessors as Sailor Moon and Mermaid Melody are there. Cute little animal mascots? Check. They even have their own catchphrases. Inane transformation items? Check. A perfume bottle that's utterly useless except for the spraying on of a new outfit. Color coded hair and outfits? Check. Not necessarily the colors of the rainbow, and how pink was used twice, but the sentai is still there. Powerful evil bad guy dudes bent on destroying the world? Check. Though at least they have a reason why they need to only operate in the same city as those blasted meddling kids. Recycled final attack always used to hurt/destroy the monster of the week? Double check. Though, to their credit, they don't use big hearts or musical notes, instead being bent towards a more violent method of purifying the beasties. 

 
Almost every episode has a feel-good story. The main characters (the Precure) walk in on someone being depressed about something, find out what it is, then run around like it's their life's purpose to rid the person of their woes. Fashion club? Maybe they should rename it to the volunteer club! What a pity it is then that they are never able to actually resolve a single issue themselves. It always turns into the badguy's using the person's depression to create a rampaging monster, and the magical buttkicking layed upon the monster is what actually manages to cheer up the person, but the sentiment is still there. Girls find people who are upset, and at the end of the day that person is happy again. If you manage to ignore the violence, then Pretty Cure is sweet on an injecting frosting directly into your bloodstream proportions. 



Then again, the violence is still there, and redeems the show in the eyes of another target audience entirely. 



A concept employed but never detailed in previous magical girl series' is the empowerment of the magical girl transformation. When transformed, these otherwise innocent, frail, and entirely human children can suddenly jump across rooftops and be crashed through a building without being hurt. To them however, instead of reveling in these new abilites, they decide to only blast a single recycled magical attack to hurt or destroy the monsters every time. Not the Precure. The first thing the Pretty Cure notice when they first transform is that they are suddenly super strong and super fast. The second thing they notice is that there is a giant, rampaging monster over there tearing up the landscape. Therefore, they fall on the very human response to the situation of a nail needing hammering, and beat the monster up. Punches, kicks, throws, Who cares if they accidentally crush that apartment building with a monster shaped projectile? It's the monsters fault for existing! Then once it's weakened enough they can resort to the recycled magical attack sequence to finish it off.



Actually, the fight scenes that occur in every episode could be attributed to Street Fighter in content, where the recycled finishers are considered the super moves. One cannot win a fight with a single super move from the beginning of the match. The enemy has to be beaten up and weakened alot before that could happen. Therefore, while the super move finisher is visually the same every time, the entire fight leading up to it is unique. They even throw in random flashy special moves in a truly non-recycled fashion! 

The Character designer/art director is Ryuutarou Masuda, so the series shares the same style as works Ojamajo Doremi and Street Fighter Alpha. Namely, slightly more simplified, more cartoony than would otherwise be common among Anime. The rounder shapes and flat but more colorful images serve as a boost to the overall quality of the show. Scene continuity isn't as necessary, so character development occurs faster. This makes for improved sentimentality, one-shot characters who's plights we can better understand, while still allowing time for the other stuff. The fighting also improves because they can afford to be flashier without having to resort to rotoscoping (animation style where real life footage is traced onto an animation cell. Outlines are squiggily and the art looks terrible, but it allows to seamless fluent motion and is easier to animate). 


Recurring characterizations are a stark improvement over previous magical girl shows, especially with the bad guys. Instead of mindless manifestations of evilness, the bad guys are pretty much Human in personality. They are all of them fully aware of, and approve of, the methodology and expected result of their actions, so they cannot be dissuaded through words or exposure to love or some other thing (and with that level of action, who would want them to?), even though they are perfectly capable and willing to sit down and discuss their reasons. In addition, they show an ability to argue and hold conversations, and partake in things like hobbies and activities. At one point, a desert messenger said "I'm bored, so I think I'll try and beat up the Precure today!", which leads to a noteceable lack of urgency on their part. Because of that lack of urgency, it leads us as viewers to wonder why they even bother to begin with? The show needs not be a full year-long if so much of it feels like filler. 

Sweetness and Violence don't really go together. It's like oil and water. You cannot make soup with oil and you cannot deep fry with water, so it's difficult to make a singular dinner with both. The Sentimentality is sweet enough for the girls to put up with the violence, and the action is good enough for the boys to suffer through the sweetness, but both parties still encounter a full half of the show that they can't like, so I have to give it an even steven 2.5 out of 5. Bonus points for having an actual history and previous generations of magical girls, including a still-living grandmother who was the previous incarnation who herselfdefeated  the main bad guy some 50 years beforehand. 


*Note* - The video clip below shows off the typical quality of fight scenes, however it contains heavy spoilers.




- Ben M.

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