The latest entry in the Pretty Cure series, Delicious Party Precure, is now streaming in select markets on Crunchyroll. I gave it a look, and because I’m me, this was my favorite part.

In fact, there’s even a link between these two seasons on staff! Akira Inagami did the character design for Futari wa Pretty Cure, and did the animation direction on this first episode of Delicious Party Precure.

There’s no way this isn’t a deliberate shoutout and I love it.

The screenplay was written by Daisuke Habara, who I believe largely focuses on live action, but he would contribute scripts to Futari wa Precure, Max Heart, the first Max Heart movie, Splash Star, and Yes Precure 5.

To me, his episode does have a slightly different feel to it than the prior ones, as it seems to be more dialogue heavy and definitely gives Honoka some time to shine. Let’s see what we can find when we dig in:

EPISODE SYNOPSIS:

It’s Sunday, and as such school is not in session. Still, Mepple wants to meet up with Mipple, so he talks Nagisa into meeting up with Honoka. The two of them then go on a date of sorts, going shopping, eating, and heading to a park. A lot of character building occurs here, mostly with Honoka, which I’ll get to in a bit.

Later the two girls part, but Nagisa realizes she’s accidentally kept Honoka’s handkerchief. She heads back to Honoka’s house, but Honoka isn’t there. At Mepple’s insistence, Nagisa checks the library as well, but Honoka is still nowhere to be found. Finally, Nagisa finds Honoka cornered by Pissard in a construction zone. It’s Pissard’s last chance to prove himself to the Dark King, and he’s not happy. Nagisa and Honoka transform into Pretty Cure, have some lengthy dialogue with Pissard about how he’s such a Bad Guy, and finally send him back to the darkness – for good. The episode ends with Cure Black and Cure White finding one of the prism stones, which has been left behind by Pissard.

ANALYSIS:

Character Development: This is a very good episode for character development, particularly for Honoka. This is a girl who is not afraid to speak her mind or stand up to herself – no matter what kind of danger she’s in. We see this twice in the episode, first in a humorous standoff with a couple of troublemaking older boys, and second when she faces Pissard alone and un-transformed before Nagisa’s timely arrival.

We also get some of her dreamy side. While Nagisa still isn’t completely sure about this whole situation, Honoka is very happy to be making friends with Nagisa and is absolutely content just to be spending some time with her. One particularly poignant moment occurs when they head their separate ways for the day and Honoka pauses for just a moment to reflect on this strange new friendship.

This brings us to something which anyone who knows me whatsoever probably figured was going to come up eventually…

The Subtext: Long long ago in the distant time of the 1990s, fans of the show Xena: Warrior Princess had a special phrase for use by those who saw a certain something between the titular character Xena and her best friend Gabrielle. It was called, quite simply, “The Subtext”. There was even a usenet FAQ about it because the subject came up so often.

Certainly, subtext abounds in several pieces of media that aren’t Xena: Warrior Princess, and Futari wa Pretty Cure is no exception. Whether intentional or not, you really cannot argue with the fact that Nagisa and Honoka are going to Verone Academy – named for Verona, the city where Romeo & Juliet takes place – and if you think this is coincidence, well, think again, because the two will literally perform the play as its two title characters later in the show.

This episode is, in many ways, a beginning for this particular subtext, from Honoka insisting that Nagisa getting love letters from girls is a good thing, all the way to Nagisa saying that she found Honoka due to the “power of love” (likely referring to Mepple’s love for Mipple, but it’s certainly left ambiguous).

Of course, this is a kids’ show from 2004, and because of both this and the fact that Nagisa is meant to be a hashtag relatable character for the average young girl, this is also the first episode where much ado is made about Nagisa’s male crush, Fuji-P.

It is interesting to me, but ultimately not surprising, that the episode which gives us the first real hints of, ahem, subtext, is careful to balance it out with plenty of “girl pining over boy” content. The wonders of plausible deniability, indeed.

Anyway, all of this combines to bring us a different sort of episode than ones we’ve seen up to this point – talkier, wordier, and much more focused on character and relationship development. In many ways, it’s the start of the setup to a major turning point in episode eight.

And the characters acting cute is always, well. Cute.

WORTH WATCHING?:

Are you just here for the action and fights? Then probably not. Are you here for the relationship between the two leads, and Honoka being iconic? Then this is absolutely worth watching.

ARIENAI COUNT:

There were two “arienai”s this time, so we’re up to nine.

Until next time, have an excellent new year!

As far as I’m concerned it was a more than serviceable start for them, serving up some backstory to the fairies and giving us more than a few delightful bits of comedy. Let’s dig right in!

EPISODE SYNOPSIS:

Nagisa and Honoka’s class takes a field trip to an art museum, which they are put in charge of, to Nagisa’s chagrin. One girl in the class, named Mayu, seems to be a bit of an art nerd, and recommends artwork by an older Italian artist, Mario Piccalini. Upon seeing this particular piece, Mipple notes that the painting gives her a nostalgic feeling, and it’s revealed that what the artwork portrays as a shooting star is actually Mipple arriving on Earth. Apparently, when during travel between the Garden of Light and the Garden of Rainbows, what feels like one day is actually one hundred years. (The girls later travel to and from the Garden of Light, but fortunately this little lore tidbit seems to have been forgotten or ignored, preventing potential Interstellar-esque shenanigans and disaster.)

This does give us some fun reaction images though: namely, Honoka “Math Lady” Yukishiro, and a somewhat more traditional Nagisa “Urashima Taro” Misumi. (Fun fact: in the Canadian dub, presumably since western children were less likely to be familiar with Urashima Taro, Natalie uses the turtle as a metaphor for being “so out my depth, here!”)

Once the field trip is over, the students return to the bus, but Mayu is missing. Nagisa and Honoka head back into the museum to find her, where they are attacked by Pissard and by various elements of art having come to life. The Pretty Cure eventually prevail, of course, but Mayu is still nowhere to be found – until they find her inside the Mario Piccalini painting. As Nagisa and Honoka ponder what to do about this, the situation sorts itself out – Mayu wakes up behind them, and the painting returns to normal. Mayu mentions having a strange dream about being together with Piccalini, and the image itself is now slightly altered – a fun little detail akin to the tiny footprint left in the vacuum cleaner back in episode two.

ANALYSIS:

Motifs: Let’s start with where the last paragraph ended. We’re only four episodes into Futari wa Pretty Cure and we’ve gotten two episodes ending with the Pretty Cure – who are by all means supposed to be doing their world-saving jobs in secret – leaving a small but indelible mark on the physical world. I don’t know whether or not this was an intentional decision on the part of the staff. For all I know, it’s just a fun way to end an episode, and that’s that. But it does bring to mind one of the themes of the series, which is the balance between light and dark and black and white. As Nagisa frequently laments in the beginning of several episodes – she is struggling trying to walk the tightrope between the life of a superhero and the life of a normal girl. The idea that her superhero adventures occasionally bleed into normal, every day things – like a vacuum cleaner, or a painting in a museum – is sort of a neat visual way of showing this struggle and how hard it can be to balance both sides of her identity.

It may also be a way of showing the children watching that good deeds will leave a (noticeable!) mark on the world, no matter how small. Either way, it’s a neat detail and I like that Pretty Cure does it.

Facial Expressions: Nagisa has always been a superstar for this but I feel like this episode

really

goes all out

with

the expressions

even with the one-shot characters.

I don’t know what it is about Futari wa Pretty Cure’s style, but I really do think this season does expressions better than any of the others. (Heartcatch fans, I see you back there, but sorry, I still like Futari wa Pretty Cure’s better!) Considering the general limited budget and resources for these types of shows, I am continually impressed by the wide variety of emotions we can see in the characters’ faces. As such, I love taking screenshots of different expressions from this show, and this particular episode was a treasure trove. These examples aren’t even all of the ones I got.

WORTH WATCHING?:

I think it is, it gives you some backstory and it’s overall just a fun little episode with a lot of humor. I find that the art museum setting and the little twist at the end makes it one of the more memmorable entries in the season.

ARIENAI COUNT:

There were three “arienai”s this time, bringing us up to seven in the series thus far!

Until next time!

Let’s take a deeper look!

EPISODE SYNOPSIS:

The plot begins when Nagisa and Honoka are put in charge of an impending field trip – well, Nagisa is put in charge, and then Honoka is also put in charge to make sure nothing happens, because, you know, Nagisa.  Nagisa heads over to Honoka’s house shortly afterwards, and we learn a little bit about Honoka’s backstory.  She lives alone with her grandma and her dog, Chuutaro, most of the year, as her parents work overseas.  Mipple and Mepple also explain more of themselves here, talking about where they’re from and introducing the Prism Stones.  There are seven Prism Stones in total, and Mipple and Mepple keep two of them in their tails.

The next day, Pissard heads to Verone Academy incognito, where he is mistaken as a student teacher by… well, pretty much everyone.  Nagisa and Honoka’s teacher, Ms. Yoshimi, quickly develops a crush on him.  Aside from a sign that she really needs better taste, this gives Pissard the opportunity to use her to get to Pretty Cure.  She lures them into a gym, where a battle takes place.  Honoka shows off her kung-fu skills and the Precure prevail – not that Ms. Yoshimi had any idea what she’d narrowly escaped!

Overall, although nothing particularly special, this episode did give us quite a bit of backstory about the Kingdom of Light – as well as some of our very first hints that Honoka’s grandma might know a little more than she typically lets on.

ANALYSIS:

I find it hard to say much about this episode by way of specific analysis because nothing about it particularly stood out to me.  I did notice more of the fast zoom that we saw in the first episode.  But other than that, everything seemed pretty standard and straightforward.

That, however, may be a good thing.

At this point in the show, we’ve had two episodes to be introduced to the characters and their idiosyncrasies. Sure, there’s still much about them to discover, but now we can start getting to the real action. And how better to get to the action than to let it speak for itself, without drawing attention to the directing and editing?

There is a popular book on the art of film editing called In The Blink of An Eye by Walter Murch, who edited The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, and many other classic films. Although he touches on several things in the book, one of these things is the way that the best editing remains invisible. Let’s talk about a cut, for example. A cut is a jump from one point of vision to another, and for some reason, we as humans just accept this when we watch visual media. We don’t think about it. And that’s good! It enables us to, you know, watch movies or TV shows or cartoons.

If you noticed the cuts, it would draw you out of your suspension of disbelief. And similarly, if you noticed the editing or direction as opposed to the content of the scene, that would also draw you out of your suspension of disbelief.

Often, the best direction is the direction you don’t notice.

Of course, that’s not to say nothing happened. I liked this shot in particular, showing our two heroines framed by the lights of the gymnasium:

As well as this little sequence showing Honoka’s satisfaction after karate chopping the heck out of some basketballs.

These shots are basic and allow the characters and story to shine on their own, but also work as a mini piece of art in a frame even on their own. And in the end, that’s all we can really ask for from a good show or film.

ANIMATION:

Although there was no standout animation, per se, there were a lot of really, really good facial expressions this episode.

Mostly thanks to Nagisa. Truly, where would we be without her?

WORTH WATCHING?:

Personally I think that it’s worth watching at least the scene at Honoka’s house to get more backstory on Mepple, Mipple, and why they’ve come to Earth to begin with, as well as an introduction to Honoka’s family and her grandmother, who we will see more of later. The rest of the episode can be safely skipped as it’s standard monster-of-the-week fare, but since you’re already watching, why not continue. Right? I mean, just saying.

ARIENAI COUNT:

We had one “arienai” this time, which brings us to a total of four in the series so far.

Until next time, I’ll see you on twitter!

EPISODE SYNOPSIS:

This episode features both girls starting to adjust to their newfound life as Pretty Cure. Nagisa needs to deal with Mepple’s antics (and his hunger) right away, which leads right in to one of my favorite jokes in the entire season:

Still unconvinced, Nagisa is reluctant to go out and fight the monster of the week, but eventually she does when the news on TV makes it clear that a problem is at hand. A vacuum cleaner has gone rogue and caused electricity problems throughout the city, as well as imperiled some of Nagisa’s friends. This all culminates in a rather stunning sequence where Nagisa and Honoka slow the descent of an elevator in free fall by way of their own sheer force:

The people inside the elevator are saved, Cure Black and Cure White are able to save the day, and the vacuum returns to normal size – although now there’s a tiny boot print left in it from when Nagisa had kicked it earlier…

ANALYSIS:

Camera Techniques: One thing that really stuck out to be in this episode was the variety of interesting direction and editing decisions. Let’s start with the Dutch angles. A Dutch angle is a camera shot in which the frame is tilted on an axis, usually to indicate some sort of sense of uneasiness or tension. (And for those who are curious, it has nothing to do with the Dutch. It’s a corruption of Deutsch Angle, because this camera technique was used extensively by German expressionist films in the early 1900s and later codified by films such as Citizen Kane.)

It may be a big fancy film technique but I’m happy to report that it’s absolutely being used in Futari wa Precure episode two…

…to show us the slightly unhinged, mad scientist side of Honoka Yukishiro. Now that’s character building!

The somewhat upward pitched view here also appears later on in this episode to show the characters as larger than life superheroes, framed against a purple sky or dramatic lines and angles:

• 

While the villain, Pissard, gets his own unique scene where the camera slowly trucks in on him by way of multiple cuts where he enters the frame, doing so just a little closer, each time, carefully building up his presence as a threat.

(Our boy Pissard really deserves better than the name puns and David Bowie jokes, huh?)

Overall I found this to be an actually very visually satisfying episode, and although there wasn’t any particularly standout animation, it was more than serviceable and the skilled direction made up for it.

WORTH WATCHING?:

I would say yes, unless you’re really short on time and trying to cut back to a top five or something. I found the camera direction very interesting, the action scenes unique, and the ongoing character development of Nagisa, Honoka, and their relationship with their new lives to be quite important. In particular we see more of Nagisa the Cynic and Honoka the Ever-So-Slightly-Off-Kilter Dreamer, and this establishment of their respective personalities really helps make them feel more real to me and cements their different ways of seeing the world.

ARIENAI COUNT:

We had one “arienai” this episode, bringing us to a total of three so far!

See you next time for Episode Three!

How did they do?

Let’s take a look.

EPISODE SYNOPSIS:

As the first episode in a series, episode one of Futari wa Pretty Cure hits all the right notes when it comes to getting the basics done. The main characters and some of the important side characters are introduced, as is the hook of the series – that the girls are now magical warriors and have to cope with everything that entails.

The (very) condensed version of the plot is as follows:

Before the opening theme we are given a brief introduction to both Nagisa and Honoka and their respective school hobbies – lacrosse and science – and afterwards they have their first couple of tentative discussions with each other.

After school, Nagisa is hit in the head by a creature from another world – which longtime fans will know is a bit of a Precure trope in and of itself.

This creature, Mepple, promptly enlists Nagisa’s help to find his partner, Mipple. Mipple, as it turns out, has been discovered by Honoka lying in an old box in a storage shed. Following the direction of these creatures, Nagisa and Honoka meet up in a theme park right as its closing.

Here is where we meet our first bad guy, who demands that the girls hand Mipple and Mepple over. They refuse, and Mipple and Mepple quickly instruct Nagisa and Honoka how to transform, leading to the first ever Precure transformation scene… and Nagisa’s subsequent confusion.

Although Nagisa and Honoka don’t really know how to approach their newfound power, they do succeed in fighting off the bad guy. Afterwards, Mipple and Mepple tell them that the two are now Pretty Cure and have a new mission to save the Garden of Light.

Honoka is thrilled about this development, and Nagisa less so…

…and scene!

ANALYSIS:

I genuinely have no idea how to objectively approach the first episode to my favorite anime of all time. I feel like no matter what I say, a fair amount of bias is going to shine through. However, I’m going to touch upon some of my favorite bits of the episode, as well as a few things that I noticed upon my latest rewatch:

Rapid Zoom: A rapid zoom effect, usually zooming in but occasionally zooming out, was used multiple times throughout the episode right from the beginning. I somehow had never really noticed before just how many times this effect was used, and I’m interested to see if this is a technique that will continue to be used throughout the series, and, if so, which directors utilize it the most. Here are a couple of examples, although certainly not all of them:

Character Introduction: As the first episode of a new series, it’s expected for the recurring characters to all be introduced, and I feel this initial episode filled the bill very well. Aside from introducing Nagisa and Honoka, their friends and family are given some screen time as well.

The respective personalities of Nagisa and Honoka are established with aplomb. Right from the start we learn that Honoka is a scientist, but also a dreamer – she gently chides Nagisa and friends for assuming that a meteorite is bad omen, points out exactly what they are from scientific standpoint, and then adds that surely something so interesting must actually be a good omen.

This unique mixture of character tropes – the romantic intellect who sees the beauty in the atomic stardust that surrounds her – is one I genuinely love and dearly wish we saw more of in media.

Nagisa, meanwhile, is her own interesting mixture of traditional tropes. She’s spunky and sporty, but also down-to-earth and grounded. She may even have a more natural understanding of logic than the show’s resident science whiz. She sees practicality where Honoka sees something new and exciting, and this occasionally reaches even to the point of pessimism, perhaps demonstrated best by her catchphrase, “arienai!” – “impossible!”/”unbelievable!”

Despite having a somewhat more cautious nature than Honoka, she is more than willing to put herself in danger to protect things worth protecting – even before transforming into Pretty Cure she’s using her lacrosse skills to save Mepple from falling into the wrong hands, and Mepple is a strange creature from another world that she’d only just met minutes before. When I see people online critique Nagisa, they often level criticism at her “selfishness”, but personally I don’t see it. Literally from episode one she’s putting herself in harm’s way to protect others. In fact, jumping in front of Cure White to protect her is one of her very first actions as Cure Black.

The fact that both of these two characters defy stereotypes is perhaps my favorite part of the entire series. Rather than a Kirk-Spock dynamic, where the dashing and rambunctious lead is held back by the stoic and logical straight man, we have a dynamic where our “dashing lead” is actually the more cautious and grounded of the two of them, and it’s the scientist with her head firmly entrenched both in scientific formulae and in the clouds at the same time. Perfection.

Animation: Solid. I didn’t notice any particularly standout bits of sakuga worth highlighting in particular but overall it absolutely established the weighty, physical feel to the characters and their actions. This episode is apparently one of the few in this series that perhaps my favorite animator of all time, Tatsuo Yamada, worked on. Although I didn’t notice any of his signature style this time, I will definitely be highlighting his work in the future, so stay tuned.

WORTH WATCHING?:

While I (obviously) feel that every episode of this season is worth watching, I figure from here on out I’ll point out whether or not a particular episode is worth watching if you have limited time or only want to watch the “Best Of” Futari wa Pretty Cure. Granted, for the first episode it’s a bit of a moot point. Of course you should watch the first episode. It’s, well. The first episode. Frankly I’d watch it even if you aren’t going to watch any of the rest of the series but have a passing interest in magical girls, just so you can get a general grasp of how this famed franchise came to be.

ARIENAI COUNT:

Two, which brings the series wide total to (wait for it): Two.

See you next week!

NEXT TIME: Episode Two

Notes on Versions and Subtitles:

Although an official standard definition version of this season and its accompanying official subtitles are available on Crunchyroll and on Tubi.tv, I’m opting to go for a high definition version of the series and fansubs as provided by Arienai Fansubs. I have watched both versions extensively and aside from the visual quality of the unofficial release to be much improved, I also feel that the fansubs read more fluidly and naturally than the official subs do. That said, as far as I’m concerned, whichever way you wish to watch this series is valid – the choice is personal and up to you. This does mean that if you’re watching the official version some of the dialogue might be slightly different than what appears here, but the gist should be the same.

Your best! My best!
Because we’re alive, failure’s not really a big deal after all!

DANZEN! Futari wa Pretty Cure – That’s Right! The Two of Us Are Pretty Cure – is the theme song to (predictably enough) Futari wa Pretty Cure and in many ways has become emblematic of the franchise as a whole. It was heavily present throughout the recent Precure 15th anniversary celebrations, both in television commercials and in the show proper. A remixed version played during the credits of the 2018 film HUGtto! Pretty Cure♡Futari wa Pretty Cure: All Stars Memories. A single of the Max Heart version of the song charted at #60 on the Oricon Singles Chart. It has appeared as a playable song in the game Donkey Konga, and has been parodied or referenced in countless other anime.

For example, episode six of Kyoto Animation’s Lucky Star:

The visuals of the opening are arguably just as iconic, featuring the first appearance of a Cure leaping out of smoke and debris – which would become the Precure series’ very own Akira bike scene.

Who is behind these moments? Who defined Precure from the start?

Let’s take a closer look, starting with the music.

The lyrics to DANZEN! were written by Kumiko Aoki, who, interestingly, seems to have moved on to animation after writing songs for a few shows including Futari wa Pretty Cure, Yes Precure 5 GoGo!, and Fushigi Yugi. It was arranged by Naoki Sato, who did music for the first four seasons of Pretty Cure as well as for Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch. It was composed by Yasuo Kosugi, who would also do music through Yes Precure 5 GoGo! and worked on previous Toei productions such as Ashita no Najda, Ojamajo Doremi, and Super Sentai. As noted in the previous post, Kosugi also did the theme song for Tezuka’s The Three Eyed One, with which DANZEN! shares some similar musical motifs.

Finally, the song was sung by Mayumi Gojo. She would go on to sing the theme again in Max Heart, as well various songs through Yes Precure 5 GoGo! and a Precure All Stars movie in 2009.

What I find perhaps the most interesting about this look into the staff on this song is that they all moved on from Precure after the fourth season. I had always thought that the shift from Yes Precure 5 GoGo! to Fresh Precure had been largely stylistic in a visual and directorial sense, but I find it fascinating to see that it very much did so musically, as well.

DANZEN! was, as I mentioned earlier, enormously successful, and would go on to win the Radio Kansai Award for best theme song at the 2004 Animation Kobe Awards.

The music, of course, only tells half of the story of the opening. The storyboarding was done by director Daisuke Nishio, who also directed the vast majority of Dragon Ball Z and storyboarded 26 episodes of it. Perhaps it was this immense amount of experience that allowed him to pack so much action and intensity into just over a minute.

In this case, I think the storyboards speak for themselves, although I’d ask that you note how in many cases the drawings themselves are so energetic, so dynamic, that they aren’t contained to one small frame and leap off of it:

I do, however, want to post some side to side comparisons with the storyboards and the actual opening:

Taking these sketchy, stationary drawings and adapting them to fully animated scenes worked so well that many of these scenes have become iconic and frequently referenced by Precure itself. The “leaping through smoke” scene I mentioned earlier is easily the most familiar, but the spinning wall jump appeared as recently as the 2018 film HUGtto! Pretty Cure♡Futari wa Pretty Cure: All Stars Memories…

…while the shot of Cure Black pulling Cure White out of rubble appears in more humorous fashion as a LINE sticker:

Perhaps one of the things I appreciate the most about the opening, taken as a whole, is how well known it is not just in Japan, but abroad. Sure, it’s no Moonlight Densetsu from Sailor Moon, but in some countries, kids of a certain age in the early 2000s got to know their own version of DANZEN! very well. It has been translated into Chinese, Korean, Spanish, German, Italian, and more. It was not, for some reason, translated into English with the Canadian Ocean dub – this dub gave us a new opening which, in my opinion, is unfortunately inferior – but there is a mythical lost English dub by Odex and Voiceovers Unlimited which only aired in Singapore, so who knows, maybe they have an English version of DANZEN! intact. The first and so far only known clip of that dub (from a commercial) recently surfaced online, so perhaps further surprises await in the future.

Until then, an excellent unofficial English translation of the entire song was given a jazz redo and covered by Platina Jazz. You can view it on YouTube and it is absolutely worth a listen.

Looking back on it now, the impact that this opening has had is undeniable, but back in 2004 this was the first ever look at the mega franchise that would become Pretty Cure. And I may be biased, but if you ask me, it was a pretty damn good start.

NEXT TIME: First Look at the Legends: Futari wa Pretty Cure Episode 1

–

References & Resources:

Pretty Cure Wiki
ANN Encyclopedia
Wikipedia

Inextricably linked, Toei and TV Asahi have brought the world far too many magical girl shows to recount here, although some of the more popular ones include Cutie Honey, Sailor Moon, and Ojamajo Doremi. By the time the 21st century hit, Toei was no stranger to the world of mahou shoujo and its sister concepts. Witches from another world? Androids? A team of Super Sentai-esque magical warriors? Together, Toei and TV Asahi had been there and done that.

So they were looking for something a little different for 2004. Ojamajo Doremi had been highly successful in the 8:30am Sunday time slot, so perhaps returning to magical girls after the then-currently airing (and underperforming) historical romance Ashita no Nadja would be a decent idea. This new series would be directed by Daisuke Nishio of Dragon Ball Z fame, and feature characters designed by Akira Inagami. Notably, this would be Inagami’s first shot at character design – his background includes key animation in Dragon Ball Z and directing some episodes of Ojamajo Doremi.

Takashi Washio was chosen to produce this new series. He had no prior experience working on a girls’ series, as the biggest credit to his name up to this point was assistant director on One Piece. Washio is the one credited for coming up with the first seeds of Toei’s new show. There was no real difference between the way girls and boys acted when they were very young, he noticed. Both girls and boys want to save the world. Both girls and boys like action. Transforming heroines had been very popular in the past, but why not throw in something more? In his notes for laying the groundwork of the series, Washio said one of his most popular and oft-quoted lines: “｢女の子だって暴れたい｣” – “Even girls want to rampage.”

With that idea in mind, Pretty Cure was born.

The earliest concept sketches that have been published have always shown two heroines, so this seems to have been a plan from very early on. They’re even called Black and White in the above photo, so the yin & yang motif was codified as well. By emphasizing black and white, night and day, and yin and yang, the new show would be a departure not only from team based series like Sailor Moon and Doremi, but also from the earliest works in the genre which tended to focus on a single character.

The name of the show would emphasize this as well: Futari wa Pretty Cure, where Futari means, specifically, “Two people”. It’s not just “We are Pretty Cure,” or even “Together we are Pretty Cure” – it’s “The two of us are Pretty Cure.”

The two characters were given outfits that would hark back to the feminine designs of the magical girls that had come before, but tweaked for function over flash. The outfits had to be breathable and built for rough action. They were given flat boots, rather than high heels, to show that girls could stand “on their own two feet” without outside help. Washio wanted to make clear that there would be no male helper – no Tuxedo Mask. The two girls would be able to accomplish everything by themselves.

After much trial and error, the two characters began to take shape into the two heroines we know today, the ones who would eventually be household names among young girls across Japan. There was the sporty Nagisa Misumi as Cure Black, and bookish Honoka Yukishiro as Cure White. Notably, neither of these two characters’ main interests – sports or science – are seen as stereotypically feminine interests. Honoka was even given thicker eyebrows than most of the other girls in the show, specifically to point out that one need not follow typical rules of femininity to be a Precure. These characters were, from the very start, designed to challenge assumptions and subvert expectations.

Nagisa/Cure Black would be voiced by Honna Youko, who before this was perhaps most famously known as providing the voice of the main character in Studio Ghibli’s film Whisper of the Heart – and yes, that is her singing Country Roads. Meanwhile, Honoka/Cure White would be voiced by Yukana. Yukana has a wide variety of credits to her name – too many to list here – but long term magical girl fans may be familiar with Meiling Li in Cardcaptor Sakura. Apparently each voice actor originally auditioned to play the other Cure than who they ended up being, as difficult as that is to imagine today. Then they swapped positions during the audition, and things fell into place.

The series was given a pounding theme song, DANZEN! Futari wa Pretty Cure, sung by Mayumi Gojo. If it sounds vaguely like the opening to Three-Eyed One, it’s because the two songs share a composer, Yasuo Kosugi. More on the song and the opening will come in a later update.

And so, on February 1, 2004, at 8:30am on TV Asahi, this new experiment went live. Would it be a hit? A failure? Perhaps something in-between?

It was too early to tell, but perhaps some of people tuning in that day remember when they saw the start of something special.

NEXT TIME: DANZEN! A Look at the Opening and Theme Song of Futari wa Pretty Cure

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References and Resources:

Futari wa Precure Sketch
Settai Dreams
ANN Encyclopedia
Mahou Profile by ErynCerise
Japanese Wikipedia (thank you Google Translate)
Various interviews with the staff that I’ve read over the years – I’ve been a poor researcher and have lost track of them, but when I find them again I’ll link them here!

When I first started this particular blog a couple of years back, I don’t quite think I was ready for it. My vision was for it to be a comprehensive place to discuss a wide variety of things across an entire genre. Which is all well and good, but there was a slight problem:

My girlfriend pulled me into Precure Hell.

Very specifically Precure Hell.

The result was that I soon realized I could scream the same things about Precure on Twitter over and over, and this blog quickly fell by the wayside. A little bit embarrassing.

But old habits die hard, and recently I’ve been thinking about doing something… a little too big for twitter.

Specifically, I want to scream about every episode of my favorite anime of all time. In detail.

I don’t… quite know what it is about Futari wa Pretty Cure in specific that makes me love it so fiercely. I really don’t. Is it the characters? The charm? The 2000’s aesthetic? The action?

I don’t know. I just know that it’s my favorite, and I want to share it with the world. Episode by episode.

If everything goes well – if this gets a good response, or even if I just like doing it – then I might continue it beyond one season. But for now, one season, my very favorite, seems like a reasonable goal.

So let’s give it a whirl.

NEXT TIME: Pretty Cure: Origins!