#not to mention some shows like precure that have been going on every week since before this trend started have 50 episodes per season

[huntingpalismen]

every time a tv show has less than 12 episodes per season an angel shits its own organs out and dies

[muthaz-rapapa]

Let’s talk TroPreCure! (^∀^ 🌺)

i’m so stupidly proud of this dumb pun “tropurikyua~”, hahahahaha

Last post of the year and wow is there are lot to be excited for!

I even had to make a list for the stuff I want to talk about and I’m sure I already forgot one or two things but we’ll get to them as we continue to float~ along the wave to February 28th, mmkay? :)

Now for what has peaked my interest so far. And yes, we have to talk about the following first:

1) HealPre the shortest Precure season??

Unless they plan for double features in February (which I doubt but you never know), HealPre is likely going to reach only 45 episodes long instead of the usual 48~50 before TroPre I’m using this shortening of the title for now so if there’s a better alternative, tell me and I’ll switch out begins its broadcast.

Understandable because the producers probably want to get back to their normal scheduling as soon as possible (toy sales, y’know) and I suspect pushing the start of the new season back by a month is the most they’re willing to compromise.

As for me, I’m quite happy about this since HealPre’s lost its hold on my attention a while ago so the sooner TroPre gets here, the better. Though the downside might be a scrambled climax and a rushed, underwhelming ending for HealPre (I dunno if it’s January’s titles that feel a bit messy or if the hiatus is still throwing me off) but whatever. We’ll refresh ourselves with the new blood Cures so it’s all good.

2) Tropical movie announced for Autumn 2021, no All Stars??

(source)

First saw this mentioned on Youtube somewhere but it’s all over the fandom forums by now. I mean, HealPre’s movie is set for March, the usual time slot for All Stars release. If Toei intended for there to be an All Stars in 2021, there’s no way they would announce the seasonal movie before it so speculations of them skipping it this year are probably true.

To squeeze it somewhere between March and October-ish would force them to readjust their budgets as well and I don’t think even Toei wants to go through that extra hassle after all the trouble the pandemic’s caused for everyone already. It’s just easier to resume All Stars in 2022.

That, and I think Laura being a major character in TroPre despite not having a Cure title (yet) would make for an awkward situation when the three latest teams gather so perhaps that’s also one of the reasons. But I’ll get back to Laura in a bit.

3) Cure Summer is a RAINBOW Cure

So god help me if I see anyone calling her a Pink Cure.

Yes, she’s the lead Cure for this season. NO, she is not a Pink Cure.

Look, even the official website has a rainbow overlay for her profile pic and text font while everyone else’s respective theme colors are a solid hue:

Therefore, RAINBOW.

In promotional material and merchandising, they’re probably going to advertise her primarily with pink bah and at worst, she might occasionally be labeled as a White Cure with multiple subcolors (her outfit is not pink-dominant) but definitely NOT. PINK.

...also, this goes without saying but f***yea, we finally got a lead Cure practically and unabashedly wearing the LGBTQ flag and you cannot tell me otherwise, Toei!

Own up to it! Declare Manatsu/Cure Summer as the Precure queer icon!

I’m not gonna stop yellin’ until you do! 😠

4) Laura = obvious midseason Cure is obvious

First of all, Laura is a babe. I already love her the best and she’s not even Precure yet. <3

Anyways, the set-up is pretty much in the description. Important main character who’s not a mascot, stated to have a self-confident personality and just speaks her mind (oooh, I like~ :D), magical/foreign being from another world looking for Precure to save her home, possesses her own special item(s), has aspirations to become the next Queen (so she’s a princess-candidate or something to that effect, I suppose).

We’ve seen various combinations of these traits in past midseason (and a few starter) Cures so nobody should be surprised when we all guessed that one of the Cures would be a real live mermaid.

The only question is why not just make Laura a Cure from the get-go if she’s introduced to us at the beginning (like Hime or Lala) and having a team of five with no unnecessary extra add-ons later on (like Smile).

Well, there’s a simple answer for that: formula.

Toei is afraid that if they don’t spit out some new animation sequence at the halfway and third quarter points of the show, the kids will lose interest and abandon the series altogether. Which means failed toy sales. Oh nooo... [/sarcasm]

...Yea. 

And this way they can also have Laura available in the Cure lineup for the next All Stars in 2022 instead of making her sit the fight out if we were going to have one in 2021. I’m convinced that’s gotta be one of the reasons. *shrug*

But ok, whatever. Her debut is gonna be later, that’s all. She’s a delayed Cure.  Midseason Cure, same difference.

Moving along to the more important stuff now like what’s her Cure name gonna be, y/y?

Well, knowing Toei, a translation of the term “mermaid” into another language is the most predictable route even though we already have a Cure Mermaid. Not like that ever stopped them from repeating words before (ex. Cure Happy vs Cure Felice). Though if they do go down that road, I hope they opt for the Spanish/Italian “sirena” and not the French “sirène” because the latter sounds too close to how Cure Selene is pronounced in Japanese. And, putting it nicely, we all know Japanese pronunciation of foreign words is as off kilter as can be.

Hell, even the the Portuguese “sereia” sounds aesthetic as hell so it’d be nice if they can just remember there are other languages that exist out there besides Japanese, English and French when making the final decision at the writing table! *stomps foot* >:/

Alternatively, “nereid” or “naiad” are good choices too but they remind me too much of Greek myths and Laura’s from the Grand Ocean which covers more than just a couple of seas (Greece is surrounded by three, btw) so...

I dunno. But whatever it’s gonna be, she’s definitely got a strong association with water and her powers will probably be based on that.

As for theme color, since there’s noticeably no blue or green Cure in the starter lineup, it’s likely she will take up that spot when she debuts around ep 20.

Pink is also open since Cure Summer, again, is technically not a Pink Cure and Laura’s hair and tail fin are hot and light pink respectively but looking at Laura’s design and concept, does anyone seriously believe that?

Her upper torso consists of aquamarine while the body of her tail is definitely some shade of cyan, implying they’re aiming for somewhere around the middle of green and blue on the lighter spectrum.

And yea, I’m aware that green and blue are considered exchangeable in some perspectives with how close some of their shades are to each other but officially, I think Laura’s gonna be grouped with the Green Cures.

Cuz of the hair. If Laura’s gonna keep it the same or a similar shade after transforming, that is. The Blues have always had cool-colored hair so putting Laura in with them might disrupt that harmony whereas if you put her with the few Greens there are (including Parfait), she’d fit right in.

I mean, we’ll see but that makes the most sense, doesn’t it?

On another note, I just want to say that I love how they added frills to her arms instead of letting her elbows go bare naked. It definitely makes her look more like a genuine mermaid than if she didn’t have them (remember, half fish doesn’t mean half the body :P).

5) Magical Items

Frankly, I’m tired of seeing the transformation device being a compact again even though one of the main motifs is make-up this season. But at least, as far as Precure compacts goes, the Tropical one is my favorite cuz of how cute and delightfully colorful its toy version looks! So I guess I’m okay with it.

The Heart Rouge Rod, though? ...I dunno. I think it would’ve been fine without that...straw (?) jutting out at the top. It looks weird, doesn’t it look weird? :S

As for the collectible clip-ons, I can live without those for the rest of my life. Yeesh.

Laura’s items, the Aqua Pot and the Ocean Prism Mirror.

Again with the portable, travel-size housing. *sigh* 😩

Alright, I can let this year slide cuz Laura (I’m so soft for her, omg) probably won’t be getting legs for 20 weeks so she’s got to move about on land somehow. But unless they’re really thinking about turning this idea of carrying your apartment around in your bag/pocket/purse into a reality (cuz that would be effin’ awesome), please be more creative with your toys.

On the other hand, I’m much more interested in the Ocean Prism Mirror but from what Kusyami (the Precure merchandise reviews I follow on Youtube) said in his latest vid, this is the ED dance item so don’t know if it’ll actually have an relevance to the story or not. But I did hear him mention it having something to do with the Queen as well and since Laura wishes to become Queen, maybe it’ll be important after all? Maybe it’s her transformation device?

That’d be super cool. Let’s continue the trend of the midseason Cure having a different transformation item than the starters. Honestly, we should alternate every other year or two but we’ve gone three seasons with all of them using the same henshin gimmicks up till HealPre and I just want a break from that.

6) Fin sleeves??

These look so impractical for combat so maybe it’s exclusive to group attacks.

And/or a sort of precursor to the super forms?

*GASP* Does that mean they all eventually turn into mermaids? 🤩

7) Yui finally became Precure!! 😭

lol, it’s all crack from this point on so don’t take it too seriously but man, after Yuni’s deceptive braids, I thought I wasn’t gonna see anything that reminded me of Yui for a while and lo behold, Sango.

kehehehehehe xD;

Though Yui might be closer to Minori in terms of personal interests (fairytales and storybooks).

8) Akira, the actual Onee-chan version

I didn’t think this when I first saw her but once I read “Onee-san” in her profile, there’s no saving you now. Sorry, Asuka. 😅

Also, damn, do her sandals make her feet look big! Compare them to the heels she wears as Flamingo. Are they even the same?! lololol

9) ...this sounds awfully familiar...

Translation:

Tokimeku Tokonatsu! [Exciting/Thrilling Everlasting Summer!] Cure Summer! Kirameku Hoseki! [Sparkling Jewel!] Cure Coral!  Hirameku Fuurutsu! [Flashing Fruit!] Cure Papaya!

Japanese reiteration:

Mallow/Mao: Pink no tokimeki! Lillie: Blue no kirameki! Lana/Suiren: Yellow no kagayaki!

….........

@Toei 

Care to explain yourselves, punks?! 

୧(ʘ ∀ ʘ ╬)

[shinneth]

Okay! I’m actually really looking forward to this little series!

AzenZone has been my go-to channel for getting acquainted with the Precure franchise without having to watch the 900-something combined episodes from every series. Dude’s close to my age, so we’ve grown up on a lot of the same shows and whatnot, so I get a lot of his obscure references. I’m probably one of the few who totally got it the few times he referenced Urusei Yatsura in his reviews. :P

He’s also mentioned Ojamajo Doremi a few times in the past (even bringing up how nearly two decades prior, it did a better job at tackling racism than last year’s Precure series), and unlike Precure, I actually have a lot of nostalgia and deep love for the series. “Growing up with it” is a stretch since I was already a high school junior by the time I discovered it, but it was undoubtedly the true successor to Sailor Moon as far as my youth and maho-shoujo anime are concerned.

Because yeah, last week my eyes nearly jumped out of my head when I saw this very blatant cameo on Healin’ Good Precure. That’s one of the only times it’s ever actually happened, which feels odd, considering Precure is pretty much the successor to Ojamajo Doremi in several ways. 

Unfortunately, as stated in the video, Ojamajo Doremi’s always had a bit of a niche fandom outside of Japan. 4Kids getting their hands on the first season reeeeeally didn’t help matters, either. But it’s one of those series where I (along with @47ness​) went out of my way to find as many episodes and merchandise I could get my hands on - because it was quite a few years after Ojamajo Doremi ended before anyone started to regularly sub it. I still have a good number of raw episodes on my external hard drives (and VHS tapes). 

So I always felt a little bitter at the unfairness of Ojamajo Doremi staying in relative obscurity while Precure ended up having a much more notable following. Still relatively niche (even down to the dubs - like, Futari wa, Smile, and DokiDoki got some unfortunate localized treatment... just under Saban’s hand rather than 4Kids for the latter two), but much more prominent than Doremi’s fandom ever was. Guess some of that can be owed to the Precure franchise being much more action-oriented but, ehhh. 

Still, I couldn’t help but beam with pride when I came to learn that Heartcatch Precure, which had a LOT of staff who previously did work for Doremi (most notably the character designs), is almost universally regarded as the overall best Precure series (or at the very least, in the top 2 or 3) - like, it says a lot that according to a recent popularity poll, Heartcatch is one of the few series where every main cast member placed within the Top 25 - and Erika, pictured above, made it to #3, right behind the OG team of Nagisa/Honoka who never weren’t going to be on the top.

Still, there’s always been a unique kind of charm to Doremi that, as far as I know, you don’t really see in Precure and probably the majority of other magical girl series. It had a continuous, ongoing story for its four seasons (plus an OVA that expanded on and added some lovely details), time actually passed - i.e. characters actually got older with each succeeding series (starting at age 8, ending at age 11), and this series so often made the most of this. 

Most impressively for me was the consistent and relevant side-cast. The classmates of the main characters weren’t just background fodder or one-note plot devices - several of them had multifaceted personalities, ties to the main girls, and character arcs of their own! And this shit carried over from season to season - whatever gimmick they had would stay consistent, while at the same time they usually avoided having said character relearn the same lessons over and over again. 

So rarely does any show so admirably pull off a setting where almost everybody feels important to some degree. The FLAT4 - basically Rowdyruff Boy expys from the second season, easily could have never shown up again, but they made a resurgence in the final season. Characters carrying over across the seasons often feel like they’re in a different place than they were when they debuted, and considering how often shows struggle just to pull that off with their main characters, it’s doubly amazing that Ojamajo Doremi pulled this off with far more than just their core cast. 

It also had a very well-executed, well-paced endgame. Dokkaan! - the final season - concluded with every character going down their own path to forge their future. Their final arc wasn’t just some episodic affair that could have taken place anywhere else on the timeline. As their elementary school days come to a close and middle school is on the horizon, Doremi and her friends won’t be tackling that new chapter of their lives together. The series finale is a heartbreaking affair and one I could relate to all too well, as Doremi is forced to come to terms with the fact that all of her friends (even the long-tenured Hazuki) will be far, far away from her in this new chapter of their lives. 

While she put on a brave face for her friends and encouraged them when she first found out that, one-by-one, they were leaving her, Doremi eventually has a nervous breakdown come graduation day and locks herself up at the store where she and her friends have spent so much time together over the series. She can’t bring herself to attend the graduation ceremony - the sorrow tears into Doremi deeply as she finally admits to herself and everyone else that she can’t stand all of this abrupt change that’s going to permanently change her life. Doremi can’t hold down her selfish impulses any longer and does whatever she can to cling to what will soon be her past; her childhood, as it were, as she transitions to becoming a teenager. 

This really hit home for me in particular since I’ve gone through similar struggles. A divorce forcibly ripped me away from my home of 14 years - the lovely house I lived in on a lake ridge, the friends I had grown up with, and an entire side of my family I’d rarely see again after spending so much of my life with them - all of that, I had to abandon. I’m not a social person to begin with - and this was about 8 years before I even knew about my autism. It was a very rough adjustment period that to this day, I still don’t feel right calling my current residence “home”. Since I got a job, I’ve been able to live with this, but it was really meaningful to see a protagonist struggle to let the past go and accept her future circumstances. Doremi ultimately managed to pull through, but it’s still a bittersweet ending no matter how you slice it. 

For a kids show, Ojamajo Doremi had quite a lot to it. Which is why I really wish it was better remembered and honored.

tl;dr: I’m super excited for this retrospective series.

[venus-says]

Healin' Good Precure Episodes 14-18

Vows of Friendship.

Yes, contrary to what it looks like, this blog is still alive. Life happened, there was a succession of not so good things happening IRL (again) and I thought it was for the best to forget the blog was a thing for a few weeks so I could give proper attention to those matters. But things are starting to get better so I decided it was time to be back.

Before everything, I know episode 19 has aired already and we already had the debut of our mid-season cure, but this post is being released right before episode 20 and seeing that this couple of episodes will be so connected I decided to talk about them together so they're not in this post and I won't talk about things that happen in there for now.

PSAs done, let's get right into what this post is for: Healin' Good Precure!

I think before going into each episode I need to say that I'm kinda glad I let these episodes accumulate because while I enjoyed all of them I wouldn't have too many things to say about more than half of them and it would be very difficult to me to make full posts for every single one of them. Like, these were all very sweet episodes and some had some amazing things happening but overall it didn't feel like we were making much progress with the story, despite a new set of Element Bottles appearing in these episodes which would indicate otherwise.

Of course, every episode that gives us more development to each character is important for the progression of the show so in one way or another all of these episodes are important (14 is about Nodoka's health, 15 is about Nodoka and Rabirin's relationship and so it is episode 18 with Hinata and Nyatoran, Episode 16 is important for the friendship of the group, and 17 is important for Chiyuu and her future). But in terms of plot, as I see, Episode 14 was the only one that had relevant things that moved it forward since it laid down the backstory of the previous Precure that acted in that region.

And Episode 14 is a quite interesting one because it sets that Nodoka's health is in perfect condition now after a few months of living in Sukoyaka City, and they did a quite fun thing with this, you know? Because at the beginning of the episode I thought that Nodoka's health was improving because of her Precure powers, and I feel like other shows would've gone with this route, but at the end, the general consensus was that her health got better because of the energy of that community and that's pretty sweet. And I don't know, maybe it's just me being crazy, but I feel like there was some sort of comment on the pandemic there because in this situation everyone's health isn't depending only on ourselves but also on other people doing their part for this to not spread any longer. I know it's farfetched but it makes sense in my head. In any case, stay home, wear masks, and wash your hands PLEASE.

The other big part of the episode is the revelation that there was a Precure from years ago that also lived in Sukoyaka City, that used her music to help everyone in the city, and that she was Teatinu's partner and had some relation with the Wind Element. Of course, this is already out so I won't speculate on, but I wish they had thought of a better way to put this information in, you know? I don't know how much time has been between the time where the last precure was active and now but they could have an older citizen in the festival give a hint about a girl that healed everyone with her music and then the Wind Element would expand on that in the end instead of dropping a full expositional speech.

With that being said, at least this episode has shown that Nyatoran knows his type match-up type when he told Sparkle to use an electric type attack on a flying type enemy, the pokemon logic wins once again. XD

Episode 15 was definitely the more interesting of the bunch with Rabirin and Nodoka's fighting each other. I had a problem with the episode calling this their first fight because I have to me that their first fight was on episode 2, but I guess they didn't have developed a friendship yet at that point so I guess it's okay for this case. I had a bit of trouble at the beginning to grasp what they were trying to do at first because the episode was being pretty sweet for the majority of the first half and I couldn't see where the conflict would come. Yeah, it was pretty clear that Rabirin feeling a bit ashamed of liking something that everyone else was dissing would play a part on it, but Nodoka was being very welcoming to her so I couldn't see where the conflict between the two would come from and I was afraid that it would end up being handled pretty poorly.

And you know, I would've rather that the conflict had hit more of a gray area thing so that we couldn't choose a side in the matter (being on Nodoka's side here was way too easy, after all, she actually did nothing wrong), and I also wish Nyatoran as an outside factor hadn't been used in such a keen way because it made him look more mean-spirited than his character actually is and if someone wants they can point that he's the one at fault and this takes part of the importance of the main conflict in my eyes. I think if they had made Nyatoran keep his mouth shut, it would be more effective because then Rabirin denying her love for the daruma doll would have come from herself thinking that she would be made fun of for liking something the other mascots didn't like and the conflict would be more interesting because it would be coming all from herself, and it would be able to tell more about her as a character rather than the "environment" in where she's in.

Taking this into consideration, even with all problems I have in those regards, I still like how it happened and how the resolution came out, I do feel like it was a bit rushed because they had to come in terms with each other under the pressure of the fight happening and they not being able to transform due to their feelings not being in sync, but for something that begun and ended in a single episode it still worked and they ended on a pretty note and with a good message that even though conflict and fights happen they know how to apologize and make peace so it's okay that a quirrell happens here and there. Though, this should've been a two-parter, just saying.

Episode 16 was a bit of a letdown, but that's more on my end rather than the episode's fault. You know, the plot was pretty good, I like the concept of the Eternal Tree, I like the idea of celebrating this tree even if it was dead already, and the concept of a group of friends that had vowed eternal friendship under the tree but that now aren't together anymore it's pretty cool. I just personally wish they didn't try to fix a broken friendship, maybe it's me being a pessimist, but friendships don't always last forever and in some cases, it's better that one friendship doesn't go for years and years, and I would like more if we had seen a case where a friendship couldn't be saved and the girls vowed eternal friendship anyway because they believe in their bond so much and they understand that just because it happened to those three it doesn't mean it will also happen to them. Maybe I'm asking too much for a kids' show, but still...

In any case, this episode served to mark even more in my head that Batetemoda is the best of the villains since he's the only one with an actual personality, him rapping all episode was a delight.

Episode 17 is the one I have the least amount of things to talk about. It was cute, it served for Chiyuu to build up more on her character and how she relates to her future, her family, and the family business. But, being honest, the episode didn't have much else going on. The plotline with Emily was okay, but they could've done more, you know? I feel like they decided to take up time with Pegitan having some sort of rivalry with Chiyuu's brother in cleaning the inn and they could have used that time to flash Chiyuu and her conflict more, especially because the Pegitan thing doesn't go anywhere, doesn't have a conclusion, and it feels completely lost in the middle of the episode. If they had made this change the episode would be more interesting and I would've liked it more, as it was, it's just an enjoyable episode but that won't leave an impression on me in the future.

Wrapping up with episode 18. Probably my favorite because it was a very fun one. I was very scared of the "fairy fall in love with a human" because I'm a bit traumatized by this concept, but I enjoyed this episode from beginning to end. If I had to say one thing I don't like from this episode it's all the panic about Nyatoran changing partners, they dragged this for too long, and also they were making assumptions without directly asking Nyatoran anything even when they had the chance to do it.

With that being said, Hinata was amazing in this episode showing her full support to Nyatoran, always having his back and thinking of ways to help him to be happy, and protecting what's precious to him because he is her partner and she values him and the things that he has thought her, I almost shed a tear when they did that callback to Sparkle's first episode when she took a full-blown attack to protect Nyatoran's letter and decorations because that was precious to him. It was really good. And the ending was also pretty good, a heart being broken was never so fun to me as this one was for some reason, I don't know, it was just very sweet especially Hinata being there for the sulky Nyatoran afterward.

One thing I haven't mentioned because I didn't find a place to do it so is how annoyed I am by how Crunchyroll in the English subs is still using the "-san" when talking about the Element when the rest of the show goes with very few honorifics and it gives us atrocities like "The Element of Wind-San". Like, just call "The Element of Wind" or "the Wind Elemental" for pity sake! It's not that difficult. But anyway, I believe that's all for now.

Oh, one last thing. I'm thinking about it and, for my mental health sake, starting this month, I think I'll stick to just 3 or 4 posts per week and instead of posting about the weekly episodes as they come out, I'll talk about them in pairs, with a few exceptions here and there. It's not final yet, I'm just considering it, but I feel like by doing things this way, if things get complicated IRL again, it would be easier for me to manage to keep the blog consistent. In any case, stay healthy, stay safe, stay tuned (!!), never stop resisting, thanks for reading, and (hopefully) until the next time. See ya~

[vanilla-blessing]

qb top 2019 anime list

this year what I took notice of the most were uncompromisingly ambitious series that care very little for the opinions of haters. I couldn’t come up with an order for them, so pick your own on your scorecards at home.  - qb

Hulaing Babies

Five minute anime about a Hula club that nobody watched except me, blurry kaleidoscopic fountain of pastels and homestarrunner-esque morphing at bizarre angles and judiciously excessive mouth flapping, outrageously blunt visual metaphors for emotions and a finale where everyone floats into the sky with no logical justification needed or wanted. 

I learned absolutely nothing about hula or okinawa or dancing but I loved every second.

GRANBELM (while it was airing) 

Ultimately forgettable, but a fun cross-genre experiment that was very enjoyable to unpack week by week, takes a blender to normally very structured genres for better and worse. It’s obviously obsessed with both mecha and magical girl and sincerely rams the gundam and the madoka tropes together until it appears they are kissing and one of the arms has flown off. In retrospect, it was completely impossible to predict because it seemed to rewrite its lore every week and may have been making it up as it went along. I had a completely different idea of where the show was going nearly every week, so that was pretty exciting for me. I still can’t believe that the main character was actually a magical girl tulpa who had an arc where she dealt with the existential problem of not being real. All of these questionable ingredients were surprisingly hella fun to watch while GRANBELM was airing, and reacting to this bizarre roller coaster week by week through all its twists and turns was probably my favorite discrete experience this year, even though the show itself probably doesn’t hold up. But that’s okay too, it’s alright to forget things sometimes.

I just wish I could remember the name of this girl with the pink hair and the dumb face from all my screenshots? I could have sworn she was important.

KoP:SSS / Pri⭐Chan S2 

Pretty rhythm has had a really excellent year and its dumb to lump these together but I’ll do it anyway. You can’t stop me from putting this on here

Pretty Rhythm had an amazing year with the first English license in its history, Pri⭐Chan threw off the yoke of the last season’s tendency to play it safe and got immediately weird as balls. Nijinosaki Daia is a brilliant character and is essentially Jem but good. 

The franchise has always blatantly reused remixed components like plot themes, entire characters, and full cg sequences, and Pri⭐Chan has lightest version of this, by simply copy and pasting characters from other series and having them exist with a barely different last name and an identical design and voice actress. 

However, King of Prism: Shiny Seven Stars is the ultimate, nauseatingly over the top version, imagining a disembodied council of identifiable veteran voice actors that control the idols, and by extension the pretty rhythm universe, inadvisably connecting every franchise (and some shows that aren’t even in the franchise) in a veritable corkboard of meta-cosmic nonsense that made even dedicated fans throw up their hands and go along for the ride.

Fruits Basket (2019)

The Fruits Basket 2019 reboot was a solid and consistent fixture of my year, as a diehard fan of the manga it’s simultaneously the uncompromised vision of the author and the transformative modern take I didn't know I wanted. I don’t have a lot else to say about it, Fruits Basket is one of the best shoujo ever written if not the best one, and this is a best case scenario for an adaptation. Highly recommend watching this if you’re an old fan since middle school or even if you’ve never seen it before. Second season comes out at some point in 2020. https://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/184168814234/why-you-should-check-out-that-fruits-basket-reboot

Kemurikusa

 lol they called an anime smokeleaf 

In the wake of Kemono Friends 2 being a shallow cash grab from a company that decided slaughtering their golden goose and burning the corpse was a good idea, Kemurikusa is that goose rising from the ashes like the powerful phoenix to create another awkward but weirdly competent CG anime that’s oddly endearing despite resembling nothing else in the current anime industry. It writes a lot of lore checks in the first 10 episodes and actually nails the ending without overexplaining or getting lost in the weeds of its sometimes convoluted lore. RINA GANG https://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/184018114459/why-you-should-check-out-kemurikusa

Honorable mention to: Kappa

This was a great year for cryptids, especially Kappa, between Cure Cryptid-hunter hikaru hoshina repping all UMA’s, Kappard reclaiming his less handsome brother Pissard’s naming scheme and becoming the fan favorite bad guy of Star Twinkle Precure, and Everything in Sarazanmai, 2019 was the year that brought Kappa back, unless you would argue that they never left. It’s hard to tell with yokai. Also Mob Psycho 100 s2 was the most technically impressive anime i’ve ever seen in my life but I felt it was more important to honor this caboose.

- qb ask me anything about UMA

[lia-nikiforov]

Spring 2018 Anime Final Review

So, uh, this is six months late. I’ve had half of this post in my drafts forever. To make it short, as I’ve mentioned previously, mom lost her job, which has not only been a heavy hit to my sense of stability for the last six months, but also means my time to watch anime was seriously reduced and even now a slight change of plans fucks up my whole schedule and sets me back for a full week. Anyway, nobody cares about any of these shows anymore so let’s get straight to it? I’m gonna ommit the two-cours that continued into the Summer - hopefully I’ll be able to make that post soonish? idk. Worst to best, same as usual

The crappy gender politics pit of shame

Darling in the FRANXX: I think everyone has ripped this show to threads at this point and there isn’t much I could add to that. It is quite funny to me to see how many people flipped out when the show went completely bananas in its last few episodes. Feels a bit like KADO, I’ve been telling y’all this was a ton of empty crap since episode 2, it just took the writing to completely self-destruct for everyone else to notice. A part of me feels tempted to do a long post breaking down just how badly the show collapsed in its final shebang, specifically how every single twist and turn completely nulled any remote kind of message or central thesis the show may have had, but at the same time it doesn’t seem worth the time. In the end, I may have given What is Internal Consistency, The anime way too much credit. It’s not hateful antigay propaganda, it’s just dumb as shits, with a writer and creators who didn’t think for half a second of the implications of what they were doing, and who were so incompetent they couldn’t even conserve the minimal plot and character coherency within a single episode, let alone 24. In other words, Darling isn’t saying “gays shouldn’t exist” but “I have no idea of anything regarding gay people”. What makes it egregious is that the show spent so much time acting like it was “meaningful” and “important” and yet it ended saying absolutely fucking nothing. Except mayb “have babies”. Down to oblivion you go, along with the likes of KADO, to the void of shows that couldn’t even be offensively bad and no one will remember a year from now. Bonus garbage points for the half-assed “bury your gays”.

Nil of Libra Admirari or whatever this show was called: I’m not trying to diss on the show, I just genuinely never remember the title because I have the JP and EN all mixed up. Not that it matters much, as far as I could tell, the show could call Shalabalabatuna and it would have the same significance in regard to the content. But the title isn’t important. In fact, it may be a bit unfair to have this show in this section. For the most part, Main Girl is very self-determined and has an active role in the story.... but then the last two episodes heavily featured a lot of rape threats or rape themes and forced pregnancy (real and threat) and I don’t really understand why they’d go there all of a sudden. One of them was treated relatively well, even empowering the victim in the process, but when the ikemen bad guy was rambling endlessly about how he wanted to impregnate the protagonist it really turned me off :/ I’m also not a fan of “main boy was her secret fiancé all along”, but at least they also handled that somewhat decently. It’s a very disposable series, but since I watched all of Amnesia, I think I owe every otoge adaptation at least the smallest chance to clear that very low bar, and Libra of Nil does it, more competently than most other stuff in the same genre.

Hisone to Masotan: I really, really wanted to love this show. Even now, as I put it in the pit of shame category, I’m pained. There was a good show in this, and a lot of it made it to the screen: an adorable, charming little story about a woman finding her place in the world, making new friends, finding her calling and bonding with an adorable dragon. Unfortunately, it got buried down under this opressing, horrendous gender politics that tried to do something with bringing attention to sexism in the military only to cancel it out making the one dude that embodied that sexism getting rewarded with the affections of a girl he explicitly tried to crush. It also called back on the virgin or whore fallacy and even managed to shove in a “bury your gays” trope. Even though Hisone challenges the ritual bullshit, it’s too little, too late, and she does end up carrying it out anyway, so the defiance to the status quo is of little importance in terms of problematizing the ritual itself. Sorry BONES, it wasn’t meant to be this time. 

The ni fu ni fa section

Ni fu ni fa is a Mexican colloquialism for “It was okay but it didn’t change my life.”

Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu HAPPY KISS: This soft reboot of the franchise had some really great episodes and did an actually good job of developping its characters. For the most part, it achieved what its predecessor did in terms of satirical comedy and I enjoyed it quite a bit. However, what bunked it down so low in the list was the final episode. At some point, the writers forgot they were doing a parody and made the show somewhat self-serious, way closer in tone to the magical girl anime it was supposed to be making fun of, rather than the satire its predecessor was. Whereas S1 ended with the whole Magical boy stuff being revealed as a crappy space reality TV show, this one ended with a real cheesy conflict about happiness and family and blablabla. Which is not bad by itself if this were a Precure show, but that kind of self-serious plot development just didn’t work for this series. I still enjoyed it, and the fanservice episode is one of the best of the whole franchise, but I’m a bit sad the finale missed the mark so badly.

Hinamatsuri: Hinamatsuri was very hit-or-miss for me. There were some truly brilliant episodes, a lot of funny vignettes and heart-warming stories, and then there was some stuff that made me uncomfortable -like every single Hitomi story- or felt unnecessary and dry. It also threw me off that the superpower dynamic completely disappeared in the second half of the show, especially in Anzu’s part of the story. It was okay but I feel like I needed something that felt like a closing, and choosing to end it with Mao who featured very minimally in the show overall didn’t cut it. It’s a fun show, I’d reccommend people check it out, but it felt a bit too disjointed for me

Persona 5: The Animation: This is a hard show to place because I love the looks of it and I think the concept is interesting and pretty cool, but there is something that’s keeping me from connecting emotionally to the story. The part where changing the villains’ heart makes them repent from their sins and become “good” feels very artificial and very tasteless when you’re dealing with rapists and abusers. I ended dropping it at episode 16, I just couldn’t find the motivation to catch up with the 6 episodes i’d fallen behind on because my schedule is a tragedy

Tokyo Ghoul: Re: I guess it’s fair to say I’ve kind of outgrown Tokyo Ghoul. There’s something messy and confusing about how this season panned out, and there comes a point in which misery porn just doesn’t cut it anymore. I still watch because Ishida has a way to make every single goddamn character extremely sympathetic, which makes for an emotionally engaging viewing even when you’re not sure of what the plot is supposed to be or who you should be rooting for. I tried picking up the new season that just started airing and immediately found I had no idea of what was going on, who was on who’s side and in general, who the fuck were 90% of the characters, so I dropped it.

Nanatsu no Taizai: Imashime no Fukkatsu: I’ve mentioned it before, this second season had the opposite problem than the first one: the pace was too slow. It took more than half of it to get to Escanor, and then the season ends at a kind of random spot. I really thought we’d get further along on the story, since Gowther’s backstory was hinted at in the openings, but no such thing happened. They did manage to give us a variety of cool moments and fights, and I love Ban so his scenes with Zhivago and Elaine made me quite happy, though I really wish the romance between Elizabeth and Meliodas wasn’t su dubious and cringy. In light of some revelations that take place further along the manga, going out of their way to emphasize that Meliodas was a sort of mentor figure for Elizabeth when she was a toddler seems unncessary and just very squeamish. I do hope we get a third season though, and an OVA of the Vampires of whatever side story would be great too.

Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori: I was pleasantly surprised by this show, and it’s closer to being one of my top of the season than it is to “meh”. It had some weaker, cheesier segments, but it also managed great whacky moments and a genuine soothing atmosphere. What surprised me most is that the vanilla looking cast of moderately handsome dudes managed to develop into interesting, funny individuals with a dynamic that made every episode enjoyable. A solid reccommendation for anyone wanting to see delicious looking food and moderately handsome dudes being ridiculous. Also, the cat episode is the best episode of anime ever produced.

The I’m probably the only person alive who enjoys these shows

Mahou Shoujo Ore: This is a difficult show to place because it wasn’t quite as great as I wanted it to be and its parodic nature took me by surprise, but somehow I was still seriously entertained more often than not. The twists in the final quarter and the absolutely bonkers finale was a total riot, but I definitely advise caution before going in, given that some of the jokes may seem insensitive or in poor taste in regards to gender presentation, sexuality and there are even some mild harrassment jokes that certainly made me roll my eyes.

Yowamushi Pedal: Glory Line: I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but I think through half of the show’s 25 episode run, I was convinced the title was actually Glory Road. It’s kind of anticlimactic that it’s called Glory Line if they don’t actually reach the final Goal btw. Anyway, I feel I say this a lot, but really, if you didn’t like the previous Yowapeda seasons, there’s nothing here for you, and if you did, you’re probably not gonna hop off this late in the game. This season does suffer from the same dragging than its predecessors, with the added issue of being quite pessimistic for no reason in about half the episodes, and a diminished presence for Onoda. I really wish they hadn’t dragged the Day 2 goal so long, I really hoped we’d see the end of the race, but no such luck I guess. Still love most of it and hope we get one more season or a movie to complete the story.

The favorites of the season

Golden Kamuy: In spite of its pacing issues, terrible animation and general clunkiness, I can’t help but love this show. When season 1 ended my feelings for it had mellowed quite a bit, but as soon as I picked up season 2 this Fall I just fell in love all over again. It’s fun, unique, over-the-top in some ways, incredibly grounded in others, and the dynamics between the characters are incredibly charming. 

Hozuki no Reitetsu: It’s hard to talk about this one because it feels repetitive, given how tonally the show remains just the same across its three seasons. It could’ve very well been a one-season, 36 episode show, for how little it changes in spite of the time that transpired between the first season and the second. But in short, the comedy continues to be as spot on as always, the Zashikiwarashi twins are the best addition to the cast. It’s definitely a show I could watch endless episodes off, and the rare case of an episodic series with no overarching plot that I can enjoy wholeheartedly. 

Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card arc: Over the course of the series, I’ve expressed a few concerns and misgivings about how the story of this 20th anniversary sequel was playing out. The final episode was particularly troublesome in that it left the story unfinished in spite of deviating from the manga. In spite of this, more than anything I’m very happy that this continuation still retains what made the original so special, that they captured the magic behind Sakura’s “everything will be alright” spell and gave us the chance to spend more time with these beloved characters and see their stories continue. The slow but sweet development of Sakura and Syaoran’s puppy love is a definite highlight. Needs more Touya/Yukito and Yue in general.

Piano no Mori: This show got heavily overlooked because it was kidnapped by Netflix (pls stop immediately), and then when it was finally unceremoniously dumped a month or two ago, it came under fire for the wonky CGI during the piano scenes -and it is indeed very wonky-. But beyond that, I found the story very engaging, especially because Kai is such a fascinating protagonist, his intense rivalry-friendship with Megane-kun (sorry, it’s been six months, i can’t remember names) is exactly the type I can’t help but root for. Kai’s participation in the final episode gave me goosebumps. I’m very happy we’re getting a continuation,  can’t wait to see how the Chopin competition develops.

Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii: Sweet, funny and absolutely delightful from start to finish, Wotakoi was easily one of the highlights of the season. Although there were some aspects about Cosplayer-senpai and Yuri Otaku-senpai’s (I’m really trying to remember the names, I’m sorry!! ;---;) that didn’t work for me -namely the izakaya segment- Narumi and Hirotaka more than made up for it with their clumsy yet adorable romance. I spent the entirety of the amusement park episode screeching. I really hope we get a continuation -and get a chance to see more of Hirotaka’s brother and his gamer friend too- and that in general we can get more anime about adult stories

Megalobox: Who would’ve thought that a show that wasn’t even in my radar before the season started would’ve end as one of my favorites, possibly of the year? Even as someone who’s only marginally acquainted with Ashita no Joe and has no interst in the sport of boxing, I was completely enthralled by the style and passion of this production. As I said a bit above, intense rivalries are very appealing to me, and the build up in the tension between Joe and Yuri was almost palpable, their mutual respect gave me chills. Definitely the surprise of the season, made even better by its optimistic happy ending to contrast with its predecessor’s tragedy. Megalobox is a unique anniversary project that is closer to an homage and it works perfectly. Definitely check it out.

That’s it for the Spring season! I hope i can do the summer season this weekend and maaaybe even my watchlist for the Fall season. Fingers crossed i won’t get swallowed up in other stuff :’D 

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 100

Episode: Futari wa Precure Splash Star 02 - “The Welcome Party at Pan-Paka is the Premonition of a Storm!” Date watched: 01 December 2018 Original air date: 12 February 2006 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/5CtC8VX Project info and master list of posts: https://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

they bond quickly

This is a great follow-up to a great premiere. We get a better look at the villains, the lore, the girls’ lives, and see them become closer as friends. Basically it builds their world out more, and I love it.

First things first, the villains: we’re introduced to Goyan, an impish little dude who serves as the right hand of the boss, and the big bad himself Akudaikan. Having a right hand as a buffer between the boss and generals is a change of pace from the first two seasons but not an unwelcome one. Goyan is a curious little dude, you never know quite what he’s thinking. He seems like he already knows that Karehaan lost to the Precures and mockingly asks him if he returned with the spirits, but it could also be genuine sucking up. Either way Karehaan ignores him, and this will be the dynamic for most of the show. Meanwhile, Akudaikan is a big dark guy cast in shadow, so all you see are his eyes.

Goyan mocks him and Akudaikan berates him so Karehaan goes out once more to try to redeem himself, and we learn that Dark Fall, like most villainous organizations, is run by a bunch of dicks, and that is why they fail.

Over in the Land of Greenery, which is the new name for the Garden of Rainbows, aka Earth (most series have a special name for Earth that ties into the lore) Saki and Mai are doing school things. Saki chats with her friends Hitomi, Yuuko, and Kenta about hosting a welcome party for Mai but Mai is already out the door before she can actually invite her. Saki finds her on the roof of their unusually aesthetic school and they chat about the previous day, while Flappy and Choppy explain how Precure’s mission to protect the seven fountains, of which all but one have been conquered by Dark Fall. It’s exposition wrapped in character development as it’s part of a scene where the protagonists try to learn about each other.

You may recall that while Nagisa and Honoka got along fine in Futari wa, it took a while for them to truly become friends. Splash Star decides screw that, Saki is way too gung-ho to wait, and Mai definitely wants the companionship. They have to work for it a little, as that night Mai talks with her older brother Kazuya about her reservations, and he encourages her to try making friends with Saki if that’s what she wants. Mai has a bit of imposter syndrome, she thinks she doesn’t really belong, that Saki already has a bunch of friends and she’s only being nice because Mai is new. Nonetheless, she puts on her brave face and goes to the welcome party. She’s a bit early, so she sits in the backyard and draws.

FW similarity/difference number 2: While Nagisa was part of a working class family living in a high rise apartment complex, Saki's family lives behind their bakery and are afforded such luxuries as a yard. The town of Yuunagi seems a bit more suburban than the setting of FWPC, which seems to correspond to the region of Japan it’s based on.

Mai gets so caught up in drawing that she’s completely oblivious to Saki and friends setting up for the party right behind her, so when she turns around she’s super shocked to see the supplies.

Side note: Mai is a really good artist.

I am not and I’m wondering how you get lines that thin out of charcoal

It’s very admirable, and we’ll get to see her develop this skill further throughout the show. The two girls speak candidly for a moment, and Saki insists that they ditch the formalities of Japanese speech by asking Mai to simply address her by given name, and asking if she can do likewise. Mai agrees to this and so they truly become Saki and Mai, rather than Hyuuga-san and Mishou-san. (reminder: referring to each other on a personal-name basis with no honorific in Japanese is a sign of closeness reserved for good friends and family)

 Unfortunately the festivities are interrupted by Karehaan, who turns a potted plant into an Uzainaa and demands the girls hand over their spirits. Naturally they refuse, transform, and quickly get their butts kicked. Karehaan offhandedly wonders how they were such a threat to him previously. But after some scolding words from Cure Bloom about how much she values Mai’s friendship and the party and how DARE Karehaan interrupt that, the girls turn the battle around. To borrow some contemporary slang, they fuckin YEET the Uzaina across town.

It lands on a beach and Flappy and Choppy instruct them to give chase. By concentrating the power of spirits in their feet, they are able to leap across town as well.... but they have trouble sticking the landing. Fortunately the power of Precure protects them. Bloom gets caught by the monster and Egret gets a chance to return the earlier sentiment by declaring how Saki is important to her before throwing it. The pair recover, land a double kick, and then finish it off with Twin Stream Splash.

After the dust is settled, they detransform and Saki kind of gripes that they’ll have to keep doing this, but Mai says it’ll be okay as long as they’re together, and they begin their friendship anew with a handshake and a smile. Meanwhile, considering how far they leaped from Saki’s house to the beach, I’m left wondering how they’re going to get back in time for the party without arousing suspicion. I would kind of like the show to explain that, but it doesn’t.

The party goes swimmingly, with Mai loving the cake that Saki and her friends made, and then the rest of the class walks into the yard. Saki offhandedly mentions that she invited the ENTIRE CLASS to the party, which is news to her friends because they didn’t make nearly enough food for this, and Kenta starts chasing Saki around out of frustration (these two have a fun relationship, I’ll get more into that). We end on a freeze-frame of Saki and Mai being buddy-buddy, which is the top image.

Honestly my only criticism of this episode is that they detransformed on the beach instead of leaping back to Saki’s house and that’s such a non-issue. Some of the animation is spotty for wide group shots but they go by quickly. Other than those small things, it’s a perfect episode. It’s well-paced, it develops the characters after showing their insecurities (especially Mai) and you can relate to their friendship struggle. It took a bit longer for Nagisa and Honoka to become friends to this degree but they had less going for them. Saki wants to make friends, Nagisa was more like “let’s see what happens”. Plus Mai being the new girl in town makes her an object of interest before they become Precure, and that also means she has more room to make friends. So they bond quickly.

Saki’s other friends, Hitomi and Yuuko, are similar to Shiho and Rina in some regards, in that they’re also on the sports team with her and sometimes struggle to keep up with her. I remember Yuuko a little more prominently from my first viewing, partly because she’s chubby which stands out in a world of thin characters, and partly because of her crush on Kenta (not touched upon here). Kenta himself is an interesting animal. Since Verone Academy was an all-girls school, we didn’t get much in the way of male friendships in FWPC or Max Heart. There was Fuji-P and Kimata but they didn’t feel as close as the girls’ other friends. Kiriya came closer but he had to return to the darkness. Kenta is just a friend... a friend voiced by Takeuchi Junko, who is most famous now for being the voice of Naruto. It’s pretty much the same voice, just without “-ttebayo!” on the end of every sentence. She will also come back to voice Cure Rouge in the next few seasons. Kenta and Saki have a bit of a more aggressive friendship than with the other girls, but not in a bad way. They butt heads a lot because Kenta is a bit of a loudmouth and they give each other crap, but it’s all in good fun.

As much as I like the emphasis on girls and girls’ stories in Precure, it is nice to see boy-girl friendships that feel natural and aren’t dominated by romantic leanings. I mean yeah, Kenta does have a crush on Saki as will later be revealed, but it’s not the be-all end-all of their friendship. I’m not sure I’m expressing my sentiment well.

Overall like I said up front, it’s a great world building episode and it really makes me look forward to spending more time with these characters (not something I can say for every show). So look forward to more, and hopefully there won’t be a two week wait before the next one.

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 Zekkouchou Nari, in the preview.

Miracle Drop Count: 2

[bhsdesk]

1, 25, 30?

1:Favorite Pretty Cure season?

It’s a tie between Heartcatch and Go! Princess, and it says a lot for Go! Princess that for years, I was convinced that nothing would ever come close to matching my love for Heartcatch. Both seasons have everything I want in a Precure series: great characters, solid plots, substantial character development, mascots that aren’t annoying, memorable music, and ohhhhh, those fight scenes.

(And yes, despite my well-documented love for Yayoi/Cure Peace, Joker, and the Bad End Precure, Smile isn’t one of my favorites. As I’ve said many times: Smile has some of the best characters of the entire franchise, but sadly, it’s also saddled with some of the worst plotting and pacing of the entire franchise.)

25:Favorite All Stars movie?

That’s a tough one. Every All Stars has its moments, but the movies also struggle with how to manage such a large cast of characters, with too many favorites getting overlooked or relegated to bit parts. That said: I think DX 2 is my favorite of the DX trilogy because it has the best balance of all the different elements, New Stage 2 is the most consistent of the NS movies, and out of the two musicals, Haru no Carnival is by far my favorite for committing to comedy rather than trying to rehash what the other movies had done before it.

30: Favorite character overall?

Favorite character, ~miru? Of course, Milk-sama is my favorite ~miru! How could I not choose such a cute, adorable, and perfect lakajslkj.,nmnxxewriowehljkklkkkkkkk-

-SOUNDS OF EXTREME VIOLENCE-

STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM MY KEYBOARD, YOU WRETCHED, LOATHSOME, GODFORSAKEN DEMONSPAWN! HOW DARE YOU TRY TO IMPERSONATE ME ON MY OWN BLOG?!

DRAG YOUR CARCASS BACK INTO YOUR IRON MAIDEN! BACK! BACK, I SAY! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!

Ahem. My apologies.

My actual answer should be obvious to anybody who’s followed me at all over the last five years…

It could only be the character who singlehandedly got me into this fandom, who will always be first and foremost among my Precure Waifu, who makes even a series as shoddily-written as Smile worth watching for her presence. Cure Peace / Yayoi Kise is the most precious of my precious baes. I relate to her personality and quirks like you wouldn’t believe, I adore her design, I love her voice actress, and she has some of the best spotlight episodes in her series. Yayoi is one of those characters that feels like she was made with me in mind. I have other favorite Cures, of course: Tsubomi Hanasaki / Cure Blossom, Iona Hikawa / Cure Fortune, Kirara Amanogawa / Cure Twinkle, Towa Akagi / Cure Scarlet, Himari Arisugawa / Cure Custard, and Setsuna Higashi / Cure Passion among them, but Yayoi is special.

And when it comes to favorite Precure characters who aren’t Cures, special mention has to go to the following:

Joker from Smile is still far and away my favorite Precure villain… as evidenced by his prominent role in Shattered Skies. He feels like he was pulled in from a different, much better written, much darker series. Plenty of Precure bad guys are evil, but none of them are as straight-up gleefully sadistic as Joker was. He hits some of the same notes as the other, more famous Joker: he can be funny one moment and pants-shitting terrifying the next, or sometimes both; he taps into a primal fear that most people have (CLOWNS); and he steals every scene he’s in. Hell, not only does he completely outclass the actual Big Bad of the show, but he’s possibly the only Precure villain EVER to never really be beaten, destroyed, or purified/turned good by the Cures. Joker suicided himself to revive Pierrot, and went out giggling like a lunatic. Anti-climactic, maybe, but damned if it wasn’t creepy as hell, and totally fitting for him.

And special mention must go to:

Bad End Precure.

They were tragically short-lived and under-utilized. They had one-note personalities at best. They only got a combined fifteen minutes or so of screen time before being unceremoniously killed off.

But holy goddamn HELL do I love the Bad End Cures. I’ve loved them since I saw the first leaked picture of their concept art. Those costumes. They leave every other team of evil Cures in the dust from a design standpoint. And those fifteen minutes of screentime they got to show their stuff may have been woefully short, but I’m hardly the only one they made an impression on… as evidenced by the insane amount of fan content they’re still producing five years later.

Hell, I loved Bad End Peace’s design in particular so much that I started up an RP blog (VERY NSFW and also inactive, so no links for you) for her on this very site, weeks before her episode even aired. And as a point of personal pride: my interpretation of BEP was so, er, distinctive, that I fooled at least a dozen people unfamiliar with the series into thinking she was actually like that in canon! I think it’s safe to say that despite the liberties I took with her character, some of which Toei would doubtless not approve, I treated her way better than Smile canon ever did. And I got at least a couple people I know into Precure through her, so I owe my favorite sparky, fourth-wall-shattering nymphomaniac that much. XD

[kihocrystal]

Mahou Tsukai Precure - Final Impressions

It’s that time of year again; another Precure series has finished its run! You can find my thoughts about Mahou Tsukai Precure under the cut!

Mahou Tsukai Precure! - 7.5 - 8.0 / 10 (B-)

This season was on the weaker side (in comparison to past Precure seasons), but I still had a good time with it and found aspects that I really enjoyed~

art/animation:

Toei did a fine job overall here! everything looks very bright and colorful~

there’s also good use of highlights & sparkles, giving characters lots of shine!

I really liked the art-style in general, as I liked how the rounded eyes & fluffy hair were drawn!

Edit: I forgot about the form changes the Precure have this time around (Diamond, Ruby, Sapphire, and Topaz)!

I liked their implementation much better than in Happiness Charge (since they’re actually used outside of attack animations this time!)

That being said, the extra forms don’t change their style of battle *that* much

Their designs though range from cool to... weird (I’m looking at you, Topaz)

Animation-wise, it had its ups and downs (as most long-running shows do)

In other words, some episodes look great! and others have some off-models shots going on…

Action/fight scenes were also kinda lacking, since there wasn’t much fluidity in their movements

The fights in general were pretty short overall and relied a lot on stock sequences

Those stock sequences (transformations, finishers, etc.) though looked pretty good!

Every other type of scene had pretty standard animation overall (though that art style does help)

CGI is used for the endings again, which doesn’t bother me at all since it looks great!

characters:

The cast was fun overall, but the standouts are definitely the main girls & mascot!

Mirai and Riko are such a good duo! I liked seeing their bonds grow over time, plus they have a good dynamic together!

I also liked how both girls had to adapt to being in a new world! plus both girls reacted differently to their new surroundings!

Mirai was full of wonder, while Riko learned to appreciate the non-magic world (& her family!!!) over time!

Mofurun is definitely one of the best mascots Precure’s had in quite a while!

She’s just super caring, and is basically Mirai’s childhood friend brought to life! What a good idea!

Kotoha/Haa-chan is fun, super bubbly, and had her share of life lessons too! And of course, she develops a strong bond w/ Mirai and Riko too~

(she’s also a nice nod to Hana-chan from Ojamajo Doremi :P)

Plus, I love how all three Precure girls have great seiyuus behind them! Rie Takahashi, Yui Horie, and Saori Hayami! :D

The villains this season were just… okay overall.

The first half minions had some fun personalities at least! They just didn’t get to do much

Also it’s worth noting that Batty actually turned good by the end! (+ the rest came back to fight during the 2nd half too!)

Plus Dokuroxy himself being a former friend of the Headmaster was a nice touch

The second half minions weren’t that exciting either…

There is one exception to this though: Orba’s definitely the best minion of the bunch!

I just really liked how he was super analytical and scheming… he even blackmailed Chikurun into working for him

Plus his seiyuu’s performance (by Noriaki Sugiyama) really helped here too

While i’m talking about seiyuu’s, can I just mention how there’s at least *three* seiyuus from the F/SN series in this???

Kirei’s VA played Gamettsu, Tokiomi’s VA played Shakince, and Shirou’s VA played Orba! it’s like a reunion in here!

The rest of the supporting cast isn’t anything to write home about, but they were good, well, *support* to the Procure girls!

I liked how the adults got some spotlight time too! Including the headmaster, Riko’s family, and even Mirai’s grandma!

The Magic world adults even helped the Precure w/ actual plot stuff!!! I love it when shows do that!

Even the classmates from the Magic world got some focus too!

Can’t really say the same for the non-magic world classmates though (besides the girl who kept saying she saw witch stuff)

I can’t forget Chikurun either! He had a simple yet nice character arc that was good to see~

story:

The premise follows two girls from different worlds that become friends and help bridge the gap between those worlds!

Of course, there’s also the transforming and fighting evil part, as is tradition :P

The main aspect of this show that I think goes unappreciated by many is the slice-of-life aspects!

There’s some focus on world-building for both worlds, ranging from different landscapes to culture and traditions!

Just seeing how these worlds contrasted each other (and in some ways cross paths) was cool to see!

I also liked learning about the worlds’ lore, which also tied into the “fighting evil” plot!

The character stories were also one of this show’s strong suits!

Whether it was giving them good development, or simply them just having a good time, I thought it was executed quite well!

These were definitely the best source of this show’s heartwarming moments~

Honestly, I felt like this show was worth watching for this aspect alone!

As for the “fighting-evil” part of the story, this show fell a little flat in comparison to prior entries

While both halves of the show had different villains behind them, both story arcs kinda had the same problems

The plot beats themselves were fine, but its execution felt pretty basic overall

The villains not being as memorable and the two big climax fights feeling rushed didn’t help either

The story overall almost seemed more concerned w/ the “bridging the two worlds” aspect vs. the “defeating the calamity” aspect (focus on the latter aspect definitely lessened over time)

That being said, I did like certain aspects of the story (including adults being involved and the world’s lore tying into the plot)

I don’t even have a problem w/ Haa-chan being a successor to Mother Rapapa! It makes sense w/ the given foreshadowing!

Also Orba’s involvement later on improved the plot progression a bit w/ his actions (including Chikurun’s character arc)

The finale in particular irked me, though…

There was no reason they couldn’t of just made all of episode 49 the final fight, and episode 50 be the timeskip epilogue...

Instead, the final fight lasts only ~10 minutes and the actual final episode just feels like a OVA instead of a proper finale :T

that being said, the epilogue part in episode 49 *was* pretty dang good~

they even included a KiraPre cameo in episode 50… I’m not sure how I feel about this

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Mahou Tsukai Precure! It’s far from perfect, but its worldbuilding and character arcs helped bring up this show higher for me than it would’ve been otherwise. If you’re a fan of Precure or other monster-of-the-week magical girl shows, I suggest checking it out!

[d-dumais-blog]

Writing About my Hobbies

Writing about my hobbies has always interested me.  I opened my first Xenga blog before entering high school and only posted there three times, mostly about 3D Sonic games and my adventures with my chao.  In high school I’d attempt running a blogspot for a while where I archived my journeys through RPGs until League of Legends totally ruined my life and ate up every waking moment of my life.  Now at 24 I attempt this crazy fever dream at all, and I think you to the small amount going on this adventure with me.  I like to think now that I’ve grown older I’ve also grown more mature and hopefully a little better at this.  I’ve spent the last few weeks traveling to Los Angeles and Dallas and back again because of E3 and Anime Expo and was given a lot of advice in that time.  I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned, what I’ve been told, and what I plan to do here in the near future.  

 All of this is ultimately with the goal of getting some stuff published online! To be clear, I’ve been published online before, unpaid and unaccredited so I won’t link out to those; really what I want is my name on a by line.  That’s really the final goal here, maybe I become a regular contributor, or maybe I just do a small amount of free lance work.  I do not think writing about anime and video games will ever be a full time job for me, and if it does become a job that would be great, but really I’d probably be making less than I am making now, and less than I hope to make in the future.  This has just always been a hobby and a good creative outlet for me, since I’m far better at writing than I am at drawing.  It wouldn’t hurt to make a few extra bucks doing something I love doing, but as stated, this was successful if I get a by line on a website I read and respect.  Bonus points if I get to do any cool interviews or press badges at a con or something? That sounds pretty alright too.  

 With all that out of the way, let’s start with some basics, and I know I’ve mentioned some of this before but let’s try again! I’m going to post every week!!! I’ll need to figure out the best day to post for me personally, so it will be posting on different days for a bit, but the ultimate goal is to pick a day and stick to it! I know I’ve said that on ehre before and then disappeared but cons made posting difficult, and I didn’t think it made much sense to post my Keijo review immediately before seeing the Keijo panel because of the possibility of the panel changing some of my opinions, it didn’t look forward to that Keijo review soon.  I’ll be grounded for a while, spent too much money to do too much traveling over the next few months so it’s only Afest in my hometown to worry about.  As a result all my posts on here won’t be as well researched as others, I don’t have 10 hours every week to dedicate to researching the state of the LDP in the Japanese Diet, even though it’s extremely fascinating right now with preparations for the Olympics and current trade deficits, but that’s another topic for another day.  I’ll do my best to keep the quality of writing high, and any non opinion based statements will be based in some amount of research, I just can’t publish a research paper every seven days.  I was thinking of aiming for one research piece a month, but we’ll have to see how posting once a week fits into my work grind and such since I do work full time for my real job.  

Second, I’ll be making a second twitter page to spam links at all day everyday! I’ll still post on my personal page for anything I’m particularly proud of, but I don’t like spamming my feed with my writing and I should probably try and pick up a few more readers; shout out to the tens of you (22 counts as tens!) that have dropped by on my Gundam post.  The secondary twitter page will give me the ability to be super annoying and post about my stuff all the time without flooding my feed for people that follow me and aren’t interested in my opinions on the most recent Precure.  Creating a separate twitter page will also force me to come up with a better name for this thing because I honestly still hate the name. Naming things is really hard.  

 Next up, I’ll be changing the type of content I’ll be posting here.  I still hate that word and it feels wrong to type it without a # beforehand, but you get the idea.  The content will be changing for a number of reasons.  First, as I’ve stated before, I can’t post a research paper or political diatribe every week as much as I’d love to.  Also apparently if I want people to read my stuff and want to potentially get paid for it I should start aiming for 500 words.  That one is going to be tough for me, hell this update is over 700 words right now so you can tell I struggle with concise thoughts.  I’m going to try posting shorter pieces that might just be an episode review or something? I haven’t exactly figured that part out, but we’ll see and figure it out together!

 My first regular post will be early next week! I’ll be sharing my thoughts on Keijo!!!!!!!! Spoilers, I really love that show and it made my personal top ten list of anime from last year.  It’s another longer piece so we haven’t moved into the 500 word posts yet so hope you’re ready for some in depth opinions on shounen girls butt battles.  See you all next week and, ideally, every week after that for the foreseeable future.  There’s a ton more advice I’ve been given and more I hope to change about this little blog, but this should give you a pretty good idea of what I hope to accomplish here.  

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider OOO Episodes 01-16

I never expected a show aimed at boys would have THIS many scenes centered around male underwear.

The second series on my "watch all of kamen rider" madness! Yay!

The first word that comes to my mind when it comes to OOO is: weird. But it's not weird in a bad way, for the most of it anyway. I'll try best to not make many comparisons to either W or Zero-One, but just as a point of reference for this first statement, I'll mention them for a minute. W and Zero-One touch bases that I'm familiar with (detective stories, futuristic settings, etc.) while OOO is somewhat completely new to me so most of the time I wasn't ready for some of the things that were happening. But like I said, this is a good thing. I really enjoyed watching this first part, it had a few stumbles, but overall it was a great experience. To bring the comparison again, I didn't enjoy it as much as W's first part but I enjoyed it more than I'm enjoying this first third of Zero-One.

The plot of this season is quite interesting, it reminds me of Doki Doki Precure at some points (you can really draw the parallel of selfishness and altruism in both shows), though I wish some things had been established sooner and I feel like the thing with the core medals is a bit confusing, the plot is very engaging. They took a page from W's book, and most of the "weekly cases" are dealt in two episodes, but they also improve in this formula because even in the MOTW plots we can see the overall arc being formed and no episode was left without a hook for the next what makes the whole experience way better and more interesting to follow. If I was watching this weekly this structure would definitely make me excited to always get back to this season, and watching it now after the show is over makes me want to binge-watch everything in one sitting even though that's impossible. So, great stuff.

If there are things I don't like about the plot and the structure it would be, the weird commercial breaks, some of the weekly stories have characters that make them very weak, the many antagonist forces that make things feel overcrowded at times, and a problem I have with most shows when a new hero is about to come in that is when the show makes the protagonists weaker/less effective just to highlight how good the new member of the cast is. But that aside, I pretty much like everything. The comedy, the absurdness, the drama, and the action have had a very good balance so far so OOOs hold many positive points to its name.

Talking about characters, our main protagonist this time, Eiji, while not as charismatic as I would like is still a sweetheart. His lifestyle is a bit questionable, and he has a bit of the Aida Mana syndrome where he gives himself way too much sometimes, also the show doesn't make a good job on keeping his clothes on brand - I mean the dude apparently has only two underwear and one pair of pants but somehow he has many top options and we never know where he keeps all those shirts and tunics - but I really like him. I think what I like the most about him is that at first glance he could seem like the standard "dumb protagonist" but he's actually pretty smart and his smartness doesn't affect his emotional drive which is great.

Sadly his partners on the good side aren't as good. Ankh has a very difficult personality which makes him VERY hard to like, every time he opens up his mouth to babble about his medals I just wanna shove 30 popsicles on his mouth to make him shut up. My biggest problem with him is that we haven't seen him change not even for a bit in all of these episodes and I'm afraid that when they decide to make an emotional climax with him it won't work as well and it'll just ruin what could be a strong moment. Though I love how Eiji knows exactly how to keep him in check, that's another sign of how great Eiji is. Accompanying Ankh we have Hina who's just boring as hell, I don't know if this is a problem of the character or the actress but she really bores me to death, not even her quirk of being insanely strong that could be very fun works with me, which's a shame. And the last character of this group is the owner of Cous Coussier that is a very good minor character that helps to make Ankh and Hina bearable sometimes.

Moving to the antagonists, the GREED are the typical villainous team so I don't have a lot to say about them, their designs are cool and I like that each one has a very strong personality trait and their greediness makes for a very interesting plot point when Kazari decides to betray them. The MOTW are weird as hell, I'm very grossed out every time that coin slot appear on people, but I like that there are different types of them each one works on a different way and it is quite interesting to see how each type feeds on the desires of the population, my favorites are the parasite type and the Mezools' ones. It makes me sad that apparently Mezool and Gamel were the first ones to be defeated because they're my favorites, I think the group has lost a lot from their defeat.

The next antagonists are the Kougami Foundation, and I really love them. Kousei is just as charismatic (or maybe even more) charismatic as Ryuubei was and watching him is a true joy. Maybe it's just my love for baking that draws me to him, but I really think he's a great bad guy. Another great asset Kougami has is the secretary, I don't remember her name but the fact she seems completely apathetic to everything that goes on in that company to me is just hilarious, I'd love to be her friend (I'm sure she's amazing at throwing shade). The weakest link of this company is without a doubt Gotou, he severely lacks in personality and his turmoil of not thinking Eiji is suitable to be Os just because he's jealous since he wants to be the savior of the world makes him sound like an immature kid rather than an interesting character.

Coming as the (unnecessary) third antagonist we have Professor Maki who just makes me want to bang my head against a concrete wall. Like, I really don't know WHY they had to make him a villain, he makes me have war flashbacks of W when they changed the role of final villains from the Sonozaki family to that very boring, soulless guy from Foundation X. And it makes me even madder that they did this change WHEN THEY HAVE A PERFECT SET OF VILLAINS ALREADY IN GREED AND KOUGAMI. All this guy has going for him is that creepy ass doll that will definitely give me nightmares, but other than that he's just completely uninteresting.

Talking about riders, when I saw it on W's movie I really wasn't into Os design, but now I've grown used to it. The medals gimmick is also pretty fun and it gives a good variety of forms the main rider can have, though I think this thing of each Greed having 9 core medals is more complicated than it needed to be, and I really dislike how arbitrary the system of getting core medals from the Greed/O's seem to be, it's also very hard to keep track of who has each medal with how easy the lose and get new ones. I really like the gadgets from this season, I love the idea of everything being on a vending machine, the bike looks really cool, and I LOVE the candroids to death, I'd love to buy a few of them if I wasn't so broke. XD On the other hand, the transformation belt I horrendous, and not even the "sixth ranger" could save it this time because that gashapon belt is just hilarious and I can't take it seriously.

And speaking of said "sixth ranger" here's probably the element I hated the most from these sixteen episodes. Much likely Doki Doki precure, they pulled a Regina/Cure Ace thing where they build-up for Gotou to be the new rider, but comes episode 16 and Kamen Rider Birth is actually A DIFFERENT COMPLETELY NEW GUY. Do I like Gotou or his "arc" that would lead to his possible transformation? Absolutely no. But having that would've been way better than seeing an unknown guy, who came out of the ether, become the new rider. I REALLY hate new members who come out of nowhere, and to top it off the milkshake of hate they made this new guy steal that spotlight of a guy they had been building up for at least 4 episodes prior.

I usually ended these with specific points of specific episodes, but I really covered everything I had to say and If I went on each episode it would be to just point out a few unnecessary nitpicks, so I'll skip doing it this time. I hate to end on such a salty note, especially considering that I genuinely like this show so far, but there was no way to escape from it, I'll try to watch fewer videos of the NerdECrafter before I write next week's post to see if I come here with less salt in my veins, I promise. XD

And these were my first impressions of OOO, thanks for sticking with me for another week and I'll hopefully see you, folks, very soon. Bye bye~.

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider Zero-One Episodes 01-09

The biggest gag of this whole thing is that I don’t have a punchline to talk about a show with a comedian as the main character.

⚠ ⚠ Warning! Very long post ahead, be prepared. ⚠ ⚠

Yes, I’m bringing something weird, kinda unrelated, and very random again to the blog, but seeing that precure is taking a break this week and that I had some free time I thought, why not?

Kamen Rider was something I always wanted to get into but I never did just because of the huge amount of things in this franchise (much like what keeps me away from Idolm@ster, and pushed me from Doctor Who for so many years). But I was babysitting in the weekend and I had to sit down through 5 hours of power rangers on netflix, and that kinda revived this flame on me. And seeing that he newest season of Kamen Rider is still in its early days I thought it was a good time to start.

I’ll go back and watch the older seasons (at least the ones from the Heisei Era) because *spoilers* I enjoyed Zero-One quite a lot, and it also would fit with a project I’m planning for next year, but I won’t give much detail on that just yet. For now, let’s just focus on the task at hand and talk about Kamen Rider Zero-One.

Since this is a review/first impressions post instead of talking specifically about each episode I’ll talk about some specific topics. Starting by the plot.

This setting is very entertaining, I don’t know if it’s the future, or if this is some kind of alternate reality where humanity has progressed faster than our reality or whatever, but I like the futuristic vibe. The concept of Humagears isn’t anything new, it’s what you expect from a futuristic show, but it is somewhat decent. I don’t know if talking about machines getting conscience is a concept that’s easily palatable to kids, and I have a feeling that the show will lack in this discussion, but I’m okay with it.

I’m okay because this show does an amazing job when it comes to being emotional. In every episode, they make us sympathetic to at least one character and when this character gets caught between fire or is turned in the MOTW we feel for them. I was especially touched by Mamoru in Episode 2, the kid from episode 4, the seiyuu Humagear played by Karen Miyama and her father in episodes 5 and 6, and especially the coach and the basketball team from episode 7. In a very short amount of time, they made me feel attached to these characters and I was really invested in their stories and that’s a huge plus for me.

The plot regarding the company is probably the least interesting and the less believable IMO. Maybe it’s just me being dumb, after all this is a show where dudes transform in mecha armors with animal motifs using belts, but I find hard to believe that in any parallel world a successful and respected businessman would hand their very important company in the hands of someone unprepared for the business. Yes, the protagonist being the head of the company gives him an interesting plot point in episodes 8 and 9, but that was really the only time I saw it as being used in an interesting way in all of these episodes.

A.I.M.S. is a thing I have mixed feelings. First they seem to be the police, then they seem to be like a third (shadier) private organization, still they seem to use things as if they’re the government, they seem like they can play a very interesting role but this beginning is just so confusing I don’t know what to think of them. Though I have a major problem being that they seem to be huge, very important, smarter than the other, above everyone else, Still on episode 8 they let themselves be invaded without offering that much resistance resulting in loss of equipment and valuable data, and after all shit is done, they didn't run any kind of scan in their giant robots to see if nothing happened to them. That was really dumb.

The part I like the least is the villains' plot, they are boring as hell and I can’t care enough about them. The reveal on episode 8 that they’re also humagears is very rushed and very dumb because it shows that the protagonist has been wrong all of this time. I genuinely would like more if this was a revolution created by a maniac with a god complex rather than another story of machines rebelling against humans.

I can’t talk about Plot without talking about Characters. While this is a show that does one-off characters wonderfully, the majority of the main cast I have issues with, at least for now.

Aruto is the regular protagonist of any sentai show, I feel, so I don’t have strong feelings about him so far. Though, the characteristic that is supposed to differentiate him from the others makes me not like him as much. I don’t know if it’s because his jokes are lost in translation or if it is the style of comedy that doesn’t resonate with me personally, but to me he’s not funny he’s just very cringe. I also don’t like how this is overused and more often than not it ruins beautiful, touching or emotional moments. Though Aruto has something great in his favor that is his companion Izu. Izu is a delight and she makes Aruto be way more bearable as a character. Yes, her gag when she has to explain Aruto’s jokes is overused and after nine episodes I don’t think it’s very funny anymore, but I still enjoy her a lot and episodes 8 and 9 showed a lot of potential for her.

A.I.M.S flagship characters once again show my mixed feelings about the organization. While I love Yua (she’s probably my favorite character), I hate Fuwa to death. Yua is very interesting, she shows signs of humanity but she’s not afraid of using the resources she has at hand to fulfill her missions, she’s the gray character in the sea of blacks and whites and I love this, it’s still very shallow but it gave her character some level of complexity that put her above the other to me. Fuwa on the other hand… I may be wrong about him, he may pull a Bakugou on me and make me sympathetic towards him later on, but for now his hot-blooded, hard-headed, stubborn personality gets under my skin and seeing him loosing in Episode 8 was probably my favorite moment of him so far. (PS.: I know Fuwa’s first name is Isamu but I don’t think he was ever referred by his first name so far so I’ll stick to calling him Fuwa)

Like I mentioned before, I don’t care for anyone in MetsubouJinrai.net. Jin had something going on for him in episode 6, but instead of using that to build him as a character the show just threw that away by revealing that he’s not actually Horobi’s son, he’s just a Humagear he made and they took away all the things that made him interesting. Horobi seemed like just the generic villain, then he raised his status with the whole “I made you Jin” thing, but once again they lost any kinda of dept to his character when they made him another Humagear instead of a human going against society.

Tied in with the characters talk there’s the Rider aspect of the thing. I can’t judge them in level of efficiency or anything since I don’t really have some reference point to compare them to, but I can talk about designs!

Zero-One has a pretty efficient design, when you look at it you can immediately recognize that this is from Kamen Rider yet it’s still unique enough to differentiate from its predecessors. His power-up forms are also very decent, though I wish in some of them we had less of the grasshopper design and more of the animal the power-up is evoking. My favorite forms are Flaming Tiger and Freezing Bear since these are the forms that keep less from the original design. I don’t know if he giant mammoth mecha is considered a power-up but I’ll mention it here, that thing is very goofy I can’t take it seriously.

Vulcan and Valkyrie are pretty similar and bland in their basic forms, though I enjoy the touch of half of them being more mechanized and the other half share more similarities to their animals. In terms of power-ups, Vulcan’s Punching Kong isn’t very imaginative and there are not enough changes for me to like it. Valkyrie’s Lightning Hornet, however, is my favorite form of all of them, I love how it feels like a completely different design from the original and the colors work pretty well together.

I don’t know if they’re also considered Riders but I’ll talk about them anyway. I love Jin’s Flying Falcon, the shade of pink is very pretty and to me it has a better design than Zero-One’s form. Horobi is basically just a recolor of Jin, but it works I feel, maybe it’s just my love for purple and the fascination for scorpions and poison-related powers but I enjoy it. Talking about the Magias I feel that their designs are very hit or miss, more misses in my case, but I can’t deny that some of them are very funny.

The transformation devices all look kinda silly, if I was a kid I wouldn’t see myself interested in any of them. Though I’m all here for the progrise keys designs, it’s simple, it’s colorful, it’s fun, they look like cassette tapes and I love them. The briefcase weapons I also dislike, they seem like a very fun design for a toy in scale of a figure, but in the show hey seem way too big and don’t work as well for me, though I like Horobi’s arrow version. Zero-One has a very cool looking bike, but I gotta admit when it falls down from sky looking like a cellphone I can’t help but crack at it because it just looks way too goofy.

The last thing I have to comment on is production. Though I don’t have the knowledge to give a proper analysis I gotta say the show looks very well produced.

The locations are very pretty, the action, for the most part, is very impressive, the soundtrack is decent, and sometimes they take some styling decisions that are very impressive – like the “attacks animations” and when they’ve put these comic borders during a portion of the fight in Episode 5 to seem like it was part of a manga. The characterization is also pretty spot-on, we have the futuristic elements yet there are this similar present days vibe that makes things more relatable and easy to connect with this world, I especially love the earphone thing the Humagears have, is such a nice touch.

The actors are all pretty good as well. Yes, there are some moments where they go way overboard IMO, but overall they do very well with what they’re given to work with. Props to Noa Tsurushima for being able to pull out an amazing Izu that is very robotic but still has this very human aura to her. I also checked them out in their social media and it seems that the cast get along very well and they always seem to be having a blast in the backstage pictures. Also, did you know Fuwa’s actor has a youtube channel and he apparently does lives every single day? I was very shocked when I found out about that.

And the biggest thing that deserves praise is the special effects and CGI that, aside from a few moments like the giant mechas fighting in Episode 9, are amazing and a delight to the eyes. It’s very rare for me to find a show that is heavily dependant on CGI that doesn’t tickle me off and this one managed to pull it off wonderfully and I can’t wait to see more of it.

And these are my thoughts on the first nine episodes of Kamen Rider Zero-One, I really enjoyed the show and this is now part of my fixed weekly schedule of shows to watch. Have any of you seen it, what are your thoughts about it? One of the things I liked the most during the symphogear season was interacting in the comments and discussing the episode and I haven’t seen much of that recently so please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts as well. In any case, thank you so so much for sitting through this very long post, and I’ll see you a next time. (guess is finally time for me to aikatsu again after an entire month)

[muthaz-rapapa]

Idol Precure Series: A Gratuitous Costume Parade

Because that is literally what this is. An excuse to dress everyone up in cute clothes. 

Not complaining, though. The girls look fabulous~

Anyways, y’all aware they were grouped together because of what their civilian identities have in common, right?

Well, that’s how I see it so I typed this up so I can use it for reference later.

Initially, it was just a companion (?) piece to this StarPre prediction post (therefore, the StarPre girls haven’t been included yet so go check out that post until they are) but now I’ll come back to edit/update it again when more new stuff is released or I find better quality pictures.

I also have some ideas for possible new groups if they ever add or mix-and-switch the current ones but that’ll be on another post altogether to avoid confusing myself, ahaha~

Anata no kokoro o mitoshi-tai (Team “I see through your heart”)

Members: Yukishiro Honoka, Hanasaki Tsubomi, Tsukikage Yuri, Shirabe Ako, Yakushiji Saaya

At a glance, it seems like they put all the smart ones together but it’s really because these girls all wear glasses.

Yep, the meganekko group.

I mean, they are smart but the key point here is clearly the glasses. Which is a tad bit of a shame because I feel like that (moe aspect) takes away from recognizing them for their intelligence first.

On another note, interestingly enough, I believe there’s a play on words with their unit name. If you say it out loud without knowing the context, it really sounds like “I want to look into your heart”. Can someone confirm this? My amateur Japanese isn’t enough to explain it eloquently.

Others who can fit into this group: Hishikawa Rikka

Bunbu Ranbu (”Martial Dance”)

Members: Myoudouin Itsuki, Aoki Reika, Yotsuba Alice, Hikawa Iona

Martial arts practitioners.

Also, I’m pretty sure Reika knows some kendo along with kyūdō since we’ve seen her wielding a giant ice sword as Cure Beauty multiple times throughout the franchise. We just didn’t see her do it in civilian form. Hmm. :/

Others who can fit into this group: ...

Eternal Moment

Members: Higashi Setsuna (Eas), Akagi Towa (Twilight)

Former villainesses who turned good and became a main heroine.

I’m so glad they didn’t forget about their evil alter-egos cuz Eas and Twilight (or perhaps just Twilight) can be considered separate characters in their own rights so it’s nice to see them show up in advertisement again every once in a while.

Hmmm, their name though... it looks like this unit might only be intended for two people (”Eternal” for Towa and ��Moment” for “Setsuna”).

That is, unless they add onto it like HNMH (see below) if they plan to include more girls into this category. If so, then...

Others who can fit into this group: Kurokawa Ellen, Lulu Amour

Mystic Diva

Members: Kurokawa Ellen, Kenzaki Makoto

Haresora Concerto (”Clear Sky Concerto”)

Members: Minazuki Karen, Hojo Hibiki

Haresora Concerto with Mystic Diva (collab?)

Additional members: Tategami Aoi

Girls with strong affiliation to music...I think?

We saw Karen playing the violin in Yes!5 Precure’s OP and her parents are famous musicians themselves (just like Hibiki’s) but I can’t recall if she ever played any instrument during any particular episode in Yes! 5 or Gogo(?). Anyways...

Mystic Diva contains those who are renowned singers from another world (I don’t think Ellen sang much after she sorta permanently remained in human form but as Siren, she was one of the top contenders next to Hummy to sing the Melody of Happiness so there’s that).

Haresora Concerto obviously are for those who practice classical instruments.

Finally, the collaboration...is it a collaboration or did they really merge the two units together? If not, then Aoi will still need to be assigned to a group and if we’re going by the above criteria, she doesn’t fit into either one (Mystic Diva isn’t really her style anyway and she’s long given up the violin to play the guitar).

Maybe they’ll come up with another unit specifically focused on the rock genre in the future cuz we have Emiru and Lulu now so that’ll be enough to start one.

Others who can fit into Mystic Diva: Lulu Amour (+ guitar) [??]

Granted, Lulu didn’t sing before she arrived in present day Hugtto but she did say she’s going to bring music back to the future so...why not count that and the future as “another world”, hmm?

Others who can fit into Haresora Concerto: Yotsuba Alice (piano), Haruno Haruka (violin), Akagi Towa (violin), Kaidou Minami (violin) [??]

I don’t really associate Minami with music even though she is skilled at playing the violin. It’s just that compared to Towa and Haruka where the violin played a significant part in their story arcs, Minami and the violin is more secondary (pfft, not even) to her connection with the sea. But then again...Karen is in this group so I dunno :S

Did I forget anyone else who plays a classical instrument? I feel like I’m missing someone...

Others who can join the collab: Everyone listed above + Kasugano Urara (singing), Aisaki Emiru (singing, piano, violin and guitar)

Haruka Nozomu Mirai no Hana (”Wishing for the Flower of the Far Off Future”)

Members: Yumehara Nozomi, Haruno Haruka, Asahina Mirai, Nono Hana

The dream chasers.

And by far, the unit I find the most aesthetically pleasing. ^^

Also, I feel like some people would try to argue that Mirai “didn’t have a goal and therefore, she doesn’t belong in this group” so as she is my beloved daughter, I need to make them eat the dirt of their WRONGNESS.

Because MahoPre’s epilogue obviously showed her trying to find a way to reunite with Riko and Ha-chan, aka bring their two worlds together again, so that definitely counts as her dream (not to mention, the most ambitious one out of everybody else’s in this group). Furthermore, if you actually watched MahoPre more closely, you would know her dream of the two worlds coming together came to her gradually rather than happening at a particular moment and was solidified after she had to separate from her team after the Big Boss fight in the finale.

And you know what? Her wish was fulfilled in the end so y’all can suck it. :P

Others who can fit into this group: ...

Home Maid

Members: Kujo Hikari, Minamino Kanade, Madoka Aguri, Omori Yuko, Usami Ichika, Arisugawa Himari

Cooking or maybe, more accurately, sweets enthusiasts? *makes side eye at Aguri*

Well, besides that, they also either helped out at a restaurant or provided a service that had something to do with food (tea ceremony in Aguri’s case).

Hence, the “maid” part, I guess...

...but if so, then this is a poster for a maid cafe, not an idol unit! :P

Others who can fit into this group: Hyuuga Saki (family runs a bakery) [?], Akimoto Komachi (family runs a Japanese confectionery shop) [?], Hino Akane (family runs an okonomiyaki restaurant) [?], Haruno Haruka (family runs a Japanese confectionery restaurant) [?], Kotozume Yukari (learned from her grandmother how to perform tea ceremonies) [?], Kirahoshi Ciel (owns her own sweets restaurant), Nono Hana (grandparents ran a Japanese confectionery shop)

With the exception of Ciel, a lot of “?” cases here because similar to the Karen/Minami in Haresora Concerto, their main interests don’t particularly lie in cuisine and most of them never stated any intention of carrying on their family business. So it’s really up to whether you want them in this unit or not. Personally, I think Home Maid has enough members already so...

Oh and Hana was crossed off the list since she became the president of her own company at the end of Hugtto.

M.V.P.

Members: Misumi Nagisa, Hyuuga Saki, Natsuki Rin, Hino Akane, Midorikawa Nao

This one’s self-explanatory. Athletes. Sporty types.

Not much else to say.

Others who can fit into this group: Hojo Hibiki, Kagayaki Homare (?)

Yes, while Homare does participate in a sport, singles figure skating is mostly an individual event so the MVP title can’t really be applied to her. I guess that was the reasoning behind why she wasn’t placed in this group even though that’s what she’s most known for.

Osha-Revolution

Members: Kurumi Erika, Shirayuki Hime, Kagayaki Homare

The fashionistas!

This is my most favorite idol unit name out of all the others not only because it sounds like the most cleverly thought out but also because just hearing the word “revolution” gets the legendary Utena Revolution OP playing in my head again. *jams to the beat*

Thankfully, it’s got no connection to this idol series cuz *GAAASP*......*whispers* no.

Anyways, I’m glad it’s universally agreed upon that Erika and Hime would get along like five runways crisscrossing simultaneously at Fashion Week. Adding Homare to this lineup is appropriate because she’s always being complimented for dressing so stylishly.

Also, having someone as tall as her stand in between Erika and Hime like a giraffe hanging between two Hyacinth Macaws, lol is really...picture perfect.

Others who can fit into this group: ...

Secret Lives

Members: Mimino Kurumi, Hanami Kotoha, Kirahoshi Ciel

Mascots who can transform and became one of the main heroines in their respective seasons.

I like their aesthetic, too. Even though they give off cute vibes as much as any of the other idol groups, there’s still a “mystery” air about them.

Others who can fit into this group: Kurokawa Ellen (?)

Ermmm...Ellen was a mascot but she wasn’t aligned with the good side in the beginning. And after she became a Cure, she didn’t revert back to cat form again... *shrug*

Soushi⇄Souai (”Mutual Love with Creativity”)

Members: Mishou Mai, Akimoto Komachi, Hoshizora Miyuki, Kise Yayoi

Those whose strongest weapon is the pen (or brush) in their hand. Or something like that? I was trying to go for something more artful but I guess not. :P

This group’s name gave me a little trouble in translating but I think what I settled for in the end gets the idea across well enough. They love creating so much that they’ll be rewarded in kind with lots of inspiration.

...which sounds a bit unfair for everyone else suffering creative blocks but okay.

Others who can fit into this group: Nono Hana

Triple Heart

Members: Momozono Love, Aida Mana, Aino Megumi

The love-obsessed.

Not much else to say here either.

Others who can fit into this group: ...

Up to Me

Members: Aono Miki, Izayoi Riko, Kotozume Yukari

The Ladies.

At least that’s what I like to think them as. “Up to Me” gives off the impression of a very decisive person. Along with how mature they act, these girls fit that description to their own special degrees.

Like, Miki is very focused on her modeling career and confident she’ll go far, Riko has good work ethic and always aims for her goals and Yukari is, well, good at almost everything and is also a very “my pace” kind of woman.

...they all have purple hair, too, so I’m wondering if that’s another prerequisite for being added to this unit.

Others who can fit into this group: Tsukikage Yuri, Kenzaki Makoto (?)

Yuri would fit in no problem but Makoto I’m still teetering back and forth on...

Urara*Kirara

Members: Kasugano Urara, Amanogawa Kirara

Ra♪Raa♪Raaa♪Raaaa♪Raaaaa♪ Suīto Suīto Puri-Kyu=AH♪

Girls who aspire for the stage (acting and signing for Urara and modeling for Kirara) and have “-rara” in their names.

If that’s the case here, guess this is another unit meant for anyone who fits those limited criteria. Otherwise...

Others who can fit into this group: Aono Miki (modeling), Kenzaki Makoto (singing)

White Coat Angels

Members: Yamabuki Inori, Hishikawa Rikka, Kaidou Minami, Kenjou Akira

Those with a future in medicine.

But Minami...hmm, well, though it was never clearly stated what her profession was (I don’t think?) when she grew up, she could’ve gone on to become a wildlife veterinarian after she achieved her degree in marine biology so yea, she counts.

Others who can fit into this group: Minazuki Karen, Yakushiji Saaya

Exclusive??

Kiratto! Open to All

Members: Kira Kira Precure a la Mode

Twin Love

Members: Aisaki Emiru, Lulu Amour

Pretty damn sure the first one was made specially just for KiraPre. No other girls sport blatant animal imagery on them. Plus, there’s no point in including anymore members than how many this group already has.

As for Twin Love, it’s a canon idol pair unit in Hugtto. Adding anyone else in it would not make it “Twin” Love anymore.

So that leaves the question of where Emiru and Lulu will go in the next series, I guess. Though I’m sure they’ll stick together wherever they’re assigned.

Side B

Royal Road

Members: Kokoda Koji (Coco), Natts, Ouji Masamune, Prince Kanata

Fairy Five

Members: Amai Shiro (Syrup), Pop, Raquel, Lance, Aroma

Did anyone else think that “Side B” also stood for “Side Boys” before Dark Party was released? (And yes, I know what a B-side track is so you don’t have to tell me)

Anyways, Royal Road is obviously for the prince characters (though I don’t think they really needed to add Ouji-senpai since he’s just a minor recurring character, not supporting but whatever) and Fairy Five is for the younger male mascots who can transform.

Others who can fit into Royal Road: Prince Zeke, Wakamiya Henri, Aisaki Masato (?)

If Dark Dream can join an idol unit despite being a movie-only character, then I don’t see why they can’t integrate Prince Zeke into this unit as well. All that matters is how popular or memorable he was in HaCha’s movie because everyone who was picked out for Side B had to have had an impact on the audience one way or another. But at least Zeke makes more sense than Ouji-senpai.

Henri needs no explanation as he is the “Prince of the Ice” but if you want a prince to accompany his occasional “princess” role, including Masato wouldn’t be a bad idea. Though I still think Masato’s more of a knight than a prince.

Others who can fit into Fairy Five: Kuroro (?)

Granted, Kuroro only got a human form by combining powers with Lock in the final battle of Go!Pri and hasn’t technically earned it yet since he only begun fairy training when the season ended...but if he can, why not?

The Enemy Boys

Members: Irisawa Kiriya, Luntarou (Wolfrun), Kurosu (Close), Rio (Julio/Pikario)

Off-White

Members: Soular, Westar, Phantom, Shut

“The Enemy Boys” ...more like “School Infiltrators” since they were the few among villains to pose as students in order to get closer to the Cures.

Off-White consists of bishounen villains who eventually came around to understanding and siding with the good side. Which explains the “off white” part, I guess, since it wasn’t an immediate reform for them but a more gradual one that needed a lot of persuasion and thinking.

Others who can fit into The Enemy Boys: ...

Others who can fit into Off-White: Charaleet

Precure Legendary Heroes

Members: Cure Fire (Ban Kenji), Cure Sebastian (Sebastian)

Dark Party

Members: Dark Dream, Dark Precure, Regina, Bibury Vibry

Legendary Heroes is clearly a parody of the Precure franchise itself but since we already grew out of those jokes thanks to Hugtto, I’m hoping I won’t see any updates for this group ever again. And I will be absolutely livid if they dare to put Cure Infini in this unit because that is not funny.

Dark Party needs no extensive explanation as they were former nemesis/rivals to the Cures who never really got a “good” form even after their Heel-Face Turn (Dark Precure didn’t even get one of these). Which is fine because that’s essentially their charm. What makes dark magical girls so appealing is how awesome they are even when they’re “evil”.

Also gotta love the gothic lolita clothes that a number of them usually wear. If they didn’t keep Side B separate from Side A, I totally would’ve liked to put Eas and Twilight in this group as well.

Others who can fit into Dark Party: ...

List of updates under the cut...

[1/29/19] - Post published.

TBA

TBA

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 010

Episode: Futari wa Precure 10 - “Honoka explodes! A wonderful birthday!” Date watched: 19 April 2018 Original air date: 4 April 2004 (this is actually Honoka’s birthday, so that’s good timing) Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/z0BY3sb

This episode finally puts Honoka in the spotlight like she deserves! It's her birthday, her parents are in town, she's happy, Nagisa's happy, everybody's happy! And a happy Honoka is a good Honoka. Until.... her dad gets a call from a client who absolutely has to see him that day, and while they're at the art gallery some bank robbers show up, and then Gekidrago decides to get involved. But you know Honoka's going to find a way around that, and her resourcefulness is sharp today! So what happens? It starts with Nagisa visiting Honoka's place so that Mepple and Mipple can be together as an apology for not believing he was sick in the previous episode. Honoka gets a call from her dad who lets her know where to meet tomorrow. She is visibly excited because she hardly ever sees her own parents, due to their work. They're art dealers and they travel all over the world making business deals a lot, but they always come back to see Honoka on her birthday. And so they turn up at the airport the next day, with a mountain of presents in store for her. After almost literally smothering her with their love, they decide to take her wherever she wants! Unfortunately, her dad's phone rings and it's a client who wont' take "no" for an answer. (hey, Mr. Yukishiro, you guys seem wealthy enough that you can afford to skip out on this one if they don't respect the day you designated off limits) Honoka, being the way too nice girl that she is, tells them to go ahead and take care of business, it's okay with her. So they go to an art gallery that's displaying jewelry, and Honoka waits in a chair while her parents head to the back room. Meanwhile, Nagisa decides to make Honoka a present, since she can't afford to buy anything. After some work, she ends up making a silver charm of Mipple and Mepple, but she chooses to wait to give it to her tomorrow so she doesn't interrupt Honoka's family time. Back at the jeweler/bank/gallery/whatever, three masked men show up to rob the place while Honoka is out of the room. She gets back and after ascertaining the situation, she lays the verbal smackdown on them. I personally love this. If you remember in episode 5 when she scolded the creepy boys, this is even better. Honoka berates them for stealing instead of doing honest work, whatever their reasons. As the episode progresses we figure out that these aren't hardened criminals, just a trio of dudes who got caught in a ton of debt from a sleazy boss and a busted company, and Honoka's speech begins to turn them. Before they can call the police to turn themselves in though, Gekidrago breaks into the gallery, which is on lockdown, and traps everybody in it. He's after the Prism Stones of course, although we don't know how he knew where to find Honoka or Mipple. Honoka, clever girl that she is, tells him the Prism Stone is somewhere in the gallery among all the jewelry. Not being the sharpest tool in the shed, Gekidrago sits down to examine every piece of jewelry in the place to find them. Meanwhile, Honoka and her parents separately signal for help, catching the attention of the police and Nagisa. Nagisa rushes to the scene, but it's barricaded off now and naturally she won't be let in. However she conveniently overhears one of the officers discussing an air vent that's too small for an adult to crawl through, so somehow she finds that and gets to Honoka just as Gekidrago realizes he's been tricked. They transform, kick his butt in perfect synchronization, and Marble Screw the hell out of him. He's able to resist it, even as they ramp up the power, but all the scattered jewelry on the ground begins to glow and fire little beams at him as well, and it's more than he can withstand. He gets blown sky high in a fabulous light show and everything returns to normal. Nagisa quickly hands off Honoka's gift to her and wishes her a happy birthday before disappearing back into the air vent. Honoka's parents apologize for the day being ruined and claim that they're horrible parents for being unable to protect her. Honoka says she loves them anyway, and that it's alright, and that's the end. Honoka's parents.... they're nice. They don't do much, but they're nice. From what little we've seen, Nagisa probably has a better family, but the Yukishiros' hearts are in the right place at least. They just want to do right by their daughter and feel bad when they can't.... honestly you should probably travel less, but that's just me. For the show's purposes, their absence is a tool to increase Honoka's isolation and ramp up how different her life is from Nagisa's, and it accomplishes that. Obviously this episode shows us a lot more of Honoka than we're used to and what we see is fantastic. She's way too nice for her own good, but she's not a serene angel. She can get mad, she can snap, and when she does, she can scare adults into submission. Her taking control of the robbery, turning the would-be robbers into an audience for her lecture, is a demonstration of Honoka's commanding capabilities. Her resourcefulness when she immediately thought of a way to distract Gekidrago while she figured out how to signal Nagisa, and then the method of doing so, were very clever. Although, let's talk about that signal for a moment. Honoka sent Mipple up to a window, to pose as a stuffed animal, in hopes that the news cameras would see her and Nagisa would tune into the news in time to see Mipple and know from there where to go. Fortunately she did, but the plan hinges on a lot of unpredictable things going just right. I don't know what else she could have done but still. At least it worked, and Nagisa showed up in the nick of time. EDIT: I forgot to mention, Honoka has a few lines before Nagisa shows up about how life has both good and bad times, and taking them together is what makes us human. It's a perfect summation of the core theme and motif of this series, of taking opposites together and making something better out of them. The fight scene is kind of brief, but is beautifully choreographed. Every move they make is perfectly mirrored between them and they land a lot of good hits on Gekidrago in not a lot of time. There's no Zakenna this week, which I thought was neat. Later shows become so reliant on the monster of the week that the generals feel almost superfluous except to exposit about their ~evil plans~ so for one to just step up and fight the girls directly is refreshing. Him tanking the Marble Screw, as he's attempted to do in the past, gets you afraid for a moment. This time it looks like he can actually withstand it.... and then that deus ex machina with the jewelry happens. It comes out of nowhere, makes no sense, Honoka explains it away with a nonsensical anecdote about jewels having hearts, and it never happens again in the entire series. Oh well, there's only one more episode of the lumbering lunk left, so come back tomorrow for Nagisa's crowning moment of awesome. Until then!

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 027

Episode: Futari wa Precure 27 - “A new darkness is coming! Save the lost child Porun!” Date watched: 7 May 2018 Original air date: 8 August 2004 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/bgK8PMY

The new Venom movie looks weird.

Welcome to the second half of the show! This is a bit more plodding and ponderous than the first half, and since I’m running with the idea that the first half of the show was meant to be the entire show, it’s probably because they weren’t sure what to do with the next 23 episodes. We aren’t told how much time has passed since they girls defeated the Dark King, but it’s implied to have been a little while. The episode cold opens on a flowery field that slowly withers and dies as a dark plant sprouts into that vine grows into a person. 

As one does.

Cut to the theme song and then a flashback to an exposition scene in the Garden of Light with the Queen explaining that the Dark King released some seeds before his destruction that will grow in the Garden of Rainbows and gather energy for his revival. You can see where this is going. Mepple, Mipple, and Porun explain that this is why they’re back.

Let me take a moment to talk some more about Porun. I mentioned in the last two reviews that I’m not fond of him, not in his early appearances. He is extremely annoying, and it’s really not until Hikari shows up that he mellows out. This is because he is a child, while Mepple and Mipple are adults, or close to it. He is young and full of energy, almost literally bouncing off the ceiling. I don’t dislike him for being a child, I dislike him for how he’s written. His actions are frequently the catalyst for the plot of the week, and it gets repetitive. In this episode, he runs away from Honoka’s place and romps around the city, at one point making his way into a claw machine and being picked up by some older girls. He runs away, gets scared of the big bad world outside, and eventually is found by the villains. Fortunately Nagisa and Honoka find him in time or that could have been the end of the show. He’s back on the garden of Rainbows because the Queen mentioned that he’s very powerful, moreso than he knows. This will take a few episodes to manifest, so bear with it.

Also yes, the queen is back to being a statue. The camera pans all over her, but she doesn’t move. Sure, that’s one of the benefits of CG models is that you don’t have to redraw them every single frame, but it’s funny how she just sits there, with her eyes closed, talking but not moving a muscle while the camera is extremely dynamic, the opposite of how this show usually is.

Meanwhile in some random office building, a Totally Not Evil guy walks around.

Talk about a punchclock villain.

It seems he’s in a dormant state, but the news of a typhoon coming up the east coast activates him. He yells and jumps out the window, transforming into his villain form and absorbing power.

This is Juna. He’s not named in the episode but his name isn’t important so I’m going ahead and revealing it now.

Also back in the office, after a moment, everything resets and people repeat what they were just doing, with all traces of his existence gone.

As Juna continues to absorb power and bulk up, he causes the weather to change aggressively. Stormy, then calm, then stormy, then calm. He eventually finds Porun and that’s when the girls show up. They take him on and it’s an exciting fight, not one-sided like some of their latest encounters. He gets some good hits in, they get some good hits in, and they trade blows until he lets off some energy attacks, so the girls fire their Marble Screw, which he counters with an energy ball (what is this, Pokemon?). They engage in a reverse tug of war, both sides pushing their attack towards the enemy, but the threat to Porun, who is only a child, is enough to get Black and White to power up their attack and blow Juna away.

When the smoke clears, he’s disappeared, and the girls return home. Nagisa laments the fact that she has to put up with both Mepple AND Porun for now, and I can’t blame her.

Juna is.... well I guess I can’t call him an “interesting” villain, because he’s very literally the strong and silent type. He’s somewhere in between Gekidrago’s raw strength and Ilkubo’s resilience and learning capacity. His design is a dark blue bodysuit that covers his feet, clings absurdly tight to the skin, and reaches all the way up his neck to his chin and hairline. His hands are bare, though. He has pale white skin and white hair. It’s vaguely similar to the outfits Pisard, Poisony, and Ilkubo wore without any other accessories to break it up, and much more muscular. Skintight suits must be standard issue for the Dark Zone. There’s sort of a mystery where he came from, how he integrated into human life so much if he was born only a short time ago. Does he have a brainwashing effect on people so he can absorb knowledge from them? I don’t know. He awakens in the office but as soon as he jumps out of the window, everybody has forgotten about him and all traces of him are gone. The show never addresses this, either.

As a kickoff to the second half of the show, it’s good. The villain poses a threat, we’ve established enough of an explanation for the Dark Zone’s continued existence and motivation, and it leaves you wanting to see what comes next, how the girls will ultimately triumph in the fight against evil. Next time, a villainess awakens!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1! 1 “Arienai”