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darkershining · 6 years

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DarkerShining’s thoughts on Pretty Cure: Kira Kira Pretty Cure A La Mode

It’s that time again! Time to write another one of these! Yay!

Last time, I talked about Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure, and this time, I’ll be talking about Kira Kira Pretty Cure A La Mode.

Our story begins when a cheerful young girl named Ichika Usami is heading home to bake a cake for her mother, who is coming home for a visit after being busy travelling due to her job as a doctor. Around the same time, a strange explosion of cream happens on top of Strawberry Mountain, and Ichika and four other girls notice clouds in the shape of various types of sweets in the sky.

Returning home and trying to make a cake, Ichika keeps messing up and can’t seem to get the cake to rise properly. Suddenly, a puppy-like fairy called Pekorin ends up falling into Ichika’s kitchen, and despite initially freaking out, Ichika is quick to assist the young fairy when Pekorin says she’s hungry for sweets. She can’t find anything right away, but reluctantly allows Pekorin to try one of the failed cakes, which she finds good despite the failure since it’s still full of kira-kiraru. Ichika returns to baking, and Pekorin notices what Ichika is doing wrong and gives her some advice. With Pekorin’s help, Ichika is able to successfully get the cake to rise properly.

Before Ichika can decorate the cake, she receives a phone call from her mother, and finds out that she had to delay her visit because something suddenly came up. Feeling downcast at the news, Ichika doesn’t feel like finishing the cake. However, Gummy, a fairy that Pekorin was trying to stop from stealing the kira-kiraru from the sweets in town shows up. Gummy uses the kira-kiraru from the failed cakes to power up, and Pekorin quickly flies off with the one successful cake to stop Gummy from taking the kira-kiraru from it.

Ichika chases after the two, and suggests they just hand over the cake so Gummy will leave Pekorin alone, since her mother isn’t coming home today after all. However, before Ichika can hand the cake over, Pekorin convinces her that all the feelings Ichika put into making the cake are too important for her to just surrender, and Ichika realizes that Pekorin is right and that she can’t bring herself to do so.

Ichika’s strong feelings resonate with the kira-kiraru inside the cake, and as Ichika decorates it with a rabbit-motif, it suddenly transforms into Animal Sweets and a Sweets Pact, giving Ichika the power to become Cure Whip, one of the legendary patissier Pretty Cure. With her new powers, Cure Whip is able to defeat Gummy and force him to retreat.

Soon, Ichika is able to bond with four other girls through their love of sweets, who join her as Pretty Cure. Together, they fight to protect everyone’s feelings, while running a café at the side.

All right, you know the drill! The rest of my thoughts will be put under the Read More and there will be spoilers for the whole series. (previous parts can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)

Ichika Usami/Cure Whip

Our lead pink Cure of the season. Ichika is an energetic girl who loves sweets, baking and seeing people’s smiles. She’s good at connecting with others, and understanding others’ feelings. She’s initially not that good at baking, but with the help of Pekorin and her fellow Cures, she gradually improves her skills at making sweets. She’s also quite creative, and comes up with the various animal themed designs for the sweets she makes with her friends when inspiration hits her. Thanks to Pekorin, she realizes how important her feelings are, which allows her to become Cure Whip, a strawberry shortcake- and rabbit-themed Cure with enhanced hearing and good jumping skills, and the Pretty Cure of cheerfulness and smiles.

I really like Ichika. She’s got the energy and ability to connect with others that you’d expect of a lead Cure. I also admire her creativity, with how she’s able to come up with those animal-themed designs for the various sweets she and her friends make. Of course, even with her usual cheery demenour, she also has her worries, as seen when her mother is brought up, as Ichika obviously wishes she could be around more, but also understands and respects her mother’s work since she’s able to help so many people. Ichika tends to hide her more vulnerable side, which is something I can understand, since sometimes there are things just feel are better kept to yourself, and don’t want to worry those around you with.

Her designs are also really cute. It’s been a while since we had a pink lead Cure as the one with pigtails as her usual hairstyle, come to think of it. I also really like her character development, especially how it near the end is influenced by her friends gradually figuring out their own goals for the future, leading her to begin wondering if she should be putting more thoughts into what she wants to do in the future. It’s natural to think about your own future when seeing what those around you are doing with theirs. All in all, I think Ichika’s a really great main character.

Himari Arisugawa/Cure Custard

The second Cure to be introduced this season. Himari is an intelligent, but socially awkward girl. She’s especially knowledgeable when it comes to the science behind making sweets, but grew to become rather shy when those around her age showed no interest in hearing about it and she couldn’t keep up with their interests. Things begin to change for Himari when Ichika comes into her life, and is genuinely interested in learning about the science of sweets so she can improve her own skills at making them. Ichika and Himari end up making some pudding together, and Ichika comes up with a squirrel design for it, feeling that it suits Himari’s personality. When another of the kira-kiraru stealing fairies attack them, Himari ends up becoming Cure Custard, a pudding- and squirrel-themed Pretty Cure with the ability to run really fast, the Pretty Cure of intelligence and courage.

Himari is adorable. I can totally identify with this girl’s struggles when it comes to socializing and the difficulty of finding someone who shares your interests and is willing to listen to you go into detail about it. I’m really happy that she was able to bond with Ichika over their mutual love of sweets, and become friends with the other girls from there. I really enjoyed Himari’s character arc, watching her gradually become more confident in herself. I also like her habit of carrying around a little notebook that she writes down her recipes in.

Her designs are really cute too. I feel it’s also fitting that she’s the shortest of the Cures. I think it’s pretty neat that they introduced the yellow Cure second, since it’s usually the blue one who is the second to be introduced in most series. It’s clear throughout the series that Himari’s knowledge is important to the KiraPati’s success, so it makes sense she’d be the first to join Ichika. She’s probably one of my favorite characters from this season.

Aoi Tategami/Cure Gelato

The third Cure to be recruited by Ichika. A freedom loving girl from a wealthy family who is part of a band. Ichika and Himari first meet her when she’s struggling to come up with lyrics for a song she’s writing for a music contest, in which the person who inspired her to get into music will be one of the judges. Ichika and Himari cheer her up by making her some ice cream with a lion-theme, which helps her remember how she felt when she first saw her idol perform, and helps inspire her. When another kira-kiraru thief comes for the ice cream and interrupts the contest, Aoi’s strong feelings let her become Cure Gelato, an ice cream- and lion themed Pretty Cure with ice based powers and a mighty roar attack, the Pretty Cure of freedom and passion.

Most of the Cures from wealthy familes of previous series that come to mind are usually the calm and refined type, so I feel Aoi is an interesting variation of this character type. The episode revealing her family’s status shows how Aoi feels trapped by the expectations set upon her, since her butler, Mizushima, feels her band and the KiraPati aren’t fitting hobbies from the proper lady he feels he needs to help her become. Thankfully, she manages to get through to him, and is allowed to continue doing the things she enjoys as long as she keeps up with her studies and gets good grades, in the process revealing that she is also smarter than one might assume. She’s also one of the physically strongest Cures.

I really like Aoi. Her designs are great, and I like her songs. And like every blue Cure (+ Cure Magical) since Cure Beauty up until this point, she has at least some ice themed abilities, which does makes sense since the sweets associated with her is ice cream. In Aoi/Cure Gelato’s case this particular element is interesting on her, since it can be sort of a contrast with her hot-blooded personality. All in all, I think she’s a fairly good character and it’s nice to see new variations of character types we’ve seen before.

Yukari Kotozume/Cure Macaron

The fourth Cure to join the Cures is Yukari, who is a bit older than the previous three Cures, being a high school student rather than a middle school student. She’s a beautiful girl who is rather well-known for being good at everything, however, Yukari gets easily bored. When she meets Ichika, she takes an interest in her, and eventually comes to the KiraPati to try to make macaroons. Yukari is shown to be a bit of a perfectionist, as when the first batch comes out with almost no taste, she immediately tries again. While the second batch comes out cracked, Ichika makes the most of it by decorating it with a cat motif. When yet another kira-kiraru thief appears, Yukari manages to become a Pretty Cure, the macaroon- and cat-themed Cure Macaron, the Pretty Cure of beauty and excitement. Finding this turn of events interesting, she decides to stick around.

Yukari is another character I really like, mainly because she’s so different from other Cures we’ve seen throughout the franchise. She’s a character who gets easily bored and is somewhat selfish, and tends to do whatever she feels like to amuse herself. However, she also has a strong intuition and is able to think outside the box, coming up with plans and solutions to problems faster than the others. Over the course of the series, she develops a close bond with Akira/Cure Chocolat, who helps her overcome her hidden insecurities, and accept the dark parts of herself while also realizing that she does have light inside of her as well.

All these aspects make Yukari very entertaining to watch, and I think she’s a lot of fun. Her designs are really nice too. Her relationship with Akira/Cure Chocolat is also really sweet, although I do wish that with all the ship teasing they were doing for the pairing that they would’ve actually gotten past just being implied love interests. Ah well. I guess it can’t be helped. Besides, Pretty Cure is mainly a series focused on friendship in the first place, and the Cures who have male implied love interests usually never really get past that point either. Anyways, Yukari is probably another one of my favorite characters this season.

Akira Kenjou/Cure Chocolat

The fifth Cure introduced, another high school student who moves in next door to Ichika early on. Due to her appearance, she is often mistaken for a boy, and Ichika even developed a bit of a crush on her during her debut episode, not realizing until the end of that episode that Akira wasn’t a boy. Anyways, Akira is a very kind-hearted girl, who goes out of her way to help everyone she can. She asks Ichika to help her find good places to buy chocolate for her younger sister, Miku, who spends most of her time in the hospital due to health problems. When a kira-kiraru thief steals the kira-kiraru from most of the chocolate in town, Ichika suggests they make something for Miku out of the chocolate from a box Akira bought for Ichika as a thanks for showing her around town, which the kira-kiraru thief happened to miss. Ichika makes some chocolates with a dog theme, which Akira thinks Miku will like. However, when Cure Whip and the others are attacked by the powered-up kira-kiraru thief, and Akira discovers that Ichika is Cure Whip after the bad guy makes Cure Whip de-transform in front of her, Akira steps in to defend her, her feelings resonating within one of the chocolates, and letting Akira become Cure Chocolat, a dog- and chocolate themed Pretty Cure with an enhanced sense of smell, the Pretty Cure of love and strength.

I really love how kind-hearted Akira is, and how she’s sort of like a big sister to the rest of the team. Her relationship with her little sister Miku is also sweet, and it’s clear those two want what’s best for each other. Akira always being willing to help those around her brings to mind several previous lead pink Cures, but Akira does give off a different vibe from those characters, since she’s a few years older than those characters, being calmer and more mature. Near the end of the show, she also decides to study and work in medicine, which I of course feel is a perfect choice of career for her based on these personality traits.

I like Akira’s designs, with her short hair and how Cure Chocolat gives off a bit of a prince-like vibe. I guess it is partially meant to contrast with the more feminine looking Yukari. As mentioned above, I do like the relationship between those two characters. I think Akira is also another one of my favorite characters this season.

Ciel Kirahoshi/Kirarin/Cure Parfait

And like most Pretty Cure series since Fresh Pretty Cure, of course we have another Cure join the team halfway through the season. In this case, a blonde girl named Ciel Kirahoshi, who has become well-known in France for her skills at making sweets. However, she is really a fairy from Strawberry Mountain named Kirarin, who left to study making sweets abroad along with her brother, Pikario.

Ciel returns home to Strawberry Mountain in hopes of finding her brother, who has mysteriously disappeared some time ago. She also opens up another sweets shop, which gets the attention of Ichika and the others. Ciel is initially unaware of everything that has happened in her absense, including why all the fairies have gone missing. In the meantime, she continues to make her sweets, and Ichika tries to convince Ciel to teach her more about making sweets. While Ichika fails to get Ciel to agree to take her as an apprentice, Ciel continues to be intrigued by Ichika and how she is able to create so much kira-kiraru when her sweets are just ordinary.

Kirarin/Ciel also admires the Pretty Cures, and has always wanted to become one along with her brother. When she meets Cure Whip and the others, she quickly flips over into total fangirl mode. She eventually discovers the identities of the Cures during the night when all the fairies are reunited, not long after Ichika and the others learn about Ciel actually being a fairy that same night. After learning that Ichika is Cure Whip, Ciel assumes that this is why Ichika is able to create such kira-kiraru, and even asks to be her apprentice. However, the events that unfold shortly after all this shows Kirarin/Ciel that there’s more to Ichika’s sweets.

Julio reappears, his broken wand having been repaired by Noir, and Ciel suddenly recognizes his hairpiece and realizes that he’s actually her twin brother, Pikario. She is shocked to discover that it is partially her fault that Pikario turned to the dark side, as she improved her skills at making sweets a lot faster than he did, even gaining the ability to take human form, and after a poorly timed comment on Pikario’s waffles being nothing special, Pikario began to feel more and more like he couldn’t possibly catch up to her, and these feelings got worse until Noir approached him and used these feelings to corrupt him.

During the final confrontation between the five Cures and Julio, Cure Whip is finally able to reach his true feelings and return him to his true form. At this point, Kirarin realizes that the real reason Ichika’s sweets have so much kira-kiraru is because Ichika is always thinking of those who will eat those sweets and is much better at understanding the feelings of others than Kirarin/Ciel is. This revelation leaves Ciel/Kirarin in a heroic bsod, not helped by the fact that Pikario continues to act cold towards everyone and can’t seem to make sweets anymore.

With this state of mind leaving her vulnerable, Noir attempts to take the oppurtunity to corrupt Ciel. Ichika and Pikario/Julio refuse to let that happen, and work together to reach Ciel’s heart. After tasting some waffles made by her brother, Ciel is able to return to her senses, and she is able to draw out the full power of her kira-kiraru. With the power of her kira-kiraru, as well as Ichika’s flash of inspiration and Pikario’s waffles, Ciel makes some sweets that form into her own animal sweets, finally allowing her to become a Pretty Cure, Cure Parfait, a pegasus- and parfait themed Cure with the ability to fly, the Pretty Cure of dreams and hope.

I really like Ciel. In the beginning, she’s a cheerful and well-meaning person, but she failed to notice what her brother was going through, and unintentionally made things worse. I feel like she undergoes some good character development after realizing where she went wrong with Pikario and after becoming a Cure, as she pays better attention to the feelings of those around her and puts in more effort to reach out to others. Through her friendship with Ichika and the others, she is able to become an even better patissier. She even plays an important role in redeeming Bibury.

I like her designs too, both as a human and as a fairy. Her Cure design looked a bit all-over-the-place at first, but it quickly grew on me. I was a bit surprised they went with pink hair for another green Cure so soon after Cure Felice, but then again, I guess it makes sense since it’s Kirarin’s natural fur color. Plus, it’s nice to see yet another green Cure. I also think it makes sense for Cure Parfait to be the only one who is based off of an animal that doesn’t exist in reality, since she’s not actually human. Plus, her ability to fly is really neat.

The Fairies

Now to talk about the fairies. Since I just talked about Kirarin, and will talk about Pikario’s role later, I’ll mainly be talking about Pekorin and Chourou.

I’ll start with Pekorin, the chubby little puppy-like fairy. Like most fairies in the series, she loves making and eating sweets, even if she wasn’t all that good at making them to begin with. Even so, she has more experience than Ichika, and that the most important part is the feelings that go into making them. Her words are what help Ichika realize the importance of her feelings, resulting in Ichika becoming Cure Whip. After the initial five Cures have been assembled, we learn more about the incident that happened on the mountain in the first episode, which caused all the fairies to be scattered. Pekorin is worried about her friends and feels lonely, but Ichika cheers her up with some donuts and gets the idea to open the KiraPati and make sweets there in hopes that it’ll help the missing fairies find their way back home eventually.

Pekorin along with Chourou later help Ichika return to her normal self after Ichika is drained of her kira-kiraru by Julio, and after that, Pekorin doesn’t really contribute much for a while, being mostly a side character. Pekorin’s next big role comes when Lumiere gives her the ability to turn into a human, like Chourou, Kirarin and Pikario. She takes the oppurtunity to help the Cures out for the day, by heading into town to buy ingredients for sweets on her own, as well as making sweets for all her friends. When villains attack during her fun time with her friends, Pekorin is able to use the power granted by Lumiere to protect her friends, but in the process loses the ability to become a human. However, this isn’t the last we see of Pekorin’s human form...

As the Cures gradually begin to figure out their goals for the future, Pekorin grows more and more anxious of the Cures eventually going their separate ways, but despite her worries of being left alone, she does accept that each of them have their own dreams. However, when Noir attacks the Cures during Ichika’s birthday party, and Erisio suddenly decides to take a different approach and strip the world of its emotions, it is up to Pekorin, who along with Chourou were left unaffected by Erisio’s plan because Cure Whip managed to shove them into the KiraPati box before it happened in hopes of keeping them safe.

With everyone having forgotten their passions, Pekorin sets out to try to at least bring the Cures back to normal the only way she knows how, by making sweets. However, Glaive confiscates the donuts before she can let the Cures try them, and drags Pekorin and Chourou along as he goes to dispose of the donuts. But at the very least, Pekorin’s actions have already piqued the curiousity of the Cures, which gradually helps them regain their memories. Pekorin does what she can to prevent the donuts she made from being destroyed, and eventually, her strong feelings cause something unexpected to happen: Not only does Pekorin regain her ability to take human form, but she becomes a seventh Pretty Cure: Cure Pekorin.

After the other six Cures return to their normal selves, Cure Pekorin assists them during the final battle, and in the end, vows to protect Strawberry Mountain alongside the other fairies, to show Ichika/Cure Whip that she’s okay with Ichika/Cure Whip travelling the world if she wants to and not having to worry about her hometown. It’s implied that Pekorin continues working at a spiritual successor to the KiraPati, making animal-themed sweets.

So, for most of the series, I wasn’t sure what to think of Pekorin. I mean, I didn’t dislike her or anything, but after about the halfway point, I felt like Pekorin didn’t really have as big of a role as previous fairy mascots in the franchise. However, in the last few episodes, she really got a chance to shine and even become a seventh Cure. These last few episodes really made me love Pekorin a lot more, and I think her Cure form had a pretty cute design, even if it wasn’t as elaborate as the others.

I know there were some mixed opinions on Cure Pekorin, but I personally liked it, especially the more I thought about it. After all, it was Pekorin’s words to Ichika in the first episode that made Ichika realize the importance of her emotions, which led to Ichika becoming Cure Whip. Ichika would then meet the other girls that would go on to become Cures too. Basically, Pekorin is the one who set the events that would lead to the world being saved from Noir and Erisio in motion. She also gave Ichika the idea of opening and running the KiraPati.

With all this in mind, I think Pekorin becoming a Pretty Cure near the end made perfect sense. She knew from the beginning how important ones feelings are, and never forgot that. Also, another thing I realized, in the last few episodes, Pekorin keeps expressing concern about the Cures going their separate ways in pursuit of their dreams. Keeping in mind what happened at the beginning of the series, it’s understandable that Pekorin wouldn’t want to be separated from her friends again. However, when she realizes that Ichika is hesitating to follow her dreams, she puts her own worries aside to reassure her that she’ll be around to protect Strawberry Mountain and that the most important thing to her is her friends’ happiness, showing how much she has matured.

Pekorin’s design is cute, as you’d expect. Her ears changing colors depending on her mood is an interesting fairy quirk, although it doesn’t really have much of an effect on anything. I guess it is mainly there due to the whole theme of the importance of feelings. I think my favorite designs of hers are her design as Cure Pekorin, and the slightly older version of her human form seen briefly in the last episode.

Next, I’ll talk about Chourou. Chourou is older than most of the other fairies we meet this season, and for most of the show, is in a ghostly state due to being separated from his body during the accident that happened in the first episode. In his ghost-like state, he is bound to the KiraPati, and can’t move far away from it. He also has the ability to turn into a human to assist the Cures running the KiraPati, although he's still incorporeal in this state and must keep this hidden from any other humans in the area. Chourou is for the most part an advisor to the girls, at least when he knows what’s going on.

I think Chourou is interesting too, with the whole older advisor thing and his ghost-like state keeping him bound to the KiraPati. He also gets a great moment during the last few episodes, when he’s the one who shows the Cures what they must do in order to save the world, after the Cures find themselves in a situation where they simply can’t figure out what to do. In the last episode, he also finally reunites with his body, after helping calm it down after it goes on a rampage from having been left alone for too long.

As for the other fairies, I guess the rest of the fairies I want to talk about can be divided into two groups. The first are the fairies living on Strawberry Mountain, that were scattered during the cream explosion in the first episode. They’re a peaceful bunch who like to make sweets. The fairies are eventually able to return to their home with the help of Gummy and his pals, who helped them find their way home to make up for their actions while they were under Julio’s control, and as a thank you to Ichika and the others for bringing them back to their senses and showing them kindness. The fairies are also shown to have a close relationship to the animals living on Strawberry Mountain, which also becomes a minor plot point.

Yeah, not much else to say about these guys, really. I mean, they’re mostly minor characters. But hey, they have cute designs, and they do end up helping save the day in a few episodes. As for Gummy and his pals... Actually, they do belong in the next category as well, so I’ll talk about them there. On that note...

The Villains

To begin with, our villains consist of a bunch of fairies that go around stealing kira-kiraru, their belts making them grow bigger and more powerful after consuming a certain amount. The first of these is Gummy, and with each new episode we are introduced to one after another, until they all come together during the eleventh episode, during which the Cures gain their Candy Rods and use them to purify them all, breaking their belts. After this, we learn that they made a deal with Julio, who gave them the belts to make them stronger, but the belts made them lose control of themselves. Thanks to the Cures, they were able to return to normal, and they eventually help the missing fairies return home as thanks.

Not gonna lie, when each new episode kept bringing in a new one of these fairies each episode, as well as the show not really having established its storyline yet, I had some concerns, and I’ll talk about those some more once I get to discussing the story and stuff. However, after episode 11, those concerns were dispelled. With that said, I did end up liking these guys after learning just what their deal was, and that they were basically just unwitting pawns for someone working with the real villains. I also like how they helped bring all those fairies back home, I thought that was a neat way to resolve that particular plot point. Their designs are cute too, especially their purified forms.

Next up, the person behind these fairies’ actions, Julio. A mysterious young boy who seems to be performing various experiments with kira-kiraru. He’s the first villain shown to take kira-kiraru from people’s hearts, rather than just taking it directly from sweets like the kira-kiraru thieves had been doing up until that point. After the kira-kiraru thieves were defeated, Julio decides to take matters into his own hands. He starts attending Ichika’s school as a transfer student named Rio Kuroki, in order to keep a close eye on Ichika, Himari and Aoi.

Over the course of the next few episodes, each of the girls confront Julio as he studies each of them, while they remain unaware that he and Rio are the same person, with the exception of Yukari, who suspects something is up with Rio from the start and eventually confirms her own suspicions during her fight with him by giving him false information about herself. In battle, Julio wields a special wand created by Noir, which can take different shapes after absorbing kira-kiraru. After his battle against Yukari/Cure Macaron, Julio was left enraged after falling for Yukari’s lie involving an older sister, since it reminded him of what led to his own corruption, and his identity was revealed to the Cures after he took Ichika’s kira-kiraru, leaving her drained of her emotions and unable to transform.

After Pekorin and Chourou help Ichika return to normal by helping her bake the cookies she planned to send to her mother and thus reminding her of her feelings, she is able to rejoin the other Cures and take down Julio, breaking his wand in the process. With his wand broken, Bibury takes the oppurtunity to try and deal with the Cures herself, which is also around the time Ichika and the others meet Ciel. When Noir eventually decides to give Julio another chance and fixes his wand, Ciel/Kirarin learns what has become of her brother when she recognizes the hair decoration he’s wearing. Now knowing his true identity, Cure Whip and the others do their best to try to bring Julio back to his old self.

Cure Whip is eventually able to get in touch with Julio’s true feelings, and is seemingly able to tap into Lumiere’s power to return him to his original fairy form. However, even after being purified, Pikario remains cold towards Ciel/Kirarin and the others, and still can’t seem to make sweets, as his waffles just turn out gray and without any kira-kiraru. However, once Noir sets his sights on Ciel, Julio works together with Ichika/Cure Whip to save her, and after some convincing, tries to make waffles for Ciel. When his waffles bring her back to her senses and suddenly fill up with kira-kiraru, Julio finally realizes what he had forgotten this whole time. He is able to assure Ciel that it’s not her fault that things turned out this way, and is relieved of his own fears that everything that had happened had left him permanently corrupted.

As Ciel begins to make her own animal sweets, Pikario allows her to use his waffles as part of it, before taking an arrow for her. Cure Parfait manages to defeat Bibury and send her flying, before Pikario’s injuries cause him to fade away into kira-kiraru. Thankfully, he turns out to be alive, but is left in a comatose state inside the shrine dedicated to the legendary Pretty Cure while his body gradually reforms. He stays like this until episode 39, when he finally awakens just as the Cures are in a tough spot. With powers temporarily lended to him by Lumiere, he comes to their rescue and helps them out of a tough spot.

After waking up from his coma, Rio’s human form now looks more like a mix between Julio and the form he used when he went to Ichika’s school as a transfer student. He and Ciel are on good terms once more, and he’s finally able to make sweets again without trouble. Erisio does try to cause some trouble for the two by making it look like Rio is sabotaging other sweets shops to help out Ciel, causing Rio to nearly leave town, but luckily Ciel manages to catch up to him and the two talk some things out. Rio continues to assist Ciel at her shop, and occasionally assists the Cures.

I really like Pikario/Julio/Rio. I like his various designs, they’re pretty cool. He starts off as a mysterious character, who was implied to have had something happen to him in the past that led him to hate sweets. We gradually get more clues regarding his mysterious past, until we learn about Ciel/Kirarin’s brother Pikario and it all comes together. I thought it was interesting to see him still acting rather cold towards Ciel and the Cures and such even after being purified, until Noir went after Ciel, at least. I felt bad for him when he took the arrow for Ciel and faded away, and hoped he would return. Luckily, the next episode at least clarified he was still alive, so after that it was just a matter of when he would wake up.

His return after being comatose for several episodes was also pretty cool, with his new outfit and all. While he might not have become a Cure himself, he managed to sort out his feelings and was once again able to make sweets alongside his sister with confidence and kept doing what he could to support the Cures during the last few episodes.

The next villain I’ll talk about is Bibury, the only girl among the villains this season. She’s introduced after the Cures learn Julio’s true identity and break his wand. Bibury is more than happy to take the oppurtunity to show off to Noir, and starts spreading rumors about the KiraPati so that they won’t get any customers. However, Yukari eventually discovers what she’s up to with the help of her fangirls. In battle, Bibury has her doll, Iru, fight for her after she has him absorb enough kira-kiraru to power-up. The doll was given to her by Noir, and she is quite protective of it.

After being sent flying during a battle against the Cures, Bibury is left stranded on an island for a few episodes, and with Iru being low on power, we learn how Bibury wound up working for Noir as she wanders the island alone. We see that as a child, Bibury ended up all alone and was taken in by Noir, who gave her Eru and promised to always love her. Learning her backstory, Ciel attempts to reach out to Bibury, but Bibury initially rejects her attempts at getting closer to her.

When Bibury is accidentally brought 100 years into the past along with the Cures during a battle, she comes across her younger self and discovers that Noir was the reason she ended up alone in the first place. Horrified by this relevation, Bibury comes running to the Cures for help as Noir attacks the town of 100 years in the past. While Cure Lumiere fights off Noir, the Cures and Bibury return to the present. Bibury is still torn up by the revelation, when Iru suddenly comes to life once more and attempts to absorb her. With the help of the Kira-Kiraru Creamer entrusted to them by Cure Lumiere and the power of the Crystal Animals, the Cures are able to rescue Bibury, their feelings having finally reached her.

After Bibury recovers from the battle, she ends up staying with Ciel and helping out in her sweets shop. She provides the Cures some more information on Noir, and is shown to have quite the appetite after being purified.

I really like Bibury too. I like her design, and how she had sort of a rivalry going with Julio. I felt bad for her when her backstory was revealed, and she was shown to have been a lonely girl that got manipulated into serving Noir, which got even worse when it was revealed that Noir was the reason she ended up all alone to begin with. I’m glad the Cures were eventually able to save her, and that she stuck around as a supporting character. I also liked the fact that she still wore dark clothing after switching sides, with just a slightly different, less somber version of her original outfit. I also like how she still has a bit of an attitude after switching sides, coming off as a bit of a tsundere.

The next villain is Glaive, introduced along with Erisio at the half-way point. A guy with tanned skin and blonde hair, who drives a flying, evil car and has tiny doll-like minions working with him, that he can combine into bigger forms. He’s evil and proud of it. We don’t know as much about him as Rio or Bibury, but from what we can tell of his past, he seems to have been some sort of corrupt businessman, who ended up joining Noir after his methods had caused him to become a social outcast. He eventually attempts to make himself stronger by stealing Diable’s power and combining it with his car.

He eventually uses this power to put nearly the entire town under his control, draining most of the kira-kiraru. The Cures find themselves in a tough spot, even as Rio (who had just woken up from his coma) comes to their aid. Eventually, the Cures, Bibury and Rio are able to keep him distracted while the fairies and animals of the town make more sweets to create the kira-kiraru needed to save everyone. Glaive is ultimately taken out by the Cures’ newest finishing move, before Erisio seals him, his car and Diable into cards.

Glaive returns in episode 47, after Erisio turns against Noir and removes all emotion from the world. However, Glaive is now under Erisio’s control, with Pekorin commenting on how obeying Erisio like that isn’t like Glaive at all. Once Cure Pekorin helps the Cures regain their emotions and they in turn help everyone regain their own feelings, Glaive returns to his normal self. He later helps the Cures by offering up his kira-kiraru when they are all trapped inside the void in Erisio’s body, since he doesn’t want to be stuck there forever. It is unclear what Glaive ends up doing after the events of the finale.

Glaive has a cool design, which also contrasts well against Erisio’s more elegant design. While we don’t learn quite as many details about him as we do of Rio, Bibury and Erisio, he still manages to stand out in his own way. His desire for power leads him to take Diable’s power, and he comes pretty close to defeating the Cures with a well thought-out plan, which only fails because he forgot to factor in the fairies and animals of the town. He also shows he’s different from Rio and Bibury, as he himself admits, he’s proud to be evil. Even so, he is willing to put that aside and help the Cures when the only other option is to disappear from existence along with the rest of the world.

While we do see him in the brief glimpses of what everyone is up to a few years into the future, it is unclear what he has been up to. It seems Bibury might be trying to convince him to work at the sweets shop, but his fate is ultimately left ambiguous. Since Noir is no longer around, it can at the very least be assumed he’s no longer posing a threat to Strawberry Mountain.

Next is Diable, a wolf-like shadowy creature that is first seen attacking the town near Strawberry Mountain one hundred years in the past. He is able to darken kira-kiraru and turn people against each other through his mere presence. He was wounded by Cure Lumiére, but returns in the present to fight the new generation of Cures, even if he has not having fully regained his physical form yet. After each fight with the Cures, he retreats to Noir’s realm to regain his power. He gradually gains more and more of his original form, until he finally takes a humanoid form in episode 36. However, after being defeated that time, Glaive attacks him with his car upon his return in order to steal his power.

Diable ends up forcibly fused with Glaive’s car, allowing Glaive to use his power to put most of the townspeople under his control. After the Cures foil Glaive’s plans, Diable is sealed into a card by Erisio. Erisio ends up borrowing Diable’s power a few times after this in his attempts to take away the things the Cures love.

Diable is quite different from the rest of Noir’s minions. He seems to be made of dark energy, which gives him some interesting abilities, namely being able to simply split off part of his shadow to deal with the Cures while he’s still trying to regain his power. We don’t know much about his origins, but I guess he’s meant to be sort of an extension of Noir’s own dark power. But as mentioned, his power is ultimately stolen and used by Glaive, and later Erisio. Not much else to say, but Diable does have a cool design.

Finally, our main villain Noir, and his second-in-command, Erisio. Due to a certain reveal near the end of the season, I felt it would be best to talk about them both like this. During the first few episodes, there wasn’t any clear indication of who or what the main threat was, but after Julio made his appearance, we gradually learned the identity of the big bad, Noir. We find out that Noir is a shadowy being that is quite good at manipulating others, as shown through how he recruited his minions by approaching them when they were in a vulnerable state. Erisio is introduced at the half-way point of the series, and is shown to be very loyal to Noir and is initially presented as a bit of a foil to Glaive.

Erisio’s methods when dealing with the Cures are similar to Noir’s in some aspects, as he tries to use their weaknesses to break them down. Over time, particularly after sealing Glaive away, Erisio’s strategies gradually get even crueler. However, after being defeated by the Cures again and again, we start to see a change in Erisio.

This leads up to the final confrontation between the Cures and Noir. As Noir takes on a form similar to Erisio himself, we finally learn what Noir really is:

He was originally a human, who had presumably been involved in some kind of war or something, and felt like his heart had been tainted. He happened to wander into the town where Lumiere lived, and she tried to look after him. He grew attached to her kindness, and wanted her love all to himself, demanding that she only make sweets for him. When Lumiere told him she couldn’t possibly do that, he allowed himself to become a force of darkness and hatred. He even shed his human body, which became Erisio after he poured darkened kira-kiraru from one of Lumiere’s cupcakes into it.

However, during the confrontation between the Cures, including the spirit of Cure Lumiere, and Noir, Erisio suddenly reappears after having seemingly been absorbed back into Noir. Erisio proceeds to betray Noir, take both his and Lumiere’s power, and decides to use them to reshape the whole world so that the conflict between love and hate won’t keep repeating itself, namely by taking away everyone’s emotions.

When this fails, due to the efforts of Cure Pekorin managing to jog the girls’ memories and allowing them to start bringing back everyone’s emotions and memories of the things they love. Erisio then decides to go one step further, by absorbing everything into his body and letting it all disappear into nothingness. The girls struggle to find a solution, but everyone offers up their kira-kiraru to help them out. When this proves insufficent to save the world, Erisio tries to convince them to stop, since the conflicts between love and hate will only keep repeating themselves otherwise.

The girls try to reason with Erisio, convincing him that even he has a heart and bringing up all the times he would try to manipulate them. Erisio claims that he was only doing so to imitate humans, but they gradually get him to realize that even he has emotions. As the girls finally begin to reach him, his kira-kiraru is able to take shape, and he allows them to add it to that of the others’ kira-kiraru so they can return the world to normal. As the girls return to their own world, Erisio tells them that spreading love throughout the world will be a difficult task, but if they are willing to take it on, then he will look forward to seeing what world they create, before leaving.

All right, Noir. His shadowy design with the mask-looking face is simple, but still cool. His human form also has a good-looking design. As mentioned before, his specialty is manipulating others, targetting them when they are vulnerable and twisting their emotions. Again, simple, but effective. As for his backstory... Well, the way it was presented and how it was covered in just a few minutes, can kind of make it come across as this one guy deciding to declare war on everyone because this one girl rejected him. It doesn’t help that we don’t really know the full details of what exactly he went through before he met Lumiere.

The way I suppose it was meant to be interpreted, is that Noir believed himself to have lost his humanity and the ability to feel love from having been involved in battle for so long. After Lumiere nursed him back to health, taught him how to make sweets and just generally showed kindness towards him, a kindness he had not known for a long time, he felt that maybe he could learn to feel that love again. However, since he didn’t understand her selflessness and wanted Lumiere’s love all to himself, and when she told him this was not possible, he ultimately decided to embrace the darkness that had stained his heart and truly cast away his humanity.

Or something along those lines, anyways. Actually, come to think of it, his character feels like sort of a mix of Red and Queen Mirage from Happiness Charge Pretty Cure. Red also had a tendency to manipulate others, believed love was a lie and in one of the last episodes had a conversation with Cure Lovely that was pretty similar to a conversation between Noir and Lumiere in the flashback revealing their history. While one of the catalysts for Queen Mirage becoming evil was being rejected by Blue.

As for Erisio, he has a pretty cool design, looking more feminine and elegant compared to Glaive, who was introduced the same time as him. Erisio, like Noir, is good at manipulating others and his usual strategy is to try to break the Cures by going after the things they love most and take advantage of their own flaws and feelings about things they are not confident about. As time goes on, particularly after absorbing Glaive and Diable into cards, Erisio’s strategies grow more and more cruel. His methods bring to mind previous villains such as Kawarino from Yes! Pretty Cure 5, and Joker from Smile Pretty Cure. Both of these villains were also much crueler than the rest of the villains, would try to break down the heroines and would even turn on their own allies once they’ve failed one too many times.

However, there are a few major aspects where Erisio differs quite a lot from these two villains. Kawarino and Joker were both dedicated to their goals to the very end, while Erisio begins to have his doubts after being defeated by the Cures again and again. Even more shocking is the fact that this leads him to betray Noir, who he had been loyal to up until this point. The fact that we had just learned that Noir and Erisio were originally the same person also explained why Erisio was his most loyal follower, which probably also made his betrayal even more surprising.

In the last few episodes, Erisio completely changes his strategy, first trying to take an approach that reminded me of Cyrus’ plan from Pokémon Platinum, in that he decided to get rid of everyone’s emotions, thus getting rid of love and hate entirely. When that failed thanks to Pekorin’s efforts, he tried to just destroy everything. He comes dangerously close to winning, but he ultimately gives up once the Cures manage to show him that he too has developed a heart of his own, and is capable of feeling just like other humans. Erisio allows the Cures to add his kira-kiraru to that of everyone else, and restore the world to how it was.

In the end, Erisio shows the Cures his support, before releasing Lumiere and Noir’s power and leaving for parts unknown. As mentioned before, Erisio reminded me or characters such as Kawarino and Joker, and thus, Erisio being redeemed really caught me by surprise. Usually, villains of his type, performing such cruel actions and looking down on the feelings of others quite understandably tend to be unredeemable. So, the events of the last few episodes certainly took a surprising turn.

As I’ve also mentioned in my post about Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure, I liked how that show tried some new things, experimenting with new twists on the typical plot points we’ve seen in past Pretty Cure series, and I feel like Kira Kira Pretty Cure A La Mode has done the same in many aspects, which I’ll probably go more into a little more detail about later in this post. So, I thought it was interesting to see Erisio coming to doubt himself and his master’s plans, turning against him and ultimately being redeemed. I thought this was an interesting twist on this type of villain. I think Erisio might be the best of the villains of this season, and I thought it was neat to see him take over the main villain position for Noir for the last few episodes.

I also liked how he played into the last few episodes’ sub-plot of Ichika wondering what she wanted to do in the future, as his parting words to her and the other Cures helped inspire her, eventually leading her to the conclusion that she wanted to travel the world and spread smiles to people all over.

So, yeah. I really liked the villains of this season, my favorites of the bad guys being Julio, Bibury and Erisio.

Other Characters

All right, let’s go over some of the notable recurring characters in the supporting cast.

I’ll start with Cure Lumiere. We know from the beginning that there was another Legendary Patissier Pretty Cure before Cure Whip and the others, and we eventually begin to learn more about Lumiere, the Pretty Cure that fought against Noir one-hundred years ago. Cure Lumiere’s spirit rests within a shrine that the Cures uncover halfway through the season, and she is the one who grants the Cures the crystals that become the Crystal Animals. When the Cures are pulled back into one hundred years into the past, we finally get to meet Lumiere.

Lumiere is shown to be a kind young woman who likes to make sweets for the people in the town, which also helps keep Noir and his minions at bay by generating kira-kiraru. She also fights Noir and his minions directly as Cure Lumiere. After the Cures assist her in making sweets, she gifts them her frosting pump before they return to their own time, which grants them a new power-up which allows them to save Bibury. Later on, Lumiere appears to Pekorin in a dream, and grants her the ability to turn into a human for unknown reasons. However, Pekorin later uses up the power Lumiere gave her to protect her friends, losing her ability to transform in the process.

Cure Lumiere’s spirit basically assists the Cures throughout the second half of the series, before finally manifesting near the end during the final confrontation against Noir. It is at this point that her past connection with Noir is revealed, and that she had been trying to find a way to save Noir too, but failed in the past. While pleading with the Cures to do what she could not, everyone is caught off-guard when Erisio appears and betrays Noir. Erisio proceeds to take the power of both Noir and Lumiere for himself, and carries out his new plan. After the Cures stop his schemes and get him to reconsider, he releases the cards containing Lumiere and Noir’s powers. In the final montage at the end, we see Ichika offering sweets to a young boy and girl, who appear to be Noir and Lumiere reincarnated (along with a dog that may be Diable).

I like Lumiere, and how she assists the Cures throughout the second half of the series. I also like her design, and how she seems to be a bit older than the other Cures, seeming more like a young adult rather than a teenager. And of course, she wants to protect everyone, which includes Noir, even after he made an unreasonble demand of her and become a force of evil. Even after she couldn’t do so one hundred years ago, she still had hope of saving him and even tried to assist the present day Cures in doing so. Of course, things didn’t really go as she expected, with Erisio taking both Noir and her power and becoming the new main villain and all. In the end, though, I hope she and the reborn Noir were able to become friends and finally find happiness. I also do wonder if Pekorin becoming a Cure was her plan all along when she first granted a portion of her power to her to let her become human, since I don’t think it was ever explained why she did that, other than it being one of her contributions to supporting the Cures, I guess.

Next, I think I’ll talk about Ichika’s parents. Ichika’s dad, Genichirou, runs a martial arts dojo, and tries his best to support his daughter, even if he goes a bit overboard at times or messes up. He plays a prominent role in episode 11, where he shows up at the Sweets Festival despite Ichika not wanting to go with him, and is proud when he learns that Ichika and her friends were setting up their own stand at the festival. Throughout the episode, however, Ichika seems mostly annoyed with his antics, and he gradually seems to realize that his little girl is starting to grow up. Even if she won’t spend the festival with him like she did when she was younger, Genichirou decides to at least try to make the best of the situation and buy her something she’ll like at one of the stands.

When Gummy and the other evil fairies show up, Genichirou actually tries to join in on the fight, even managing to knock back one of the fairies with his martial arts skill. When the fairies eventually fuse together and get the better of him, he explains to Cure Whip, not knowing she’s Ichika, why he wanted to protect the cake he’d bought. He acknowledges that it’s difficult for him to not get involved with what Ichika was doing, but at the very least, he figured he’d buy a shortcake that she could share with her friends later. Touched by her father’s words and remembering the times they had spent together at the festival in previous years, Cure Whip apologizes for earlier, before she and the Cures manage to get their first major power-up, the Candy Rod, from the gathered kira-kiraru from the guests of the festival, which includes most of the people they had helped in previous episodes. After Ichika’s father regains consciousness after things have calmed down, Ichika offers him a slice of the fruit tart she and her friends had made to sell at the festival as a way of apologizing.

Throughout the rest of the series, Genichirou continues to be a supportive father to Ichika, showing that he is pretty perceptive when it comes to her feelings, at least most of the time. I really like him, and his relationship with his family.

Next up, I’ll talk about Ichika’s mother, Satomi, who is essentially a major factor of sorts in how the story gets started. Satomi is a travelling doctor, who helps people around the world, and therefore, is away from her family most of the time. In the first episode, she was supposed to return home for a visit, and thus Ichika wanted to bake her a strawberry shortcake. After several failed attempts, Ichika eventually managed to bake the cake thanks to some advice from Pekorin, only to learn that something had come up, and her mother would have to delay her visit, much to Ichika’s disappointment. Well, I already mentioned at the beginning of this post how this led to Ichika becoming Cure Whip, so moving right along...

Throughout the series, we see that Ichika and her mother, while far apart, have a close relationship, and stay in touch. Satomi on one occassion also sends Ichika a box of sweets as a present, and Ichika in return bakes cookies to send to her. We finally get to see Satomi in person when she finally manages to make an unannounced visit, surprising Ichika. Throughout the episode, Ichika is seen dealing with some mixed feelings, due to not having seen her mother in a while, and knowing she’ll have to head back out again soon. Satomi seems to notice that Ichika is hiding something, but can’t quite figure out how to talk to her about it.

It is only after Ichika once again fails to bake that cake she had wanted to bake for her mother in the first episode, that Ichika finally confronts her feelings on the matter, and has a talk with her mother. The two manage to talk things out, and Ichika finally manages to bake the cake, giving it to her mother to take with her when a monster attacks town just as she and her father are following her mother to the airport. We also see in flashbacks that Ichika gave her blessing for her mother to travel the world as a doctor, back when she was first given the offer of taking on such a job. In a conversation with Akira in a later episode, we also see how Ichika admires her mother when Akira brings up her work.

Satomi later returns again near the end to visit Ichika for her birthday. However, Noir ends up crashing the party, and things escalate from there. After Erisio has been defeated and the world restored to normal, the Cures are finally able to return to the KiraPati and continue celebrating Ichika’s birthday. In the end, Ichika’s decision to travel the world herself is also partially inspired by her mother, seeing how her mother spreads smiles wherever she goes, and realizing she wants to do the same with her own skills.

All in all, I like Satomi, and the relationship between her and Ichika. While it is clear that Satomi wishes she could spend more time with her daughter and husband, she knows that they support her and the job she does. And we do see how much Ichika admires her mother’s work despite missing spending time with her, and how Satomi in many ways has had a major influence on Ichika’s worldview.

Next up, I’ll talk about Akira’s younger sister, Miku. The first things we learn about her in Akira’s introduction episode is that Miku spends most of her time in the hospital due to some sort of health problem, and Akira often brings her chocolate in order to cheer her up. When we are first introduced to Miku, we find that whenever she’s in good enough condition to leave the hospital, she’s quite energetic and eager to help out her big sister, and she ends up getting along well with Ichika and the others as well. Of course, in the episodes focusing on her, Miku tends to end up targetted by the villains in some way, with Erisio in particular trying to use her to get to Akira on two separate occasions. Of course, Akira/Cure Chocolat always manages to come to Miku’s rescue, and won’t let the bad guys get away with harming her sister.

When Akira eventually decides to become a medical researcher, Miku worries that Akira is only doing it because of her, and not because it’s what Akira truly wants. Erisio takes advantage of and manipulates these worries, letting him capture Miku and fuse her consciousness with a snowman-based monster. Akira eventually manages to reassure Miku, letting her know that she is certain that studying medicine is the path she wants to pursue.

I really like Miku, and the relationship between her and Akira. The two sisters really care about each other, and want the best for the other. Plus, Miku is just plain adorable. I hope that at some point after the events of the show, that a cure was found for whatever that illness she had was.

Next, I’ll talk about the Tategami family’s butler, Mizushima. He is introduced as a well-meaning butler who has Aoi’s best interests in mind and wants her to become a proper lady due to his loyalty to the Tategami family for taking him in as he had no family of his own. He initially tries to get Aoi to quit her band and working at the KiraPati, much to her dismay. With the help of Ichika and the others, Aoi is eventually able to get her feelings through to Mizushima with the help of sweets and her music, and Mizushima’s kira-kiraru later helps Aoi gain the upperhand against Julio when he targets the party held at her place. After this, Mizushima and Aoi are able to reach a compromise, and Aoi is allowed to continue with her band and the KiraPati, as long as she keeps getting good grades at school.

Mizushima’s appearances in later episodes has him fully supporting Aoi and her ambitions, eventually leading to the resolution of Aoi’s character arc in episode 42, where her parents see Aoi perform for themselves, acknowledging her passion and that she should be allowed to pursue it, and suggesting that Mizushima would make a good successor of the Tategami house.

I really like Mizushima. I like how even before he comes around to giving Aoi permission to keep doing what she’s doing, he is clearly somewhat conflicted about the whole thing, but can’t bring himself to be honest about his own feelings. I also thought it was really sweet how his dedication to the Tategami family payed off, as Aoi’s parents do acknowledge him as one of them and feel he already has the qualifications to be the heir of the Tategami house while Aoi pursues her own dream.

Next up is Misaki, the vocalist of a popular rock band. Aoi happened to listen to one of her performances at one point, which is what gave Aoi her passion for music and inspired Aoi to become a singer herself. After watching Aoi and her band, Wild Azur perform, Misaki takes an interest in them. However, while interested in seeing how far Wild Azur will go, Misaki can also be brutally honest when Aoi or her bandmates are facing issues that affect their performances.

I like Misaki, and the role she plays in Aoi’s character arc. She’s more experienced when it comes to music and knows how tough it can really be, and while she believes Aoi and her band have potential, she wants to make sure that they really do have what it takes. I think her character design is really cool too.

Speaking of Aoi’s band, I guess I’ll briefly talk about the other members of Wild Azur. Kei Sonobe, founder and leader of the band, plays the electric bass guitar. Sara Asaka, playing the drums, and Ryuuta, on the electric guitar. Aoi was the newest member to join the band, when Kei recruited her as their vocalist. Aoi also helped them pick the name for their band. They often perform together on the stage in the park, and after getting Misaki’s attention after taking part in a music contest, they get a few other oppurtunities to show their skill.

In episode 42, Kei reveals that he’s planning to leave the band because he needs to focus on entrance exams, leaving the future of the band uncertain, since he also wrote most of their songs. With some encouragement from the other girls, Aoi manages to write a new song, and reassures Kei and the others that the band will be able to continue even without him. Despite Erisio trapping the other three band members in order to try to break Aoi/Cure Gelato once more, Cure Gelato manages to muster the strength to sing from her heart to break them free even after Erisio tries to silence her voice.

I like the designs of Aoi’s band mates. I kind of wish we’d gotten to know them all a little better throughout the show.

Next, I guess I’ll briefly talk about Yuu Tachibana, a sweets’ professor that Himari looks up to, being the author of a book on the science of sweets that Himari is fond of. While this character only really played a major role in one episode, with later appearances being bit roles, I feel I should still talk about him briefly due to his connection with Himari. After trying out the sweets at KiraPati and showing an interest, he leaves a note on the variations of sugar at different temperatures, which gets Himari’s attention and allows him to discover her interest in the science of sweets. After introducing himself as the writer of the book on the sweets of science, he reveals that he was looking for an assistant to help him out at a live show the next day, and gives Himari a brief quiz that she manages to answer without any problem.

After he gives Himari a flyer for the event and asks for her assistance, she is unsure if she’s up for the task, so Yuu asks her what is the most important thing when making a sponge cake. When Himari is unable to figure out what answer he’s looking for, he encourages her to accept his offer to be his assistant at the live show, suggesting she may find her answer there.

At the live show, Himari assists in trying to bake a giant sponge cake. She is initially nervous, but soon gets into it as Yuu Tachibana and his crew follow her instructions. Despite their best efforts, the cake doesn’t come out quite right, collapsing shortly after completion. However, Tachibana still considers the experiment a success, telling Himari that the most important thing is the feelings of the baker, and that Himari’s thirst for knowledge is what helped get them this far. After the Cures have their usual fight with the villains, Ichika is inspired to use the remains of the sponge cake to make something else, which Tachibana agrees to be a good idea when Himari explains it to him. The events of this episode allows Himari to gain her Crystal Animal.

So, while he only really played a major role in one episode, I really grew to quickly like this character due to how he’s so quick to take on this quirky mentor role for Himari, who shares his passion for the science of sweets. During the live show where she helps out as an assistant, she gradually gains the confidence to take charge and try to make that giant sponge cake. She even uses this newfound confidence during the battle against the villains, giving the other Cures directions on how to weaken the monster of the episode based on her knowledge. Even after this episode, we see that Himari and Tachibana stayed in touch, since his cameo in a later episode has Himari visiting him at his lab for advice on whether or not to try out for an audition for a sweets making show. It’s clear how Tachibana sees potential in Himari, and wants to help her reach that potential.

Okay, as for other notable recurring characters, I guess I feel like talking about Yukari and Akira’s fan girls, two groups of five girls who are animated slightly different than the rest of the cast due to their eyes being less detailed. These two groups of similarly acting girls who almost always speak in unison initially play an antagonistic role due to worrying about Yukari and Akira’s image if they continue to spend time with each other and at the KiraPati, until Yukari and Akira win them over with the newest sweets from the KiraPati. After this, the fan girls continue to play small roles in later episodes, usually showing up for a few gags, but also occasionally providing assistance, such as Akira’s fan girls managing to clue the girls in on why they’re having less customers recently by letting her know about the rumors Bibury had been spreading, and Yukari having her own fan girls help out in catching the person spreading said rumors.

I find these characters amusing due to how over the top some of their antics can be, and I like some of the moments in later episodes when they manage to play a small role by helping out Akira, Yukari and the others.

Finally, I suppose I’ll talk a bit about the cats and other animals around town. This might seem like an odd one, but I do feel there’s things to talk about here. One of the recurring cats is a chubby gray and white cat with a pattern that resembles three white stars on its forehead. Due to these stars, the cat, known as the 3-Star Kitty, is said to bring good luck to any store it goes near, which is why Ichika attempts to get its attention in some early episodes, one such attempt leading to her first meeting with Yukari, who has better luck taming him than Ichika does.

The cat plays a bigger role in the somewhat odd episode 34, in which Yukari, transformed into a cat after switching bodies with her Crystal Animal, discovers that there’s some sort of conflict going on between the cats and the local fairies, who normally get along well. The 3-Star Kitty is revealed to be the leader of the local cats, and quickly decides to have Yukari join the cats as their representative in the conflict with the fairies after she easily tames two of his underlings.

After Yukari pulls a gambit to try to put an end to the conflict by painting herself as the bad guy and falling off a cliff, the cats and fairies decide to stop fighting and save her and Kirarin, who had jumped down after her to try to save her and managed to grab onto a branch to keep them from falling. After the cats and fairies make up, and it is revealed that it was a fragment of Diable that caused the conflict between them, Yukari and her crystal animal manage to switch back, and the Cures fight off Diable.

The cats and the other animals later play a big role in getting things back to normal after Glaive corrupts all the humans and nearly takes away all the kira-kiraru, by helping the fairies make enough sweets to create enough kira-kiraru to free the humans from Glaive’s control, helping the Cures turn the situation around. It was the 3-Star Kitty that came up with said plan.

I like this whole friendship between the fairies and animals of the town. Aside from being a really cute world building detail, it even ends up playing an important role in a later episode when the animals help the fairies think of a plan to help the Cures, with Bibury providing a distraction so they can put said plan into motion and help the Cures out of a tough spot. I also like how this essentially turned the 3-Star Kitty into a chekhovs gunman of sorts, by having him play a small role in early episodes, before getting these bigger roles in episdoe 34 and episode 40.

I guess that’s most of the characters I wanted to talk about. While there are a few more recurring characters, such as Yukari’s grandmother and a few of the recurring classmates and KiraPati customers, I don’t really feel like I have enough to really say about these characters. At the very least, I really like the character designs, and I do enjoy seeing these recurring characters.

Overall Thoughts

I really did enjoy this series. It was fun, really colorful, had a lot of great designs and music, as the Pretty Cure series tend to have. The sweets and animals theme ended up working out pretty well, with another major theme revolving around feelings and dreams. I’ll go more into detail about that later.

I’ll admit, while I still liked the first few episodes, I was a bit worried at first that this series was going to be sort of similar to Smile Pretty Cure. Now, don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy Smile Pretty Cure a lot. But as I mentioned in my review of that series, I just prefer the series that focus more on the story and have at least some focus on other characters than the main cast, since Smile Pretty Cure barely had any notable recurring characters. The fact that there was a new evil fairy introduced each episode as the villain of the episode, as well as the developing formula of “Ichika and her friends help people by making sweets” didn’t really help these concerns. However, once episode 11 came around, all my worries were dispelled as Julio made his appearance, the characters from previous episodes made a reappearance, and the Cures got their first power-up.

After that, things got a lot more interesting, as we learned Gummy and his evil fairies were just pawns being used by one of the actual villains, in this case, Julio. The first ten episodes were just setting things up, and from there, things really started to pick up. We gradually began to learn who the real villain was, and gradually learned Julio’s story and how he ended up working for Noir, which also played into the arc of our sixth Cure, Ciel/Cure Parfait. In the second half of the show, we were also introduced to Glaive and Erisio, and got more details on the backstory and learned about Cure Lumiere. All in all, I think the story was pretty well done for the most part.

As for the action scenes, I felt most of them were done pretty well, and the attacks were pretty colorful and creative. Of course, many of the fight scenes do end up feeling like they’re missing something, due to this particular show’s lack of hand-to-hand combat, which is one of the things the Pretty Cure franchise is known for. Still, I feel they still managed to pull off some nice action scenes, even if they had to cut down on the hand-to-hand combat for this particular entry.

I feel the character development was handled pretty well too. Each girl has their own character arc of sorts, and we see how each of them grow throughout the show, culiminating in each of them figuring out what they want to do in the future. Like with Go! Princess Pretty Cure and Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure, we even get a brief look into what the girls are up to a few years later, which is also a nice touch. During the first half of the series, however, I felt that the show didn’t really focus enough on the relationships between the Cures aside from Ichika/anyone and Yukari/Akira, but this got a little better in the second half, particularly with a few episodes focusing on different combinations of Cures who we hadn’t seen interact one-on-one all that much.

One of the things I enjoyed about Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure was how it experimented with the usual Pretty Cure formula, and tried to do some new things with it. This series continues that trend to some extent, which is something I appreciate. One particular thing I liked is how each of the major villains in this show had their own unique ability and method of creating the monsters the Cures fight. As I mentioned earlier, I was also caught off-guard by the fact that Erisio was redeemed in the end, since villains I find very similar to him, such as Kawarino and Joker, never saw the error of their ways, the former meeting his end at the hands of one of the other villains he betrayed earlier, while the latter allowed himself to be absorbed into the main villain just before the final battle. Erisio however eventually ended up becoming disillusioned with the whole battle against love and hate, which ultimately made it possible for the Cures to reason with him. Also, a smaller thing, but another interesting detail is that unlike most, but not all, previous series, there isn’t really a second world involved that the Cures must save along with their own. The fairies sort of just live on Strawberry Mountain too and like to make sweets. Maybe it’s because Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure prominently featured two different worlds that the Cures kept travelling between and had to protect, so they felt like doing something a little different with the next series to mix things up?

I like how each of the Cures had some special abilities related to the animals they’re themed after, with Cure Whip being able to jump higher and having enhanced hearing, Cure Custard being a fast runner, Cure Gelato’s roaring attack, Cure Macaron’s scratching attack, Cure Chocolat’s enhanced sense of smell and Cure Parfait’s ability to fly. However, I do feel as if some of these skills weren’t really used all that much. Some use their skill more than others, which does make some sense since some skills would be more useful than others, but still, I feel they probably could’ve done a little more with them. Another minor plot point that they probably could’ve done something more with is the kira-kiraru pot in the KiraPati, which gathers up the kira-kiraru generated by the sweets the Cures make, and is mainly used to create decorations for the KiraPati. Chourou at one point mentions that the kira-kiraru stored in it can be shaped into dreams, but aside from the making decorations thing, this is never really brought up again.

Anyways, I feel like the biggest theme of this show is ones feelings and dreams, in this case often shown in the form of kira-kiraru, the colorful sparkles seen within people’s hearts and the sweets filled with the feelings of those who made them. Noir’s main method of recruiting his minions was to target them when emotionally vulernable and manipulating them, with Erisio using similar methods to try to break down the Cures. Erisio’s final plan is to try to eliminate everyone’s emotions, particularly love and hate, entirely so that the conflict between the two sides can be ended once for all.

Ones emotions and dreams are common themes throughout the various series of the Pretty Cure franchise, and I feel this one also manages to make it work really well and does some interesting things with it. One of Ichika’s/Cure Whip’s greatest strengths is her sense of empathy, which is especially shown when she is able to reach Julio and free him from Noir’s corruption. While the series is light-hearted for the most part, there can still be some surprisingly dark moments, particularly when Noir or Erisio is involved. It is kind of similar in tone to Smile Pretty Cure in that regard, I guess.

Interestingly, I don’t actually see too many paralells between this show, and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Smile Pretty Cure that came before it. I mean, all three shows have the same (initial) number of Cures one particular villain whose main strategy is to psychologically corner the girls, fairies that can turn into humans, and a female fairy eventually gains a human form that can fight alongside the Cures at some point, but aside from that, this show is actually pretty different from those two previous shows.

I also thought giving each girl a familiar of sorts in the form of the Crystal Animals was a nice touch. I mean, we already have the fairies, but this was something a little different. I also like how the cute little animals take on bigger forms that the Cures can ride on when doing the Animal Go Round and Fantastic Animale attacks. I also like the upgrades the Cures get to their uniforms when using the latter attack, making them look fancier while still looking kind of goofy.

I don’t know if I made a joke about it already, but part of me wondered if the creators were inspired from seeing Cure Miracle and Cure Magical in their goofy candy-themed Topaz transformations, and liked it so much that they decided to go with a similar style for the Cures of this series. Still, the show makes it work really well, and the outfits are certainly creative and manage to look cool despite the somewhat goofy elements.

As I mentioned earlier, I found Noir’s backstory and history with Lumiere... Well, it could’ve been done better. However, Erisio turning out to have once been the human body that Noir discarded when he became a force of evil was an interesting twist, which made it even more surprising when he ultimately betrayed Noir and took his power. Erisio proceeded to create a world without love or hate, and tried to get people to discard everything they were once passionate about in order to prevent those feelings from returning. The only thing that can stop him is Pekorin, who along with Chourou was saved by Cure Whip’s quick thinking. Eventually, Pekorin is able to become Cure Pekorin, and restore the other girls’ memories, allowing them to reclaim the items they had discarded containing their feelings, and transform once more.

From there, the townspeople gradually begin to regain their memories and feelings, eventually driving Erisio to resort to sealing everything inside his own body and wait for it all to fade away. The Cures are left not knowing what to do, but Chourou lets them know that not all is lost yet, and he’s willing to lend them his kira-kiraru to help them out. Julio, Bibury, and eventually the rest of the townspeople offer up their kira-kiraru as well, but it is still not enough. In the end, the Cures are only able to break free and return everything to how it was after reasoning with Erisio and helping him realize he has feelings too.

The Cures return to their now restored world, Erisio releases Lumiere and Noir’s powers, and the Cures return to the KiraPati to continue celebrating Ichika’s birthday. In the final episode, Ichika looks over pictures of different places her mother has been to while working, admiring her and thinking back to Erisio’s parting words to her, about creating a world where everyone is truly connected.

We cut to a year later, to everyone’s last day working at the KiraPati. We get to see how each girl has made progress in pursuing their dreams during the time skip, with Himari starting to become known for her sweets science, Aoi’s band having become more popular, Yukari having been travelling abroad, Akira having gotten into medical school and Ciel having been making sweets alongside Rio.

Pekorin feels it is going to get lonely with everyone going their separate ways, but Ichika assures her that she’ll be staying. Just like with the last episode of Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure, we get a surprise appearance from the next pink lead Cure, as Hana Nono stops by the KiraPati, bringing along Hugtan. Ichika and her friends make something for Hugtan, and Ichika adds a photo of the two to a wall she’s made showing the happy smiles of their customers. When the Crystal Animals find a bunch of hidden travel brochures, Ichika is forced to admit that part of her had thought about travelling the world to spread smiles, like her mother.

However, due to her concern for Pekorin and Strawberry Hill, Ichika can’t bring herself to leave. As Chourou’s missing body suddenly goes berserk from having been separated from its spirit for so long, the Cures must fight it to calm it down. During the fight, Cure Pekorin and the fairies come together to help fight it, with Cure Pekorin having realized that Ichika/Cure Whip has a dream she wants to pursue too, and wanting to assure her that she’ll be able to stay and protect the town, and that Ichika/Cure Whip doesn’t have to hold back for her sake.

When Chourou’s body traps the fairies in his umbrella, Cure Yell ends up joining the fight, actually kicking his body in order to release the fairies, before cheering on the other Cures as they help calm down Chourou’s body so his spirit can reunite with it at last. After everything that has happened, Ichika feels renewed energy and decides to travel afterwards, with Chourou suggesting she take the KiraPati with her since he’s no longer bound to it.

Like with Go! Princess Pretty Cure and Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure, we get a final look at what everyone is up to a few years into the future. I feel this final episode neatly wraps up the remaining loose ends, such as Ichika finally finding her dream, Chourou finally reuniting with his body and what became of Lumiere and Noir after their power was released by Erisio. It is really sweet to see Pekorin realizing what Ichika is willing to sacrifice so she won’t be alone, and deciding to overcome her worries of being left behind so Ichika can pursue her dreams without regret.

I think another interesting thing about the last few episodes is that the Cures didn’t really get any new power-ups besides what they already had, although they do get a seventh Cure in the form of Cure Pekorin, who while not as strong or experienced as the main six, still manages to help out during the final confrontation with Erisio and help restore the world to normal. I also like how the concept of kira-kiraru, which is the source of the Cures’ power and something that exists in everyone’s hearts, make it easy for the townspeople to help out the Cures and gain new power throughout the series. The Cures gain both the Candy Rod and the Sweets’ Castle that way, and of course, all the people they’ve helped throughout the series also pitch in during episode 48 to give the Cures the kira-kiraru they need to restore the world. Really shows how much the townspeople appreciate the Cures and all they’ve done.

So, yeah. This series does have some flaws, but I still think it’s pretty good. I feel like the fact that it has such a light-hearted tone for the most part also allows for the current series, Hugtto Pretty Cure, to tell a bit of a darker story. I’ve certainly been enjoying Hugtto Pretty Cure so far, and next year, after it concludes, I’ll look forward to doing a post with my thoughts on it! Of course, that means it’ll be a while until my next one, although I suppose I might do some posts on a few of the Pretty Cure movies in the time in-between. We’ll see! :)

#darkershining's thoughts on pretty cure #pretty cure #kira kira precure a la mode #long post

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