Day number four already? Wow, time flies. Anyway, today's review is for the first season of Pretty Cure, another series I watched over the summer. The Basics Episodes: 49Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Magic, ShoujoAired: February 1, 2004 to January 30, 2005Directed by: Daisuke NishioProducers: Toei AnimationOpening Theme: Danzen! Futari wa Precure! by Mayumi GojoClosing Theme: Gecchuu! Rabu Rabu?! by Mayumi Gojo Review The Story: Futari wa Pretty Cure (“We Are Pretty Cure”) is one of the million magical girl series on the market, and very much geared for children. Two girls, Nagisa Misumi (a very sporty girl) and Honoka Yukishiro (a science nut) each receive a small “cell phone” which is really a living, 100% adorable creature from the Garden of Light, which is in terrible danger of being destroyed by the forces of darkness. Nagisa's is Mepple and Honoka's is Mipple. Basically, they have come to earth to find a number of gems they need to fix their world, and they require the help of Pretty Cure in order to do so—of course Nagisa and Honoka become this team as Cure Black and Cure White, respectively. The goal of the series is simply to protect and restore the Garden of Light. The Characters: One of the points the series makes is friendship, like so many other series meant for kids. This time the point is Nagisa and Honoka learning to get along and become best friends despite how different they are. The two girls are complete individuals, and watching them develop together (particularly watching them mature) is somewhat interesting. However, the more entertaining characters are really Mipple and Mepple, if only because they're so cute—besides, it's their world that needs saving. The few others you see from the Garden of Light are interesting in their own right. Then there are the villains...all right, to be honest the villains here can be sort of difficult to take seriously, one has a completely predictable storyline, and the main villain is called the Dark Lord (I realised how much of a Harry Potter geek I am when I saw him and proclaimed “He looks nothing like Voldemort!”). Still you live with them. But really, it's all about Mipple and Mepple: The Magic: Unlike in Card Captor Sakura (an anime I will review sometime next year) where the magic is controlled solely by Sakura, or in Sailor Moon (which I love but may never review) where the Sailor Scouts all fight but only Sailor Moon was really capable of destroying the enemies, in this series the heroines are seriously useless without each other. The magic granted to them by the Garden of Light can only be used to defeat the villains if the girls are together, as the attacks require the combined magics of both Black and White. As much as it would have been nice if they could have done something without being together, it was also nice to see a series where teamwork was actually necessary instead of a single character receiving all of the real glory. Conclusion?: Obviously if you aren't into magical girl anime, you won't like this series at all. It's very friendship-oriented, as mentioned, so if you're sick of those, that's another thing that suggests you wouldn't be interested in Pretty Cure. However, it does have its merits. As mentioned it has the value of really requiring the girls to work together, and another thing that's good about it is that it's pretty true in terms of the vague “romance” that it exists. Nagisa has a crush on a certain boy, but it doesn't make her world revolve around that, and she does get nervous around him. It's just like normal for people of that age (middle school). So for light-hearted, well-done magical girls, this is pretty good. My rating: 7/10. For me, I went in with high expectations. I remember having watched a little of it years ago and I loved it then. Now I guess I was so set on my love of Sailor Moon that I thought it would live up to that. Maybe I would have liked it better if the girls were a little older? ...But I do love this guy:
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