Hirogaru Sky! Precure

Soaring Sky Pretty Cure the 20th Anniversary Season , and the 20th Season of the Precure franchise as a whole , this was a surprisingly good Season for a Anniversary Season, its pretty great from a animation standpoint , and a Character standpoint , the problems are the lack of good villains or really anything good from past seasons , Cure Sky a good main character , Cure Prism a good secondary character, Cure Wing the first male Cure also fits in really well , Cure Butterfly the first 18 years old Cure is also here ... , there also a spoiler Cure for the last one but I won't ruined that for ya

Soaring Sky Pretty Cure is a right direction for Precure , the lack of good villains is a minus for me , and the lack of Edge from Past season really irks me in that regard

Hope Wonderful Pretty Cure fix that

This is two shows in one. The first, which lasts until Episode 23, is an awesome show with a kickass lead, entertaining villains, and a dramatic and moving climax that truly reaffirms Sora's heroic strength. The second is a mess of inconsequential filler episodes with boring villains and a main plot hastily infodumped in the last 5 episodes, only for its potentially interesting conflict to be quickly discarded by a cheap Korra Equalist twist.

But even its weaker second half is still watchable due to the chemistry of the main couple: Sora and Mashiro. It is always a rare joy to see a headstrong tomboy lead ... character in a magical girl series, a Pippi Longstocking level powerhouse in a striking and pretty Sky Land dress. Beside her is the gentler Mashiro, whose side story of becoming a children's author is very sweet.

Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is a mixed bag. Tsubasa, the series' first male Cure, is very relatable in his scientific interests, but his character arc is weirdly patriarchal for a series about female empowerment. Ageha, the nursery school teacher with the personality of an excited kids' show host, is very entertaining to watch and I would like to say is my favourite of the bunch...except she gets shafted to supporting roles more often than not. Her sad backstory regarding her parents' divorce is only given a few token nods, denying her the character depth she could have otherwise had and a chance to connect with those who went through similar broken families. And the baby, Ellee, is basically a plot device, even after the awkwardly executed reveal of her true nature.

So is it worth watching? Well, maybe? It's one of those shows that sets up a mystery box for 45 episodes only for its contents to be underwhelming, but if you're just in it for the action and cute character interactions, you could do a lot worse. If this show was more consistent, it could have been a magical girl classic, but as it stands, it falls apart in the second half and we just have to deal with it.

Hirogaru Sky! Precure is probably one of the biggest disappointments I've had when it comes to mahou shoujo. Hirogaru carries the proposal of being an innovative anime compared to other Precures, breaking certain character-related clichés: the protagonist is the blue heroine, a boy is part of the "magical girls" group, and there is a Cure who is already in college. This breaking of stereotypes is interesting, but unfortunately, it seems that the anime is just fulfilling a quota of characters for the main cast. The innovative points of the anime are limited to this; the rest is the typical episodic superhero show, where every episode ... results in a confrontation with a random monster and a moral lesson. I believe Hirogaru Sky! Precure is more akin to Paw Patrol than to a mahou shoujo.

Hirogaru Sky does not escape the flaw of many Precures in being a childish anime. I believe a children's show should not be limited to being moralizing, constantly trying to teach a lesson to the audience in the most pedagogical way possible. There are children's animes and infantilized animes. The latter merely reproduce adults' views on what children's things are, always in a hierarchical, didactic tone, teaching what they need to learn at that stage of life. The work's space becomes an educational field, and the artistic part is left aside. This is the case with Precure; the conflicts in the work always seek to teach basic values as if the audience were imbeciles. This does not belong to the children's universe. A child does not have an understanding and concerns related to morality, justice, or even the importance of friendship, which is so emphasized in the anime. This is an outsider's view, an adult's perspective on what they consider important for a child's development. Above all, in infantilized animes, the experience of being a child is disrespected.

On the other hand, children's animes seek to reach the child audience by embodying the essence of seeing the world from a child's point of view, creating a story rich in imagination, fantasy, or even filled with play. Unlike an infantilized work, the adult visits the children's world seeking to have a child's perspective, being curious, turning the world into a stage of constant discoveries. Creamy Mami, for example, is a mahou shoujo that uses magic to bridge Yuu's childlike world with the adult environment of show business.

Unlike Hirogaru Sky, Creamy Mami is not a lesson about what kind of adult a child should become by imparting a set of rules for the character to learn. Instead, it is an anime that encourages the imagination of what the child wants to become in the future. Using her powers, Mami can be anything she desires, just as a child can dream of becoming whatever they wish. Works that achieve this can be enjoyed by both children and adults, as we have all been children and experienced these sensations. This respects childhood, the child's subjectivity, without a top-down perspective.

In summary: although the target audience of the anime is children, this should not prevent an adult from watching without feeling like they're watching a well-produced episode of Peppa Pig or receiving a moral lesson from their parents. So, there are no excuses.