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If I could use one word to describe Happiness Charge it would be consistent. It's pretty much always a fun and entertaining show at the least, while there are parts that are better and worse than others its highs and lows aren't particularly extreme ever. I could always count on each episode to be basely enjoyable when I watched it even if I didn't expect much else.

The characters are fun enough. They have good chemistry with each other and I Hime in particular is great, she's definitely the stand out Cure from this season to me. Something of a problem though is that the show ... doesn't really balance out what it does with each girl. Yuuko feels like a prop for the first 30 episodes of the show and in the second half Hime is just kind of there. Not every Cure needs to have some sort of important side plot or be directly related to the main story in some way like Hime but there is really nothing going on for Yuuko and Hime at large stretches of time. Not only that but Yuuko's character is hardly expanded upon at all in the first half. Not counting Cures we have Seiji, Megumi's childhood friend. He's a pretty good character in his own right, and he becomes a nice support for the group of girls later on.

More than any other season Happiness Charge has a big focus on romance and love. It's pretty refreshing seeing this as a theme for Precure after so long. But it's not exactly done the best. A lot of it just ends up being characters agonizing over feelings and there not being good resolution on most things. Hime's potentially burgeoning crush on Seiji is wrapped up in the most disappointing and anti-climactic way possible, and in the worst case a possible love interest for Iona comes out of nowhere to enable a power-up and disappears just as quickly. For a show where love is such a big deal it really drops the ball in a lot of places.

In general the show is very quick to finish one thing and then move on to the next. Mostly in the second half. It will do something interesting and shocking for one episode and then it's done, time to do something else. The "Unlovely" event, which could've been expanded on so much more, and the resolution of Cure Tender are treated this way and it's a bit anti-climactic once again. The show does have a bit of a bad habit of bringing up supposedly important things and then just forgetting about them or seemingly thinking that they never need to bring them up again.

For a season where there are many different teams of Cures fighting around the world this wasn't really utilized much, they travel once and that's it. It's just kind of a shame they didn't really get to know that many other Cures well.

And then there's the CGI stock footage transformations. It's probably the most unique thing about HapCha compared to other Precure seasons. The girls each get some form changes and when they use them we get CGI stock footage exactly like the ending songs. They're very disappointing. The attacks themselves are basically pointless in the first place, very rarely do they even have an affect on anything other than the small monsters the Cures will be fighting. It basically just amounts to a weird cut-scene, "Oh. That happened.", and then they get phased out as the show goes on and we never see them again, it's basically just a waste of an idea. This only applies to the form changes used for battle though. The regular civilian changes are good, the girls get a wide variety of different outfits like ninja gear. It's one of the better realized parts of the show as they're always transforming into something cute.

The action in the show is overall the best we've had in Precure since Heartcatch. There's a lot of energy and excitement in the fights and the Cures are always inventing random attacks and throwing energy blasts and stuff that make the fights more fun. There's not really a ton of exceptionally well animated fights though but the show makes up for it I feel.

The animation isn't the best to be sure but the characters are very expressive and I feel the style and atmosphere of the show balance this out. I never found myself caring much about the general animation outside of fight scenes because Hime's exaggerated motions and such kept me entertained.

The villains are quite varied. The minion trio, like we've had every season since Fresh, is not particularly good. They have their fun scenes and are kind of basely entertaining but there's nothing else to them. They just kind of get worn out after a while. It doesn't feel like they have much of a rivalry with the Cures or anything and they aren't given backstories or any real development until much later than necessary. This makes the inevitable final fights with them just feel hollow.

Phantom is a better villain but still bland for most of his run. He later gets some development and what we learn about him makes him quite interesting but he's still not particularly compelling or fun to watch as a villain. Mirage is also pretty good and interesting herself but she just doesn't do much. The fight with her is indeed quite great though.

Deep Mirror is easily the best villain of the show. He also ends up as just being one of the most thought out, complex, and well realized villains of the franchise.

The finale is good definitely. Relatively well built up, intense, awesome, good villains to deal with, shocking reveals, it pretty much has all you could want. However. Megumi is the only Cure to be even remotely relevant to anything going on in the last part of the show. She does everything important basically. I don't know if I should be angrier at Doki for starting this terrible trend or HapCha for blindly following it. At least HapCha doesn't go out of its way to make things revolve around Megumi when they shouldn't though. She just... happens to be the only important one at the end. It's honestly kind of annoying.

The show uses a victim of the week format at a very loose level, we don't really get to know the people made into Terribads for the most part and they don't have to be sad or having a problem of their own like in other seasons. It's just a quick way to create a victim and a monster for the show and it's kind of nice truthfully, it at least means they never half ass the victim of the weeks story and they can still have important people made into monsters.

The normal non-cgi stock footage in the show is pretty good. All the transformations are good, Lovely and Princesse's duo attack is awesome, and the final group attack... well it's certainly unique I can tell you that much.

With all this being said the last thing about HapCha I can say is that there's just a feeling of staleness to it. Watching it I can't shake that it just all comes off as kind of bland to me. Probably having to do with Megumi's character, as fun as she can be, being really typical herself. But it's other things too that I can't quite describe, just a feeling the show gives off. But perhaps this is only because it's been ten years of Precure.

I would never rate Happiness Charge as one of the best or worst seasons of Precure. It's fine. That's it. It never evoked feelings of love or hate. But I could watch it and enjoy it again one day.

Doki Doki is the worst season of Pretty Cure in the franchise. It would already be a bad enough show on its own but also decides to tread on the spirit of Pretty Cure, be something it's not, and ends up as everything a season of Pretty Cure shouldn't be.

The show is much more plot focused than any other season and here is the first major problem. While heavy focus on the plot isn't inherently a bad thing, in Doki's case it unfortunately comes at the cost of developing the characters and their relationships with each other, especially in the first half of the ... show. And despite the creators trying to make a more complex story they fall flat on their face and Doki ends up having numerous plot holes in addition to the ones you'd commonly see in any other season. It's a kids show built around selling merchandise and they simply tried to do to much with it and failed, there are numerous concepts and ideas brought up that never really get expanded on. The pacing in the show feels like they just tried to cram in as much stuff as possible without allowing for any breather room or for things to naturally develop. There are so many plot devices and power ups that come out of nowhere with no or very little build up or foreshadowing. Pretty Cure usually has this to some degree but Doki takes it to a completely new level.

The Cures themselves are mostly okay characters. The problem is what the show does with them. You'll never see a Cure more poorly treated and wasted than Cure Sword. She is a veteran warrior from the devastated Trump Kingdom but the show has no idea what to do with her or how to keep her relevant later on. Diamond and Rosetta similarly get the short end of the stick, especially in the first half once again.

The fairies are okay for the most part, Davi is in fact one of the better ones from the franchise I think, but they and their relationships with the Cures aren't well developed and for the longest time they don't really feel like friends or even partners with their Cure. Ai-chan unfortunately never stops feeling like she's a plot device more than a character.

When it comes to comedy the show is a little weird. At times it tries to emulate the wacky and silly style common in Fresh or Smile but with far less success. There's a lot of really out of place stuff poorly integrated into otherwise serious episodes and it kind of ruins the atmosphere or just comes across as dumb. It has plenty of fun moments and episodes still but a lot of stuff feels like it would've been better or fit in more in a different season.

The villains are the Jikochu. The minions in the show are boring. They follow a seven deadly sins theme but it never amounts to more than a one-note character trait at best or at worst having nothing to do with them at all. Bel is an okay villain but keeps going back and forth between comic relief and serious threat and excelling at neither. Anything set up with the minions never really amounts to anything good.

Regina starts off as the only entertaining villain the show has but what the show does with her quickly becomes repetitive, annoying, and boring. The main villain of the show is King Jikochu and he is surprisingly a pretty interesting and entertaining villain through the whole show. It would be too big of a spoiler but he's rather unique for a few reasons.

The monsters of the week are okay. Some of them have pretty interesting designs and gimmicks and are pretty funny. A lot unfortunately don't really get to shine and there are barely any remotely good fights against them.

The fighting in the show is on the whole very weak. Poor animation quality during the fights leave most of it unremarkable and without any impact. Doki does have quite a few silly and unusual fights to somewhat make up for it but it's never great at that. There is a lot of strategy used in some fights and the properties of what a Jikochu is made from sometimes factor into it. For instance a Jikochu made from a stereo runs out of batteries when it's not plugged in. But this happens less as the show goes on and it becomes more straight-forward action. Which is unfortunate because it still isn't good.

The general soundtrack is good, the opening and endings just okay.

The stock footage in the show is bland. All but one of the transformations are terrible. The one good one is so good it looks like it should be in a different show. The attacks are nothing special, some bad and some okay ones.

Possibly the biggest problem with Doki is its main character. Aida Mana, Cure Heart. The show completely revolves around her. Instead of it being about friendships and bonds between all the Cures it's all about how everyone loves Mana and that's why it's everything Pretty Cure shouldn't be. She's completely perfect from the beginning of the show and doesn't grow or learn anything at all. Any supposed lessons she learns are forgotten and repeated later. The show sets up things like how her amazing selflessness might cause problems for her but nothing ever comes of this. Everyone loves her and she never fails. She's completely uncompelling and unrealistic and even worse is a terrible role model for children. Even when she shouldn't be the center of attention or have something in the plot revolve around her it happens anyways because she's the creators favorite. Add to that she's also just a terribly written character as her intelligence and fighting ability fluctuate episode by episode. She is the worst Cure of the franchise because everything she's about spits on what it means to be a Cure.

The finale of the show is strange. It's not good by any means. It's hilarious in the same way a particularly bad movie is hilarious. There are some nice moments in it and some nice ideas are used but there is also plenty of dumb stuff, out of place comedy, terrible plot devices, a shoehorned in final fight that makes no sense, and generally poor animation quality and action that ruins it. The finale leaves one wondering where the animation budget went as despite there being some good moments it's really not that good looking and neither were the episodes leading up to it.

So Doki Doki is the worst season of the franchise. At most times mediocre, sometimes terrible, never that great, with boring villains, and with the worst lead Cure ever.

Have you ever watched a show that is so clearly just trying to have as much fun as possible? That is for the most part so light and fluffy that it doesn’t have a care in the world? That’s the type of show Smile Precure is.

Miyuki Hoshizora and her friends Akane, Yayoi, Nao, and Reika have been enlisted as Pretty Cure to help Candy, the fairy from Marchenland, resurrect the Royal Queen who sacrificed herself to stop the evil Pierrot of the Bad End Kingdom from painting a bad end across the world. Pretty Cure must collect the various decor that hold the Queens ... power, while the other villains of the Bad End Kingdom seek to gather Bad Energy from people to revive Pierrot. Always spouting her catchphrase of "Ultra happy", Miyuki takes on the challenge with glee.

Smile is a simple show. It does away with a lot of the typical character drama present in other seasons and is much more comedy focused with lots of silly fun and wacky hijinks, a lot of your enjoyment of the show is going to depend on what you personally find funny and entertaining. The characters themselves are rather simple even for Pretty Cure and their relationships and bonds with each other, while they grow stronger, don't ever really change or develop. However this isn't really as bad as you might think. The characters are still plenty fun, cute, and likable. They all have their own brand of silliness that fits in perfectly in Smile. And although simple they aren't completely flat, their characters still get fleshed out and expanded upon over the course of the season and there is more to them than just what you see in their introductory episodes. The characters development just isn't that big of a priority in Smile. This isn't inherently bad it just means the show has a different way of handling its characters and what it's trying to do with them.

However, despite the lower focus on the characters and their development Smile still has character arcs that cover the entire season and all build up to big individual culminations of the girls characters, and also about them finding out what is truly important to them. The arcs just aren’t as explored or visible as in other seasons and until the end of the show usually don't impact episodes outside of the arcs. There’s also a heavy theme of friendship in the series and each girl realizing what the others mean to them. As well as a theme of the girls protecting and reaching towards the future and saving it from the Bad End the villains want to bring about.

Surprisingly the character whose development is a big priority and focus in Smile is the fairy, Candy. Candy starts off as a pretty typical fairy for Pretty Cure, but somewhat more useless and cowardly. She even manages to be rather detrimental to the Cures on occasion and largely is a bother, and can frankly just be annoying. However, when Candy starts to change she never looks back. The story of Smile is just as much her journey as it is Pretty Cure's. She develops into a capable fairy who no longer cowers and instead of trying her best and making things worse, she tries her best and succeeds. She becomes a much more active helper to Pretty Cure and is more integral to the plot, while still getting real development, than most other fairies.

As for the main plot of Smile the show essentially treats it like a joke. The villains actions are so nonsensical and often so hilariously over the top and stupid that it often seems like Smile is a parody of the typical Pretty Cure plot. The show gets serious at important moments but most of the episodes are played for comedy and are often highly energetic and loads of fun. The problem is that Smile doesn't have much in the area of over-arching subplots. Individual episodes will tie into the main plot but will have nothing more going on in them other than whatever random thing is happening in the episode. Because of that Smile is even more episodic than the average season of Pretty Cure. These individual episodes could be good or great but getting long stretches of them all at once can make the show kind of drag.

Because so much of the show is unabashedly silly the more serious moments can occasionally clash with the otherwise light-hearted nature of the show. However, Smile is surprisingly good at pulling off these serious moments. When it wants to be sweet it can be sweet, when it wants to be sad it can be sad, when it wants to be awesome it can be awesome and it somehow manages to excel at these things despite first and foremost being a rather silly series. The show is able to draw up a surprising amount of emotion from the characters that allow these serious moments and episodes to always be done nicely.

And then we have the villains in the show. Wolfrun, Akaoni, and Majorina make up the Bad End trio, the flunkies of the Kingdom essentially. At first they start off as pretty dull but as they interact with Pretty Cure and each other more they become much more entertaining villains. They are often hilarious and have great chemistry with each other, some of the best episodes are ones that have all of them interacting with Pretty Cure and each other at once. Over the course of the series they also develop personal vendettas against Pretty Cure, some of the battles end up being much more personal and have great impact.

And then there’s Joker. Joker is Pierrot’s right hand man and the second in command of the Bad End Kingdom, and is a very entertaining and more interesting villain than the others in the show. Although he initially appears with a carefree attitude and generally acting like a weirdo he is in actuality a very sadistic and evil villain. Especially by Smiles standards. Just downright creepy at times and even cruel to his comrades, whenever Joker appears before the Cures it signals something much more serious and dangerous than normal is about to happen, and unlike the others he often partakes in psychological games with the Cures, attempting to break their will to fight and crush them mentally. By the end of Smile Joker had become one of the more disturbing villains in the franchise.

The monsters of the week in Smile are the Akanbe. Clown monsters, as is fitting of Pierrot himself being an evil monstrous clown. While their designs can be lacking and are often just blocky there are a fair amount of nonstandard Akanbe that have special forms or gimmicks that you wouldn't see among the monsters from other seasons. There are multiple different types of Akanbe depending on the color of their nose and they all have a different color scheme, clothing, and facial expression to further differentiate the types. The Akanbe are also made from the decor Pretty Cure needs, so they have to defeat them in order to revive the Queen.

When it comes to the fighting in Smile there's actually quite a lot to talk about. The quality of the action is all over the place and the style of fighting quite varied. There's not a lot of the typical straight forward action in Smile, especially earlier on, and while there is some very good fast-paced hard-hitting action it is few and far in between and usually saved for the more serious episodes. A lot of the action in Smile is focused on gimmicks. There are a lot of Akanbe made around a certain gimmick that will also occasionally tie into the episode in some way, whether it be a lesson or some sort of physical object that 's important to the episode. We have one Akanbe that quizzes the girls on school subjects and if they answer incorrectly they get trapped in a big red X. There are multiple fights like this throughout the season and even some episodes with no actual fighting to speak of and the girls will defeat the Akanbe through other means. The sheer variety of the fights is unlike any other season and keeps the battles from ever becoming stale but if you're looking for more of the straight forward action typical of other seasons you may be disappointed. It also takes Smile a little while to really get into its groove when it comes to the action so the fighting in the earlier episodes is pretty bland and more about being silly and comedic. The fights in Smile in general have a more comedic and silly tone to them, partially because the Akanbe are clowns after all, so aside from the more serious episodes don't expect much seriousness in the other fights. Pretty Cure also all have their own elemental powers that they become better at using over the course of the show, they start out unable to really use them aside from their finishing attack but soon can do such things as powering up their punches with fire and using ice to debilitate the enemy. They become more intelligent and crafty with their elemental powers in short time.

What's more to the fights is that decor are also occasionally used to help the girls out in them. Each decor has it's own ability, whether giving the girls wings for flight, or just giving Candy some food to chow down on. Later on the show actually manages to tie the use of decor in the fights into Candy's character development. She starts to actively participate in the fights by using the decor to help Pretty Cure whenever she can and the decor begin to get used in the fights much more frequently. It's all a part of Candy and Pretty Cure combining their powers, Candy isn't satisfied just powering up their attacks so she starts to help them out whenever possible.

In the beginning of the show the girls start off as horrible fighters. By far the most incompetent team of Pretty Cure ever assembled. Weak and unable to use their attack more than once without getting tired, and sometimes failing to even get the attack to work in the first place. But over the course of the first half of the show you see them improve tremendously, their teamwork gets better, they become stronger, they gain more stamina, and they learn how to fight for real and eventually become a real team that can truly stand up to their opponents.

The music is pretty good but not too spectacular for the franchise. The ending themes are very nice and have several different versions that focus on different characters.

There are also just a lot of nice little things about Smile. The different endings, the fact that you can play Rock, Paper, Scissors with Yayoi every time she transforms, just nice little things added into the show to make it a little more fun.

Smile has a fairytale theme to it but it doesn’t really give a whole lot of attention to it. There are lots of little references to various fairy tale's scattered throughout the show but the fairytale theme mostly just hangs in the background. There’s always some fairytale aspects present in the show, such as Wolfrun, Akaoni and Majorina all being fairytale characters/creatures as well as some other things but these are never really focused on or given any thought outside of “These are fairytale references.” Despite a lot of general references Smile rarely takes the opportunity to do anything special with the fairytale theme. And it’s a big disappointment for the show. In the end instead of being an ever present theme like music in Suite or flowers in Heartcatch fairytale's in Smile are more like a recurring motif that's very important to some characters and helps set up and tie certain points of the story together.

While Smile's plot is really simple and linear by the time the show is coming to a close there are a surprising amount of elements coming to a head all at once. There ends up being quite a few things to be resolved and taken care of. The build up to the finale is pretty good, there's a nice flow into the final arc and the episodes are used to foreshadow some important events later on as well as give the characters their resolution that helps them face the eventual hardships. The finale itself gets pretty crazy but there are some unfortunate hiccups in it and several sudden revelations and plot events that aren't given the necessary time to really be focused on well enough and have as much impact as they should. However the final showdown is very intense and awesome, you see how far the girls have come in their journey and the themes of the show are displayed excellently. Despite some problems Smile manages to have a very emotional and sometimes heart-wrenching finale.

The epilogue is very sweet and manages to give us one last moment of silliness that perfectly fits the show.

Smile Precure is aptly named. It's cheerful, bright, energetic, and the whole show feels like it's just trying to make you ultra happy, laugh, and put a big smile on your face.

Nozomi Yumehara is a girl without a dream or goal for the future. She's clumsy and is good at neither sports nor academics. Until now she's just been drifting through her life without a care in the world. That all changes when she suddenly meets Coco, a fairy prince from the destroyed Palmier Kingdom, and now she decides that she will become Pretty Cure to fight evil and help revive the Palmier Kingdom.

Yes5 greatly changes the formula for the Pretty Cure franchise. It's the first season to give the individual Cure's the ability to transform without each other and have their own attacks for defeating ... the Monster's of the Week. Changing Pretty Cure from a duo to a five-person team also obviously increases the number of important characters and makes the team dynamic and character interactions for this season completely different from the previous two.

The basic plot for the show is very simple, the girls must find the 55 Pinkies and put them into the Dream Collet and they can then make whatever wish they want. Pretty Cure wishes to use the Dream Collet to revive the Palmier Kingdom while Nightmare, the evil organization of the season, want it to grant their leader Despariah's wish of eternal youth and immortality. However, the show treats gathering the Pinkies sort of as a side-plot, Yes5 is much more focused on it's characters and their development and interactions with each other. Something unfortunate is the actual designs and transformations of Pretty Cure. The outfits are pretty plain and the transformations equally so, probably the worst in the franchise.

Being the main focus of the show the Cure's in Yes5 have more development and personality than the Cure's from previous seasons. As do the fairies who can change into human forms. Nozomi, Cure Dream, starts out as a silly girl with her head in the clouds who doesn't know what she wants to do in life, over the course of the show she becomes a great leader and an inspiration to all of her friends. Rin, Cure Rouge, plays the straight-man of the group and is a typical "tomboy with a girly side to her" with Rin you see her developing friendship with Karen and the rest of the Cure's. Urara, Cure Lemonade, is the youngest of the group but already working as an idol and her cheerful demeanor belies the fact that she lost her mother at a young age. Komachi, Cure Mint, struggles to find passion in her life and to find her own voice. Karen, Cure Aqua, is a lonely girl who until becoming Pretty Cure never had a friend aside from Komachi. All of the girls also struggle with their dreams for the future, while unlike Nozomi they have their own passions and talents they're all still unsure of what they really want to to do with their lives.
The fairies in the show are Coco, who disguises himself as a teacher at the school the girls attend. Being a prince of the Palmier Kingdom Coco is constantly looking out for the happiness and safety of the girls. Nuts, the second prince, is tortured by the fact that he was tricked by Nightmare into allowing the Palmier Kingdom to be destroyed in the first place. He closes himself off to others and only gradually opens up more across the show.

Yes5, unlike pretty much every other season in the franchise, also has a much bigger focus on romance. Unlike most seasons where some Cure's would just have a little crush on some guy and it wouldn't go anywhere the romantic relationships in Yes5 actually develop and lead somewhere. Coco, despite his best efforts, falls for Nozomi but is tormented by the fact that when this is all over he'll have to return to the Palmier Kingdom and leave her. Nozomi more than reciprocates his feelings and has the same problems with their inevitable seperation. Komachi similarly falls in love with Nuts and agonizes much the way Nozomi does, unlike her though Komachi has a much harder time just telling Nuts about her feelings.

The two biggest themes in the show are "Hope vs. Despair" and finding ones dream for the future. With the Hope vs. Despair theme we see this throughout the story with the fairies and Pretty Cure never giving up hope that they can succeed and revive the Palmier Kingdom. The villains simply wish for them to accept their inevitable failure and drown in despair. Finding ones dream for the future also comes into play throughout the season as the girls individual character arcs develop and they eventually find out what they want to do with their lives.

The company of Nightmare was a pretty different antagonist for Pretty Cure at the time. Being an evil business essentially they aren't as threatening and the scale isn't as big with them as it was with the Dark Zone or Dark Fall from previous seasons but because they were so different in their setup and goal it was refreshing.
The individual villains of Nightmare are kind of a mixed bag. There are some great ones, some okay ones, and some crap ones. Girinma, Arachnea, and Gamao, the three minions originally serving under Bunbee, are crap. Just boring villains and nothing to write home about.
Later on the stronger Hadenya and Bloody get introduced, they're both quite a bit better than the previous three. Hadenya has more flair and personality to her and her fights are generally a little better than others too. Bloody is even better, being a more serious and threatening villain the few episodes with him as the adversary are great.
But the actually great villains in the show are Kawarino and Bunbee. Bunbee initially seems like the boss of the organization but is essentially just "middle-management" and while remaining a credible threat to Pretty Cure throughout the show gets less and less respect from his colleagues as time goes on and becomes more of a comedy-relief villain. Kawarino is the opposite. Very evil and creepy, Kawarino is Despariah's right-hand man, he cares nothing for his comrades and has no qualms about sending them on suicide missions or transforming them into mindless monsters. As a sort of counterpart to the happier romance in Nozomi and Coco's lives he is also clearly and deeply in love with Despariah.
The main villain of the series is Despariah, the only female main villain from Pretty Cure. Like many main villains in Pretty Cure she is the exact opposite of the leader Nozomi, Nozomi is hope and Despariah is obviously despair. Whereas Pretty Cure seek to use the Dream Collet unselfishly to help the Palmier Kingdom Despariah only cares for herself and wants to be the only happy person in the world while everyone else is trapped in sadness and despair. The biggest problem with Despariah is that she doesn't have much presence in the show, barely appearing or doing anything herself until near the end. It makes the final fight with her feel like an almost unnecessary addendum and lacks the emotion and impact it should have.
The Monster's of the Week in Yes5 are the Kowaina. A dull concept and physical designs put them, in my opinion, as the worst from any season. Only Bloody uses them in an interesting way.
Another problem with the villains is that they never team-up even though there's no logical reason for them not to. They have good chemistry when talking and meeting together so it's kind of a letdown that we never see them fight together.

The action in Yes5, well to put it plainly it sucks. Like every season there are a couple of good fights but not as much as there should be. A combination of poor animation quality and a stiff art-style make a lot of fights just not look good even if the action is okay.

The music is great, Yes5 probably has one of the best soundtracks in Pretty Cure. The opening and endings however are just okay and nothing really special. Like Splash Star before it Yes5 uses some music from the previous seasons so every now and then you'll hear music from Futari Wa, Max Heart, and Splash Star playing.

The build-up to the finale is pretty poor. It just suddenly sort of starts and the episodes don't really flow well together. Once in the actual finale it's great though. The themes of the show are displayed excellently and it gets really emotional as Pretty Cure face their darkest hour. It's a really dramatic finale, as it should be. However the last episode is "uneven" so to speak. It sort of tries to do too much and despite having a lot of good points it and the fight with Despariah leave much to be desired. The ending is bittersweet, but much more sweet, and the epilogue is perfectly fitting for the show.

So Yes5 takes Pretty Cure in a new direction and still does some things that no other season has done making it a perfectly good and highly enjoyable show.

"The shining golden flower, Cure Bloom!"
"The sparkling silver wing, Cure Egret!"
"We are Pretty Cure!"

Pretty Cure has become a monster of a franchise with multiple different seasons and continuities, and that's not even counting the movies. Splash Star is the first of those alternate continuities, and in my opinion the best. I will try to make this review as spoiler free as possible, but still be wary. This is an updated version of the review.

Right from the beginning the first thing that anyone would notice about Splash Star is that it looks similar to it's predecessor. The general plot outline and even the main characters look ... similar, Saki and Mai even fill out the same archetypes of their older sisters Nagisa and Honoka respectively. And this is possibly a big flaw of Splash Star's, that it is too similar to the original at first. However it does indeed come into its own and really ends up distinguishing itself from the original, and similar doesn't mean the same, even with just a few episodes it's easy to see that while Saki and Mai have similar physical designs their personalities aren't really that similar to Nagisa and Honoka. And the plot has enough twists and differences from the original to really be its own. Due to spoilers I won't go into what makes it better and the key differences, you'll have to watch the show.

The story is simple but because of that the series is very consistent in episode quality, and while it never tries to be a really intelligent, thought provoking anime it still has serious and important topics and themes to it that are all able to be conveyed nicely because the characters put so much emotion into them. The show is great at being serious when it wants to be, and Pretty Cure show a sense of maturity and realism when faced with their greatest foes and they need to ask themselves why they even fight in the first place, what's their resolve for continuing their struggles and not giving up? There are some really great lines and conversations in this series, most episodes also have sweet and well done subplots to them as well. And add to that there are some really beautiful and touching scenes in the series, I found myself on the verge of tears several times throughout the show.

Splash Star features a lot more thought and effort put into it's writing than the original, this becomes apparent with what the monster of the weeks are created from, the elemental themes of the minions, the powers of Pretty Cure, and just the whole world of Splash Star in general. The theming of the villains and theme-naming of the Cures actually mean something and tie into the world and greater themes of Splash Star. Several of the biggest twists in the story are foreshadowed far in advance, even episode one hints at possibly the biggest twist in the series.

The characters themselves are of course rather simple, Michiru and Kaoru are probably the most complex the series has to offer, but the leads are just so fun and likable and entertaining that it isn't as big a problem as one might suspect. The series is always more about emotion and heart, and it really gets you to care about Saki and Mai by having you be there with them throughout all their ordeals.
The villains however are in all likelihood much more entertaining and funny than our heroes. Special mention goes to Kintoleski who is without a doubt one of the best things about this show.
Of course though not all the villains are hilarious, both Akudaikaan and Gohyaan have moments that would make them genuinely frightening to the younger audience this series is aimed at. And Michiru and Kaoru's character arc and plight is anything but funny.

Of course you cant talk about Pretty Cure without talking about the fights, and it's here where the first big difference between Splash Star and the original takes place, as Cure Bloom and Cure Egret they fight often using forcefields and blasts of energy, it gives a nice edge to the fights coming right after the original.
As for actual quality of the fights while Splash Star has some of the best fights in Pretty Cure, including possibly the downright best, many fights are rather anti-climactic and can loook rather stiff and have choppy animation. This is more prevalent in the earlier arcs. Aside from the few really good fights the fighting in Splash Star seems to emphasize awesome moments over actual good fighting, for example in the second episode when the girls are learning how to control their powers they throw the monster of the week across the city and into the ocean.

The actual animation quality on the whole is surprisingly pretty good for a year-round show made by Toei. The quality is consistent throughout and occasionally looks great, usually during the better and more intense fights.

As for sound the music is good and very fitting, plenty of happy, relaxing, and melancholic themes when they're appropriate. There aren't too many standout singular tracks though. The opening and endings however are great. Happy and energetic, the kind that get you shaking in your seat. They're the perfect songs for a series like this.

The voice acting is excellent, especially on the villains side. For example veteran seiyu Jurota Kosugi voices Kintoleski and it's no surprise that his performance is the best in the whole show.

Still after all the good things about Splash Star it has some rather noticeable flaws, becuase of it's similarity to the original the earlier arcs are rather dull compared to later on and it really does take longer than it should for the series to set itself apart from the original. And despite the series having much tighter writing and a better thought out plot there is one plot hole that can only be filled by your imagination.

But Splash Star is able to still be a super fun and enjoyable show throughout its run, even with the repetitiveness I found every episode fun and entertaining. And it has possibly the most epic and heart-pounding finale of all Pretty Cure seasons, with the villain throwing Earth-shattering attacks and Pretty Cure never backing down, it's on a level far above anything else in the series. And what happens after is one of the most beautiful and touching epilogues in the franchise.

It's a kids show, Pretty Cure always will be a kids show, but it's also able to have serious and mature moments and topics and pull them off nicely. In the end, Splash Star is great clean fun.