Back to ZettaiRyouiki's Profile ZettaiRyouiki's Profile

Warning: Spoilers!


Ah, Tropical-Rouge. After Healin’ Good turned out… well, good, there was a sliver of hope for this franchise. It seemed like we were back to the glory days were all the Cures were likable, had fair screentime, and the villains were evil and gave us cool fights. Sadly Tropical-Rouge (With a hyphen for some reason. Like crap-hole.) doesn’t really do much of that. Let’s check out how!

First, there’s the story. Or rather, there isn’t. See, Tropical-Rouge was created to cheer up people after COVID, much like Smile after that huge earthquake. And much like Smile that means it barely has a plot. Actually, it’s ... even worse than Smile, since at least Smile loudly pretended to have a plot and progress. Tropical-Rouge… Doesn’t. For the first two thirds of the series or so (not exaggeration), the only “plot” we get beyond the Cures joining is a short arc for the mid-season Cure, who was the most obvious choice for one by the way. Like, I get this is a fun season, but that doesn’t mean it needs to have Max Heart levels of filler. It’s a bit hilarious how near the end of the season we get a recap episode and most of it is just recalling on how each Cure joined and showing their attacks once again. Yes, even the recap has padding. Wow. Seriously, why is this season the one to get a recap episode, when it doesn’t need it?

Anyway, once we get to episode 29 Toei remembers plots are things and that stories are better with them, so they throw a massive infodump in that episode and from there onwards we get actual stuff happening until the end. And you won’t believe this, but despite what little plot this season have they STILL manage to make it a huge mess! For starters, the Witch of Delays (the main villainess) is made sympathetic and we’re told she wasn’t really evil the whole time. Except when the Cure who joined halfway was captured and the Witch tried to make her join her team. Guess she felt evil that day. Worse, when she captures the Cure she says her motivation is creating a world of lazy people. Why? Who cares! But then at the end she has forgotten her motivation, which is then given as something entirely different. It’s like the first half of the series and the second half were written by different people who didn’t check notes, or a higher-up forced a change halfway, consistency in storytelling and proper plot logic be damned. So to summarize, there’s almost no plot and what there is, is lazy and poorly written. Fantastic. And for a “comedy” it’s not very funny either. The ending, while cute, it’s also a clear example of Toei somehow wanting to have its cake and eat it too. It’s not a bad ending but it really feels too convenient. Still, it’s probably the least offensive part of the story.

Now some people will be saying “Eh, PreCure isn’t big on plot, the characters matter more.” and I agree with that. The problem is the cast is poorly used too! The main issue is Manatsu, the leader Cure. She doesn’t wear pink or has pink anywhere minus partially her hair when transformed, but she’s the “pink Cure” regardless. And boy, does she pink Cure the crap outta the series. Basically, remember Haruka “loud ugly hog” Haruno and Hikaru “loud cacophonic idiot” Hoshina, the GoPri and Star Twinkle pink Cures? Well, Manatsu is a mix of their worst traits, with more negative traits added on, and none of their few good bits. She’s easily the worst Cure in the franchise and is just plain awful. She has no hobbies and no special interests, and only really cares about having fun and doing fun things. Instead of Cure Summer she should be called Cure YOLO as that summarizes her character. Hell, there’s one episode where the other girls talk about their future jobs and the episode makes a big deal from what Manatsu will pick, but at the end she only says “I dunno lol, will think about it” which is a really lame copout. And the series treats this as a great reply! Oh yeah, did I mention she has more screentime than everyone else and is favored by plots consistently? Figured you would expect this. Plus her “Tropica-shine” catchphrase is spammed way too much all the time, and is dumb and ridiculous too. Manatsu is terrible. Oh, and ugly to boot, especially transformed. Why did Toei hire again the GoPri character designer, the world will never know!

Thankfully the other Cures are good! But only one has real spotlight and screentime: Laura, the mermaid who becomes a Cure one third into the series. She’s funny, amusing, has a decent arc for the series, a popular VA that fits her well, and is overall the best girl in the series (But not my favorite). Yeah, sometimes she’s ridiculously proud or overly ignorant of the surface, even lacking common sense, but she’s likable overall. Sadly the other three are often moving background and don’t get much screentime. Asuka actually gets a better-late-than-never plot involving Yuriko the student council president (a recurring character) and is not too bad, but shy fashionable Sango and kuudere bookworm Minori get scraps. Toei giving the introverted heroines crap for focus? That has never, ever happened before. Other characters ae the aforementioned Yuriko who is cool, family members, the token bumbling villain trio, and… Kururun. For some reason Kururun got stupid popular, which must probably be some sort of joke I’m not allowed to get, because Kururun SUCKS. They add nothing to the plot, do nothing important, and in fact don’t do anything period except causing trouble (which is the source of suffering for Manatsu for one episode, but of course Kururun is not punished) and being annoying. They also have no dialog beyond parroting their name. Kururun is the worst mascot in the franchise in spite of stiff competition, which says a lot.

Moving elsewhere, there’s the fights. After all, Toei was interviewed recently and they said again PreCure was about cool fights, so they must be good this time around, right? They, huh, aren’t. There’s ONE good fight (episode 29 again) and all the other fights are decent at best. Even the final battle is lame as hell, barely taking half the episode (if that) and being as generic as possible. I’m not expecting Splash Star levels of kickassery here, but at least like the previous season? Come on! Art and music stay good overall, aside from some ugly designs (Manatsu…) because as said the GoPri character designer should rethink their job. The ending song is still the “same” ending they’ve had since Fresh, so no comment there. The VAs are good, but I feel really bad hearing Ai Fairouz waste her voice yelling dumb things when she can do better, like she does with Jolyne for example. At least she’s happy with the job I guess.

Overall Tropical-Rouge is just bad. Not bad-bad, but definitely a Bottom 3 season (so far). It tries to be a comedy (and fails) but then it tries to be serious (and also fails), the worst character hogs the spotlight, and the fights are subpar. Avoid this season unless your age is a single digit. Hopefully Delicious Party will satiate my hunger for a good season!

Warning: Spoilers!

Why is this franchise still around? I’m not being facetious here, I genuinely want to know this. This was a franchise built on friendship and cool fights, and now the cool fights are gone, the friendship thing has less weight each time for some reason, and the quality of the previous two seasons was nonexistent. Meanwhile Aikatsu is on its last legs, despite being a far better franchise. How unfair.

But this isn’t the topic for that. Welcome to the Star Twinkle review by everyone’s favorite caustic reviewer.

Star Twinkle is a step on the right direction compared to KiraKira and Hugtto, but only because when ... you hit the bottom there’s nowhere to go but up. The plotline is simple enough: the universe is gonna be destroyed unless our plucky heroines gather 12 Star Pens and revive the Star Princesses to fix this mess. Seems Toei realized the more “intricate” storylines of DokiDoki/GoPri/Hugtto were terrible and decided to keep things simple which frankly is a wise move. There are a few twists and surprises during the way but that’s basically it. It works, there’s no big plotholes nor issues, good so far.

The characters are… mixed bag. Most are alright, but the pink Cure and the baby mascot are terrible. Did I mention they hog much of the screentime? Why do you keep doing this, Toei?

Anyway. Hikaru is the pink Cure and she’s plain terrible. Loud, obnoxious, childish, and utterly annoying, Hikaru encapsulates the worst traits of pink Cures in a twintailed package. Her catchphrase is dumb and forced and gets thrown in all the time, to ear-shattering points. Her plotline is also barely touched on, and while it shows she could’ve been a better character… She’s not. Lala is the GREEN Cure who doesn’t look green because for whatever reason Toei hates green. She’s an alien and has cute verbal tics and is serious but earnest and overall one of the best girls in the show. She deserves being the most popular Cure this season. Shame after the plot featuring her home planet she becomes background noise, aside from the movie. Erena with R is the yellow Cure and she’s basically Nao from Smile but with dark skin. She spends most of the season being a walking prop though once they remember to give her focus her storyline isn’t too bad and is linked to the main plot even. I still don’t get why they did 3 plots about discrimination in 4 episodes but sure. Madoka is the purple Cure and much like Erena is Nao then Madoka is Reika because the season about imagination lacks any. Seriously, change the strict grandpa for a strict dad and you get Madoka. Both even have the same plotline which just screams lazy and shows how little Toei cares about her. Finally there’s Yuni the blue Cure that joins “halfway”, more like 40% in now, and she’s a weird one. Not her personality, which is fine and dandy, but rather she appears somewhat late and then joins in a rather shoehorned way and barely gets focus outside her spotlight episodes. It’s almost like Murayama had the plot outline done and his editor said “Dude, you forgot the mid-season Cure” and he then just went “Oh shi-“ and shoved her in rather haphazardly. But no way is Toei that incompetent, right?

For other characters, we have Prunce and Fuwa the two mascots. Prunce is cool and thus gets treated like dirt. Fuwa is annoying and she gets put on a pedestal. Yeah. The various family members and friends of the Cures are all fine, except Hikaru’s dad who is basically just as annoying and obnoxious as his daughter down to the stupid catchphrase. Luckily he’s only in two episodes. The villains are cool though, and they even make good points about things which is either really good writing or really bad one. The jury’s out on this one. Still, all in all it’s not a bad cast.

The sound is fine. I could do without Hikaru screaming “KIRAYABAAAAAA” every five seconds and the OP and ED all feel identical to previous ones. But if it ain’t broken don’t fix it.

As for the art, the designs of the characters are good. The main girls are all cute and easily recognizable, the villains have a youkai patter which is pretty neat, and there’s no real issue here. However the fights are subpar and among the worst in the franchise. Too much beamspam, not enough physical contact. Even the final battles are 90% beamspam. It’s not even COOL beamspam, since they reuse stock animation all the time. Boring!

All in all, Star Twinkle is not one of the strongest entries in the franchise. It’s a decent entry point, and if you wanna watch everything PreCure it won’t be the worst part of that, but the glory days of Splash Star and Fresh and Heartcatch are long gone. A pity about that.

PD: Haircuts are the worst.

[Spoiler Warning]

One year ago, smart PreCure fans were devastated. KiraKira had been terrible and hurt the franchise for all time. But there was hope left, for Hugtto was starting. Surely a more traditional season that brought back physical battles would be much better, right? ...Right?

Huh...

Story: Easily the worst part of this season. The story is awful beyond words. Now I'm not expecting any masterpiece from little girl anime created to sell toys, but at least some sort of consistency and logic and basic writing skills are expected. However series composer Tsubota blows her nose at things like proper writing and consistency. The series is choke ... full with Deus Ex Machina and too many things are solved just too easily, both small and big things. Besides that you have things like the personal storylines from the main cast. One girl solves her personal plot when she joins right at the start of the show and other girl solves her storyline in the most ridiculous way possible simply because similar characters from seasons before had a similar resolution.

The themes of the series are parenthood, jobs, and doing anything, and oinly the first one was handled okay sadly. Jobs gets forgotten and the way the anime shows the last one is the most ridiculous scene from the entire franchise. The series also involves time travel and does a terrible mess with that since apparently having consistent time travel rules is really hard. Some individual episodes and scenes are good, but that's about the best we can give this show. It's better than KiraKira for all that helps, since at least this gets the basics right, but every other season is far better.

Art: Animation and art are usually on point thus good. However the fights are pretty boring and also often unrelated to the plot of the episode. It's not like Toei can't make good fights since the cameos get those, meaning they're holding down either because of budget reasons oir angry parents who complain about violence but not about bad writing. Maybe both. Either way these subpar fights certainly are not pleasing. Also the ending dances are getting really tiresome.

Sound: It's not bad. The song that resembles Corridors of Time plays every now and then and still feels jarring. The voice actors are fine, but hearing Yui Ogura not use her usual cute voice was real weird even if that shows she has range. And poor Yukari Tamura being in this bad season...

Character: Another big issue for the show. The main Cures feel split into two groups since the two that join halfway barely interact with the original trio. The original trio also gets the shaft for story except for the pink one, who has the usual Pink Cure Bias the franchise adores. And then there freaking was Henri the worst character from the entire franchise. He exists solely for pushing the agenda from the series composer on gender roles and the like. The problem is the guy was written horribly and the way he's handled looks more ridiculous than anything else, making the whole issue not end serious. And yes, like you probably heard he transforms once. However it's really forced and the guy does nothing, meaning no matter whenever you like the idea or not this does not delived one bit and just fails. Just like the rest of the series.

Enjoyment: The show is probably alright if you pay zero attention to the plot. Otherwise any older season will serve you much better. Except KiraKira for obvious reasons.

Overall: Star Twinkle better improve, since we've got two messes consecutively. This mess has better moments and really bad ones, instead of just awful mediocrity, but it's very much a mess and thus better avoided. We really need a rival magical girl show to give Toei scares and get them back into actually putting effort.

WARNING: Spoilers all through the review! Considering how bad the plot is honestly this might actually help out...

KiraKira is just awful. Back then PreCure fans would fight among themselves on which season was the worst one. Some claimed Suite was awful because it was not as good as the previous two, some that DokiDoki was because the main heroine was the center of the universe, some that HapiCha was worst because Blue sucks and smart ones that it was GoPri because the princess theme was dumb. But now these discussions have stopped since we have the unarguably worst season ever: KiraKira.

There is absolutely nothing redeemable ... about KiraKira. It's just bad from beginning to end. The plot never makes any sense, probably because the show has twice as many writers the average season does and too many cooks spoil the soup, and lacks a total sense of direction too. Things happen because simply happen without rhyme or reason but because Jin Tanaka the horrible head writer willed it this way.

Now there are Cure seasons with bad plots, Max Heart and Smile say hello, but those are redeemed with amazing fights or funny episodes. Sadly we have none of that here. The fights for some reason banned melee attacks in spite of being what makes PreCure stand out among magical girl shows. That means now Cures fought via... shooting whipped cream or ice cream, for example. More on the whole dumb nonsense about sweets later. Needless to say that made battlers boring and repetitive which killed much of the appeal of the franchise. The show realizes it sucks though, since the final battle has the Cures cheat the system and give whipped cream kicks and ice cream punches for whatever reason. Says something the people in charge had to say next season brings backs the physical battles.

Anyway like said before the individual episodes aren't very good. Like the main plot things happen without any logic, and characters barely evolve. And speaking about the characters are terrible and overall among the worst Cure team ever. First as a whole half the team doesn't even care about sweets which are the main theme, again this comes later, which makes these three girls stand out the bad way. Also the team is really weak, like damn near every important fight has them get bailed out via random Deus Ex Machina from other characters. They even get saved by Cures from different seasons not once but twice. That's how bad this gets.

The characters as individuals aren't much better though. Aside from Himari and Ciel nobody grows one bit, and in fact every Aoi and Akira focus episode is the same as their other focus episodes for neither character has much going. Though that's better than Yukari's utterly random growth and character focus. Also boo her random haircut. Finally Ichika for a main heroine barely matters for anything and lacks presence, which kinda sucks. Pekorin and the Elder are horrible mascots and deserve zero words. For the villains Pikario and Bibly are great and more likable than half the main characters which just shows how terrible things get. The other villains are terrible, with the final boss being almost unarguably the worst from the franchise.

Finally the theme of the season is sweets and it's a really bad theme. They barely do anything special with this except shoehorning sweets everywhere and it looks really childish and random. The season overall feels really childish, like this is for little girls but before adults could enjoy the series too but for some reason now adults are excluded. That makes the series look even weaker.

Overall Kirakira is the worst PreCure season easily. Some episodes and characters are alright and little kids might enjoy this, but except for watching every season this isn't worth the time. Just wait until the incoming Hugtto starts since that one looks better. And if it isn't then look forward to one more scathing review.

Ah, Go! Princess Precure or hencefort GoPri for simplicity. Quite the popular and beloved season for some reason. Most fans say this is one of the if not the best reason. However, some of us believe this is quite the opposite and this is easily the WORST season from the franchise. Why? Just keep reading...

WARNING: This review has SPOILERS all over! Nothing extreme, but spoilers.

Story - 4

The story in GoPri is already one of its weak points. For starters the main structure is exactly the same than in DokiDoki, that aired two years ago. And before you go "But Zettai, every single season from Pretty ... Cure follows the same structure" note I don't mean one or two minor things like having the new Cure join midway. I mean like the whole thing!

To wit: The first episodes are the various Cures joining with the last one taking extra, then episode 11 has the first big fight with one villain that can transform and is vanquished with the shiny new combination attack, then another new villain fixated into the Pink Cure appears, then said villain eventually gets one big fight halfway, then the Red Cure joins, then we have another decisive battle by episode 30 won with another new combination attack, then we have some more stuff, and finally the finale with the last battle being just the Pink Cure against the final boss. See? They are the EXACT SAME THING. No other season was this bad, not even Smile the uncreative ripoff season.

On top of that the plot has other issues too, like the plotline being about following your dreams and then giving us one of the dumbest goals possible for the main character, who naturally never gets over this, or anything and everything involving the fourth perfume. Let's just say the series forgets Scarlet should not exist to begin with and therefore everything involving her just keeps causing giant gaping plotholes.

I mean, Pretty Cure is for little girls, but that doesn't mean the plot should be this lazy. Even the terrible DokiDoki was not that bad. At least that tried, which is more GoPri did.

Art - 6

The art is alright, and this season had few QUALITY episodes which is surprising. But there are still problems with it. For starters the 3D looks tacky and out of place, like it was bad when HapiCha did it and is bad now. Glad that Maho Girls got over that. Furthermore most battles are lazily animated, with very few punches and kicks and too much finisher and combination attack spam. Somehow these battles are highly praised among the fanbase, dunno why. Also many of the special attacks and finishers are really long, and the canned animation abuse makes the whole thing feel cheap. Though being fair most recent Cure seasons do this, not just GoPri.

Moving past the animation there are the character designs, and these have issues too. Most are alright, but two stand out as being horrible. I'm talking about Cure Flora and Cure Mermaid like many might have deducted. Flora looks ridiculous with her half-blonde half-pink hair without any rhyme or reason, with her bangs looking like she pasted colored putty on her forehead, while Mermaid has hair that doesn't look like hair AT ALL and just looks plain creepy. Everyone else looks fine, Dyspear's ridiculous cleavage keyhole notwithstanding.

There are also the costume variations. Not only we have Elegant Mode where the girls get longer skirts when using special attacks, presumably to tack on more canned animation, but also each Key meaning special attack gets its own variation on the costume. The problem is these variations all look identical save for one or two accessories and just feel like Toei trying hard to sell extra figurines and costumes, especially after HapiCha actually went and gave everyone two unique extra costumes plus the shared upgrade.

Sound - 7

The songs and everything else are fine. The only problems are the OP being slightly longer than usual for yet more resource saving and Haruka's annoying constant yelling.

Character - 2

And this is where everything fades and crumbles. The cast from this show is terrible, albeit mostly due to Haruka the worst Cure from the franchise.

Ah, Haruka... Remember when Mana was mocked and derided for being Mana Sue? Well, Haruka is like Mana but without Mana's few positive traits and made dumber. At least Mana was oddly competent for her Cure color and that made her stand out. Haruka is the generic dumb Pink lead except she can somehow excel at everything if she tries, to unrealistic levels. One early episode was about her making her own party dress AND still doing well in class AND saving the day during the monster of the week battle even though she was really tired. Like they could have made it so she didn't fight and the other two handled the monster themselves, or fight but only cause problems, but they had to show how Haruka is the greatest thing since sliced bread. There are far more problems but I don't want to drown this review in spoilers. I'll just mention like half the episodes revolve entirely or partially about Haruka in some way or another. And here I was thinking this franchise was about friendship and teamwork.

For the other Cures... Minami is basically Generic Blue Cure. If you saw one Blue Cure before and was not Erika then you saw Minami already. She is smart, leads the student council, has water and ice powers, affinity with water, fears ghosts, and is basically all the previous Blue Cures all together. Very lazy. Kirara is awesome and the only Cure that had some effort put into being unique, and thankfully she's most popular too. Towa is basically every former enemy turned heroine put together, again showing zero creativity.

The rest of the cast is alright, with Kanata being better than the previous bishounens but still being quite the pointless love interest. The villains are okay but you can tell Close was also the darling from the writers with all the attention he gets. Details would involve spoilers but let's just say he's basically Villain Haruka with all the love he gets.

Enjoyment - 6

GoPri is the worst Pretty Cure season. It's not horrible, but it has the weakest fights, the weakest cast, and the weakest plot. Many things feel recycled from previous seasons and the few exceptions aren't that great either. The fanbase constantly shiilling it while bashing and deriding the superior HapiCha didn't help matters either. I suppose it's fine if you have never seen another Cure season, but then you should start with something good like Fresh and not with this... thing. The franchise is unique because it focuses on tough girls, and the princess motif does not fit one bit with this.

Overall - 6

There were some enjoyable moments, Kirara was amazing, and it makes for good mocking material. You could do worse than GoPri, but considering this is the same franchise that had pearls like Splash Star this is quite the downgrade. Avoid unless you love princesses and stock animation battles, or wanna watch everything Pretty Cure for some reason.