Might as well get the other shojo warhorse of the 21st century out the way too.
Now this I have seen one episode of. So that makes me totally qualified to talk about it.
Starting in 2004 and currently on it's third series, Pretty Cure follows the adventures of Nagisa and Honoka, two schoolgirls who are given magic powers by to two (theoretically) cute things called Mipple and Mepple. These powers enable them to become Cure Black and Cure White and fight the forces of The Dusk Zone. The usual deal, y'know.
What struck me however from the episode I saw was that the fight scenes seem choreographed as if from a shonen anime. While some magic powers are used, they resemble fighting game maneuveurs, and Nagisa sure does a lot of kicking and punching. This makes sense when you look at the credits and see Daisuke Nishio listed as series director. What else did he direct? Oh, a little thing called Dragon Ball. And Air Master. And 3×3 Eyes. In fact the only remotely shojo piece on the credits ANN give is as an episode director of Pataliro. Which is pretty far from Pretty Cure in oh so many ways.
Speaking of punching and kicking, which we were before I edited this and put in that stuff about Daisuke Nishio, Nagisa's Cure Black costume struck me as resembling somewhat the ringwear of the wrestler Mima Shimoda. Certainly the intentiion seems to be for it to resemble a pro-wrestling outfit and the colours match Shimoda's favoured LCO colour scheme of Black/Pink.
Interestingly, both this and the previously mentioned Ojamajo Doremi are the creation of the psuedonymous (and non-existant) Izumi Todo. Given that this started the year the Doremi anime ended, and that the characters being just that little bit older than the Doremi characters, you have to guess this is a careful Toei marketing plan aimed at having a show for the girls who feel they've outgrown Doremi.
Story-wise the first episode didn't look like it was planning on setting the world alight with originality, but the execution certainly seems interesting if you like this sort of thing. For me one episode was enough.
Oh, supposedly 4kids have this show too. But who knows if they are planning on doing anything with it.
And, another also, apparently the third series is some kind of restart with all new characters.