For a while I’ve been thinking about trying to watch as much current “mainstream” anime as I can. You know, the sort of stuff that charts and appears in my “What Anime Looked Like In 199X” posts. Kind of like how a Dave Meltzer tries to watch as much of the big wrestling/MMA shows as he can. Now, I’m no Dynamite Dave, but I figured I’d try to hop onto what new mainstream shows I can this year.
So I am starting with the 2013 Pretty Cure show, Doki Doki! Pretty Cure. I’m already watching Kamen Rider Wizard, and plan to start the new dinosaur filled Sentai show, so why not complete the Sunday morning superhero triumverate with Pretty Cure?
The cold open kind of reminded me of Sailor Moon S’s apocalyptic opening. Mainly because I watched that episode a week or two ago. At first I thought it was a flash forward, but by the end, I was going for flash back.
There is a chubby cartoon baby fairy in the opening credits. Is this series going for a Chibi Devi/UFO Baby/Mama is a 4th Grader gimmick, where a young girl has a baby foist upon her?
Watching magical girl shows after having watched some tokusatsu superhero shows casts them in a new light. I liked that apparently they have such shows in the world of Doki Doki, and characters sort of know what to do when presented with a transformation device because of them.
The theme of the villains is selfishness, and because I am watching Kamen Rider OOO at the moment, reminded me of the Greeed. Both in the gimmick and how they have squabbles.
Having watched the first episode Sailor Moon for the podcast recently, I am struck by the exceptional nature of the heroines’ day to day lives even before they get super powers. The first Pretty Cure (the only other one I’ve seen any thing of) also had this with the heroines being the best at sport and the best in academic pursuits.
Here you have the student council president, her secretary, a super rich girl and a girl who is pop star AND comes from another dimension. There isn’t really the everygirl heroine of Usagi here, instead they are either aspirational or fantasies. I suppose with the “transform into your fantasy job” element of the Pierrot shows not present in the heroic forms you can move that element onto the girls themselves.
On a completely different there’s a character in the first episode who gives our heroine AIda Mana, the trinket that allows her to transform, and I cannot tell if his line reading of the shows English language catchphrase “MY SWEETHEART” is deliberately creepy, or the actor is reading it phonetically.
That aside, it’s been enjoyable so far, episode two in particular had a really fun gimmick for its monster. Almost felt like a Kinnikuman villain in that it followed the inanimate object turned animated idea to a logical and comical conclusion.