The second episode of Futari wa Precure aired on February 8, 2004. The script was written by Ryo Kawasaki, who also wrote the previous episode, and it was directed by Yasuo Yamayoshi, who has extensive directoral credits on a variety of other series including, but not limited to, Kinnikuman, Mazinger Z, Marmalade Boy, and Ojamajo Doremi. Having a different director than the prior episode probably explains why I found it to have its own distinct style compared to its immediate predecessor – and one really worth looking at. Let’s dive right in!
EPISODE SYNOPSIS:
This episode features both girls starting to adjust to their newfound life as Pretty Cure. Nagisa needs to deal with Mepple’s antics (and his hunger) right away, which leads right in to one of my favorite jokes in the entire season:
Nagisa also has no idea what to make of Honoka, who insists that being Pretty Cure is immensely exciting, and when Nagisa points out that they could have been killed on their last outing, Honoka responds that dying is also exciting, which… leads into another one of my favorite jokes in the entire season:
Still unconvinced, Nagisa is reluctant to go out and fight the monster of the week, but eventually she does when the news on TV makes it clear that a problem is at hand. A vacuum cleaner has gone rogue and caused electricity problems throughout the city, as well as imperiled some of Nagisa’s friends. This all culminates in a rather stunning sequence where Nagisa and Honoka slow the descent of an elevator in free fall by way of their own sheer force:
The people inside the elevator are saved, Cure Black and Cure White are able to save the day, and the vacuum returns to normal size – although now there’s a tiny boot print left in it from when Nagisa had kicked it earlier…
ANALYSIS:
Camera Techniques: One thing that really stuck out to be in this episode was the variety of interesting direction and editing decisions. Let’s start with the Dutch angles. A Dutch angle is a camera shot in which the frame is tilted on an axis, usually to indicate some sort of sense of uneasiness or tension. (And for those who are curious, it has nothing to do with the Dutch. It’s a corruption of Deutsch Angle, because this camera technique was used extensively by German expressionist films in the early 1900s and later codified by films such as Citizen Kane.)
It may be a big fancy film technique but I’m happy to report that it’s absolutely being used in Futari wa Precure episode two…
…to show us the slightly unhinged, mad scientist side of Honoka Yukishiro. Now that’s character building!
The somewhat upward pitched view here also appears later on in this episode to show the characters as larger than life superheroes, framed against a purple sky or dramatic lines and angles:
While the villain, Pissard, gets his own unique scene where the camera slowly trucks in on him by way of multiple cuts where he enters the frame, doing so just a little closer, each time, carefully building up his presence as a threat.
(Our boy Pissard really deserves better than the name puns and David Bowie jokes, huh?)
Overall I found this to be an actually very visually satisfying episode, and although there wasn’t any particularly standout animation, it was more than serviceable and the skilled direction made up for it.
WORTH WATCHING?:
I would say yes, unless you’re really short on time and trying to cut back to a top five or something. I found the camera direction very interesting, the action scenes unique, and the ongoing character development of Nagisa, Honoka, and their relationship with their new lives to be quite important. In particular we see more of Nagisa the Cynic and Honoka the Ever-So-Slightly-Off-Kilter Dreamer, and this establishment of their respective personalities really helps make them feel more real to me and cements their different ways of seeing the world.
ARIENAI COUNT:
We had one “arienai” this episode, bringing us to a total of three so far!
See you next time for Episode Three!
Great post! I’m really interested in the way Honoka is portrayed early on as kind of unnervingly Other in comparison to Nagisa’s Relatable Everygirl schtick, and what you’ve pointed out with the Dutch angles delights me.
“This all culminates in a rather stunning sequence where Nagisa and Honoka slow the descent of an elevator in free fall by way of their own sheer force” By which you mean: holding hands.
The bit about Shiho and Rina being endangered and that being part of what spurs Nagisa on at this early stage made me think of Usagi and Naru in episode one of Sailor Moon, which in turn made me think about how like… on paper, Usagi and Nagisa have a lot of similarities, which is weird because in the actual realization of them onscreen they are COMPLETELY different characters. Like, Nagisa doesn’t want to be a magical girl ’cause she would rather not do scary things and die kthanx, she just wants to eat junk food and do a heterosexuality and other normal schoolgirl things, though not so much the actual “school” part because she’s really bad at that because who cares. And what actually makes the difference feels gender-role-related in a way that I can’t quite sum up as a single quality without just resorting to “Nagisa is gay,” when, like, I mean, she ISN’T textually, and if anything there’s actually MORE textual evidence for Usagi liking girls, but like…
Okay, trying to actually break it down: Nagisa is the sporty type, while Usagi is a fairy tale princess, so there’s that, but this feels way deeper than aesthetics, you know? And Nagisa’s reluctance is treated as her being a COMPLETELY RATIONAL RESPONSE to having a bunch of bullshit thrown at her and almost dying, while Usagi is a crybaby who’s chided for not taking her responsibilities seriously, and only later when things start escalating does the narrative really acknowledge that yeah okay this is a Lot and freaking out about it is in fact entirely understandable – so, like, reason versus emotion, also very gendered, though underlying both is a sort of lizard-brain “I just want to laze around and eat snacks why is that too much to ask???” so it’s not like Nagisa ISN’T emotional too. And then, obviously, Usagi’s story is at core a fairy tale romance with a dude, while Nagisa’s is about learning to appreciate her ~special female friendship with her sister in arms while her guycrush goes nowhere and affects nothing, so… yeah, that part IS objectively kind of gay?
Well, that got long and went nowhere in particular, but I think it’s an interesting compare and contrast, and I want to keep poking at it!
Dutch angle is very widely used in anime though, due to Dezaki’s influence. Not sure if he was the first to introduce it, but he used it often and definitely can be credited for its spread.
absolutely, but I was still glad to see it here!