The first episode of Futari wa Pretty Cure was directed by Naoyuki Itou. He was no stranger to prior Toei shoujo titles, directing episodes for both Ojamajo Doremi and Ashita no Nadja. By contrast, the script was written by Ryo Kawasaki, who was also in charge of series composition and appears to have very few credits outside of Pretty Cure.
How did they do?
Let’s take a look.
Your best! My best!
生きてるんだから 失敗なんてメじゃない!
Your best! My best!
Because we’re alive, failure’s not really a big deal after all!
DANZEN! Futari wa Pretty Cure – That’s Right! The Two of Us Are Pretty Cure – is the theme song to (predictably enough) Futari wa Pretty Cure and in many ways has become emblematic of the franchise as a whole. It was heavily present throughout the recent Precure 15th anniversary celebrations, both in television commercials and in the show proper. A remixed version played during the credits of the 2018 film HUGtto! Pretty Cure♡Futari wa Pretty Cure: All Stars Memories. A single of the Max Heart version of the song charted at #60 on the Oricon Singles Chart. It has appeared as a playable song in the game Donkey Konga, and has been parodied or referenced in countless other anime.
For example, episode six of Kyoto Animation’s Lucky Star:
The visuals of the opening are arguably just as iconic, featuring the first appearance of a Cure leaping out of smoke and debris – which would become the Precure series’ very own Akira bike scene.
Who is behind these moments? Who defined Precure from the start?
Let’s take a closer look, starting with the music.
Continue reading DANZEN! A Look at the Opening and Theme Song of Futari wa Pretty CureI have been blogging, on and off, about various topics, for over ten years. Sometimes a lot of people read these and leave all sorts of comments. Other times, I’m lucky to get one or two people engaging with me. Often, it’s somewhere in the middle. The amount of engagement I get, however, does not have much of a bearing on the occasional return of the Urge to Scream On A Blog Somewhere. So here I am, back again.
When I first started this particular blog a couple of years back, I don’t quite think I was ready for it. My vision was for it to be a comprehensive place to discuss a wide variety of things across an entire genre. Which is all well and good, but there was a slight problem:
My girlfriend pulled me into Precure Hell.
Very specifically Precure Hell.
The result was that I soon realized I could scream the same things about Precure on Twitter over and over, and this blog quickly fell by the wayside. A little bit embarrassing.
But old habits die hard, and recently I’ve been thinking about doing something… a little too big for twitter.
Specifically, I want to scream about every episode of my favorite anime of all time. In detail.
I don’t… quite know what it is about Futari wa Pretty Cure in specific that makes me love it so fiercely. I really don’t. Is it the characters? The charm? The 2000’s aesthetic? The action?
I don’t know. I just know that it’s my favorite, and I want to share it with the world. Episode by episode.
If everything goes well – if this gets a good response, or even if I just like doing it – then I might continue it beyond one season. But for now, one season, my very favorite, seems like a reasonable goal.
So let’s give it a whirl.
NEXT TIME: Pretty Cure: Origins!
New poster here! This is Ember, Pike’s girlfriend who got her into Pretty Cure! I’ve been working on a pretty ambitious meta series for this blog, but it’s kind of been stalled out for a while, so in the mean time, I’ve decided to introduce myself with a birthday tribute to one of my all-time favorite Cures, Arisugawa Himari, aka Cure Custard!
I’ve found that Himari is pretty direly underappreciated in Pretty Cure fandom! In my opinion, KiraPre as a whole is underappreciated, but I’ve also heard people specifically say that they found Himari’s arc underwhelming, which I really don’t get because I feel she had the most satisfying and well-constructed arc out of all six heroines in her season. Here, I’m going to break it down to try to explain why! It might get rambly, but I suspect that Himarin would appreciate a loving infodump as a birthday tribute even if it is a bit unpolished!
Continue reading Happy Birthday Himari!
