Precure

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Fandom
Name: Pretty Cure (プリキュアシリーズ, Purikyua Shirīzu)
Abbreviation(s): PreCure, Precure, PC
Creator: Izumi Todo
Date(s): 2004-Present
Medium: Anime, Manga, Video Games
Country of Origin: Japan
External Links: Offical Website/JPWikipedia
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Pretty Cure, also known as Precure, is a Japanese magical girl series that codified the Magical Girl Warrior archetype. The franchise is noted for several key elements: a new season with a new cast and motifs (similar to Super Sentai, Kamen Rider and the various Pokemon anime seasons), physical fights in most seasons, and a crossover movie commonly nicknamed as 'Precure All Stars'. The anime has run each year with a different cast and plot, with the exceptions of Futari Wa Pretty Cure Max Heart and Yes! Precure 5 GoGo! (both being direct sequels to the previous season).

Precure, despite being highly successful and popular in it's home country of Japan, hasn't managed to cultivate a large western audience. Despite this, the small fandom that surrounds Precure is often highly dedicated to the series. Many fans linger in the fandom for a long time, the casual and revolving nature of Precure allowing for fan interest to be maintained.

Canon

Series and Seasons

Precure Seasons 2004–2024
Number Title Generation Run Episodes
1 Futari Wa Precure 1 2004–2005 49
2 Futari Wa Precure Max Heart 2005–2006 47
3 Futari Wa Precure Splash Star 2 2006–2007 49
4 Yes! Precure 5 3 2007–2008 49
5 Yes! Precure 5 GoGo 2008–2009 48
6 Fresh Precure 4 2009–2010 50
7 HeartCatch Precure 5 2010–2011 49
8 Suite Precure 6 2011–2012 48
9 Smile Precure 7 2012–2013 48
10 Doki Doki! Precure 8 2013–2014 49
11 Happiness Charge Precure! 9 2014–2015 49
12 Go Princess Precure 10 2015–2016 50
13 Mahou Girls Precure 11 2016–2017 50
14 Kira Kira Precure 12 2017–2018 49
15 HUGtto Precure 13 2018–2019 49
16 Star Twinkle Precure 14 2019–2020 49
17 Healin' Good Precure 15 2020–2021 45
18 Tropical Rouge! Precure 16 2021–2022 46
19 Delicious Party Precure 17 2022–2023 45
20 Hirogaru Sky Precure 18 2023–2024 50
21 Wonderful Precure 19 2024–TBA TBA

Precure season generations, while similar to season number, correlates to how many unique seasons of Precure there has been.

Glitter Force

Glitter Force is an English dub of Precure, which the first season becoming available on Netfilx in 2015. The dub consisted of a range of 40 episodes from Smile Precure, with 20 episodes for each season of the show. The second season aired in 2016[1]. Both of these seasons feature changes to character names, terminology and music; with additionally CGI endings created for the new ending songs in the show. These new CGI endings, due to being lower quality than the original CGI endings, spurred many criticisms from fans at the time[2]. Particularly, the cheap appearance of the lack of effort[3] that appeared to be put into the CGI endings was noted.

Further Glitter Force adaptations include Glitter Force Doki Doki, an adaptation of Doki Doki! Precure. Airing both seasons in 2017[4][5] it followed the lead of Glitter Force and changed the names and terminology in the show and cut out numerous episodes from the original show. Both seasons of Glitter Force Doki Doki consisted of 15 episodes, totalling 30 episodes in total. The cut 19 episodes from the original series confused fans[6], who wondered why certain episodes were cut.

Despite these issues, Glitter Force and Glitter Force Doki Doki served as an introduction to Precure for many fans.

Films

Precure All Stars

The term 'Pretty Cure All Stars' is used to describe the crossover movies between series and may be used to describe any incidences of crossover between Pretty Cure seasons. The All Stars films may be considered a type of fan service, one fan noting that '...As usual with the All Star movies, this was a huge fanservice galore...'[7], when discussing an All Stars film.

These have been a staple of the series since 2009[8], the first All Stars movie featuring every Cure from Futari Wa Precure to mid-season Fresh Precure[9]. Consequently every season since has featured a crossover movie, typically as the mid-season movie. This is with the exceptions of 2021 (Tropical Rouge Precure) and 2022 (Delicious Party Precure). Fans speculate that this may be because of delays caused from the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted and delayed the development of 2020 (Healin' Good Precure) All Stars film, causing the release to happen in the later months of the year[10]. This speculation continues, claiming that because of the later release of the Healin' Good films, the production of Tropical Rouge films only allowed for one movie to be made; additionally claiming that an All Stars movie for Delicious Party wasn't Toei Animations top priority[11].

Miracle Lights

A common trope in Pretty Cure films are Miracle Lights, a light-up plastic wand handed out before the movie starts. A character in the film will typically have a Miracle Light, asking the audience to cheer and wave their Miracle Lights to give the Pretty Cure power. This staple is included in almost every Pretty Cure film since 2007 and is well known by fans.[12]

Fandom

Shipping

Pie chart of top relationships, pairings and orientations on Ao3 under the PreCure fandom tag as of June 10th, 2024.

  F/F (37.9%)
  Gen (30.7%)
  F/M (16.9%)
  Other (5.2%)
  Multi (4.9%)
  M/M (4.4%)

Due to being a female-dominated franchise, yuri ships are very common and highly popular with older fans of the series. This can be seen when observing the amount of fics tagged 'F/F' compared to other relationship tags on Ao3.

Several popular yuri ships are:

Problematic ships include:

  • Cure Dream/Coco, while canon, is problematic due to the teacher/student dynamic of their pairing
  • Cure Beauty/Joker (Chloe/Rascal in the dub)
  • Cure Grace/Daruizen, Enemies to Lovers
  • Cure Wing/Cure Butterfly, while more popular in Japan, is taboo in the West due to their large age gap

Dubs, Subs, Fansubs, and Fandubs

Precure has been dubbed before (instances have been mentioned above), with subs of Futari Wa Pretty Cure, Healin' Good Pretty Cure, Kira Kira Pretty Cure, Tropical Rouge! Pretty Cure, Delicious Party Pretty Cure, Hirogaru Sky Pretty Cure and Wonderful Pretty Cure available on Crunchyroll. Fansubs can be found online. Fandubbing series, episodes, or clips are popular activities in the fandom. They can be found online on YouTube.

Futari Wa Precure would gain a Canadian dub in 2009. Smile Precure would gain an offical dub under the name Glitter Force in later 2015, with Doki Doki! Precure following in 2017 with Glitter Force Doki Doki. By many in the community, these dubs are viewed poorly, as they both removed mentions of Japanese culture and names, disgarded plot points and several episodes from both seasons. Despite this, Glitter Force resulted in an introduction of new fans to the community.

A variety of Precure dubs are lost media. These lost dubs include Futari wa Pretty Cure, Futari wa Max Heart Pretty Cure, Futari wa Splash Star Pretty Cure and Yes! Pretty Cure 5[13].

Challenges and Events

Websites

Precure Colour Debate

A 3x3 grid with different Precure and text in each grid-box. Top left: Cure Felice, "Green cure". Top middle: Cure Parfait, "White cure", below that "I would have picked rainbow but I'm sticking with one color per cure". Top right: Cure Milky, "Green cure". Middle right: Cure Cosmo, "Blue cure". Middle middle: Cure Summer, "Pink cure". Middle left: Cure La Mer, "Blue cure". Bottom left: Cure Finale, "Purple cure", below that, "How is she gold???". Bottom middle: Cure Nyammy, "White cure". Bottom right: Cure Lillian, "Blue cure". In small text on the bottom left, "What colors I think these precure are", on the bottom right, "prettycure.comic.studio".
"What colors I think these Precure are" by Snowishinealt

The Precure Colour Debate centers around the canonical colour classifications of the Pretty Cure by Toei and the fandom interpretations of the Cure colours. Fans may argue for, or against the classification provided by canon. Notable examples include Cure Finale, who is canonically gold and argued to be purple, white, or rainbow, and Cure Milky, who is canonically green and argued to be blue, cyan, or turquoise.

Examples of discussion around this topic include:

Fanworks

Fanfiction

As of the April 25th 2024, the amount of fanfiction under the 'PreCure' fandom tag on Ao3 is 2,263. The most popular ships written about include Cure Black/Cure White and Cure Prism/Cure Sky. Notable examples of fanfiction include:

Original Characters

Original Precure characters, sometimes called Oricure or Fancure, are popular within the Precure fandom. Creator's of them will often attempt to emulate the design elements of the season they are created for. A self insert for Precure may be called a Curesona. A fancure for a precure fanseries may be called a fanfancure.

Fanseries

A common feature within the Precure fandom is the creation of Precure fanseries, which often use tropes common to the Precure canon, the 'Cure' naming convention, and themes and motifs. This may be done to simulate being 'in charge of the brand' [14] Notable examples of fanseries include:

  • Pretty Cure Season Touch by 我藤がなは (Gatoh Ganaha)
  • Cure Queentet! by Hisaaki Ikumasa
  • Tidal Song Precure by Kazuko.

Fangames

Within the Precure fandom, dress up games or doll makers are highly popular and are used to create fancures or fanteams. Notable games/sites include: Glitter Cure, the Gacha series by Lunime, and Picrew.

Notable fangames include:

Zines

Precure commonly features in zines themed around magical girls, including:

Zines dedicated solely to Precure include:

Fanvids

References

  1. ^ https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-07-25/glitter-force-season-2-premieres-on-netflix-on-august-26/.104680
  2. ^ https://magicalgirlconfessions.tumblr.com/post/139779328965/im-mostly-just-amused-by-glitterforce-but-it-does
  3. ^ https://mlpforums.com/blogs/entry/18847-the-crappy-dubs-strike-back-glitter-force/
  4. ^ https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-07-19/glitter-force-doki-doki-listed-for-august-18-on-netflix/.119040
  5. ^ https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/80175619
  6. ^ https://www.reddit.com/r/precure/comments/ms1a2w/about_the_episodes_missing_in_glitter_force_doki/
  7. ^ https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/2000121-anime-and-manga-other-titles/80679334#As%20usual%20with%20the%20All%20Star%20movies,%20this%20was%20a%20huge%20fanservice%20galore.
  8. ^ https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/en/movie/movie_precure_allstars/
  9. ^ https://www.toei-anim.co.jp/movie/2009_precure_allstars/
  10. ^ https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/precure-miracle/
  11. ^ https://www.reddit.com/r/precure/comments/zjdygs/why_was_there_no_precure_all_stars_movie_for_2021/
  12. ^ https://www.tumblr.com/pcd-status/620079672104042496/miracle-lights-love-em-or-hate-em-theyre-here
  13. ^ https://lostmediawiki.com/Pretty_Cure_%28partially_found_various_English_pilot_dubs_of_anime_franchise%3B_2000s%29
  14. ^ https://www.reddit.com/r/precure/comments/8rd4fl/what_makes_a_fan_series/
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