HUGTTO! PRECURE

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ActionFutari wa Precure
ANIME ComedyKirakira☆Precure a la Mode
ANIME ActionMahoutsukai Precure!
ANIME FantasyHappinessCharge Precure!
ANIME ActionSuite Precure♪
ANIME ActionYes! Precure 5
ANIME FantasySmile Precure!
ANIME ActionFresh Precure!
ANIME ActionGo! Princess Precure
ANIME ActionFutari wa Precure: Splash☆Star
ANIME ActionHeartcatch Precure!
ANIME FantasyDokidoki! Precure
MOVIE ActionPrecure Super Stars!
MOVIE ActionHUGtto! Precure ♡ Futari wa Precure All Stars Memories
MANGA ActionHUGtto! Precure
ANIME AdventureStar☆Twinkle Precure
MOVIE ActionPrecure Miracle Universe
ANIME ActionHealin' Good♥Precure
MOVIE AdventurePrecure Miracle Leap: Minna to no Fushigi na Ichinichi
ANIME ActionTropical-Rouge! Precure
ANIME ActionDelicious Party♡Precure
ANIME ActionHirogaru Sky! Precure
MOVIE ActionPrecure All Stars F
ANIME FantasyWonderful Precure!
ANIME ActionKimi to Idol Precure♪

REVIEWS

• 

  brainiac1530

  88/100
  Pretty Cure is all grown up.

  For those of us who have seen a Precure before, that tagline is effectively TL;DR. We know what to expect. But honestly, there are very few of us, for reasons beyond the scope of this document. This is aimed at the rest of humanity ... who, for some reason, haunt underutilized sections of this website.

  Pretty Cure is, for better and for worse, a merchandise-driven show. On the plus side, it has steady returns that aren't based on BD/DVD sales figures. This means that it has a level of polish and craftsmanship that isn't usually seen in TV anime. It also means that watching it involves being advertised to, since the show itself is an advertisement of a sort. How noticeable this is varies a lot. (Now having seen the whole season, I would say it was very implicit this season, with the notable exception of plugs for the tie-in movies.)

  Pretty Cure is also a single long-running series in a way. The seasons ostensibly start from scratch each time, but there are many similarities between, and there are crossover movies that somehow attempt to make them coexist. This season did something strange by having such crossover events during the show itself. This entry, in particular, feels a lot like Go! Princess Precure. It's hardly surprising to find, then, that a lot of the people who worked on that also came back for this installment. Some of these are relative newcomers in the anime world.

  That's why it's nice to see a veteran in the lineup. Namely, Junichi Satou. It was Ojamajo Doremi, another Toei magical girl show and thus a predecessor of sorts to Precure, that really launched his career. He went on to work on other magical girl shows, besides, so this is both a homecoming and a return to form for him.

  To me, the main difference in this season is a tonal one. The first installment of Precure was poorly planned and tried to laugh off all the issues stemming from this. This season is well thought out, in a way I never expected from a Precure show. Plot developments have build up. Things flow naturally from what has come before. There's no excessive rush to build the core cast like there was in GoPri Precure. Characters have definable traits but have room to grow. The villains have a theme, but it's one that you might not expect in a kid's show. A young girl can hardly be expected to know about the corporate world, yet it makes the motivations of our starter villains, at least, comprehensible to those of us in the know.

  It helps that the villains of this season are particularly human. Unsurprisingly, given the idealism common to the genre, they are redeemed rather than destroyed. The series takes advantage of this by exploring issues such as recidivism and reconciliation. The latter surprisingly overlaps with the more prevalent theme of family. Not all families are like Hana's. For some people, growing up involves reconciling with neglectful parents, or struggling with overprotective families.

  Considering how much trouble Emiru's family had accepting her guitar playing, I can't imagine how they came to terms with her older brother's relationship with Henri. Henri is the most daring element of this installment of Precure. Pretty Cure as a franchise, unsurprisingly given the name, is built upon a particular interpretation of femininity. Past seasons have included powerup items such as makeup or perfume, making the connection very explicit. Thus, including a character who unforgivingly tramples on traditional conceptions of gender roles is easily the most surprising thing this show could do. This is rare in anime to begin with, putting this show in the company of Kuragehime and Gatchaman Crowds. Strange bedfellows, to be sure.

  Yet, none of these unusual elements have sacrificed what makes Precure appealing to those of us who have watched it in the past. It's still fun. There's a lot of animation. A lot of that is good, and in different ways. Watch Homare ice skate, Hana flail about humorously, and all the Precures do battle. I think it's significant to note that the fight direction is a lot better than I've come to expect from this series. In early series, it seemed like they were trying to avoid things like impact, and clean lines of action, for some reason I never understood. Even in Go! Princess Precure, it seemed like these principles were only observed sometimes. Notably, those were the best episodes. Someone at Toei clearly noticed.

  Thus we arrive at the present year. Pretty Cure has experimented in a lot of ways, and continues to do so, but in this season it shows that it hasn't forgotten what it's learned along the way. A big part of growing up is making mistakes and learning from them. That's why I say that Pretty Cure is grown up.

  P.S. Due credit to youtuber ThePedanticRomantic, who is my source for some of this information. He really opened my eyes to how special this season is, and why. Watch his video on it! (It's the one with the really hyperbolic-sounding title. You'll know when you see it.) Also, thanks to UnderTheScope for considering this show in his "best of 2018" awards, as this series can use the exposure.

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• 

  MetaThPr4h

  100/100
  Embrace the future! A wonderful story that resonates with people of any age.

  First of all, I really have to say thank you to all the people who were talking nicely about Hugtto, without them I wouldn't have given a chance to a franchise that is now giving me endless hours of fun between all the entries. I hope this review helps other people to do the same.

  As I did with the provisional version of this review while the series was airing, I want to tackle some points that people have against giving a chance to Hugtto, or this franchise in general:

  • "This is a kids show": Locking yourself to demographics is such a waste, a good story is good be a seinen, a shoujo, or whatever it is. Precure in special also falls into a fantastic spot where it pleases fans of cute girls anime due to the lovable and funny character interactions the characters have, fans of actions series that want to see great fight scenes, and also to people who don't care as much for those thanks to the (completed!) story and nice drama and character development. Hugtto in special delivers with that touching some controversial themes that left me so satisfied with the execution. And as with all the entries I watched so far, it's not afraid at all to get dark whenever the story requires so, delivering hard hits that left me wondering if kids are really the main target audience.

  • The mascot characters: I could understand it for some Precure entries, but that's definitely not the case for Hugtto. Hugtan is a well done baby character that is 100% adorableness 0% annoying crying, and Harry is far from being just a mascot, he's a fantastic character that adds so much to the cast and the story.

  With that out of the way, let's talk about the series.

  The story of Hugtto is focused on the Criasu Corporation, an evil company that tries to stop time and put an end to the future of the planet, Harry and Hugtan come from the future to avoid this with the help of the Precure. This anime is not afraid of going in the dark direction showing the danger of the villains while at the same time being honestly fun characters to watch, one roots for the protagonists but still enjoys the interactions with the bad side.

  

  The big theme of this story that I adore and in my opinion had flawless execution is about moving forward and keep dreaming despite the fear for the future. The characters in this story have their traumas they can't deal with and/or fears for what might await for them as time passes, this is especially visible for the villain side, who I found myself really emphatizing with after we got to know more and more about them. This theme hits close home for most people (myself included) and this anime can really give a push of motivation to any watcher who can relate to the characters and how they feel.

  I only have good things to say about the villains and so I feel about the good side. The main characters of the series are fantastic, having likeable personalities and very solid development with honestly one of my favorite character arcs in anime included for one of them. Their interactions are lots of fun to watch and both comedy and drama moments coming from them are a blast to watch. The protagonist of the story, Hana, deserves a special mention after becoming one of my favorite characters, her cheerful and lovable personality only does but increase how hard it hurts the drama focused around her and how painful is to see her working so hard to make everyone happy when she herself is one of the characters struggling the hardest.

  After this we get to the fights, Hugtto did a very nice job at keeping the story and development always going, with close to zero episodes feeling like filler, but that doesn't change the fact that the episodic action scenes are a staple of the franchise and this anime hasn't changed that, nor it needs to because they are awesome to watch. The animation is constantly great for them (and honestly the whole show looks nice, it feels so alive) and so much fun to watch, this also includes the mandatory transformation scene before the fights that are sooo good looking, Precure knows that they will be reutilized a lot so they go full power on them to make them look as great as possible, and I can say they deliver.

  

  With that said, I will go for pretty much the only complaint I had for Hugtto: the fights sometimes felt unnecesary and out of place. This is a small issue but one that Hugtto in special suffered compared to the rest of the franchise I watched so far due to its big focus on character drama. Some episodes delivered really emotional moments to then make the monster of the week appear out of nowhere into transformation into fight (sometimes shorter than the transformation) to end the episode. I wish they had just kept going with what the plot was delivering instead of the mandatory fight, although sometimes they managed to make the fight add to the meaning of the episode so this wasn't always a bad thing at all.

  As I already briefly mentioned for the fights, the art and animation quality are very nice and consistent, and I'm also impressed with the direction of this show which delivered fantastic execution of scenes, especially in dramatic moments where it provided great shots that added so much impact to them. The music comes from Yuki Hayashi (which you might know from other works like Boku no Hero Academia, Haikyuu or Death Parade), and as with those, he did such a great job in that department, giving us some very memorable songs.

  I hope the points made in this review convince you to give Hugtto a try, I really don't want to see a franchise as fantastic as Precure stay this ignored here in the West as it currently is, and if my reviews of the series help changing that even if just a bit I will be so happy.

  
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