Eva’s First Impression
2AM, terribly sick, -25’C out, broken furnace, was it worth to stay up for Go! Princess Precure in the bitter cold?
Absolutely! Go! Princess Precure surprised me with our first heroine of the group, Haruno Haruka who is charming girl pursuing her dreams to become a fairy tale like princess. I became fond of Haruka’s character due to her peppiness and her shyness of sharing her dream. It wasn’t until the moment she finds herself facing off against a Dys Grunt and his Dysborg minion that she musters up the courage to tell the enemy her dream. I also found her being able to muster up the courage in such situation showed us that she has a backbone, which we will see how it fares under various circumstances.
Haruka’s character design also gives me a sense of nostalgia as I have mentioned in the Preview, it reminds me a bit of the more earlier Precure series as well as Puchi Puri Yuushi with her wide forehead.
Haruka became Cure Flora, the Princess of Flowers by confessing her dream. It turns out when she was younger, a boy who is later revealed to be Prince Kanata of Hope Kingdom, gave her a gift that was in fact a key to the Precure Perfume. It was a gift to give her that boost of encouragement to follow her dream after being teased about. Her reaction when the Royal Fairies show his portrait to her was gold! I expect in the future for the two to do a waltz together! Ohohohoho!! I am looking forward to seeing more about what she thinks of Prince Kanata of Hope Kingdom!
For the first time in Precure, the girls will be living in a dormitory at Nobles Academy. While Haruka is going there to learn how to be a Princess, the truth is, the Academy isn’t actually a Princess Academy (despite its Noble Title)– just a really fancy private academy, by the look of it anyways. She encounters two fairies after running off in the face of embarrassment from the Kingdom of Hope, Pafu and Aroma, who were in process of trying to search for the Princess Precure while the enemy was on their tail.
One of the most hilarious moments of the episode was in fact how OBLIVIOUSLY Yui entered the scene when Haruka had just encounter a Dys Grunt. I was like, “GIRL? DO YOU HAVE NO SENSE OF DANGER?”
What stood out to me the most today was the animation. Right off the bat of the fight it was easy to notice just how much they kicked their fighting sequences up a notch. It was so incredibly dynamic, and fluid, that I was super impressed! However on the other hand- as expected, I was not impressed with the CG. In fact, I cannot describe how disappointed I was to see that the Purification Sequence is now entirely in CG. This upsets me for a lot reasons: One would be that after Happiness Charge!, the Precards’ main sequences were animated in CG, they jumped to the the animating the purification in CG, so where will they go next? I apologize for being pessimistic so quickly, but I am already dreading the possibly that at this rate, the following series entire transformation sequence would be animated in CG like they are doing with Sailor Moon Crystal. With them raising the bars for the animations quality for the fights, I can’t help but question whether or not this is part of the price of having such splendid quality. It is something I will be keeping in mind in the back of my head as the series goes on, because I am genuinely wondering if that will be the case. Sometimes we can’t have both, so we have to find a compromise.
I have to say, I am quite a fan of the villain’s character designs. They are probably one of the creepiest ones I have seen in Precure in a while. I can’t seem to recall if there were any more intimidating ones (lately they all been somewhat cute or god-forbid-them being handsome!), but by all means, please do share if any from the previous Precure Series cross your mind! I like that they are more spooky looking since they definitely fill in the shoes of a true villain. But like most Precures Villains, the Dys want to shower the world in Despair by making one lose sight of, or hope for their their dreams by locking them up!
Overall, I actually quite excited for this series due to the fact it will heavily revolve around the characters’ and others Dreams. I won’t hold my breath, but I somewhat expect at some point during the series that one or possibly more of the girls will lose sight of their dream or doubt their abilities to accomplish it. If that ever ends up happening, I will be looking forward to seeing how the girl(s) will cope and overcome it. Fighting for your dream is never easy, but Go! Princess Precures will surely help all of us rediscover or positively motivate us to pursue our dreams. If the premise of the story doesn’t charm you, then the OP certainly should! By the look of it there’s a Dark!Princess! Yay!
NEXT WEEK! Let there be no further delay! Princess Mermaid Minmami is due to join the party!
(Also, for the first time I find myself cringing over the cliché of the Student Council President being the Princess of the Academy? I think I have come to be very sick of that trope- despite the fact they didn’t use it in the last series, which made me very happy.)
Possibly of Covering: High
Possibility of Watching: Guaranteed
A/N: I always follow Doremi-Subs, so I won’t be able to get the entries out until their subs are out. I am aware there is another sub group, but I would prefer to stick to Doremi.
Great review…as far as intimidating villains go, I thought Joker from Smile Precure was pretty creepy. Actually, Close reminds me of him, especially with the black nails, lol
Oh yes! The Joker from Smile Precure was definitely one of the creepy ones. XD
Eva, have you ever read any of the Maria-sama ga Miteru (MariMite) novels? They’re *very* popular among preteen girls in Japan – it had a FOUR season anime adaptation – and this episode had a whole bunch of direct references. Here are a few:
-Haruka and Minami are similar to Yumi and Sachiko (Yumi is an idealistic and sweet newcomer who idolizes her mentor Sachiko, her school’s strict and lonely student council president). Yumi and Haruka are also both somewhat slow on the uptake; Haruka’s “there’s a key… and a keyhole………..” thing was very much a “Yumi moment”.
-Yui provides most of the exposition about the school and is in trouble in the first episode, while Tsutako (MariMite’s artistic glasses girl) provides most of the exposition about the school and asks Yumi for help in the first MariMite book.
-The constant use of “gokigenyou” – the sub I watched translated it as “bounjour” for some reason – a word that anime fans generally associate with MariMite.
There were a lot of other moments, too; enough to make me feel it had to be intentional.
Ah yes, I know of that series, but I have never read the light novels nor watched the anime.
about the CG you was talking about i was actully was not pay attention to it in the transformation since it was not bad but the finisher attack in cg was bad
Yeah it was so bad. I was initially going to include it in the screencaps, but it was such a mess I decided to exclude it. I am hoping that they will at least try to touch THAT up, because gosh if they are going to use that sequence throughout the entries series… I wouldn’t know what to think.
This sounds promising… *goes to grab Doremi’s release*
Oh, how unusual. The heroine both transformed and defeated the monster of the week within the first episode.
The bird-fairy’s way of talking very much reminds me of Syrup from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo. I actively disliked Syrup, and any time this bird talks it is triggering an instinctive “kill it with fire!” reflex.
LMAO! Hopefully this one won’t be anywhere near as annoying as that one as the series goes on!
i’m at this point use to the Cg animation from sailor moon and happiness charge precure, while i’m still a bit on edge with it it still look good, as for the parts that stood out was the minor character i really hope that aren’t like Jun;kun from DokoDoki Precure or hat one useless guy from the original futari wa.
As for the villains for Priprecure. i love them all (especially Close cause he some-what attractive) and i was also thought Bartiton (from Suite) and Wolfrun’s human form was very sexy.
For Episode 1, 9/10 cause the CG
CG can grow on me, as proven with Tiger & Bunny, Kakumeiki Valvrave, and Argevollen, and I even will say Happiness Charge because even that was better than this. I think the awkward part is how their ED CG Animation is more or less better quality than the Cure Flora’s Purification CG Sequence. Hopefully they will at least touch that up because as I mentioned, it will be disappointing to see them use the sequence throughout the entire series with no touch ups. It can look great, I KNOW IT CAN, IT’S JUST THE PROPORTIONS!!!!
I too am hoping that Yui won’t just be a minor character that has no further role than being Haruka’s friendly roommate. I am actually crossing my fingers that she can have a similar role as Seiji, great friendship and owning a role without being a Precure Warrior.