Eva’s First Impression
Cure Up! Rapapa!
A few months before this series was announced, I was considering on taking a break with Precure since it requires commitment up to a year. But then the magic users theme came into the picture and immediately I knew there was no way I could possibly skip out on this one. Now that I have watched it, do I still feel the same?
It would be a lie if I told you I was blown away. It saddens me to say the premiere was not as amazing as I had hoped it to be (and to be fair I went into this with my usual standard expectations). Now don’t get me wrong, the premiere was good, but I felt like something was missing. While the characters had immediately appealed to me, it was lacking substance in the structure and delivery department. 
When I refer to the lack of substance in the delivery, it means it felt flat and linear. When the villain showed up, while Mirai sensed danger and it was nice to see her follow her instincts, it still lacked the sense of urgency. It continued like this as the girls are dangling from their broom, and unable to fight back, all they can shout is, “Cure Up! Rapapa! Get away from us, monster!” It was a weird scene because: on one hand it was funny due to how silly it was, but on other, the silliness took priority over the sense of urgency. In fact to be frank, the scene was boring. It was too linear, there is supposed to be a spike somewhere and I didn’t feel it. Maybe it was because they dragged it up far too long, or the enemy remained too passive for too long- actually now that I mention it, the enemy was DEFINITELY way too passive. He was standing there doing absolutely NOTHING. He has his Desirean but what did he do with it? Knock the girls off their broom… and that was it. He just sat there and laughed at them. Had he been more threatening, then the girls’ Cure Up! Rapapa! Get away from us, monster!” followed by their awakening would have had a bigger impact and there would have probably been a drastic improvement.
The saving grace for this premiere was the fun and peppy dynamic between Mirai and Riko. Together they were thoroughly entertaining and adorable to watch. Mirai’s character is shown to be very fun and enthusiastic towards magic (even more so now that she meets a magic user is broad daylight). Watching her be super excited and eager to talk to Riko was cute. Riko however, is the opposite. She is more shy, clumsy, and she too is an absolute sweetheart. She is not very good at magic, and struggled to fly solo, but had a vast improvement when she was partnered up with Mirai. The two girls are connected by what I think is a pendent or locket, (I can’t tell to be honest) which was apparently has one of the many Wrinkle Stones (what a weird name, I had actually thought it was a typo and was supposed to be Twinkle but then I realized that was it, it’s Wrinkle hahahaha!) and Mofurun (a bear Mirai’s grandmother had given to her when she was born). It is refreshing for a change not to have a “fairy mascot” involved- but since this is MAGIC themed, there will be fairies I’m sure. Also Mofurun is freaking adorable.
In next week’s episode I am hoping they will establish whether or not Magic Users are known for their existence in the uh, “standard” world. Mirai’s mother doesn’t believe in magic, but I most certainly am convinced her grandmother does and knew some magical people. I ask this because I found it strange how Riko was casually flying around town, and in no instance has she made it sound like she can only be seen by some, implying magic is kind of mainstream. There is a magic academy, much like Harry Potter you take the train station (heheheheheheh, classic train stations heheheeheheh…) and off to the Magic Kingdom you go~. Since Riko has taken her there for further assistance on how they have suddenly become Precures (Cure Miracle and Cure Magical). Looks like Riko might get in trouble though, especially if she actually wasn’t supposed to be flying around the ‘standard world’.
The animation was definitely solid, and I actually liked how simple the transformation scene was. It was absolutely stunning!
I am also a huge fan of their precure character designs, it probably has to do with the fact both girls look a bit more mature than their true selves, making their ‘disguise’ a lot more convincing compared to some others in the past. It looks like the girls will also have multiple outfits as part of their power-ups which makes me think back to Happiness Charge! Here’s to hoping the quality and purpose for it will be strong because I remember it being a hit or miss.
The Opening Song is really addictive, mainly because the the show’s magic words: Cure Up! Rapapa! (I am obsessed with it already, SO CUTE! I hope I don’t get tired of it too quickly…) 
The Ending Song however did not appeal to me as much, but the CG for the ED Theme was pretty solid- which is to be expected considering how vastly they have improved over the course of the years and putting all their resources and quality to constantly improve the ED Theme’s CG Sequence. In fact, would be really nice if they were to bring forward that quality to their future (inevitable) CGI scenes.
While I am a huge fan of the theme with magic users, the premiere failed to make me think, “I WANT TO COVER THIS!”. Usually the first episode gives me a sense of whether or not the series is going to click with me when it comes down to picking it up. This one, not so much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were because Go! Princess Precure has raised my standards when it comes to Precure’s villains. Regardless, as per my usual rules for series with 45+ episodes, I can guarantee you I will be covering this show for minimum of three episodes to see where it goes. From there on out, I will decide around episode ten whether or not I will commit myself to picking it up. I am crossing my fingers for improvements in the coming weeks ahead!
Possibility of Blogging: Moderate – Guaranteed to cover min. 3 – 10 episodes to see where it goes~
Possibility of Watching: Guaranteed – Even if I weren’t covering it, you bet I would be watching it
See you next week!
eva is this season also remind you a bit of the first season futari wa precure? also while i agree that it not been impressive or great primere it was fine not bad but not so good
It’s been so long that it actually didn’t, but now that I think about it – the hair colors involved are at least similar. xD;;; Hahahahahaha!
the train scene remind me of harry potter and i hope there will be more elements of harry potter in this season since it have such vibe
eva if it will give you this kind of harry potter vibes where they explore this witch world you might covering this?
It all comes down to if I can be motivated enough to cover it. The better and stronger the story and characters, the greater chance this will be a keeper.
I struggle with 45+ episode shows where the story drags on or wound up lacking something important. Happiness Charge and Go! Princess Precure did a really good job avoiding that, as does YGO ARC V.
Ok the premiere episode was VERY disappointing. There’s too little info conveyed and the plot here was virtually blank, not to mention how simplistic the transformation looked like coupled with crappy OP & ED (both of which even the horrid Happiness Charge could do better). I don’t care about the entrance to the magical school as “Harry Potter”-esque, I disliked Mirai from the first glance, the only bright spot for this episode was Riko since she often pretended to be cool and always fail, proving she’s a really poor magician but has more room to learn. Overall I’m not too fond with the episode and perhaps I’m not gonna waste another watching the Precures unless this show demonstrated further improvement.
I absolutely agree, the premiere was void of plot. The only mention were the “wrinkle” stones, but even that was super vague. O__o;;; But I like the magic users theme because it’s my favourite thing ever- but if the show doesn’t deliver then I probably will end up dropping it. 🙁
I hope there will be improvements.
Doremi went with “Wrinkle Stones”? Ugh. I was bummed that they discontinued the SD releases (sooo much easier to watch remotely), but the fandom figured out ages ago that the magic jewels are “Linkle Stones”, i.e. stones that connect/link the regular and magical worlds.
I know what you mean about the first episode being enjoyable but not jaw-dropping. Hopefully we’ll learn more about the villain faction in episode two and get our first proper fight, which will make the stakes feel higher.
“Linkle Stones” sounds WAYYYYYY better, if that’s what the fandom decided then I think I will try to remember to use that term next week.
I hope the villains improve too! Go! Princess Precure definitely raised the bar for me.
I liked this first episode. Certainly not as powerful a start as Go! Princess had, but that’s a hard level for it to live up to, and we really shouldn’t judge it based on that sort of metric.
I do think they spent a little too long yelling “Cure Up! Rapapa! Monster begone!” before they fell into sync. I can get the enemy laughing at them (it basically comes across as them trying to use some sort of children’s imaginary charm against monsters under the bed to actually fight a monster), but yeah, the scene just went on a bit too long before they synchronized and activated their powers.
Still, despite that, I enjoyed this episode, and I’m looking forward to more. Even if this isn’t on Go! Princess’ level, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For that matter, Go! Princess ended in a kind of semi-bittersweet fashion (IMO) that I found a bit offputting. I come to Precure most of all for colorful magical girl action, filled with friendship and good times. It’s a form of escapism for me. I don’t want something that in some ways starts to feel depressingly like real life.
Yeah I would really like a happy ending that isn’t bittersweet. ; v ; Here’s to hoping there will be improvements in the coming weeks ahead!
Good review as usual (Actually your review back in episode 48 of GPPC (Go Princess Pretty Cure) was good too, only I forgot to type that back there). Anyway, back to the topic.
I think your reaction was also the reaction of several user at Live Journal, which some of them like ‘the fight was boring’, ‘the villain looks weak’ or something like that (I forgot by the way). To me, the fighting although not as interesting as first fight of GPPC since there was no special effect, but I think it’s the first time the cures didn’t finish it. Although I bet there will be finisher in their another form, or if Toei feels like that next episode. For your complain about villain, I think kokoda said that Batty (The villain) just try to be as polite as possible to asking wrinkle stone emerald. Although of course I see your point that the villain should be make them more scared by attacking them. Oh, I still didn’t know about next week, but I think Batty will be more active for next episode (Hopefully).
For grandma, not much to said other than that I also suspect something (And all of Live Journal user) from her knowing about magical world. For the fairy, the OP show us that there will be, although for now I still didn’t know about that. My suspicion
[spoiler]Maybe the fairy had some connection with emerald wrinkle stone, since it was shown that she was capable to grow up. Oh the fairy name was Haa-chan.[/spoiler]
Interestingly, my impression about OP and ED was matching you. The OP was very catchy, especially first 10 seconds to me, while the ED not that impressive to me, at least compared with GPPC 2nd ED. But let’s see if the ED will impress me later. And if we talked about ED, beside the song the CGI was improved compared to GPPC indeed. Oh the purple cure this time was not aloof like Sword and Fortune, instead she was quite funny. And once again, is any of the blogger here fan of Yui Horie? Because this time she was voiced our purple cure, Rico/Cure Magical.
Oh for your review, you may keep it with your usual treatment, but if you want to stop covering it, just tell us at Live Journal, okay? I knew you’d already reconsider that anyway, just want to remind it though. Also, by episode 10, I hope it’ll be improved, although GPPC epsode 11 was raise the standard too high. I mean Yui help the PreCure to beat Close for the first time was epic indeed. Although for now we had too much little information for this series indeed. Maybe there will be more info at next episode? And for my concern about the staff, at least the planner was the people that I expected, so I’ll watch this series of course to see how ti will go. And for comment, I’ll comment here if something catch my interest, okay.
That’s all for now.
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. I sincerely hope there will be improvements in the writing and pacing over in the coming weeks. 🙁 I would hate for this series to fall flat on its face JUST WHEN WE FINALLY GOT WITCHES AND MAGIC USERS STUFF!!! I LIVE FOR MAGIC!!!!
Riko is listed as a clumsy tsundere.
I thought the stones were called Linkle Stones? The subbed version I watched called them that, but maybe it was a mistranslation…yeah, this was a very much just-okay premier episode. I’m not so familiar with the PreCure franchise (I’ve seen some episodes of Yes! Precure 5 and Smile Precure) but it felt a little lackluster. It’s still cute though, Mirai and Riko are charming enough and if the writing improves, I’m sure they can be great characters. I really like the witch theme, which is why I decided to properly start with this season lol, but I’ll have to see if I’ll keep going – if not, I’ll try another season of PreCure.
I was using Doremi Subs. Which subs were you using? Doremi has just announced they are dropping Mahou Tsukai Precure since ImaginationStation Subs will be subbing it, so under Doremi’s recommendation I was planning to go with theirs for the future.
eva by your review you mean that only after 10 episodes you will decide if you keep blogging it or not or you will cover only the first 3 ones for now? also without spoil i will just tell you the coming weeks episode will have slow pace
For series with 45+ episodes, I go with a ten episode rule instead of three because (as you said) they usually start off really slow. And while it starts off slowly, I am always looking out for signs of good potential and things that will motivate me to continue beyond ten episodes. 🙂 Only in rare cases I drop 45+ episodes series before the 10th episode, and that only happens when I come to the conclusion that it’s too difficult for me to write due to the lack of developments to discuss or I am not enjoying it as much as I had hoped.
I’m not sure which group subbed the one I was watching, unfortunately – I watched it on a regular anime streaming site and didn’t check to see who subbed it.
A good start actually, especially the henshin sequence really reminds me of the first 3 Cure seasons. And since I’m a quite fan of witches and older henshin tropes (Fancy Lala came into my mind), that also be my advantage. Also, Rie Takahashi (Sore ga Seiyuu!’s Futaba Ichinose) and Yui Horie (School Rumble’s Eri Sawachika) were very amazing in voicing Mirai/Miracle and Riko/Magical. Yet I was surprised that Koji Yusa, the seiyuu that brought Kyousuke Hyoubu from Zettai Karen Children, was actually Batty. So I am suspecting that Yuichi Nakamura would be the white-haired wizard as seen in the OP-slash-Kanata’s replacement.
For Mirai’s granny Kanoko-bachan, I’m also suspecting and betting as hell that she’d learn about her granddaughter as a Cure in the coming episodes yet she’d be pulled a Sanae Yukishiro-bachan/Kaoruko Hanasaki-bachan. And the Yokubaru looks very creepy yet interesting MOTW plus a very nice break from the Earthling-possessed MOTWs after three years. Then, the searching for the Emerald Linkle Stone had brought me back to the pre-Fresh item searching trope in the Cure series.
The OP and ED are very catchy, especially the ED was a very first in the Cure series to have the seiyuus singing to it. I’m looking forward for Ha-chan though I’ve been thinking that she’d be a Cure just like what Rose did back in Yes! 5 GoGo! The train station part has a good resemblance to the Harry Potter series with a twist of ToQGer and Kamen Rider Den-O. About Mofurun, I find him very cute and his voice is squeeky in my opinion since his seiyuu Ayaka Saito was already been in the Cure series with Splash Star (I’m looking at you, Minori Hyuuga). Plus, the destined meeting of Mirai and Riko was um extraordinary in the sense it’s also a different approach compare to some past Cure seasons wherein the Cure leader meets a newbie by destiny.
Speaking of Kanoko-bachan, I’d be prayed that she’s gonna pass the baton from Yui-Yui as the new Cure helper from Earth just like what I did to her from Seiji last year. Oh, can’t wait about the finisher next week though and that “mysterious principal” too! I think the new production management and the planning there was basically the problem on my point, since Keisuke Naito was just a newbie producer for Toei and ahem, Takashi Washio (aka the “Father of the Pretty Cure Series”) made a comeback in the Cure series franchise; plus the head writer Isao Murayama, who wrote the All-Stars DX movies and the Splash Star season, had making his first time in supervising the writings. So that’s why there was a drastically change.
Nice commentary. And I knew you also at Live Journal and Philiphine. Now since you are Philipine, could you confirm one thing for me? Is pera mean money in Tagalog/Philipine language by the way, since kokoda make a joke about the cat talking Philipine ?
Okay, now for serious commentary. Looks like you concern about the producer. In my opinion, I think that’s not the problem. Why I said that? Because back in GPPC, the main producer (Kaminoki Yuu) actually still new. Her work as the producer was only Sailor Moon Crystal, which quite polarizing in my opinion, and yet she act as the main producer of GPPC, which as we know accepted quite well. Other than that Kaminoki work was only producer assistant in previous PreCure, so I think GPPC was her first big work as the producer. The reason that Kaminoki did her job as producer well probably because Washio also act as the planner in GPPC, so I think if Washio could lead Naito well like back in GPPC, that should be alright. Although if we want to know how it goes, of course we better see it.
Oh for the principal voice, nice candidate, although I’d choose Daisuke Ono, so we could see reunion between 2 seiyuu from HaCha movie. But let’s see it later.
And to eva, I think there will be improvement for next weeks according to leaked synopsis at Live Journal, although obviously I couldn’t said it yet.
Yes, pera means money in my native Filipino language. And about Kaminoki, dang gosh! She did a great job in handling GPPC as the head producer. For Naito, I wish him the best of luck. 😉
I must admit that I also found this very first episode to be less than I expected.
And I liked your text about it too, Eva.
To start, I liked the new Pretty Cures, Mirai and Riko, and their cure forms as well. ^^
The villain Batty has completely underestimated the girls and yet he didn’t surprised me. Let’s see how he will be in the coming episodes.
The new monster is so like Akanbe from Smile Precure and we shall see how the new ones will be.
I wonder how it is the main antagonist or the bad boss of the series.
The chase with the broom is cool, but the battle is so quick and was too easy for the cures as well. I wanted to see more.
Though this episode is not as good as I waited for, it presents some scenes I liked.
The beginning is good, being mysterious with a curious sparkling light catching Mirai’s attention and wants so eagerly to find out what it is.
Mirai grandmother sure gives us some hints that she must have some connection with the mages or something magical.
The meeting of the new duo of Pretty Cures is funny and cute to watch.
And I must write this, when Riko was about to fly away, I really expected Mirai to follow her from the ground and not actually grab Riko’s broom like that! XD That’s funny and nice at the same time. Mirai really didn’t want Riko to leave like that!
I liked the part when the fluffy Mofurun becomes alive in the end and the girls say the famous word that must always appear in the franchise: “Shabetta”! XD
And wow, the scennery of complete similarity of Harry Potter’s wizard world! The train station scene! That is cool! Obviously, as the preview shows, there’s a version of Hogwarts in that world. But is there a version of Diagon Alley as well? I wonder. ^^
I liked the opening theme (both animation and music), it’s different but cool and nice.
The transformation is really well made and its animation is very good, and since they are a duo, it reminds me so much the first Pretty Cures and SplashStar. Well, that’s obviously the idea. 🙂
I agree that they way the cures become a bit older than their true actual ages is a good idea to cover their true identities.
And the phrase, “Cure Up! Rapapa!”, it’s really good and I liked too. 🙂
I’m still going to watch this series to see how it goes. And I hope it gets good or better.
I actually think this premiere was one of the best ones in years. Since Suite if not Dokidoki. I think it did an excellent job of introducing us to our two main characters even if we didn’t get much detail about the plot. That can come later but this episode was obviously about establishing Mirai and Riko’s characters as well as Batty’s though the latter less so than the former two. As such I don’t really mind how long the sequence with them screaming the magic words was. I actually thought that was pretty funny and that it did a good job at establishing how serious the fight was because they were so desperate. Granted once they transformed the fight was short but I like that. It was simple and it did things Precure usually doesn’t do.
yes it seems this season they will focus more on comedy in battles then serious tone