HOORAY HOORAY~ IT’S TIME FOR PRECURE!
Eva’s First Impression
My goodness, it has been what? A year and half since I last covered Precure? It feels like it has been an eternity! Unfortunately I dropped Mahou Tsukai Precure very early on, and when Kirakira Precure A La Mode started, at the time I was on an indefinite hiatus, (and I still haven’t gotten around to watch it). But it seems it was certainly worth the wait making the return to Precure all the more sweeter.
It is only the first episode, but I am already in love with our three heroines. Hana is fabulous, her positive mindset, perky personality, and oh my goodness, she is an energetic one. The only thing that turns me off is her non-stop cheer! (And I know is going to drive me nuts!) We also have fellow classmate Yakushiji Saaya , she seems to be the typical studious type, but an approachable and adorable one at that. She and Kagayaki Homare (yellow) appear to be friends. Homare looks like she is going to be that super chill character – and everyone’s girl crush because she’s so cool. I look forward to getting to know the other two girls more, especially in regards to their nature since as of right now, their more temperate personalities would be a good way to balance out Hana’s boisterous energy.
Then we have the magical duo, Baby Hugtan and the talking Hamster/Mouse (whatever he is) Harry. Their debut was hysterical. Hugtan comes shooting from the sky and lands in Hana’s arms. Following that Harry briefly introduces themselves, providing no explanation whatsoever and claims they will be crashing at her place. They don’t disappear until he thinks he made a mistake of Hana not being the one they are looking for. Of course in the end, it is her because she saves them from the enemy and its fed minion. Apparently she has an overwhelming amount of of *Asu-power (?) which is crucial to making sure Hugtan gets fed Asu-Power and stuff.
But I must say, I am absolutely astounded by their decision to go with the name “Cure Yell”. When I first heard it, I burst out laughing because of how ridiculous it was. It had me thinking I must have been watching Troll-Subs, and so I double-checked and much to my dismay, Cure Yell is legit. For the love of God, why in the world did they not name her Cure Cheer?! For crying out loud, her entire design is based off a Cheerleader outfit, she uses POM POMS! I literally cannot wrap my head around the decision for her name. I feel so bad for her character! Frankly speaking, I am half expecting this name to come back to bite her at some point, for example:
“Oh look it’s Cure Yell!”
“Cure Yell?”
“Yeah the one who yells a lot”
… And perhaps that may be the writer’s intent to begin with, much like how we were given a story behind why her character design featured such bangs. Only time will tell (but I am anticipating her Precure alias to be insanely popular among the students). Speaking of her bangs though, I really like them, but that wasn’t always the case. When I first saw her character design for the first time I was thinking to myself, “Her bangs are really too short…” but after seeing her cut it herself, I found myself liking it even more. There was something about her having done it herself that made them charming, and not to mention, it becomes her signature look!
And hey, it also drops a fair warning to the kids: Don’t cut your bangs on the morning of class!
Maybe it has been a while, but the transformation sequence felt a lot shorter and appeared to have been simplified in many ways. However, make no mistake, it was absolutely stunning, but the fight scene takes the cake – it was absolutely spectacular. I am not always a fan of glitter, but the way they used it was fantastic. Another thing that stood out to me is actually the BGM, which is surprising because Precure’s soundtrack tends to fall deaf to my ears more often than I would care to admit.
Overall I really enjoyed the premiere of Huggto Precure. It’s certainly going to be an interesting one with the combination of promising characters, free hugs for everyone and a baby watched over by a talking hamster. I feel there’s a lot of potential in this show, but my main concerns lies is whether or not I have the patience to put up with Hana’s endless cheering mantra, or the baby. Now the baby hasn’t done anything wrong so to speak, but I really can’t stand babies’- especially when they cry. So either Hugtan gotta grow up ASAP or avoid excessive crying sessions. I suspect Hugtan will eventually grow up and become an additional member to the squad at some point or another.
Since it’s been a long time, here’s a quick refresh of how I will proceed with the show: Since the series consists 50 episodes, I usually commit for 10 episodes to get a feel of the nature and its theme, and then I will decide whether or not it it something I will like to commit to. So let’s hope for a promising one! 😀
And one last thing I would like to point out: Since I am also covering iDOLISH7 on Sundays, varying on my condition and schedule, my Precure entries may sometimes be bumped to Mondays instead.
Possibility of Blogging: High
Possibility of Watching: High
PS: If you guys know any reliable fansubs, please drop a comment below. For this episode I used Anon Subs and I don’t know how reliable they are since I don’t know the group. So far it appears fine, but I have noticed some variation of spelling and terms for certain things with the sources I’ve been using to double-check a couple of things!
I just watch rapidvideo version of it (idk the subber name). And as for the the Asu Power, the sub I watched translated it as “Tomorrow power”.
And by the way, I totally agree with you- Cure Yell’s the worst name they thought of for a Precure. As for worst outfit, that goes to the DokiDoki crew (simply doesn’t look realistic at all). They should have given her a generic catchphrase instead of that annoying cheer.
Well, let’s see how good this season’s Precure is- dreams and future has been covered before (Go! Princess, Yes! Precure) so I’m curious to see how production crew will execute a different message regarding such topics.
I am honestly expecting the Precure Dub to change her name to Cure Cheer. I mean if they change the god damn titles (Like REALLY?
Glitter Force? for Smile Precure). I don’t watch the dubs so I don’t know if or how often they change the Precure names (they probably do though).
Having covered Go Princess Precure, I too am very curious to see how they will approach such similar themes! I really enjoyed the villains for Go Princess Precure, so I hope we get another set of awesome ones again.
I cannot stand the dubs. Voice actors from other countries have a long way to go before they can be at the level the Japanese have been maintaining for years.
Ahhh Precure reviews are baaack!!!! Gosh I missed them last year but what can I say, I don’t blame you for not wanting to continue on with Kirakira^^
I actually don’t mind Cure Yell’s name. I still stand by Cure Whip being a bad name. I don’t blame the writers as they probably got lost in translation as Eeru sounds really nice but then you put it in English and it’s like…yeah…no. The thing that bothers me is why is she the only Cure of the team to have her name in English while the rest have theirs in French???
I actually really enjoyed this first episode and if its anything to go by, I think the rest of the show might be as good, if not better than the first episode. I love Hana already, she is so cute. Same with Hugtan! This is the first time I’ve like a baby fairy to be honest. The transformation and attack were superb. Simple yet amazing. Sometimes simplicity is what matters. The battle, despite being short, was really good! Yell did a fantastic job and I look forward to seeing Ange and Etoile fight alongside her!
I know right?! It’s been too longggggg!!!!!!!!!
OH DEAR GOD, THERE’S A “CURE WHIP?!” [GOOGLES IT] – LOL WHAT ARE THE CHANCES I ENDED UP MISSING KIRAKIRA ALTOGETHER AND THIS CRAZY NAME THING HAPPENS AGAIN!!! Oh my god, what were they thinking?! Give the heroines QUALITY names!!!!
Baby Fairies are like, a hit and miss for me in Precure. I either love them or HATE them. 😂 I have been experiencing excessive migraines this winter so I reallllyyyyyyyy don’t want to hear a baby bawling when all I want to do is watch anime! 😂
Long time no comment my friend! Oh well I’ve actually done with Mahou Tsukai and KiraKira A La Mode anyway, which I survived the freaking hell of being a critical watcher of the Cure series.
Anyways, it was one of my best fave pilot episodes for a Cure season! Hana is just so kakkoi, so to speak. Hug-tan kinda reminds me of Chiffon, Ai-chan and Ha-chan in terms of the cuteness overload and I’d wanna cuddle her like damn! Meanwhile, Saaya’s so angelic and Homare? My fella fan of mine said that she’s the Yurio of PreCure and I laughed so hard. But yeah, I quickly get what I mean.
Also, the generals of Criasu Co. are honestly creepy as hell similar to Yes! 5’s Nightmare Co. But I began to get suspicious about the purple gal Lulu coz I wonder if she might get something that could change her. It’s too early to tell though.
Now for the maiden fight, I have say it again that Yell’s probably one of my fave pilot episode fights in the franchise. Her first sole finisher for me is honestly remind me of the combined Love Sunshine Fresh and My Sweet Heart finishers of Peach and Heart. Not expecting to much (coz I’m the “what I expected vs what I got” type of viewer), but I’m so excited for the next episodes that’s all.
Yell’s finisher actually looks a lot more like Miyuki cure happy(smile)’s finisher(can’t remember the name) compared to Love and Aida’s finishers.
I am really curious to seeing how the villains will be handled this season, especially being “corporate” based ones! Her finisher is super awesome, not to mention gorgeous! Hopefully this will be a good one! IT’S BEEN TOO LONG!!!!!
I hope you enjoy the series – I’ve missed having your companion reviews to read the next day!
I feel like a lot of effort went into this episode to call back to earlier series since they’ve decided to celebrate Precure’s 15th Anniversary this year. Not enough to fell stale or repetitive, but a neat reward for anyone who has been following the franchise since the beginning.
It was so nice to see Cure Yell take a physical approach to battling the monster after the hands-off approach last year.
As for subbing – Anon subbed all of KKPCALM. I suppose your mileage may vary, but I thought they did a good job (notably preserving the puns in their attacks and subbing all of the insert songs, of which there were a lot). Perhaps most importantly, Anon stuck with the series from beginning to end, so I trust them to see Hugtto through. I saw one other sub pop up for episode 1 by “CStars”. Like Anon, it appears to be an individual rather than a subbing group. They took a more literal approach to their translations of names at times, going with Theender instead of Oshimadaa and Morrow-Power for Asu-Power, for example. Personally, I think some of their translations suffered for the sake of speed (it was out several hours before Anon’s), but it comes down to personal preference.
Good to be back with Precure! Let’s hope this will be a good one, especially with it being their 15th Anniversary!
And thanks for the tip for Fansubs! 🙂
Anon’s subs are best subs. They covered entire Kirakira and the subs are out late Sunday in my time usually. They’re quick and professional.
Yell is actually the Japanese cheering sound, so while is English we Cheer, in Japanese they Yell. That’s the way it is.
The power is called Asu-pawawa, which I support Anon’s translation partially and call Tomorrow or perhaps Future (sounds better) Powower. I guess we’ll see on why it is called like that in future (pun intended)
Thanks for the tip!
//Yell is actually the Japanese cheering sound, so while is English we Cheer, in Japanese they Yell. That’s the way it is.//
Okay that makes more sense, so I can see where they are coming from now. Thanks for the clarification.
I couldn’t tell if “Powower” was a typo so I went with power, thanks for the clarification! I’ll keep that in mind for future entries if I go with “Future Powower” instead,