Anime Futari wa Pretty Cure

[densuke]

[b]Futari wa Pretty Cure[/b] (2004)
# of Episodes: unknown
Production: ABC, Asatsu DK, Toei
Genre: Mahou Shoujo

Nagisa Misumi (misumi means "beautiful black ink" - nobody really has that for a last name, I bet) and Honoka Yukishiro ("white snow" - ditto) are middle-school classmates but not friends. Nagisa is more or less a "jock" and Honoka is more or less a "nerd."

For no apparent reason the "powers of Pretty Cure" are bestowed upon these girls by a pair of talking cell phones/blobby cutesy mascots (hey, sounds silly but it makes a [i]great marketing gimmick[/i]). The girls reluctantly go along with the deal, which includes defending the cell phones from the dastardly Pisard, who looks like a refugee from a visual-kei band.

The show has some nice character designs and a bit of catchy music. It is also good-natured and sticks to important mahou shoujo basics.

A couple of points worth discussing might be:
[list][size=2]Nagisa and Honoka - as separate characters or as a team[/size]

[*][size=2]Are romantic entanglements in store for the girls? Nagisa's got her eye on a boy...[/size]

[*][size=2]The "guilty pleasure" of watching mahou shoujo series[/size][/list]

[Dagger]

I just picked up Baka-Fansubs' release of Pretty Cure episode 1. One can't judge certain shows (Narutaru, for example) by the content of their first episode, but hopefully Pretty Cure will be an exception to this. Its wonderful production values took me completely by surprise. Goofy though some aspects of the series may be, the fight scenes are very good thus far and will probably remain that way, even accounting for the slight drop-off in animation quality which most shows experience at one point or another.

Pretty Cure is entertaining in part because of its absurdity and parodical elements.... all the same, I'd like at least one or two of its villains to be somewhat more threatening than those seen in Scooby-Doo. :p Anyway, the main characters are great and it looks as though the anime is going to feature a whole bevy of cute girls and boys. I absolutely loved the introduction sequence, which wasted no time in establishing the two leads' personalities--it was just so cute and entertaining.

How old are Nagisa and Honoka supposed to be? Nagisa refers to herself as a sophomore, but since neither of them look sixteen, I'm inclined to think that the term means something different in Japan.

~Dagger~

[densuke]

Nagisa and Honoka are middle-schoolers. 3 yrs. of middle school, 3 yrs. of high school. 2nd-year middle school=8th grade=14 years old, right? They seem to be that age.

Episode 4 had some great great stuff. One of the girls' classmates got her hair cut like Nagisa, that was a cute moment ^_^ Then the show put a little effort into that character. I think it's time viewers had a slightly bigger cast to contend with especially since a lot happens at school.

The "duo" gimmick of this show is very effective. Large teams and singles have been done plenty of times but this show and Ultra Maniac get to develop a more specific friendship between two girls, which is refreshing.