The first Pretty Cure series I watched all the way through was Heartcatch. I got into it because of a blogger's recommendation, and I never looked back. I got into the Pretty Cure fandom years ago, and Doki Doki is the 4th Pretty Cure season I finished all the way through. It would have been 3rd had Suite not completely won me over. I've seen a lot of hate for this series, and...well, in some ways I can agree on some things. I agree that there's a lot of potential that it could have used but wind up becoming completely wasted because of other things. Some series focus too much on different things, which affect the story in the process. Doki Doki, on the other hand, is very plot focused...which is great, but in this case it winds up being its downfall.

One thing you'll notice is that the main character isn't an idiotic ditz. Instead, she's a competent, reliable, and capable girl named Mana who's the president of the student council, and is always helping people out. One day a man gives her something called a lovead. Later on, she witnesses a warrior named Cure Sword fighting something called a Jikochuu. She becomes the warrior named Cure Heart and joins in the fight against the Selfish. Cure Sword's homeland, the Trump Kingdom, was taken over by the Jikochuu, and she needs to find the princess or else both worlds are in danger. Joining them are Mana's childhood friends Rikka and Alice, Cures Diamond and Rosetta, and a strange baby they name Ai-chan. Later on they're joined by another enigmatic warrior named Cure Ace, who's hiding a lot of mysteries.

The animation for the show is...eh, okay. The character designs are sleek and decent, but movement is rather limited except in some fight scenes, and even those come off as a little bit sub par. I do like the character designs though. For their civilian forms anyway. Their cure forms look a bit tacky. My favorite out of all of them is Rosetta's Cure design. She definitely looks the cutest. The music, on the other hand, is quite good. Not as good as other soundtracks, but it does its job decently, at best.

DokiDoki could have been a great series. Unfortunately, it has many flaws that really bog it down. One of its biggest issues is its major focus on developing its story. It's like Escaflowne where every episode moves the plot forward, with there being little to no filler. This series could really have benefited from some filler episodes, because its intense focus on its story wound up costing it time to focus on its main characters and their personal lives. Makoto and Alice are the characters that have been hit the hardest by this, as they get the least screentime and the least amount of meaningful character development. I like them as characters, but I would have liked to see more of their personal lives, such as Makoto's life in the Trump Kingdom before it got invaded and where Alice goes to school.

Another big reason for this is the show's intense focus on its main character, Mana Aida aka Cure Heart. Now don't get me wrong. I like her for not being a ditz who's dumber than a sack of bricks like most characters in the Pretty Cure franchise. She's smart, reliable, and reasonably competent. But...the problem is, as much as I like her, the creators loved her too much and pretty much turned her into an overly perfect Mary Sue spotlight hog. She's loved by everyone, she has no real character flaws, she gets whatever she wants, all the other characters give her their powers so she can use the final finishing move, the series bends over backwards to ensure that she's always in the right even when she shouldn't be, and she gets all the power-ups while everyone else gets the shaft. I personally don't hate her like most people do, but I agree with them in that the creators should have focused far less on Mana and more on characters like Alice, Rikka, and Makoto.

It doesn't help that there's a lot of plot holes that never get properly explained or expanded upon, such as the royal crystals and the previous Precure before them, and the things the creators do to make every episode contribute to the story end up inevitably bogging it down. I won't go into much for the sake of spoilers, but Doki Doki really could have been better had it left out certain elements. But it's not a bad show by any means. It still retains Precure's messages of hope, friendship, redemption, etc. The music is reasonably good, albeit it not very memorable, and for the most part, it takes itself seriously and doesn't try to dumb itself down for its audience. It's a shame the show came out so convoluted as a result.

Doki Doki isn't the best Precure season, nor will it ever be. It's not bad, but again, it could have been a lot better had some elements been removed and had the creators focused less on Mana all the time.