This review does not contain any spoilers. It’s safe to read before watching. It doesn’t require any knowledge of the franchise.
As I watched more and more Precure, I started comparing the series to one another. I want to write down some notes on that.
It's the second Precure series I've finished. I want to see all of them and report my opinions. Each one I see will add to my experience, so I'll try to compare them a bit, too.
A short explanation for those not accustomed with the series:
- Sunday morning kids show targeted for young girls,
- the longest consecutively running mahou shoujo franchise ever - over 20 years of non stop anime,
- (almost) every series follows a similar pattern, introducing a new group of magical warriors, fairy mascots, and a lot of magical gadgets.
Star☆Twinkle Precure is the 16th Pretty Cure series, which started airing in 2019. I think it’s one of the most distinct - with its vibrant and strongly defined theme, I feel it does stand out a bit. It goes all the way to space, with the whole package: flying rockets, visiting distant planets, meeting aliens... Aesthetics are inspired by astrology and the 80s retro vibe, and the main themes are imagination and diversity (both of the vast universe and the human race).
The main character, Hoshina Hikaru, is 13 years old, energetic, and pretty obsessed with her hobby - outer space. She enjoys watching stars and coming up with constellation ideas, which she meticulously writes down in her notebook. One day she gets an unexpected guest from a galaxy far far away - a cute little fluffy thingy called Fuwa. She’s followed by more alien visitors, and, you guessed it, there’s some mahou shoujo transformation incoming. Soon, a curious and a bit hotheaded girl that she is, Hikaru joins in on a huge saving-the-whole-universe-from-impending-doom plot. And boy, is it huge. From all the Precure series I’ve seen, Star☆Twinkle has one of the most intense, high stakes stories going on. The main villain isn’t there to play around, and the danger is imminent. Of course, the group of Cures is tasked with a standard, overused “gather X thingies to proceed” mission, but the overall plot saves it from being too boring. Travelling around the galaxies is a lot of fun, and really shows off a lot of different, funky ideas.
Yanagawa Akari, the producer, is responsible for the beautifully blended themes of diversity and opening up to new things. She was living in the USA for a while and attended school there. In the interviews she mentions how the cartoons on TV there featured people of various skin colours, something she didn't see in Japanese media at the time. While working on Star☆Twinkle, she decided to use the opportunity to introduce a Cure with a darker skin, a half Japanese half Mexican girl. Of course, we had magical girls with various origins: from space, from different dimensions, a robot from the future… but it's not that often we get one from a real life minority group. Yanagawa thought that the series about meeting alien life and learning to be open-minded and accepting about it will be a perfect season to introduce a character like that. And well, I for one did not expect to see mentions of real-life racism and colorism in a Precure series. Of course, it was subtle and fixed with the power of friendship - but still.
I really loved it. I think Yanagawa’s ideas were beautiful and they worked perfectly when combined together. As a bonus, I recommend reading interviews in which she talks about it all. Ah, it would be fantastic to have her work on another season.
As always, the core of the series are the characters - and this time there are five of them in the Precure team. Five Cures is quite a lot to manage, but I think the show does a good job giving each of them some time to shine.
As I already described Hikaru, Cure Star, she’s your usual enthusiastic protagonist goofball. Her passion for outer space is sweet, but she didn’t make that strong of an impression on me. As characters go, I think her companions fare better. The resident alien, Lala, is a stern voice of reason - at the same time a stranger (an alien even, heh) in a whole new world, and I think it’s shown in a compelling way. The aforementioned half Mexican, Elena, is a popular and beloved big sister type archetype, a ray of sunshine whose story is mostly focused on her big family and caring for others. She’s definitely a fav of mine, a beautifully written, lovable character. The third Earth Cure, Madoka, is lovely as well, but I find her characterization the weakest - she’s a student council president from a strict, rich family, skilled in traditional arts… I feel like I’ve seen it before, and by before I mean literally the previous Precure series I happened to review. And not just there. She’s still sweet, so I’m not complaining that much. The last member of the team, the second alien, is a funky one, but there’s so many interesting and fun ideas there, I feel like she got too little time to show them all off. I guess it’s just a curse that late-season Cures have to bear.
The Cures are accompanied by mascots, obviously, two of them. I think Fuwa was one of the best we got, but Prunce… well, he wasn’t the worst ever, but I disliked him plenty.
The villains left a mixed impression: about half of them were annoying and I couldn’t care about them at all, but the other half - fantastic. Aside from the main antagonist, I especially loved Tenjou. I was a little confused by the idea of basing the alien villains’ designs on youkai, but I guess it makes as much sense as any other theme in Precure.
And speaking of designs - oh my, Star Twinkle Cures are some of the best dressed magical warriors around. I loved their fits, I loved how distinct they were, and how well they looked together. And all the Zodiac versions were simply outstanding. Out of this world, really. But... that's about magical girls designs, they usually steal the show. Overall I feel like a lot of the concepts were pretty plain, when you think about the richness of ideas the outer space is.
I couldn’t find much information on how well received Star☆Twinkle Precure was. If Anilist users’ opinion is any indicator, it’s one of the highest rated. From what I gathered, the space theme was a huge success - not surprising. It’s definitely more appealing to the general audience than many other ideas the franchise uses. I think it’s a great place to start with the Pretty Cure, really. The series introduces a couple of new things, most notably singing in henshin sequences - which was… okay, I guess? I’m not surprised it didn’t make it to the next seasons. But otherwise it’s a wonderful example of what the whole deal is.
While the main girl doesn't shine bright like a star to me, many other aspects carry the series effortlessly. It’s fun, lively, and cute, and I’m sure it would be a wonderful start into the world of Precure. Is it a lighthearted kids show following a formula seen in many different series? Yeah. But this time it’s in space, and there’s a kappa with a lightsaber, so if you try hard enough, you can pretend it’s a new Star Wars show. Only better, because this time it’s mahou shoujo.
Cures: ✿✿✿✿
designs: ✿✿✿✿✿
mascots: ✿✿
villains: ✿✿
story: ✿✿✿
theme and vibes: ✿✿✿
#Thank you for reading!