Precure Dream Stars! is the 22nd film of the franchise, and the first one to feature the Kira Kira Precure cast. It is an All Stars movie, so other teams also appear, specifically the Princess and Mahoutsukai Precure. It’s a sensible, conservative choice, due to the ever-growing number of existing characters.
The story of the film centers on a girl named Sakura, who is fleeing her kingdom because the antagonist is stealing all the wonderful things. Her friend Shizuku, a wolf, manages to save her from danger but must sacrifice herself and stay behind. And so, the young girl begins to search for the Precure, so they can help her. After a few events, the Precure fight against Samidare (who turns out to be Shizuku under mind control) and Crow Tengu. In the end, her friends are reunited.
Among the Kira Kira team, Ichika is the one who shines the most, showing great empathy towards Sakura. Her best moments are when she listens to the girl telling her story and hugs her from behind, and later, when they are alone in the rain and she encourages her to bring Shizuku back. A small detail I’d like to point out is that, at the beginning of the series, Ichika’s fellow Precure often had trouble gathering and doing things together—an element that is instead present here but will fade over time.
The interactions with the other teams, even if I would have liked more of them, were cute and fun. In particular, the best moment is Akira acting overly masculine with Yui, leading the Princess Precure to intervene, thinking she is a creepy man. It’s also funny that the Mahoutsukai think Ichika was trying to kidnap poor Mofurun.
The film is in 2D when set in the Precure worlds, but when in Sakura’s kingdom, it switches completely to CGI, which is still of fairly good quality. The battles include a good amount of physical combat. There are also frequent fourth wall breaks, some of which have the characters even entering our world—which didn’t really thrill me, but I understand I’m not the main target audience, and I accept it.
As for the original characters, the story of Sakura and Shizuku is sweet and they’re very cute together, but I found it less memorable compared to several other Precure stories. Samidare was still the most credible antagonist of the movie, since she at least created a fair amount of drama and was threatening. As for Crow Tengu, he’s yet another overly comedic villain who, by the end of the film, leaves no lasting impression. Oh, and there were also dogs as enemies, of which I mostly remember that everyone was surprised they could talk—even the dogs themselves (which was actually funny).
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