Dreams are beautiful and worth protecting, something that moves forward people and gives us a goal to reach in our way to happiness. Poor/unappealing execution and disliking the characters aside, the theme of "working hard to reach your dreams" is one of the most compelling ones there is to me, and well, here is an anime where the characters having a dream and the enemy trying to take them away is the main theme! I was already hooked from the start, and the execution couldn't have been better.
“I want to be a princess!” Said our clumsy, but hardworking and absurdly lovable protagonist Haruka when she was a kid, the rest laughed at her for having such childish dream, maybe you did you too after reading this thinking about how absurd that might be, but that hurt her, a lot. Thankfully, one day she met a mysterious person who looked like a prince and he cheered for her dream and that she could become one, and that moment is what pushed her to stay that way and continue having that dream she wanted to reach all the way to when she joined Noble Academy, a school where this fantastic story is set.
In this entry, the antagonist side is an organization called Dysdark, that focuses on bringing despair to the people by locking away their dreams (and them in the process inside of a cage), they already showed their power by taking full control of Hope Kingdom and the people living there, with the few who managed to run away asking the Precures of this entry for help. While some comedic interactions with the girls are still there, I have to say that Princess clearly went more serious when it comes to showing the villains as the evil force they are, and how threatening Dyspear (the main antagonist of the story) is definitely helps on that.
And this is where the Precure come to action, and what a nice job they made, the cast of this anime is so likeable and this is especially true for the main characters of this story and Yui, another student who isn't a Precure but is always with the girls, we follow them in their way to accomplish their dreams and this includes all the happy, sad, and very emotional moments of that, it's so easy to root for them and each episode is really enjoyable no matter who takes the spotlight, I was hooked to this anime from the first episode and it only made but get better, reaching godlike status in the last cour where it became a string of amazing episode after amazing episode into a conclusion that left me immensely satisfied.
The animation of the series is fantastic, especially delivering hard in the transformations and action scenes that are characteristic of the series, it's honestly surprising how consistent the quality is considering that Precure never really stops airing.
With that said, it's time to tackle the only negative I can think of this anime: some use of the CGI. Together with the “real life looking” issue I have with the toys the franchise obviously wants to advertise to keep going as mentioned in my Heartcatch Precure review, the magic spells and the CGI models that come along with them can be pretty jarring, but it really becomes a minor complaint when everything else in the series was just so great.
The series is also very solid in the music department, and god, I love the second ED of the series so much even if having the issue I mentioned, it's a great song and it also has different versions (one for each of the Precure), alternating between them, most of the time fitting with who was the main focus of the episode, it was unskippable and a fantastic way to end the episode.
Princess Precure is no anime “just for kids”, the themes of the story and how well they are handled are made in a way that anyone can enjoy this anime and feel connected with the cast and their dreams, maybe also being able to relate with your own ones and feel an extra push for your objectives. One of the best series I have watched and an anime I can't recommend enough to everyone.
