I'm not sure how much Toei had planned for Pretty Cure, but I really doubt that, at the time of this review, they expected it to be already close to start its 16th entry with Star Twinkle. In my way to watch all the franchise it finally came the time to tackle the original, which did a solid job building the foundation for one of the most successful series in Japan.

What is about?

The premise is pretty simple yet effective: A big baddie wants to take over literally everything with the power of the seven stones, and to prevent that, our main characters, with the help of strange but pretty cute creatures, recieve the power to become Precure, giving them superhuman powers that they will use in big amounts to kick the ass of any villain (mostly in a monster of the week format) that comes to take the stones they have while hopefully trying to recover the other ones lost.

Characters

Outside of the obvious action elements that the series has due to the premise, what really makes or breaks the franchise to me is the characters and their interactions, and I think that they did a great job with the first main characters of Precure. Nagisa and Honoka are two girls with very different personalities and nothing they really shared outside of being in the same class, but after becoming Precure they are basically forced to be close to each other in order to save the day because they can't transform individually, this means lots and lots of interactions between them and if they weren't entertaining and the development of their friendship wasn't satisfying the series would have fallen apart hard, but that thankfully isn't the case.

The rest of the cast is pretty good but nothing special with an exception. The mascot characters are good source of comedy (especially Mepple and Nagisa moments) but sometimes they can be annoying as well, especially in the second half of the series, the villains are pretty one-note but their interactions and personalities are solid and quite entertaining to watch, there is a exception to that with one of them which is a character I personally loved due to his personal struggles, lastly there is the classmates which get the spotlight from time to time and while they aren't particularly memorable, they always give a push for more development for the main duo.

Action, animation and music

Now it's time to comment the other part of what makes Precure be Precure: the action scenes, and boy this first entry already did a very nice job showing that element! The fights are well animated and fun to watch, with lots of punches, kicks, and whatever movements the girls think of to gain the upper hand. They also get hit back hard and in some cases the situation is completely overwhelming for them, especially when the villains attack personally and not via calling a monster (something that Futari wa does way more than the other Precure I watched), this makes the fights tense which only adds to the enjoyment. The music of this anime is also solid with some rarely used (which is a good thing) inserts that add a lot of impact to the scenes where they play, making them very memorable.

The flaws

Even if maybe I didn't talk that well of the side characters, all I have said so far has been pretty positive, so why do I say in the summary that I don't recommend it as first Precure? Well, this anime honestly suffers from repetitiveness. This isn't something particular from this entry due to the monster of the week format of the franchise (and I suffered it pretty notably with the first half of Heartcatch too) but while others like Princess or Hugtto use well their settings or themes to give variety, or Smile just does whatever it wants and it's freaking hilarious, Futari wa gets quite stale even when switching focus to side characters or events like Nagisa playing lacrosse or the small romance element this anime has with a senpai of her.

As the first entry (and so the one that has to create everything for the rest to adopt, change and/or improve) it also struggles with the transformation scene of the girls, and in general with the stock footage used, being pretty unimpressive, the girls also do attacks together and so one pretty much only sees two or three different magic attacks through the series in comparison to the better looking and more varied attacks that future entries have for the characters.

Lastly, the story of this first season is also split into two parts, with the first being pretty well paced but the second not adding enough to keep things fresh even if it still has nice episodes and more satisfying development for the main duo. I read that this series was originally meant to be two cours but went longer (up to the nearly 100 episodes including the sequel Max Heart) due to its popularity, and if true I'm not surprised at all with how I felt about the second half and worries me a decent amount for how the sequel will avoid getting stale.

Did that put you off? I can totally see why people would dislike this anime, way more than with any other Precure I watched so far (that to be fair are mostly the praised ones), yet I think that this anime is nice and well worth a watch thanks to Nagisa, Honoka, their interactions, and the already awesome fights this franchise has from the first season, but for that I think that one already needs to be into Precure thanks to another entry to know well what the franchise is capable of to get really in the mood for this one. I have read from other people (and I feel that I myself would have felt the same way) that started with Precure via Futari wa and eventually quit because they found it too repetitive and expected the rest of the series to be the same way. I'm sure that some people who will read this review actually watched this one first and loved it and watched the rest too, but from my point of view I would recommend to try some other ones first (and I have/will write reviews for them too!) Before watching this one.

In conclusion

While flawed, Futari wa Precure is an anime that also did things right and created the starting point of an amazing franchise that keeps providing hours and hours of fun up to this date, stay strong Precure!