Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure

AyaPrincess Jul 14, 2021

8.5

Now that there are 20 episodes out, I think it's fair to review this precure, I might come back to change things.  Simply, this season follows Manatsu(the "pink") when she moves to Tokyo and finds a mermaid, Laura, who then makes her a precure. From there they get all the other cures and of course fight the monsters which take people's motivations. I'm pretty new to the precure franchise and making my way around all the series and out of the few I've watched, this precure is really good! The characters are really lovable and sweet with reasonable problems and their fairy is pretty awesome too. You can really see the theme of the season(tropical stuff, energy, and makeup) through how colorful and vibrant the animation is. The final boss has a good reason for not acting quicker, which many people can relate to.

Kari5 Dec 5, 2021

5

Another year, another Precure! Writing this newbie-friendly review a little over mid season which should be enough to give a fair rating. I should also point out I'm rating this as a standalone anime and not how good it is as a Precure series. In this season, the girls are based on a tropital theme, are pushing makeup toys, and are combating laziness. As with most other PreCure series, this is standalone and you don't need to watch any of the other series. Story Story is very standard for magical girl anime, nothing new here. New girl Manatsu comes to town, meets a magical being (in this case, a mermaid, Laura) who gives her the ability to transform into a magical girl to fight evil. She then befriends a bunch of girls at her school who predictably each become her partners in the fight against the baddies. In this series, the bad guys are all based on sea creatures, and their evil boss is trying to suck motivation from humans for whatever evil plan. A lot of the series takes place on their school grounds, and sometimes around various places in their town/ocean. Other than 'not letting evil queen steal evergy' there isn't any ongoing plotline that connects the episodes. Any obstacle is introduced and resolved within the same episode. This makes this show feel like its 90% filler and nothing really 'happens' other than everyday life for the girls who are just temporarily interrupted by monster-of-the-day villains every once in a while. So I can't really give the Story a higher than a 4. Its thankfully not messy, oddly paced, or confusing, its just bland and boring. If you've seen other Precure series before you'll recognize the formula and be able to predict most major reveals. Animation Animation is very hit or miss. I keep assuming with such a huge brand like Precure they'd have good animation, but maybe the time crunch gets in the way (the show is constantly ongoing so no breaks). Extra care is put into the clips that are re-used every episode (special attacks, transformation sequence), and sometimes the regular scenes are decent. However, it happens so often where in wide shots, the characters quickly lose a lot of quality and details and look flat. So many shortcuts, and while I understand why it probably happens, it doesn't make it any better. Characters One of the few things that allow you to tell the Precure series apart are the character designs. And as usual, the show does a good job of making all the characters, in and out of magical girl form, look different. I'm never confused as to who is who or what their role is in the series. Their magical girl outfits also don't immediately look like any other PreCure outfit, which is great, especially after doing them for so long. On the other hand, with maybe the expection of Sango, all the girls are based on common stereotypes. Denki girl, rich-big-ego girl, shy bookworm, and cool/handsome senpai. Other than Laura the mermaid who heavily lays on the "bitch" from episode one, I doubt any will be memorable later. Conclusion Another year, another Precure. As mentioned earlier, I'm rating this based on how good of an anime it is on its own, not how good of a 'magical girl anime for 5-year-olds' it is. And of course, because of the low quality and its target audience, its not a great show. Watchable (or even likeable) if you love these types of shows, but 'eh' if you're not. Its not bad for a Precure show, so if you're a fan of the franchise, you'll probably think this is good. Its possible for these types of shows to be good, and I wish they would put more effort into improving them. 

evilneko Oct 26, 2021

6

Bottom Line: TroPre is aggressively average and, to me at least, seemingly aimed at a younger crowd than usual. Any given episode is still dumb fun, but for such an ocean-adjacent show, there isn't much depth to be found here. Still, there are some real gems buried in the show. That's an odd thing to say when reviewing a kids' show like Precure, produced with clear intent to sell toys to tweens and pre-teens, but it's also a thing Precure has accomplished many times before. I knew going in that this was going to be a silly season, the OP and pre-season leaks were enough to prove that. The show even started out strong, in particular with Laura and Asuka's characterizations. There was a lot of room for growth, lots of potential. For about a dozen episodes, all was well. And then for a long time, the show went nowhere, little if any character development was attempted, and very little of interest happened in general. Sure, Precure is always a slow burn, but not this slow. I seriously considered, for the first time (I stuck with Star Twi because Lala, and I've never even attempted Mahou), dropping a Precure show. Still, in the past few weeks (as I am writing this, we're on ep 34 of probably 50) things have picked up, and episode 33 in particular was a THING, a very unique THING within Precure. So I'm glad I stuck around. Update: finished it. The show definitely took a turn for the better in the last 10 or so eps, and remained true to its theme throughout. The ending is 100% pure Tropical Rouge Precure. It's nowhere near the best Precure, but it's not bad either. I have rambled enough. So to sum up, in much the same way I did for Star Twi: Things I love about TroPre: Eh. Nothing yet. Ok maybe Laura's meme faces. She totally gives Nagisa a run for her money. If she made them more often she could seriously give Great Teacher Onizuka a challenge. Things I like about TroPre: Asuka's refusal to take Laura's crap. Laura's trashiness. Where I hang out, we don't call her Trash Tsundermaid amd Machiavellian Mackrel for nothin'. The tantalizing possibility that Butler may turn into a Joker-esque (as in Smile Precure Joker, not Persona Joker or Batman Joker) Big Bad. Things I dislike about TroPre: How long we had to wait for Sango and Minori to get any substantial development. The way Manatsu absolutely dominates the show. Actually I've grown to dislike Manatsu, in general. I'm still not sure if she's worse the Hikaru, but it's not hard to be better than Hikaru. Things I hate about TroPre: Nothing, really. Nothing is bad enough about it for me to hate, yet. That's definitely one advantage over StarTwi. I wonder if this is how I would've felt about Star Twi (before a certain...thing happened) had I not been absolutely in love with Lala. One of these days, I will write a review for a Precure show that I actually really like, I swear. I liked Healin' Good. Forgot to write a review.