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Kari5

  • Eastern Canada
  • Joined Nov 20, 2007
  • ? / F

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. 

4/10 story
6/10 animation
?/10 sound
6/10 characters
5/10 overall

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