User blog:GlitterInformer/Smile Pretty Cure!/Glitter Force SDC: Smile Pretty Cure! the Movie

Return to Episode 36 (Sub) | Return to the Table of Contents | Advance to Episode 37 (Sub), 29 (Dub)

From Fresh Pretty Cure! (2009) to Kira Kira☆Pretty Cure A La Mode (2017), every season of Pretty Cure has had one crossover movie and one stand-alone movie. Smile Pretty Cure! (2012) is no exception, and we’ve finally arrived at its stand-alone movie. You don’t need to be familiar with the previous seasons to understand this movie, and if you’ve gotten this far, you probably know enough about Smile Pretty Cure! to get it.

This movie is called Eiga Smile Pretty Cure!: Ehon no Naka wa Minna Chiguhagu! In English, that’s ''Smile Pretty Cure! the Movie: Everyone Mixed Up in Picture Books!'' Let’s begin, shall we?

The movie begins with logos for Toei, the company behind Pretty Cure. Then, we get an introduction by the cast of Smile Pretty Cure! It’s basically a tutorial on how to use Miracle Lights. In case you missed the Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage review, Miracle Lights are toy flashlights passed out in the theater to moviegoers. When the protagonists of the movie are in trouble, the audience is supposed to use their Miracle Lights to cheer them on.

After that, the movie starts in earnest. A mysterious glowing feather falls from the sky. Then, a mysterious book with a wing on its cover is put in a box to be donated. After that, we see a preschool-age Miyuki, drawing in the dirt by herself.

The feather lands on Miyuki’s head and floats toward the strange book. Miyuki follows it and is shocked to see the feather disappear and the pages of the book start turning by themselves. For some reason, the last pages of the book have been torn out. Miyuki takes the book with her indoors and reads it. After making a funny face to imitate the book, two girls spot her and she gets embarrassed. However, the girls want to read the book with her, so Miyuki ends up making friends.

At her house, Miyuki gets to the part of the book with the pages torn out. After being sad for a bit, Miyuki gets an idea and promises the book that she’ll draw the rest of its pages.

We cut to the present day. Miyuki and her friends are going to a picture book exposition. It’s a huge place with picture books from around the world, picture book authors and illustrators, and even a place where visitors can make their own picture books. As the girls enter, a small, shadowy figure watches them.

We then get the opening theme. Instead of the usual footage, we get a montage of the girls exploring the exposition, with the shadowy figure watching them all the while. Then, the shadowy figure enters a small movie theater tent and jumps into the screen. The girls come in, too, with Miyuki excited to see whatever’s on the screen.

Soon after they sit down in the otherwise empty theater, the movie starts playing. It features a girl named Nico (who happens to be the protagonist of the book at the beginning of the movie) running away from two monsters. After being chased around, Nico jumps out of the screen and into the real world, knocking over Miyuki.

The monsters follow Nico into the real world. The team tries to get her out of the theater, but the monsters catch her first. The girls transform and pursue them. It’s a long cut, and Peace chooses scissors.

As the girls jump onto the tent’s roof and challenge the monsters, they reveal their names: Kingaku and Gingaku. “Kin” is Japanese for gold, and “Gin” is Japanese for silver. This fits their designs; Kingaku has gold skin and the kanji for kin on his shirt, and Gingaku has silver skin and the kanji for gin on his shirt.

Peace recognizes these characters from Journey to the West, a 16th-century Chinese novel about a Buddhist monk’s journey to Central Asia and India. I looked on Wikipedia and the Pretty Cure Wiki, but I couldn’t find any information about these two.

Anyway, they have Crimson Gourds that suck things into them when opened. Happy almost gets sucked in, but Beauty blocks their openings with ice. Then, we get a well-animated fight scene, where the girls beat up Kingaku and Gingaku and try to stop the gourds. One of them sucks Nico in, but Peace steals it. Eventually, Sunny fills the other gourd with fire, which for some reason causes it to turn on their owners, suck up Kingaku and Gingaku, and spit out two more shadowy things.

The girls de-transform, and with much effort, they pull Nico out of the gourd. Nico introduces herself, and Happy notices that she’s carrying the same book she read as a preschooler. However, she doesn’t remember it completely.

Nico tells the girls that she’s from the World of Picture Books. The girls get excited, and by their request, Nico opens a portal in the ground to take them there. The journey through the portal is beautiful and really well animated, by the way.

Eventually, the girls come out of the portal and fall onto a tangible rainbow, finally in the World of Picture Books. It’s a mishmash of fairytales, making it basically M ä rchenland with humans instead of fairies. Nico tells them that in the World of Picture Books, they each can become the protagonist of any picture book that they want. The girls are very excited about this. Nico sends them away to the fairytale worlds they want to be in. With them all gone, Nico laments that Miyuki forgot her promise to finish her book, and her shadow becomes a monstrous bird.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">The girls all take part in different fairytales. Miyuki and Candy play the part of Cinderella;, Yayoi is Sun Wukong, a flying monkey from Journey to the West; Reika is Momotarou, a boy born from a peach who goes off to slay demons; Akane is the One-Inch Boy, who goes on a quest to become big; and Nao is Urashima Taro, a man who rescues a turtle who thanks him by taking him to a palace under the sea.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">We cut back to Nico. As revenge, she and her shadow screw up the fairytales the girls are in to make them lose their smiles. Momotarou arrives at Cinderella/Miyuki’s house and confuses the prince’s castle for a demon castle; Urashima Taro feeds talking animals so that Momotarou/Reika can’t bribe them with her own food to help her with her quest; the cast of Journey to the West eats all of the food underwater so Urashima Taro/Nao can’t have any; the One-Inch Boy saves Sun Wukong/Yayoi from a collapsing cave; and One-Inch Boy/ Akane gets cried all over by a giant, despondent Cinderella.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Nico makes things even worse by turning the displaced fairytale characters evil and having them attack the girls. The girls run away, and the chase goes through the various stories of the World of Picture Books. Eventually, all five girls and their pursuers meet up.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">It appears the fairytale characters are going to beat up the girls, but three fairytale villains interfere just in time: the Cow King from Journey to the West, the Blue Demon from One-Inch Boy, and the Demon from ''Momotarou. ''They want to make their stories continue as usual so they can exact bad endings. However, the possessed fairytale characters want there to be no endings to their stories, whether happy or sad.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Miyuki realizes that the fairytale characters turned evil when their shadows swallowed them. The others say the same thing happened to the characters in their world. The team decides to transform and release them from their shadows. Why didn’t they transform when they were being chased? No idea. Why are there two transformation sequences in this movie? I don’t know, but at least it’s extra-short this time. Peace chooses scissors, by the way.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">A fight ensues, with Pretty Cure and the villains teaming up to fight the possessed characters. Sun Wukong hits Cinderella with a magical hammer from One-Inch Boy that causes the target to change sizes. This causes Sunny and Cinderella to return to their normal sizes. Additionally, Cinderella’s shadow stops possessing her and turns into one of the little shadowy things we’ve been seeing throughout the movie.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Sunny catches the shadow, but it escapes her grasp and jumps into Nico’s shadow. The girls are relieved to see Nico until she reveals that she was the one who messed up the fairytales. Nico opens her book and reminds Happy of her promise to finish it. She tells her she hates her and wants her to feel sad, and she uses her shadow to teleport away.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">The villains tell Pretty Cure to go after Nico and let the take care of the possessed characters. The girls are reluctant, but Cow King and Blue Demon throw them into the sky, making it so they don’t have any choice.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">The girls land in the world of Nico’s picture book, where animals are fighting with each other. Happy explains what happened in Nico’s book. Nico was a girl who is always smiling, and her smile caused the quarreling animals to get along with each other. However, she was kidnapped by the Demon King and the animals fought with each other again. Everything after that got ripped out.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Interestingly, Nico’s name comes from the Japanese phrase, “nikoniko suru,” meaning “to smile.” I wonder if that means I’ve been misspelling her name, and Nico is actually Niko?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Happy says that she tried to draw the pages, but the drawings were bad, so she gave up. She feels really sad because she betrayed Nico. However, Sunny and the others cheer her up, and they head to the Demon King’s tentacle-covered castle so Happy can apologize to Nico.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">We cut to the Demon King’s castle. It turns out the Demon King was Nico’s animated shadow. He and the little shadowy minions urge Nico to hate Miyuki even more. Nico agrees, and her hatred powers up the Demon King. The Demon King then notices Pretty Cure arriving, and he tells Nico to show them her hatred.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Happy apologizes to Nico, but Nico refuses to forgive her. The Demon King then throws the fairytale villains towards them, revealing that he and Nico defeated them. Nico sends the possessed characters to defeat Pretty Cure, but Sunny tells Happy to go to Nico and let the rest of them handle her minions.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">We get another great fight scene, which gets EPIC in some places, most notably Happy fighting a kappa. However, it still ends with all five getting defeated; Happy due to the castle’s tentacles knocking her down, and the other four by the hands of Nico’s minions.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Nico tells the girls that it’s Happy’s fault they got beaten up, but the other four tell her they love her as they defeat Nico’s minions. Nico still insists she hates Happy. Happy battles the castle’s tentacles and makes it to Nico. She says that Nico taught her the importance of smiles, as it was a smile that caused her to go from being shy to having friends. Happy hugs Nico and apologizes to her multiple times. This causes Nico to start to change her mind. She cries, the pages in her book glow…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">…and then the Demon King destroys his own castle, knocks Happy away, captures Nico, and becomes tangible. The shadows that were possessing the fairytale characters come out of them and fuse with the Demon King.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">As the Demon King proceeds to beat up Pretty Cure, he tries to convince Nico to hate them again so he can use her despair to take over the world and erase all endings. However, the villains and Candy intervene and try in vain to pull apart the cage Nico is trapped in. Nico says she doesn’t need their help, but the Cow King and Candy tell her to be honest about her feelings.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Nico starts to realize what she really wants, and the torn pages start glowing again. The Demon King tries to stop this by attacking Nico’s would-be rescuers, but Happy interferes and gets beaten up. However, Happy still smiles and promises to rescue Nico.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">This motivates Nico to try to escape her prison. She declares that she doesn’t want to take away anyone’s smiles anymore. This causes her book to unleash a light that breaks her free. It also restores the pages in her book, which, as it turns out, were blank the whole time.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">The Demon King tells Nico to come back so they can create a world without smiles. Pretty Cure retorts that smiles are important, but the Demon King refuses to listen, so they use Royal Rainbow Burst on him. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t even advance the Royal Clock.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">With Pretty Cure weakened (still in Princess Form, but their clothes aren’t glowing anymore), the Demon King unleashes his tentacles on all of the World of Picture Books. Nico runs up to him and begs him to stop. She says she was wrong to hate on Miyuki and that she should have continued to help others smile.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">The Demon King responds that he doesn’t need her anymore because she’s lost her hatred. He launches a projectile at Nico, but Happy intercepts it and gets knocked out. A distraught Nico calls to the other characters (and the audience) to give Pretty Cure their support. Ah, it’s Miracle Light time! So basically, everyone waves their Miracle Lights to create a deus ex machina and the audience feels incredibly awkward, given that they don’t have Miracle Lights to help with. The viewers realize that the Miracle Light thing is all a façade, as even without their cheering, the deux ex machina still happens, and all they feel in their hearts is a cold reminder that Toei is toying with their feelings to make money. Isn’t that nice?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Anyway, as the entirety of the World of Picture Book participates in the façade, Nico confesses that she actually loves Happy, even though she said she hates her. This ignites the Miracle Lights’ power and gives Happy a brand-new form: Ultra Cure Happy. Unlike other movies with one or more Cures getting powered-up forms, this one actually includes a transformation, which is really cool. With her new form, she destroys the Demon King’s dark aura and causes flowers to bloom all over the World of Picture Books.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Nico begs Happy to save the Demon King, and Happy agrees. The other four use their Princess Candles to create a strange, sparkling aura around the Demon King. Happy persuades him not to destroy he beautiful world around him, and with one touch, she returns the Demon King to a smaller form and hugs him, returning the World of Picture Books to normal.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">The girls de-transform, and the Demon King tells Nico to stay away from him because he’s the bad guy. Nico refuses, saying she wants him to smile, too. The fairytale characters come up to them, and Nico apologizes to everyone. They forgive her. Now that Miyuki’s conscious, Nico tells her for real that she loves her. This causes Miyuki to burst into tears, and her friends have to remind her to smile. The movie ends with everyone smiling as the feather from the beginning of the movie reappears on Nico’s book and turns into a Wing Décor.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Well, the movie isn’t over yet. First, we get a beautiful credits sequence. As the cast and crew scroll by, we see Nico and the Demon King hanging out in all of the fairytales mentioned, as well as a few shots of the main cast at the end.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">And after that, we get the usual “Full Bloom*Smile”! This is preluded by Pretty Cure and Candy inviting the audience to dance along but giving them warnings not to block others’ view or hurt themselves or the people around them as they dance. Other than that, there’s no new footage, which is a shame.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Overall: This. Was. AWESOME. Usually, the Pretty Cure stand-alone movies are just OK, and only worth a watch if you’re a completionist. At first, I thought the Heartcatch Pretty Cure! movie was the only exception, but now we have two awesome stand-alone movies! The animation was great, the characters were wonderful, and the World of Picture Books came alive in this movie. Usually, movie-only characters and worlds are forgettable, but this is something else. If you’re a Pretty Cure or Glitter Force fan, this one’s definitely worth a watch.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Speaking of Glitter Force, I can see why this movie was never brought to America, though it’s a shame it wasn’t. Of course, it’s a movie, so Saban may not have the time and money to put a Glitter Force movie on Netflix, let alone in theaters. Even putting that aside, Japanese fairytales played a major role in this movie. Sometimes, I got a bit confused, given that the movie didn’t explain them. I can see Americans being alienated by so many Japanese things that they don’t understand.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Next time: Back on track with episode 37->29! Reika/Chloe and the Bad End Kingdom/Shadow Realm are going to run for student council president!