Shirabe Ako

Shirabe Ako (調辺 アコ) is one of the main Cures of Suite Pretty Cure♪. She is the Princess of Major Land, but has come to the human world to escape the Major Land/Minor Land war at home. She is 9 years old and is in 3rd grade elementary school, a student of the Public Kanon Elementery School and Minamino Souta's classmate. In order to save her father Mephisto, whose heart had been tainted with evil, she disguised herself as the Masked Cure. She finally took off her mask in Episode 35 to try to win back her father's gentle heart, and fights alongside Cures Melody, Rhythm and Beat at last. Ako may be the youngest Cure in the group, but she is the most mature.

Ako's alter ego is Cure Muse (キュアミューズ). She uses the purple Fairy Tone Dodory to transform.

Appearances as Ako
Ako first appears walking with Kanade's brother Minamino Souta to school.She runs into Hojo Hibiki and Minamino Kanade arguing and tells them to get out of her way. She seems to be disrespectful of her elders and has no respect for them and seems to be somewhat mature for her age. She also tells Hibiki and Kanade later that she likes singing but is not very good at it. In a later episode she and Souta see Hummy and Siren together and tell Hibiki and Kanade about it.

Appearances as the Masked Cure
Cure Muse was first shown as the Masked Cure in the show's first opening sequence. She makes her first appearance when she saves Kanade and Hibiki from a Negatone made by Bassdrum at a fake music contest near the clock tower. Hibiki and Kanade immediately began speculating about her identity. Some suspects were Nishijima Waon and Higashiyama Seika. Also Bassdrum calls out to Cure Muse and refers to her as "Siren!" leading to the speculation that Cure Muse may actually be Siren. However, this is soon proven false, as she saves the Cures from Siren herself. She both saves the Cures and helps them on several other occasions but starts to worry that the others are getting too powerful when they acquire the Healing Chest. Cure Muse doesn't really talk when she was disguised as the Masked Cure, however, Dodory talks for her.

Saving Mephisto's Heart and Joining the Team
Ako explains that she became a Cure on the very day Mephisto stole the legendary score. She hid her identity and became the masked Cure because she really didn't want to fight against her father. After Hibiki said that they were fighting to save Mephisto, she revealed herself but still could not quite bring herself to fight her father. Melody, Rhythm and Beat start fighting him for her, but are hopelessly outmatched, so Ako steps in as Muse and begs her father to stop. This does not work, as Mephisto is too well controlled by the noise of evil. Finally, Muse gathers up her courage and punches Mephisto which knocks him back to his senses and returns him to normal.

Appearance
Ako has short orange hair and orange eyes and wears glasses, a long-sleeved pink shirt, light purple overall shorts with matching belt, pink socks, and white and light blue sport shoes. In summer, her outfit is still the same, except she replace her long-sleeved pink shirt with a short-sleeved one. She is the friend of Kanade's brother Minamino Souta and is often seen with him.

As the Masked form of Cure Muse she appears to be much older and taller than she really is and wears a costume consisting of a black jumpsuit, black thigh-length boots, black gloves, and a black and pink cape with a furry collar. Her Cure Module pins the cape in the front. On her head is a black and pink helmet-like mask with a heart in the center and her eyes are magenta.

In the true form of Cure Muse she appears as her normal age. Her short hair becomes longer and styled similar to Cure Marine's and also changes to a brighter orange hue. Her eyes retain the same magenta color as her Masked form. Long yellow ribbons adorn each side of her head and on her forehead is a silver tiara-like headpiece with a magenta heart in the middle. The top part of her costume is pale yellow with a short yellow cape around her shoulders. Her skirt is yellow and is as puffy as the other Suite Cures and is lined in white. There are also yellow ribbons on both side of her hips. She also wears yellow knee-length boots with orange ribbons decorating them.

As Crescendo Cure Muse, her hair becomes lighter. The top part of her outfit becomes almost white while some other parts become light yellow. Her skirt lengthens and the back of it gains an additional golden feather-like skirt. There are also golden wings on her back.

Personality
When she first appeared, she was cold and disrespectful to her elders (Hibiki and Kanade) and very mature for her age. But behind all that coldness, she is a sweet, loving and caring girl and sometimes likes to have a little fun and loves singing.

She loves her parents, but hates it when fight (each other) and wishes them to stop and took the choice of doing it herself. She loves her father very dearly and even transformed into a Pretty Cure for him. But, when he does awkward and gushy manners, she get embarrassed like other kids with their parents.

There's hints that she might like Souta as he is her only friend before becoming friends with the Pretty Cures. She sometimes stands beside him in almost every episode.

Cure Muse
"Playing the Goddess' tune, Cure Muse!" 爪弾くは女神の調べ、キュアミューズ Tsumabiku wa megami no shirabe, Kyua Myūzu!

Cure Muse (キュアミューズ) is the alter Pretty Cure ego of Ako. She transforms using her Cure Module, along with Fairy Tone Dodory. Her true form was first revealed in Episode 35, and her official transformation occurred during Episode 36.

Cure Muse does not have a special purification weapon, using her Cure Module to attack instead. With the help of Tiry, she can perform Shining Circle and Sparkling Shower.

She can also create a rainbow-colored piano clapping her hands together and spreading the keys out. When she plays on this piano, the keys shoot out to surround her target within a barrier. She uses this to trap enemies and also to protect friends and civilians.

Crescendo Cure Muse


Crescendo Cure Muse is the upgraded form that Cure Muse attains in Episode 47. The Crescendo Tone is required for this transformation upgrade; in the TV series, as the Crescendo Tone was sealed up by Noise, the eight Fairy Tones Dory to Dodory combined to become the Crescendo Tone to allow the Cures to transform. In this form, the Cures can perform Suite Session Ensemble Crescendo Finale.

Relationships
Minamino Souta - They are best friends in elementary school. Ako's feelings for him remain to those of friends, though he has a crush on her (which Ako doesn't seem to notice at all). However, in episode 37 Ako can be seen blushing when Souta stared at her wearing her princess costume. Of course, this could be from embarrassment.

Hojo Hibiki, Minamino Kanade, and Kurokawa Ellen - Pretty Cure partners. Ako is seen as the "little sister" of the group, being the youngest of all four of them. When Ellen was good and discovers she was the Princess of Major land, she bows and respect to her as a loyal subject.

Songs
Ako's voice actor, Ōkubo Rumi, has participated in several image songs for the character she voices. Many of them include duets with Ami Koshimizu, who voices Hojo Hibiki, Fumiko Orikasa, who voices Minamino Kanade, and Toyoguchi Megumi, who voices Siren/Kurokawa Ellen.
 * Overture~Yuujou Jokyoku~

Duets

 * ONE~Kokoro wo hitotsu ni~ (Along with Ami Koshimizu, Fumiko Orikasa, and Toyoguchi Megumi)
 * Yume no tobira (Door of Dreams) (Along with Ami Koshimizu, Fumiko Orikasa, Toyoguchi Megumi)

Trivia

 * Ironically, while Ako is the youngest Suite Pretty Cure, she has been active the longest.
 * Ako is the youngest main character in the franchise thus far. She is also the smallest Cure. Her age is not stated in the show but is revealed in an interview and printed on some of her character collectible cards.
 * Cure Muse, when masked, looks older than she really is, which is probably why Hibiki, Kanade and Ellen did not suspect Ako to be Cure Muse at first. In one episode, it was shown that Ako knows how to walk on stilts, hinting to her Cure identity.
 * Ako Shirabe's design and namesake is a tribute to the character Ako Ōzora (大空 アコ) from Toei's other series Kaidan Restaurant.
 * Cure Muse follows the pseudo-tradition of yellow Cures having a puffier outfit than their teammates.
 * Before her role call, as she strums the chords, the motion is nearly identical to how Cure Rhythm strums the chords.
 * Ako is the third Pretty Cure to wear glasses, but not on her Cure form.
 * As Cure Muse, she is the first Cure that has had a total form change during the course of the season not counting upgrades.
 * Cure Muse is the second main character whose motives are unknown in their first appearance.
 * Cure Muse strikes a pose before introducing herself similar to Cure Blossom and Marine.
 * Ako is the fifth Pretty Cure with the elderly person in the family.
 * Cure Muse is the first Pretty Cure to have long orange hair.
 * Cure Muse has the first drastic eye color change, going from orange to magenta. As well as having a drastic length of hair like Cure Sunshine, ironically they both have yellow as their theme color.
 * Ako is the first Pretty Cure to be of royal descent (although Shiny Luminous is technically a queen, she is not an official Pretty Cure), preceeding Cure Ace and Cure Princess.
 * Ako and Yuri have many similarities.
 * They both fought alone as a Cure by themselves until they joined the other Cures.
 * They both have fathers that were turned evil.
 * Ako is the only Suite Pretty Cure Cure to not wear their Cure colors in their civilian identity.
 * As the masked Cure Muse, she never spoke a word until her identity's revelation. Instead, she let Dodori to talk with other people.
 * Her two attacks require her to blow into her Cure Module. This is the sixth attack to involve playing an instrument.
 * Cure Muse's costume is the only one that has long sleeves, compared to all the other previous Cures.  Even though the Kiryuu sisters also have long-sleeved uniforms while assisting the Splash Star cures, they technically aren't official Cures.
 * Cure Muse was the second Pretty Cure who is already a Cure before appearing in the series. The first being Cure Moonlight, and preceeded by Cure Sword, Cure Ace, Cure Princess, Cure Honey and Cure Fortune.
 * Masked Cure Muse is based on Catwoman
 * Ako appeared as Cure Muse to give the 10th anniversary congratulatory speech at the beginning of episode 33 of Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!

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Shirabe Ako

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