User blog:GlitterInformer/Doki Doki! Pretty Cure/Glitter Force Doki Doki SDC: Episodes 2 & 3 (Sub), 2 (Dub)

Episodes 1 &amp; 2 (Sub), 1 (Dub) | Table of Contents

Japanese titles:
 * "Gah! Cure Heart's Identity is Revealed!!"


 * "The Ultimate Partner Has Arrived! Cure Diamond!!"

English title: "A Diamond in the Rough"

Why, hello there! Last time, episode 1 of Glitter Force Doki Doki left off in the middle of episode 2 of ''Doki Doki! Pretty Cure''. But the dub isn’t ready to give up the latter part of episode 2! Today, we have a combination of episodes 2 and 3 of ''Doki Doki! Pretty Cure: the second episode of Glitter Force Doki Doki''! Prepare yourselves!

To start with, two scenes were removed from the dub. There’s so much removed that I’m not going to screencap any of it. I’ll just describe it. In Tokyo Clover Tower, Mana comes down the elevator, and it’s never shown how she de-transformed. The other students are concerned and ask if Mana is okay, and she says she is. They ask about the monster and how the elevator lobby got repaired, and Mana actually gives a relatively convincing lie. She says she doesn’t know where the crab went and suggests that the wreckage may have been a dream. Sure, that last part is suspicious, but she doesn’t miss a beat, so it sounds like a suggestion anyone might make to rationalize the situation. Despite this, Rikka is still suspicious.

We cut to Mana and Rikka walking home. Rikka calls her a happy prince, and when Mana is confused, Rikka explains an old legend about a gold statue of a prince who asked a swallow to give pieces of him to those who were poor. Rikka says that Mana is too much like the prince and that she focuses too much on helping others to her own detriment.

Rikka tells Mana she figured out that something strange happened to her today, which she was able to tell because she and Mana have been friends for 12 years. Mana decides to tell her everything, but Rikka doesn’t believe her. They are interrupted by Mana’s family greeting them. Rikka refuses their offer to eat dinner with them and goes home by herself.

Instead of all of this, the dub adds a quick recap of last episode narrated by Maya. Lazily enough, this is exactly the same as the first part of the dub’s trailer.

After this, the dub rejoins us. It turns out that Mana’s family, like Akane’s from last season, owns a restaurant.

Name Change: Mana’s family’s restaurant is called Pig’s Tail. Maya’s family’s restaurant is called Pigtail Restaurant.

The dub adds an exterior shot of the restaurant.

While the Jikochuu says, “Love, love, loooove!” as it’s defeated, the Distain says, “How shiny and sparkly!” Then, the boy’s Psyche returns to him and everything, even the letters, goes back to normal. It goes to show that there was really no point in Heart so determinedly protecting the letters. Had she listened to common sense, Diamond wouldn’t have been needed.

Ira angrily teleports away. Then, Diamond gets Heart’s attention and gives her a thumbs-up, which Heart returns. In the sub, the thumbs-ups are silent; in the dub, Heart asks, “Partner?” in response to Diamond calling her her partner and they both giggle.

<span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri" lang="EN">We end with a sub-only scene. Mana and Rikka have de-transformed. Mana tells Rikka that she knew she could become a Pretty Cure. Rikka is at first unsure of whether it’s a good thing that she’s part of the team, but Raquel and Sharuru quickly cheer her up. Sharuru then says that with her and Raquel partnered up, they only need to find a partner for Lance. Then, the team finally realizes that they left Lance behind in the science lab. They panic, and just then, Arisu’s car pulls up. Arisu notes that they seem to be in trouble and she greets them. The episode ends with Sharuru and Raquel taking note of Arisu.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri" lang="EN">Overall: <span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri" lang="EN"> I have a lot to say. First of all, the vendor. I sincerely doubt that the writers intended for him to come across as a pedophile, but he did. And to be honest, the breast-groping part was probably just my imagination acting up. Still, you can’t deny the romantic nicknames he has for Mana in the sub, nor how uncomfortable Rikka/Rachel is around him. There’s two things to do here. First, you could ignore the pedophilic subtext, as it was probably unintended, and see the man as a nice, albeit mysterious, guy. Or, you could take what you actually see into account: stranger danger!

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri" lang="EN">I liked seeing more insight into Rikka/Rachel, even though she isn’t as interesting as Mana/Maya. Her self-doubt makes her unique among the franchise’s blue Pretty Cures, and it’s interesting to see how she views herself when her best friend is the popular, hyper-competent student council president.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri" lang="EN">Unfortunately, the fight scene was practically nonexistent. The only physical contact of the whole thing was a quick moment when the Jikochuu/Distain shoved Heart. It’s a shame that the only skill Diamond got to show off was her attack. Plus, Diamond’s transformation wasn’t all that special. It was a copy of Heart’s, with the same things happening in the same order. The only thing that was changed was that Diamond twirled around farther and made a different pose. I hope that the next warriors introduced have more personalized transformations.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri" lang="EN">Finally, we have the dub to talk about. Episode 1 of Glitter Force Doki Doki wasn’t as good as it could have been, but it was still okay. There was a good amount of cut content, but none of it was very important, and we easily did without it. But here in episode 2, things went way downhill. The content that got cut was not only quite fun to watch, but it significantly affected the plot. The most egregious was when the entire final half of episode 2, which had a pretty awesome confrontation between Rikka and a Jikochuu, was removed in favor of having Maya confess her Glitter Force identity to Rachel off-screen. Also bad was the cut between Rachel asking Maya, “What’s wrong?” and them happily leaving the restaurant. Not only that, but the plot thread of Lance getting left behind was never resolved, though we have next episode to rely on for that.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri" lang="EN">Next time: <span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri" lang="EN"> Arisu/Clara becomes Cure Rosetta/Glitter Clover!