User blog:GlitterInformer/Doki Doki! Pretty Cure/Glitter Force Doki Doki SDC: Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage 2

Episode 15 (Sub), 11 (Dub) | Table of Contents

Welcome to a review of the 5th Pretty Cure crossover film! Since 2009, there has been a new Pretty Cure movie every year that involved multiple teams from multiple seasons teaming up to fight a big threat together. Until 2017, these movies were a huge team-up of every single Pretty Cure team ever. In 2017, it changed to just the three latest teams because there were way too many characters in the franchise.

This movie, whose title translates to English as Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage 2: Friends of the Heart, was released in 2013 during the airing of ''Doki Doki! Pretty Cure''. In fact, ''Doki Doki! Pretty Cure'' played commercials for this movie during the openings. This spectacle of a movie consists of not only our four heroines from Doki Doki but also of every main character from the nine seasons before it. Thus, this movie contains spoilers for some seasons, specifically Fresh Pretty Cure!, Heartcatch Pretty Cure!, and Suite Pretty Cure♪. It also contains characters with whom you may not be familiar. If you’re not comfortable with this, feel free to skip this review. 'This movie is not necessary to understand Doki Doki! Pretty Cure.' With that, let’s get started!

 Despite being a Pretty Cure movie, the Pretty Cures aren’t the main characters. They play an integral role in the plot, but the real main characters are EnEn and Gureru, two fairies who go to a fairy school in an idyllic alternate universe. Because of this, we unfortunately don’t get to see the various teams interact with each other. However, EnEn and Gureru are interesting main characters, so the movie is still fun to watch even though it might not be what many viewers expected.

 Before we continue further, I want to note that I watched the entire movie before making this review. Usually, when I review a movie or episode, I watch it as I review it. I couldn’t do it this time, though, as the Blu-Ray disc for the movie wouldn’t play on my computer. This means that the review may read differently. It also means that unfortunately, there will be no screenshots.

 The movie begins in an alternate universe. The world is a natural paradise, with rolling green hills, plentiful forests, and a clear, blue lake. Even the sun itself is a flower floating in the sky. Everyone in the fairy world is at peace, when suddenly, the bell rings. It’s time for fairy school.

 Before we go to fairy school, we get our opening theme, “Friends Forever” (“Eien no Tomodachi” in Japanese). This is the same opening theme as the previous Pretty Cure All Stars movie. In my review of that movie, I thought it was boring. However, it grew on me over time. It’s actually a pretty awesome song. The opening theme takes place on Earth, where we get a montage of all of the Pretty Cures from the first nine seasons going through their daily lives, from waking up to going to school to struggling with tests.

 Also, if you’ve watched or read about the previous All Stars movie, Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage, you might be wondering where Ayumi Sakagami is. After all, she was the main character of that movie. Well, the only place where she appears is a brief cameo during the opening theme. If you want to see more of her, you’re going to have to wait until the next movie, Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage 3.

 At school, an entire group of fairies, including EnEn and Gureru, are learning about Pretty Cure. In fact, they’ve got a guest teacher: a ferret-like fairy named Tarte from Fresh Pretty Cure! He teaches the class about who some of the Pretty Cures are, thanks to the help of a magical projector that shows images of them. He also shows them replicas of the items that the teams use to transform. Additionally, each student has a booklet containing information about each of the Pretty Cures.

 Another thing that Tarte teaches the fairies about are the Miracle Lights. These are plastic toy wands that can light up. Since 2007, they’ve appeared in every Pretty Cure movie, and whenever Pretty Cure is in a pinch, all of the minor characters wave the Miracle Lights and cheer them on, saving Pretty Cure. The Miracle Lights aren’t just fictional; in theaters, moviegoers are given Miracle Lights so they can cheer on Pretty Cure as well. In fact, every movie has a bit where one of the characters breaks the fourth wall and directly tells the audience to cheer on Pretty Cure using their Miracle Lights. Anyone who doesn’t have a Miracle Light is told to cheer them on anyway and support them in their hearts.

 I don’t really like Miracle Lights, to be honest. I can see how the little kids, who are the target audience, have fun taking part in the action of the movie. But as an adult, the scenes where I’m expected to cheer fictional characters on is very awkward, especially since I’m watching this by myself at home. If I say, “Go for it, Pretty Cure!” out loud, I’ll be understandably embarrassed. But if I don’t, it’ll feel awkward, even though the movie isn’t really interactive and Pretty Cure will always win no matter what.

 Anyway, let’s return to what’s going on right now. Most of the fairies are honored to be in the presence of a real-life Pretty Cure fairy and even ask for autographs from Tarte. Gureru, however, is having none of it. He’s sick and tired of hearing Pretty Cure this, Pretty Cure that, and believes himself to be much more powerful than they are. To underscore his point, he takes out a sword that he always carries and slashes the fake transformation items away. Things quickly get out of hand, though. Three of the items hit some unfortunate students on the head. Another tips over a bag of Miracle Lights and spills several on the floor. Tarte trips over the fallen Miracle Lights and crashes into the teacher. What’s more, in the chaos, the remote for the magical projector falls on the floor and displays a picture of Fusion, the villain of the last All Stars movie. For some reason, this scares everyone in the class, even though it’s not a particularly scary image. When the teacher reprimands Gureru and demands that he apologize, Gureru refuses to own up to his mistake and runs out of the room.

 In contrast to the brash Gureru, our other protagonist, EnEn, is incredibly shy. After Gureru leaves and Tarte offers autographs, EnEn is too shy to talk to Tarte. He’s overwhelmed with anxiety and has to leave the room, too.

 Outdoors, EnEn is reading his Pretty Cure booklet by himself. Then, he’s suddenly found by Gureru and screams in fright. This here is the start of my biggest problem with the movie. Since it focuses on fairies with high-pitched voices and bad things happen to them, you often hear them screaming. It gets very grating. For instance, every time EnEn is surprised, he shouts, “EEEEEEE!!” in a very high-pitched voice. Fortunately, he only does it three times. The other fairies, on the other hand, shout a lot more often.

 EnEn and Gureru talk about Pretty Cure for a bit, and Gureru wipes off EnEn’s tears. Then, they hear a mysterious voice. When they follow the voice, they reach a cave blocked by a locked door. EnEn wants to leave because they’re forbidden to enter the room, but Gureru doesn’t care. Using the sword that he always carries around, he somehow breaks the lock. As Gureru enters, EnEn is too scared to do anything but watch.

 Inside of the room, a pink orb is held up by a stand. Gureru accidentally knocks it over. The orb lands in his shadow and sinks into the ground. Then, right where it sank, a small, shadowy being rises from the ground. This is the main villain of the movie, Shadow. He’s a personification of Gureru’s shadow, so he’s basically an evil Gureru. Shadow suggests that if Gureru hates Pretty Cure so much, he should capture them and steal their transformation items. After all, if the girls can’t transform into Pretty Cure, they’re powerless.

 Conveniently for Gureru and Shadow, all of the Pretty Cures have been invited to their world for a Pretty Cure party. The first team shown getting their invitation are the five main characters of Smile Pretty Cure!, the season before ''Doki Doki! Pretty Cure'', who are studying for school when they receive the letter. I won’t go into too much detail so I don’t bog down the review, but it’s very entertaining and nice to see them all interacting again since the show itself has drawn to a close.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> We then get a montage of all of the Cures from the first eight seasons receiving letters inviting them to the party. Unfortunately, since it’s a montage, we don’t hear them speak, so it isn’t as charming and nostalgic as the scene with the Smile team.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> After this, we see the Doki Doki group for the first time. They haven’t gotten an invitation letter. However, Candy, one of the fairies from Smile Pretty Cure!, calls Sharuru to tell her about the party. Somehow, the four fairies from the current season know all about the characters from the previous seasons, while the humans don’t. We never find out how they all came to know about them, nor why they didn’t tell their human partners. Anyway, it’s a video call, so Mana gets to see the main character of Smile Pretty Cure!, Miyuki Hoshizora. Mana is incredibly excited to meet a fifth Pretty Cure. The Doki Doki team agrees to go to the party so they can meet up with everybody.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Also, there’s a funny moment where Makoto eats natto gyoza-flavored candy without knowing what natto gyoza is. The others warn her not to eat it, but it’s too late, and Makoto finds it disgusting. Natto is a food made from fermented soybeans, and although it has its fans, many Japanese people think it’s gross. Gyoza are small dumplings, so natto gyoza are dumplings filled with natto. Not only is this a funny moment, but it’s a callback to episode 14 of Smile Pretty Cure!, which heavily featured natto gyoza candy.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Anyway, everyone somehow finds a way into the alternate world. We see the teams of Fresh, Heartcatch, and Suite take a magical piano bridge to the fairies’ universe, which makes sense because Suite Pretty Cure <span style="font-family: "Segoe UI Symbol",sans-serif;mso-bidi-font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol"">♪  used this sort of bridge as a portal between worlds. It’s never explained how everyone else gets there.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Things quickly turn sour, as we see when Shadow chases the three protagonists of Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart: Nagisa, Honoka, and Hikari. We see that Shadow has the ability to morph himself into any shape and size, sink into the ground as a shadow, and split into multiple copies of himself that can each become something different. Shadow transforms into a giant snake and steals the girls’ fairies, whom they need to transform, without them knowing. Then, he spawns another snake from himself and traps the three from both sides.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Meanwhile, a third part of Shadow is hiding in a tree, where he’s holding the Max Heart fairies hostage. Oddly, only Nagisa and Honoka’s fairy partners, Mepple and Mipple, appear. Hikari’s partner, Pollun, is absent for no explained reason. Oh, and remember how I complained about the fairies’ voices earlier? Mepple easily has the worst voice of them all. It’s awful. Thanks to him, I quit Futari wa Pretty Cure two episodes in when I first watched it. Fortunately, when Mepple and Mipple demand to know why Shadow wants to disable all of the Pretty Cures, Shadow shuts them up by putting stickers with “X”’s on them over their mouths. He then drops them into a container that he’s formed from his body. This container has all of the other fairies and transformation items from the third season (Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star) to the eighth season (Suite Pretty Cure <span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol",sans-serif;mso-bidi-font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol"">♪  )., and they also have stickers over their mouths.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> The Smile and Doki Doki teams are the only ones left. EnEn, Gureru, and Shadow come across the Smile girls walking around. This whole time, EnEn has done nothing out of fear, so Gureru tells him to help out this time by stealing the girls’ transformation items, their Smile Pacts, in secret. EnEn is hesitant, but Gureru uses the power of peer pressure, saying that EnEn owes it to him because he’s his friend. However, the plan is quickly botched when EnEn trips on a rock and tumbles right into the sight of Miyuki and her friends.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Thus, Shadow takes matters into his own hands. He turns into a shadow and moves through the ground. Then, he rises up right by Reika Aoki and tries to steal her Smile Pact. Unfortunately, he chose precisely the wrong member of the team, as Reika is incredibly observant of details. She slaps his hand away from her Smile Pact, revealing his presence to the entire team. Before Shadow can do anything about it, all five transform to fight him. Gureru is nervous because Shadow was too late to stop them from transforming, but Shadow quickly proves he’s no slouch by fighting them despite this.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Although Shadow dispatched the other teams off screen, we get to see his combat with the Smile group with our own eyes. I’ll state this right off the bat: the fight scenes in this movie are excellent. In fact, all Pretty Cure movies have really good combat, probably because of their higher budgets. Not only is the animation fluid, but Shadow is a very clever villain. Using Gureru’s Pretty Cure guide book, he gets information about each of the five Smile Cures’ powers and is able to manipulate his body to combat them. For instance, Cure Sunny controls fire, so when she attacks, Shadow turns himself into a scoop and puts out her fiery beam. Another example is Cure March’s attack, March Shoot, which has her kick a ball of wind at her enemy. Shadow turns himself into a soccer goal and thus bounces the ball right back at Cure March.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Eventually, Shadow knocks all five of the Pretty Cures to the ground. Before they can get up, Shadow dashes in and swipes all five of their Smile Pacts. For some reason, being separated from their Smile Pacts causes the girls to de-transform. This doesn’t make sense because it directly contradicts canon. In episode 14 of Smile Pretty Cure!, Cure Happy (a.k.a. Miyuki Hoshizora) accidentally drops her Smile Pact into a river. It’s far away from her. However, she remains Cure Happy instead of turning back into Miyuki. You’d think that the writers would know this, given that they referenced that very episode earlier.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Anyway, with all five girls taken out, Shadow blasts them with a crystal-like substance that rapidly expands and freezes them into place. We see that the same thing has happened to all of the Pretty Cures except for the Doki Doki team. Four of them are quickly petrified, but for some reason, the substance takes less time to cover Miyuki. EnEn tearfully apologizes to Miyuki for having tried to help Shadow with his evil plan. Surprisingly, Miyuki isn’t angry at him in the slightest. She tells them that there’s a new team, Doki Doki Pretty Cure, and that EnEn can still help by finding them and alerting them to what’s happened. She’s forced to stop talking when the substance covers her mouth. The last thing she does before freezing up completely is wink encouragingly at EnEn.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> What’s odd about this movie is that despite it celebrating Doki Doki Pretty Cure’s entrance into the franchise by showing them with all of their predecessors, Miyuki Hoshizora from Smile Pretty Cure! has more impact on the story than any of the Doki Doki Cures. It’s interesting to see how she’s very forgiving and never gives up hope. However, we don’t really get to see our new characters in the spotlight aside from fighting. We don’t even get to see Mana bond with Miyuki, even though the last movie had Miyuki bonding with Suite’s protagonist and spending a good amount of time with her. Although it is entertaining to see EnEn and Gureru try to fix a problem that they caused, it results in us not being able to see many of the characters’ personalities in detail.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Anyway, Gureru is happy that he’s finally defeated Pretty Cure. Shadow, however, is not yet satisfied. He wants to destroy not just Pretty Cure, but everything else, starting with the fairy school. Gureru doesn’t want to do this, but Shadow justifies it by saying that Gureru hates school and finds it boring, and Shadow is basically Gureru. Shadow then enacts his plan, quickly using his power to cause structural damage to the school and wreak havoc among the fairies there. He also flings a part of himself into the sun, causing it to start slowly turning black. Gureru still protests, though, so Shadow muffles Gureru with the same sort of sticker that he used on Mepple, Mipple, and the other fairies. Shadow then turns into a boar and chases Gureru, who quickly rips the sticker off.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Meanwhile, EnEn has finally reached the Doki Doki team. However, he’s so shy that he can’t handle initiating a conversation with them, so he runs away. By sheer coincidence, he ends up running right into Gureru and Shadow, and thus Shadow chases EnEn and Gureru right back to the Cures. The Doki Doki Cures transform and prepare to fight Shadow, but when Shadow sees that his Pretty Cure booklet doesn’t contain any information on the brand-new Pretty Cure, he retreats before a single punch can be thrown.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> EnEn tries to tell the cast of Doki Doki what happened, but he’s too overwhelmed and guilty, so he bursts into tears. Gureru gets frustrated with EnEn and yells at him to stop crying. This makes EnEn cry even harder. Fortunately, Cure Heart is able to calm EnEn down by calmly telling him that crying isn’t any fun and he should stop doing things that aren’t fun. She asks if EnEn really wants to be crying right now. EnEn stops crying and admits that he no longer wants to be a shy crybaby. Instead, he wants to smile just like Cure Happy.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Meanwhile, despite having retreated from his fight with the Doki Doki team, Shadow is still determined to destroy the fairies’ world. He starts by throwing all of the Pretty Cures’ fairies and items into a deep river where they can’t be found again. For some reason, it’s only after they land at the bottom of the river that the fairies even bother to try ripping the stickers off of their mouths. And even then, it’s only Mepple and Mipple, so we have to hear Mepple’s voice again. Oh, joy.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Much like the Doki Doki fairies, Mepple can transform into a machine that his partner, Nagisa, uses to transform into Cure Black. Here, we see that this form is also capable of functioning as a phone. Mepple calls Raquel, thus alerting EnEn, Gureru, and the Doki Doki Cures to the other fairies’ location. The group runs off to rescue the captured fairies. Unfortunately, Shadow jumps in and attacks. While Doki Doki Pretty Cure holds Shadow off, EnEn and Gureru must go alone to rescue the fairies.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> By the way, things are getting bad all around the world, not just with our main characters. While one fragment of Shadow fights the Doki Doki team, other fragments are corrupting the plains and lakes with darkness just like with the sun. Speaking of the sun, half of it is now coated in darkness.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> When EnEn and Gureru run across a cliff to get to the fairy hostages, part of the cliff crumbles under Gureru’s feet and he starts to fall to his death. Fortunately, EnEn catches him, but he’s too weak to pull him up. Gureru tells EnEn to drop him and go by himself, as it’s Gureru’s fault that this all happened. EnEn refuses because Gureru is his friend. Then, more of the cliff crumbles, and both EnEn and Gureru fall.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Fortunately, they’re saved by Pop, one of the fairies from Smile Pretty Cure! Pop is Candy’s older brother, and he’s capable of shapeshifting. Pop has taken the form of a giant bird and thus is able to fly underneath EnEn and Gureru, stopping them before they can fall a lethal distance. Speaking of Candy, she’s riding on Pop as well. In fact, Pop wouldn’t have shown up if not for Candy; when her human friends were frozen, Candy promptly went to call her brother for help.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Pop dives into the river into which the fairies have sunk. Although EnEn, Candy, and Pop can’t swim deep enough to get them before they run out of air and have to return to the surface, Gureru manages to hold his breath long enough to carry the cage of fairies to the shore. There, EnEn and Gureru hit the cage with Gureru’s sword, which is sharp enough to break the cage and set the captured fairies free.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> All is not well, however, as the sun has gone completely dark and is slowly falling from the sky. But the band of fairies won’t give up. Pop is aided in carrying the fairies by Syrup from ''Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!'', another fairy capable of transforming into a giant bird. While Doki Doki Pretty Cure continues to fight, Pop leaves Candy, Gureru, and EnEn on the ground and then leaves to return Mepple, Mipple, and the Smile Pacts to their partners. However, Shadow won’t let him get there that easily. From shadows all across the plains, giant arms reach up to try to stop Pop. Additionally, little fragments of Shadow leap up from a lake like flying fish. Eventually, Pop is caught by a giant fist and has to transform back to normal to get himself out of its grip. This causes them to fall.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> From far away, Gureru sees this and starts to lose hope. However, Candy still has hope. She loudly cheers on Pretty Cure from far away even though they probably won’t hear her. EnEn and Gureru join in. They happen to be close to the school, so Tarte and the students hear them. This gives Tarte an idea. He, too, cheers Pretty Cure on, and he does it so powerfully that Miracle Lights appear in everybody’s hand. This means that it’s time for everybody, fairies and audience members alike, to cheer Pretty Cure on, thus causing a miracle to occur. What? I’m not going to do it. Don’t you know how embarrassing it would be to be caught yelling, “GO FOR IT, PRETTY CURE!!” at the top of my lungs??

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Oh, yeah, and speaking of that line, the Miracle Light cheering part is the worst part of the movie. This is because we have a bunch of high-pitched fairy voices shouting, “GO FOR IT, PRETTY CURE!!” over and over and over and over… And this isn’t the only time that it happens.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Anyway, the  deus ex machina  power brought forth by the magical plastic toys weakens Shadow, causing Mepple and Mipple to escape from his grasp. It additionally unfreezes Nagisa’s hand. Presumably, similar things happen to all of the Pretty Cures and fairies, as all of the frozen girls break free and transform into their Pretty Cure forms. In a pretty awesome moment that the Doki Doki Cures watch in jaw-dropping awe, every single Pretty Cure from 2004 to 2012 comes together and catches the sun just before it hits the ground. They then use all of their power to fling it back up to its proper place in the sky. And in case you’re wondering why the sun doesn’t burn them, it isn’t a flaming ball of gas like in our world, but a flower-like thing that is supposed to be attached to some leaves in the sky. Once the sun is returned to where it’s supposed to be, all of the darkness in it disappears for some reason.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Shadow is about to attack the Doki Doki team, but Cure Happy leaps into battle and defeats the fragment with a single punch. I guess this extra strength Happy has is from the Miracle Lights, since she sure as heck wasn’t able to defeat Shadow that easily earlier in the movie. Cure Heart is overjoyed to finally meet Cure Happy. Together, the five girls leap into action to join the other Pretty Cures.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Shadow is concentrating all of his forces against Pretty Cure. We get an absolutely EPIC sequence where Cure Black and Cure White from Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart take down a huge amount of Shadow fragments with their bare fists. Their teammate, Shiny Luminous (who is a Pretty Cure despite her name not starting with “Cure”), takes a less direct approach and does away with more Shadow fragments using a magical boomerang attack called Luminous Heartiel Action.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Tarte and the school teacher open the doors to the school so that the students can run away and go somewhere safer. A large tree branch suddenly falls and is about to crush the escaping crowd. Fortunately, Cure Blossom and Cure Marine from Heartcatch Pretty Cure! intervene and punch the branch away.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Blossom and Marine, as well as the casts of Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star and ''Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!'', team up to fight the fragments of Shadow that are tormenting the school. Meanwhile, a particularly big Shadow fragment is about to hit EnEn, Gureru, and Candy with a stone pillar. Just in time, Cure Beat from Suite Pretty Cure <span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol",sans-serif;mso-bidi-font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol"">♪  disintegrates the fragment using her magical guitar, and Cure Passion from Fresh Pretty Cure! knocks the pillar away before it can squish the three fairies. The two Cures realize that Gureru looks like Shadow. After EnEn explains the situation to them, Passion and Beat assure Gureru that everyone will understand if he apologizes to them. They then leap back into battle.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Various Shadows blow the freezing particles onto the Fresh, Heartcatch, and Suite teams and start to petrify them again. Fortunately for them (and unfortunately for my ears), the fairies start waving their Miracle Lights and cheering again. This causes the freezing substance to disappear, enabling the Pretty Cures to defeat the Shadow fragments.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Then, we get another awesome fight scene where the Smile and Doki Doki teams join forces to defeat a giant Shadow. There’s a cute moment where Cure Peace from Smile is hesitant to ask Cure Sword to fight with her, but Sword agrees and calls her “senpai” (a Japanese honorific meaning “upperclassman”, “superior”, or “one that has come before”), making Peace feel proud. Together, the nine Cures beat up the Shadow fragment and defeat him.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> We see Blossom and Marine again as they purify the Shadow-infested flower fields and get rid of two more fragments. Then, right as the sun goes dark again and is about to fall, the other two Heartcatch Cures, Sunshine and Moonlight, purify it with their attacks.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Then, we get to the climax of the battle. In one last-ditch effort, all of the Shadow fragments across the land join together and become one giant spider. This part of the movie is noticeably in CGI, probably to save effort in animation, but it doesn’t look bad, so I won’t complain.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> The CGI continues as Shadow shoots a gigantic beam at the Doki Doki Cures, who block it with a blast of their powers. They struggle against Shadow’s power until all of the other Pretty Cures come in and help them out. Also helping them are the fairies, who are yet again screaming, “GO FOR IT, PRETTY CURE!!” and waving their Miracle Lights and all of that jazz. With all of their powers combined, they defeat Shadow once and for all.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> The battle is won, but Shadow isn’t dead, just weakened. He’s in the same form as he was at the beginning of the movie. Shadow can’t understand how Pretty Cure was able to defeat someone as amazing as him. Gureru calmly tells him to stop fighting Pretty Cure and explains that in the end, Gureru didn’t hate Pretty Cure and was just jealous of them. Gureru says that he wants to learn a lot more and that he wants to become friends with not just EnEn, but the entire school. This drives EnEn to happy tears.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Gureru holds his hand out to Shadow and says that he’s sure Shadow feels the same way because Shadow is Gureru, after all. Hesitantly, Shadow grabs Gureru’s hand. As the two hold hands, they both giggle happily. Then, Shadow disintegrates and turns back into the pink orb that he was before.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> With Shadow back in his orb, Gureru apologizes to everyone for setting Shadow free and indirectly destroying much of the school. Fortunately, everyone easily forgives him. In fact, the teacher is happy that Gureru learned so much today. The fairies and Pretty Cure work together to repair the school and its surrounding area. Then, the Cures enjoy their Pretty Cure party at last, and everyone lives happily ever after.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> We end with the ending theme, “Beyond the Sky”. It’s a slightly extended version of the ''Doki Doki! Pretty Cure ending theme, but instead of just the Doki Doki'' team dancing to it, all of the Pretty Cures do. And with that, the movie is over.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Overall:  Despite the fact that this movie didn’t focus as much on the titular Pretty Cure as it could have, it was still fun to watch. I liked seeing how Gureru and EnEn changed over the course of the movie. Gureru was the most interesting because he started out a villain, in a way. It was him that caused Shadow to wreak havoc. But unlike other villains, Gureru wasn’t that way because of an evil overlord or evil powers or other reasons that most Pretty Cure villains were evil. His only flaw was a universal one: jealousy. This made Gureru a relatable villain, especially when he overcame his jealousy and worked to stop what he’d started.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Now, I’d rate this movie 4 out of 5 stars if it wasn’t for one problem. The fights were wonderful and the characters were engaging, but this movie has one fatal flaw: the annoying fairy voices. The fairies weren’t annoying most of the time, but when they loudly and nasally shout the same phrase over and over, it’s very annoying. When watching this movie, I had to turn down the volume at quite a few moments. Overall, I’m giving this movie a rating of 3 out of 5.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Before I close off this review, I wanted to say that if you’re going to watch a Pretty Cure movie, I highly recommend that you purchase it instead of pirating it online. This is because it comes with a lot of cool features. For instance, my pack came with a Pretty Cure notepad and a guide to all of the main characters. The bonus features within the movie disc were even cooler. There were things like a making-of video of the ending theme and an interview with the voice actresses of the Smile and Doki Doki Cures (except for Cure Diamond’s voice actress, who was sadly absent).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> Next time:  Back to ''Doki Doki! Pretty Cure''! Regina wants to become Mana/Maya’s friend, but the other warriors are suspicious…