Pretty Cure (Franchise)

Pretty Cure, also called Pretty Cure Series (プリキュアシリーズ) is the name of a magical girl anime and multimedia franchise, created by Todo Izumi and produced by Toei Animation, the Asahi Broadcasting Corporation and Asatsu-DK.

History
The franchise started with Futari wa Pretty Cure, a magical girl anime series from 2004. It aired on sunday mornings on the TV channel TV Asahi, alongside popular tokusatsu franchises Super Sentai and Kamen Rider.

Futari wa Pretty Cure featured many refreshing aspects to the magical girl genre, such as physical fights and hand-to-hand combat scenes, a magical girl duo and being sensible towards the young audience, with no overt violence or sexual themes. It was also merchandise driven, depicting toys on sale as transformation / power-up items and having the main characters search for collectibles.

The series was so successful, a sequel was produced a year after, called Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart. Since then, every year a new Pretty Cure season is aired on TV Asahi's sunday morning blocks, though they do not follow the same continuity as Futari wa Pretty Cure and Max Heart.

A group of magical girls that are both warriors and protectors, the Pretty Cures, fight against evil forces and are accompanied by fairies, magical mascot characters. The group usually starts with two to three Cures, with new Cure characters joining about half-way into the season. Sometimes, the Cures are supported by magical warriors that do not carry the "Cure" title. A series has about 48 to 50 episodes, and a movie with the respective season's characters comes out in fall each year.

The franchise spawned movies, CD releases, books, comics, games, stage character shows, toys and a crossover franchise, Pretty Cure All Stars.