Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25034020-20171218073538/@comment-31119526-20171218101308

Like everyone else, I didn't like the idea of giving up the classic fisticuffs and replacing them with ranged battles. It turned out to not be as bad as we feared though. There are still occasionally some parts that are up close, like Gelato's ice fists and Chocolat's chocolate bar sword. The monsters don't always fight fair either. What surprised me is that I don't mind the loss of punching and kicking as much. Other aspects of this season are good enough that it didn't matter.

Another thing I had my doubts about was the sweets theme. It seemed to be everywhere, drowning out any variety. It is indeed omnipresent, but gradually the emphasis has been toned down a bit, shifting more to kirakiraru in general. And really, it's not so bad to have a clear theme. GPPC's princess theme didn't do much for me. MTPC's magic theme was really cool. KKPCALM's sweets theme isn't the greatest, but it's not bad either. In any case, it didn't stand in the way of some awesome character development.

The character focus episodes are one of the best aspects of this season in my opinion. With no fewer than six Cures you'd expect each of them to get less attention, with only an occasional bit of attention thrown their way. The sheer number of character focus episodes contradicts that though, and each of those episodes doesn't just pay a little attention to the character, it's nearly all about them.

Granted, not all team members get equally developed. Aoi and Akira in particular seem to mostly repeat the same questions (Aoi wants to break free from her rich girl background, Akira wants to protect her little sister). Ichika didn't get so much attention, but you'd expect that for "the pink". We haven't seen her last focus episode yet, but I'm not sure what it could add. I absolutely loved Yukari and Himari's development though. Both have clear arcs, each focus episode progressing a few steps. Maybe it helps that I identify with Yukari's depression and Himari's shyness. Finally, Ciel's character development is practically a whole story in itself, and closely tied to the main plot as well.

The other aspect of this season that I loved was how they really mixed up the villains. Classic PreCure is monster-of-the-week for the largest part of the season, with a bit of a power-up around halfway, then at the end battles with the generals. This season faked us out by starting with the kirakiraru stealing fairies, then shifted to Julio and his themed weapons, followed by Bibury whose Iru doll became the first sort-of classic MotW. Julio turned out to be more than just a villain, and Bibury got her redemption too. Even the kirakiraru thieves kept making little appearances later on. Diable had a very different fighting style altogether. Grave's big nendos were again MotW-like, though still slightly different than Bibury's Iru, but his final 2-episode battle was nothing short of epic. That alone could have made an awesome movie. Elisio started off with his own version of MotWs (MsotW?), but is now getting more personal. His attempts on each Cure also show more cruelty than we're used to from PreCure villains.

As for the overall plot, well, we can't really tell yet how it's going to shake out. You might say it is a bit weak with the villains not clearly working together for a common goal, but I expect that will get some more depth when we get to the final showdown. We've already seen more of this season's big bad in various flashbacks than we had at this point in some previous seasons. And after all, most villains' ultimate goal was just to take over the world with darkness. Nothing out of the ordinary there. And the various subplots (the villains' back-stabbing, Pikario & Kirarin, Noir vs. Lumière) add up to make up for any weakness of the larger plot (which might surprise us yet I think).

So yeah, these two aspects, character focus episodes and villains, for me turned this season from quite low expectations into one of the best seasons of all time.