Yes! Pretty Cure 5

Yes! Pretty Cure 5 (Yes！プリキュア 5) is the fourth season in the series and third series in the franchise, directed by Toshiaki Komura. The story is about a group of five girls who have the ability to transform into Pretty Cure. They have been given this ability in order to collect the fifty-five Pinkies spread across the land and save the Palmier Kingdom. The five girls' powers are based on natural elements, human characteristics and emotions (i.e.: hope, intelligence, etc.) that embody each Cure's personality, and butterflies.

Pretty Cure

 * Yumehara Nozomi (夢原のぞみ): Nozomi is the first girl to become a Cure. Before meeting Coco and assisting him in granting his wish, she did not have a dream, but soon decided that her dream would be to help Coco save his kingdom. Although she is not very smart and is constantly getting into trouble with her goofy attitude, she has a strong and kind heart that eventually makes her the leader of the group. Her alter ego is Cure Dream (キュアドリーム), the Cure of Hope and she has powers related to starlight.
 * Natsuki Rin (夏木りん): Rin is Nozomi's best friend since childhood. Being proficient in all kinds of sports and also a responsible older sister to her younger twin siblings, she is often the one to reason with Nozomi when she comes up with unreasonable ideas or is acting too childishly. Although she doesn't want to be a part of Pretty Cure at first, Rin accepts her Pinky Catch when she wants to protect Nozomi from danger. Her alter ego is Cure Rouge (キュアルージュト), the Cure of Passion and she has powers related to fire.
 * Kasugano Urara (春日野うらら): Urara is an exchange student who aspires to be an actress. She is half Japanese from her mother's side and half French from her father's side. Before becoming Pretty Cure, she did not have any friends and could not be herself in front of others. Her alter ego is Cure Lemonade (キュアレモネード), the Cure of Effervescence and she has powers related to light.
 * Akimoto Komachi (秋元こまち): Komachi is an aspiring author, and is already halfway through her first book thanks to Natts's help. She is kind and shy, but when she is angered enough, she will snap and release her temper. Her family owns a traditional Japanese sweets shop where she gets Coco and Natts' food from. Along with her best friend and partner Karen, she is one of the popular seniors at the school. Her alter ego is Cure Mint (キュアミント), the Cure of Tranquility and she has powers related to plants.
 * Minazuki Karen (水無月かれん): Karen is the oldest member of the team and comes from a very affluent family. She is the president of the student council at L'Ecole des Cinq Lumieres. Despite her popularity and strong outward personality, Karen is lonely at home, and because of her awkward relationship with her parents, she has problems properly showing her real feelings. Komachi is her best friend and a fellow student council member and also the only one she could tell her real feelings to before she met Nozomi. Her alter ego is Cure Aqua (キュアアクア), the Cure of Intelligence and she has powers related to water.

Antagonists

 * Girinma (ギリンマ): The first Nightmare to appear. In his human form, he wears large glasses and a bowler hat, and holds a cane. His original form is a deadly praying mantis with arms that slice. He greatly fears his superiors, and is often threatened by Bunbee.
 * Gamao (ガマオ): The second Nightmare to appear, Gamao is often extremely lazy and refuses to do any work, even if his survival and duty as a Nightmare depend on it. He is a toad, and his human form is that of a large, unkempt man.
 * Arachnea (アラクネア): The third Nightmare to appear, Arachnea is a woman who transforms into a spider. In her human form she has short light purple hair and wears a red office dress suit.
 * Bunbee (ブンビー): The boss of Girinma, Arachnea and Gamao. His original form is a bee. For the first part of the series he seems to be leading the Nightmares, but it is soon revealed that he takes orders from Kawarino.
 * Hadenya (ハデーニャ): One of the villains appearing in the second part of the season after Arachnea's death. She can transform into a colorful bird-like creature reminiscent of Brazilian Carnival. She likes to take what she wants and often forces Bunbee serve her in some way. In her human form, she is a large woman with short, purple hair and wears a red jacket with blue pants with lots of large jewelry.
 * Bloody (ブラッディ): Bloody is the last Nightmare to show up. He can transform into a bat-like creature, shooting sonic waves at his enemies. He usually tries to win by persuasion and talking, only using Kowaina to help him rather than to do all of the work.
 * Kawarino (カワリーノ): Desparaia's secretary. He conveys her intentions and orders to other Nightmares, and reports to her on the missions. Most of the other Nightmares fear him. His name is a play on the Japanese word "kawari" which means "substitute".
 * Kowaina (コワイナー): A tool of the Nightmares that is created by putting a special mask on to any inanimate object, causing it to come alive and cause destruction. The villains often use it for both offense and defense.
 * Desperaia (デスパライア): The leader of the Nightmares who intends to gain eternal life and to bring despair to the world. She has ordered for her subordinates to obtain the Dream Collet for this purpose. She has long brown hair and wears a purple dress. For much of the series, her face is obscured by a mask whenever we see her.

Palmier Kingdom

 * Coco (ココ): One of the mascot creatures from the Palmier Kingdom. Coco is a yellow-furred tanuki-like creature who is searching for the Dream Collet when he meets Nozomi. He is always calm, kind and understanding, especially to Nozomi. When he talks in mascot form, he ends his sentences with "-coco". He can transform into a human, and later becomes a teacher at Nozomi's school to keep watch over her under the alias Kokoda Kouji (小々田コージ). About halfway through the season, it is revealed that he, along with Natts, is a prince of the Palmier Kingdom.
 * Natts (ナッツ): Natts another creature from the Palmier Kingdom, resembling a brown squirrel that ends his sentences with "-natts". In the beginning of the series, he is sealed within the Dream Collet and is freed after all five members of Pretty Cure receive their powers. At first, he has an aloof and cold personality due to his past, and he has difficulty trusting Pretty Cure as well as Coco's judgment. However, he eventually warms up to them, especially Komachi, who shares his fondness of books. Like Coco, Natts can transform into an extremely handsome human, acting as the clerk of a jewelry shop called Natts House, by the name Mr. Natsu (夏さん). Like Coco, Natts is also a prince of the Palmier Kingdom.
 * Milk (ミルク): Debuting half-way through the season, Milk resembles a white and pink lop rabbit who, unlike Nuts and Coco, is unable to transform into a human. Milk and Nozomi are always in constant disagreements over food and Pretty Cure's treatment of Coco and Natts. Milk wants to be the perfect servant to Coco and Natts and often gets into trouble because of this desire.

L'Ecole des Cinq Lumieres

 * Masuko Mika (増子美香): Mika is the chief editor of the Cinq Lumieres News. Her goal is to get the "scoop" on Pretty Cure, but she always either fails or is distracted. Whenever introducing herself, she asks people to call her "Masukomi-ka", a play off of the Japanese "masukomi", which means "mass media".
 * Mrs. Otaka (おタカさん): The mistress of the cafeteria in girls' school where they always eat lunch. She is a cheerful, middle-aged woman who sometimes gives them good advice. Secretly, she is the school headmistress.

Items

 * Pinky Catch - Transformation device used by Cure Dream, Rouge, Lemonade, Mint, and Aqua. Also captures Pinkies.
 * Dream Collet - A book, that needs 55 pinkies to make any wish come true.
 * Symphony Set - Weapons used by the Cures for upgrade attacks.

Locations

 * L'École des Cinq Lumières (サンクルミエール) - The school that Pretty Cure 5 attends. Originally misspelled in the animation as "Cing Lumiere", its name a direct translation of "school of the five lights".
 * Palmier Kingdom (パルミエ王国) - Coco and Nuts' original place of residence. its name comes from the French word for "coconut tree", hence the characters Coco and Nuts. "Palmiers" is also a French kind of bakery that connects the name of the kingdom to the also bakery-related surrounding kingdoms.
 * Nightmare (ナイトメア) - This is the base for the villains that appears to be located in the middle of a city district.
 * Natts House (ナッツハウス) - The jewelry shop owned by Nuts.
 * Espoir - The beauty shop owned by Nozomi's mother. The shop's name is derived from the French word for hope.
 * Fleuriste Natsuki - The flower shop owned by Rin's parents. Fleuriste is French for florist.

Story

 * Yes! Pretty Cure 5 episodes

Yumehara Nozomi, a regular student, finds a magical device called the Dream Collet in the library at her school and meets Coco, a creature from the Palmier Kingdom. Nozomi decides to help restore his world, the Palmier Kingdom, which has been destroyed by an evil organization known as Nightmare, by collecting the fifty-five Pinkies in the Dream Collet, which is able to make any wish come true. By making her decision to help Coco, she proves she has the heart to be a Cure, and is given her Pinky Catch, letting her transform into Cure Dream. However, Nozomi cannot fight the Nightmares as the legendary Pretty Cure alone; she must choose a team of four other students to become the legendary warriors known as Pretty Cure. Together with Cure Rouge, Cure Lemonade, Cure Mint and Cure Aqua, they become Pretty Cure.

While living their double lives as normal middle school students and Pretty Cure, the girls go through a lot of challenges, some of them worse than others. When eventually introduced to Milk, they receive a new power to defeat the now stronger Nightmares, making them able to continue to fight. Eventually, when they have found the fifty-five Pinkies, the girls have to fight the final Nightmares, including their boss, Desparaia. Although close to defeat, the girls continue to fight until Cure Dream realizes that Desparaia has a heart like them, and through her kind heart defeats the last Nightmare. However, this also results in separating the girls from the mascots.

Sequel
Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! starts a new story but centers around the same characters and some of the minor stories involving the girls seem to be continuations. The girls meet the new villains from Eternal, who want to get to the Cure Rose Garden so that they can be immortal. In order to match these new foes, Pretty Cure gets a new power from the red rose.

Trivia

 * Yes! Pretty Cure 5 is the first season with more than two Cures and where the Cures are able to transform individually.
 * It is the first season where the mascots can take human form.
 * It is the first season where the Cures do not need to depend on the mascots to transform.
 * The 2  Yes! Pretty Cure 5 seasons, Smile! Pretty Cure, and Doki Doki! Pretty Cure are the only four series to feature more than 4 girls in a Pretty Cure group.
 * Yes! Pretty Cure 5 is the first season to feature a female (Desparaia) as a main villain. Happiness Charge Pretty Cure! later introduces the second female main villain (Queen Mirage).
 * Yes! Pretty Cure 5 is the first season in which people wonder what Pretty Cure is.
 * Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and its sequel and movies, uses most (of all seasons) names after seasons:
 * Akimoto Komachi, Aki means fall
 * Natsuki Rin, Natsu means summer. Also Natts's human name is Natsu, meaning summer too.
 * Yes! Pretty Cure 5, technically, is the first season where the Cures go to an all-girls school. Futari wa Pretty Cure does not count as it is a co-ed school just using segregated buildings for gender.
 * From this series to Smile Pretty Cure!, all the lead Cures wear their hair in some type of twin tails in their civilian forms. Nozomi wears her hair down with twin tails, Hibiki does the same but longer, Love wears small high twin tails, Tsubomi wears long low twin tails, and Miyuki wears her hair in cone-rolls.
 * This series haves the shortest single transformation sequenses, everyone's full normal transformation lasting for just or under 30 seconds.
 * Most of the places are named in French such as L'École des Cinq Lumières
 * It was said that this season was going to be English dubbed, but it never was. Though, if it does get dubbed in the future, this will be the second season to be English dubbed, the first being Futari wa Pretty Cure.
 * Yes! Pretty Cure 5 is the first series where the Cures have a dynamic between them similar to the Super Sentai. A team of heroes, each a different color, who work together to defeat an evil organization that threatens mankind and sends monsters to destroy them. This dynamic is also present in all Pretty Cure series that followed.
 * Another trend Yes! Pretty Cure 5 started was also borrowed from Super Sentai. The pink Pretty Cure is always the de facto leader like how the Red Sentai is in Super Sentai.
 * From Yes! Pretty Cure 5 to Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!, all lead Cures have pink as their main theme color, and also have fully-pink hair (either civilian or Cure), excluding Fresh Pretty Cure!.
 * This is the first series to revolve around dreams and despair in its story line, the second being Go! Princess Pretty Cure.