Shirabe Ako


 * "Cure Muse" now redirects here.

Shirabe Ako is a character from Suite Pretty Cure♪. She is the Princess of Major Land, but has come to the human world for reasons yet unknown. She is 10 years old, a student of the Public Kanon Elementery School and Minamino Souta's classmate. In order to save her father Mephisto, whose heart has been tainted with evil, she disguised herself as the Masked Cure. She finally takes off her mask in to try to win back her father's gentle heart, and fights alongside Melody, Rhythm and Beat at last. Ako's attitude in the beginning of the series is cold, and she is not above lecturing people older than her. She is the youngest Cure in the group, but the most mature. Ako's alter ego is Cure Muse (キュアミューズ). She uses the purple Fairy Tone Dodory to transform.

Appearances as Ako
Ako first appears walking with Kanade's brother Minamino Souta to school.She runs into Houjou Hibiki and Minamino Kanade arguing and tells them to get out of her way. She seems to be disrespectful of her elders and has no respect for them and seems to be somewhat mature for her age. She also tells Houjou Hibiki and Minamino Kanade later that she likes singing but is not very good at it. In a later episode she and Souta see Hummy and Siren together and tell Hibiki and Kanade about it.

Appearances as the Masked form of Cure Muse
Cure Muse was first shown in the show's opening. She makes her first appearance in-show when she saves Kanade and Hibiki from a negatone made by Bassdrum at a fake music contest near the clock tower. She both saves the Cures and helps them on several other occasions but starts to worry that the others are getting too powerful when they acquire the Healing Chest.

Saving Mephisto's Heart and Gaining her True Cure Status
Ako explains that she became a Cure on the very day Mephisto stole the legendary score. She hid her identity and became the masked Cure because she really didn't want to fight against her father. After Hibiki said that they were fighting to save Mephisto, she revealed herself but still could not quite bring herself to fight her father. Cure Melody, Rhythm and Beat start fighting him for her, but are hopelessly outmatched, so Ako steps in as Muse and begs her father to stop. This does not work, as Mephisto is too well controlled by the noise of evil. Finally, Muse gets up her courage and punches Mephisto which knocks him back to his senses and returns him to normal.

Appearance
Ako has short orange hair and orange eyes and wears glasses. She is the friend of Kanade's brother Minamino Souta and is often seen with him. As the Masked form of Cure Muse she appears to be much older and taller than she really is and wears an all black costume. In the true form of Cure Muse she appears as her normal age, hair color and wears a yellow dress costume.

Cure Muse
'"Playing the Goddess' tune, Cure Muse!"' 爪弾くは女神の調べ、キュアミューズ "Tsumabiku wa megami no shirabe, Kyua Myūzu!"

Cure Muse is the alter Pretty Cure-ego of Ako, first shown in the opening of Suite Pretty Cure♪. In her first appearance She wears a mask with a heart-shaped jewel on it, and is shown with a purple Fairy Tone called Dodory on her shoulder and a Cure Module on her chest. In Episode 35, her true identity is revealed.

When her true form is revealed she transforms by using her Cure Module, along with her Fairy Tone, Dodory. When transformed, her normally short orange hair become knee length and gains two ribbons on her head.

Masked form and the search for her true identity
When she was first introduced, Hibiki and Kanade immediately began speculating about her identity. Some suspects were Nishijima Waon and Higashiyama Seika. Also Bassdrum calls out to Cure Muse and refers to her as "Siren!" leading to the speculation that Cure Muse may actually be Siren. However, this is soon proven false, as she saves the Cures from Siren herself. Later Cure Muse is revealed to be Ako along with her true form as a yellow cure.

On episode 36, she punched the evil out of Mephisto. Also, her transformation is shown for the first time.

Abilities and Powers
Not much is known about her, but in her masked form she is shown to be able to create a rainbow piano by clapping her hands together and spreading the keys out, and then shooting the keys at an enemy, which traps them long enough for them to be purified.

She is also able to create that same rainbow piano keyboard to make soundproof barriers, which she uses to protect people from the Melody of Sorrow.

Her powers in her true form have yet to be revealed, although it is briefly shown in episode 36 that in her true form she keeps the ability to create the piano barrier. Cure Muse can also execute several purification attacks such as Shining Circle and the Sparkling Shower. With the other three Cures, she can perform Suite Session Ensemble Crescendo.

Relationships

 * Minamino Souta - They are best friends in elementary school. Ako's feelings for him remain to those of friends, though he has a crush on her (which Ako doesn't seem to notice at all).
 * Hojo Hibiki, Minamino Kanade, and Kurokawa Ellen - Pretty Cure partners. Ako is seen as the "little sister" of the group, being the youngest of all four of them.

Trivia

 * Ako is the only Pretty Cure who has two theme colors: Black for her masked form and Yellow to her true form.
 * Ironically, Ako, the youngest Pretty Cure, has been active the longest.
 * Ako is the youngest main character in the franchise thus far, next to Urara from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Hikari from Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart.
 * Cure Muse looks quite mature for her age and she also looks a lot older than she really is. Which is probably why Hibiki, Kanade and Ellen did not suspect Ako to be Cure Muse at first, thinking that it was someone older.
 * Ako Shirabe's design and namesake is a tribute to the character Ako Ōzora (大空 アコ) from Toei's other series Kaidan Restaurant.
 * Cure Muse's yellow and puffy outfit, appears to be similar to Cure Pine's.
 * Before her role call, as she strums the chords, the motion is nearly identical to how Cure Rhythm strums the chords.
 * Ako is the third Cure to wear glasses, the first is Hanasaki Tsubomi and Tsukikage Yuri, but none wear glasses when they are Cures.
 * As Cure Muse she is the first Cure that has had a total form change during the course of the season not counting upgrades.
 * Cure Muse is the first main character whose motives and true identity are unknown in her first appearance.