User blog:GlitterInformer/Doki Doki! Pretty Cure/Glitter Force Doki Doki SDC: Episode 43 (Sub), 25 (Dub)

Episode 42 (Sub) | Table of Contents '''Japanese title: “To the Person Precious to Me! Aguri’s Parents’ Day at School!”'''

English title: “The Meaning of Family”



The dub’s finally back! Hopefully, it’ll stay for a bit longer this time. Believe it or not, there is only one episode’s worth of sub-only content left to cover. I have no idea yet of whether it’ll be a completely cut episode or 2-3 episodes merged together, but the dub’s going to stick around for most of the finale.

This episode is quite the big event not just because of the dub coming back, but also because we’re finally going to find out about Aguri/Natalie’s backstory, which has thus far been incredibly vague.

The episode starts right off with a fight scene. Marmo has summoned a boot Jikochuu/Distain, which isn’t doing all that well against Pretty Cure/the Glitter Force. Marmo orders the monster to finish the girls off already, but it instead jumps in a puddle, drenching Marmo.

During the fight, Aguri/Natalie’s grandmother happens to be walking by. In the sub, she’s silent; in the dub, when she sees the fight, she says, “What on Earth?”

After Marmo complains about her makeup being ruined, Ace scolds the Jikochuu/Distain one last time before finishing the battle. Cure Ace shows her rule-enforcing personality by telling the Jikochuu to watch out for others while playing in puddles. Glitter Ace instead calls the Distain a smelly boot and tells it to “beat it.” Ace then defeats the Jikochuu/Distain with Ace Shot.

Marmo teleports away in anger as usual. All in all, it’s a pretty standard fight scene. Although, even though the fight seemed pretty easy on the girls’ part, it must have taken a long time because Ace runs out of time and de-transforms.

And boy, is it a bad time for her to de-transform, because Aguri/Natalie’s grandmother sees Ace turn into Aguri/Natalie. Aguri/Natalie is shocked and asks her grandmother if she saw the fight. Natalie speaks for a bit longer, telling her grandmother that she and the girls were just playing. But it’s too late; the secret is out.

We get the opening themes as well as the title card in the sub. Then, right after the opening theme, the dub shows a scene with footage taken from last episode. So, I guess this is a merged episode after all. This scene is the one where Mana’s mother tells Mana that Aguri is adopted. And this scene has no business being in the dub. Maya already found out in episode 21 of Glitter Force Doki Doki that Natalie is adopted. And yet here she is, reacting with shock to the news that Natalie is adopted.

The dialogue is changed quite a bit. In the sub, Mana’s mother says that Aguri’s grandmother took Aguri in when she had nowhere else to go, and she tells a concerned Mana that Aguri knows about this. Mana’s mother also tells Mana to treat Aguri as she always has. In the dub, Maya’s shocked to hear that Aguri isn’t her grandmother’s actual granddaughter, and Maya’s mother says that she is her actual granddaughter even if they aren’t related.

We then cut to the next day at Aguri/Natalie’s house. Aguri/Natalie comes home, but she refuses to talk with her grandmother, instead shutting herself in her room. Her grandmother tells her that tomorrow is Parents’ Day and asks if she wants her to come to school with her, but Aguri/Natalie doesn’t want to discuss it right now.

A shot of Aguri/Natalie lying in her room is cut. This may be to save time due to the scene the dub just added in, or it might just be because Saban was worried about the camera angle, especially since Natalie is only ten to eleven years old. Still, I think her skirt is long enough that the shot wouldn’t be inappropriate even if her hair wasn’t so long.



Speaking of the symbols, here’s something I only noticed now when I was taking screenshots of Royal Lovely Straight Flush. In Ace’s transformation, catchphrase, and Ace Shot, Cure/Glitter Ace is represented by the letter A. This is also the case at the very end of Royal Lovely Straight Flush, where the letter A appears along with heart, diamond, clover, and spade symbols. But in the magic circle the girls make in the middle of Royal Lovely Straight Flush, Ace is instead represented by a rose. This makes sense, since roses tend to appear around Ace (most notably when she de-transforms after her timer runs out, and also during the opening themes).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Anyway, everything goes back to normal and Regina teleports away (though this time, she sticks her tongue out at the girls before doing so). Then, after school lets out, Aguri/Natalie bows to her grandmother (even in the dub!) and apologizes for running away. In the sub, Mari says that because of Aguri’s picture, she’ll let Aguri off easy by only having her weed the yard. In the dub, Natalie’s grandmother says Natalie won’t be in trouble because of her picture and because she knows Natalie won’t do it again.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">When the other four girls look on at Aguri/Natalie and her grandmother, dialogue is added where Rachel says, “Aww, sweet!

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Then, Aguri/Natalie’s grandmother asks what Aguri/Natalie wants for dinner. In the sub, Aguri says she wants to eat sautéed burdock (whatever that is). In the dub, Natalie says they should choose dinner together at the store. Her grandmother agrees, and the two walk off into the distance, hand in hand. With that, the episode ends.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Overall: This episode of the dub was quite a mess. The English version of Royal Lovely Straight Flush just appearing without explanation was so infamously confusing that some of you may probably have known of it before this article even existed. There have been seriously bad impacts caused by cut episodes before, but I think this is the first case where it’s caused an outright plot hole.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">And that wasn’t the only problem with the episode. I’m really starting to see the cracks in Glitter Force Doki Doki’s voice acting. My positive opinion of Rachel and Mackenzie’s voices hasn’t changed, and Clara has actually gotten a bit better as the show has gone on (though not enough to save her). But as I get further and further into the dub, it’s become clear that Maya and Natalie’s voice actors still have some work to do. Maya is still better acted than Candy from the first Glitter Force, and she does sound just as good as the others sometimes. But just as often (in the later episodes, anyway), Maya sounds slightly stilted. Not wooden like early Clara, but a bit off.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">And Natalie… I didn’t have any problems with her before other than that she sounded too old for a 10-year-old. Her emotions sounded fine to me. But here, for the first time in the dub, Natalie goes through a ton of serious emotions as she discovers that her entire past was a lie. And Natalie’s actress just doesn’t do well in comparison to Aguri’s. Natalie doesn’t sound awful, but she isn’t quite passable, either. I feel like Natalie’s voice actress does a lot better with Natalie as her normal self, serious and stern, than she does with more emotional moments.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Finally, there was a lot more dialogue changing than the typical Glitter Force Doki Doki episode. Of all of the conversations that happened, probably about half of them were changed, and for no particular reason, either. That being said, with the exception of the “Cloud Princess” debacle and the “sicky sicky” line, none of these changes made the dialogue any worse. It was just different. Though I do wonder why Saban went through all the effort of writing brand new dialogue anyway.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Aside from the dub, the sub itself was great. I love that we finally know about Aguri’s backstory. Not all of the mysteries are solved yet (for instance, we don’t know why Aguri fell to Earth as a baby, nor do we know how Ai ended up as an egg in the river), but those will be revealed soon enough. Seeing Aguri come to terms with her past and develop her relationship with her grandmother was rewarding. I also like that she finally got to speak to Regina, especially since Heart took the spotlight last episode.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Next time: There’s a contest all across Japan to see who is the best student council!