User blog:GlitterInformer/How I Got Into Pretty Cure

Pretty Cure was far from the first anime I watched. I'd watched Studio Ghibli movies before, but it was only after watching Tokyo Mew Mew that I really got into anime. I could go on and on about how exactly I came to watch Tokyo Mew Mew, but that's a story for another wiki.

I first found out about Pretty Cure on TVTropes, an extremely addictive website that keeps a list of thousands of recurring elements, or tropes, in media. For almost any work of media, it has a page or twenty about all the tropes it contains. I don't remember exactly how I got to its page on Pretty Cure, but once I got there, the first thing I found was one of those images containing every Pretty Cure and mascot ever, and then some. I was amazed by the absolutely huge amount of people, and from the moment I gazed upon the image, I though, ''I want to meet all these people! Eventually.''

After dilly-dallying around, I finally sat down and started watching the thing. I started with the first season, Futari wa Pretty Cure, because I felt that the first episode was the best place to start. And while I do like the season now, I remember being rather disappointed. There were, at the time, 43 main Cures, and yet for a full 49 episodes, I'd only ever get to meet two of them. Plus, I thought back then that their names were boring. Black and White? Could you come up with anything more basic?

However, it was a good show despite all that. Nagisa and Honoka, the show's two protagonists, were fun to watch, and the fight scenes were great. I would have kept watching and eventually continued on chronologically, if not for one dreadful force. Enter Mepple, Nagisa's fairy partner. The character himself was all right. He was energetic, and he kept butting heads with Nagisa in an entertaining manner. Mepple was not a horrible character by any means. However, he did have a horrible voice. It was scratchy and ear-grating, but that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. I cannot sufficiently describe such a bad-sounding voice. Mepple's voice was so awful that it made me quit Futari wa Pretty Cure after two episodes. I was upset about the fact that I would never be able to meet the other Pretty Cures if I quit right then and there, but there were other anime in the sea, so I didn't really mind.

I would have paid the Pretty Cure franchise no more mind were it not for the format of the streaming site I used at the time. My site of choice back then was gogoanime.io, which I stopped using due to its ads relying too heavily on half-naked women. On the right side of the homepage, the site has a sidebar containing the anime whose episodes were released most recently. It was here that I came across Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! for the first time. The thumbnail looked beautiful, so I watched the first episode. Immediately, I was hooked. Unlike the muted and older-looking Futari wa Pretty Cure, Mahou Tsukai had a bright, colorful pallete. Plus, it started off quickly, with the main character, Mirai, spotting a witch flying around on a broomstick. The characters were interesting, the transformation and outfits were beautiful, and the names were way better. Miracle and Magical? Now that's what we're talking about! And the best part? The mascot, Mofurun, did not have an annoying voice!

Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! is one of the less popular seasons of Pretty Cure. Detractors complain about its forgettable villains, its boring fight scenes, its lack of character development, the Linkle Stones (this season's MacGuffins) being too easy to find, and the power up just coming to the team in a dream rather than being earned. I will concede that a good chunk of the villains aren't memorable and that the latter Linkle Stones just appear without the girls having to work to find them. Additionally, a couple of the episodes were boring and I had to force myself through them. However, overall, I love Mahou Tsukai. Mirai and Liko are great protagonists, especially Liko, whose constant failure at magic was heart-wrenching. Its magical world is well-developed and just plain awesome. Cures Miracle and Magical have multiple forms that they can transform into. The weird dream episode where the girls got their power up was strange enough to become one of my favorite episodes of the season (and since I hadn't known about the other seasons, I didn't know that the power-up was "supposed" to come in a big fight rather than a hilarious dream world). I could go on and on, but overall, the only thing you need to remember is that I watched the whole season and that I highly recommend it. I may have started with Futari wa, but I consider Mahou Tsukai to be my first season.

By the time I'd finished Mahou Tsukai, Kira Kira Pretty Cure A La Mode had come out. The season centered around five part-human, part-animal magical girls who worked at a patisserie. Basically, it was ''Tokyo Mew Mew. Since Tokyo Mew Mew'' was my gateway anime and I had long been waiting for a continuation, I was psyched. I watched the first 11 episodes of the season. For some reason, it never really mattered to me all that much that the season lacked physical combat. Instead, I enjoyed it for how uniquely laid-back it was. I also enjoyed its similarities and differences to Tokyo Mew Mew. With a higher focus on the patisserie part than the animal part, it felt like it was the same show, but with a different writer and a different story. Oh, and different characters, though Ichigo and Ichika are quite similar.

However, upon hearing that ''Go! Princess Pretty Cure was one of the best seasons of the show, I stopped watching Kira Kira'' and watched the first episode of that. It was a fine first episode, but I felt wrong while watching it. In no way was it because of a lack of quality on ''Go! Princess'''s part; I liked the costumes, the transformations, and the concept of the monsters being based on side characters' worries. No, the problem was that it didn't feel right skipping from season to season. After finishing ''Go! Princess Pretty Cure'''s first episode, I knew what I had to do.

I went back to Futari wa Pretty Cure and watched from the third episode all the way to the end. Mepple still sounded awful, but you get used it it after a while. Plus, I was no longer upset about there only being two Cures in the season, because I was already familiar with Flora, Miracle, Magical, Felice, Whip, Custard, Gelato, Macaron, and Chocolat. That's a good number. With my qualms gone, I sat back and enjoyed the development of Nagisa and Honoka's relationship and their epic fights with the Dotsuku Zone. Then, I watched its sequel, Futari wa Pretty Cure MaX Heart. Then, I watched the third season, and then the fourth season. Slowly but surely, I made my way chronologically through the series, and I felt in my heart that for me, this was the proper way to watch Pretty Cure. I'm not saying that if you watch the seasons out of order, you're doing it wrong. But as much as I enjoyed Mahou Tsukai, I wish I had toughened up sooner and watched chronologically. I recommend that any newcomers to the franchise start at the beginning as well. That way, you know when to watch the All Stars movies and you don't have to worry about watching a sequel season without context. Also, don't be like me and click on articles of characters you don't know about. That's how I got the identities of Cure Sunshine and Cure Muse spoiled for me.

When I got to Smile Pretty Cure!, I had already heard about its English dub, Glitter Force. I'd never been a dub person before, but after having heard the complaints about Glitter Force and having read FiddleTwix's excellent comparison of Tokyo Mew Mew and its dub, Mew Mew Power, I decided to create my own sub/dub comparison. This meant that my progress through that season was slow, but that I also learned a whole heck of a lot about Pretty Cure on both sides of the pond. After finishing my sub/dub comparison, I created this account so I could add more information about Glitter Force to the wiki. I hope to publish the sub/dub comparison, but it has a lot of images. Since there's no way to upload several images at once, what I'll probably do is create a Google Drive account and link to it from my blog.

Now, I'm watching the current season, ''HUGtto! Pretty Cure! ''This is exciting because this is the first season I've watched as it came out. Additionally, last night, I watched the first scene in the first epsiode of ''Doki Doki! Pretty Cure and Glitter Force Doki Doki''. The big, wide world of Pretty Cure continues to excite me, and I hope I can enjoy it for many years to come!

With my piece said and done, I have a question for the audience. How did you get into Pretty Cure, and what was your first season? Do you wish you had watched the seasons in a different order? And what do you think of my experience? Thank you so much for reading my first blog post!!