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I watched the first 5 or so episodes of the original Pretty Cure (which seems to be the only Pretty Cure on Crunchyroll), and I found it rather bland. The main characters remind me a little bit of Sakura and Tomoyo, but in heavily watered-down form. Jack King (or whatever the intended Romanization is) is the most generic Evil Overlord ever, and Piscard isn't much better (though he was apparently permanently defeated in the last episode I watched, so maybe his replacement will be better). The fights are decently choreographed, but they all end the same way. I kept finding myself wishing I was watching Cardcaptor Sakura or Flip Flappers instead. I've read that the series' selling points are the fight choreography (which isn't enough to keep me watching) and some kind of postmodern self-awareness (which so far mostly seems to mean acknowledging that the annoying mascot characters are annoying). Does it get better, am I missing something, or is it actually not that great? Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 03:29 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 03:24
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My biggest issue with him is the way he's supposedly desperate to win at the end, but shifts to being sadistic and then shifts to being honorable because otherwise the protagonists wouldn't be able to win.
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May 30, 2018 20:40
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Alvarez IV posted:The gay stuff isn't an issue anymore (not sure if it was originally, apparently gay stuff is seen in Japan as something harmless if everyone's under a certain age), and the cousin-relationships in the show are, I'm pretty sure, framed as a foreign Chinese old-time oddity, but there's like three different teachers banging four different students and I feel like that right wing conspiracy about homosexuality being the slippery slope to pedophilia and dog-loving is playing out on my screen. I mean I'm still watching it and enjoying it, it's got fine art direction and I've watched stuff with a lot worse for a lot less, but drat. Is there some kind of cultural context I'm missing out on that would help me understand this show, or am I understanding it fine and it's just not aged great? The cousin relationships aren't even an old-time oddity, just a non-Anglosphere thing. I agree that the teacher-student aspect of Sakura's parents' relationship is uncomfortable, and Mizuki/Touya is worse (although at least there's no clear indication that Mizuki and Touya actually banged). The Rika/Terada thing in the manga was the worst of all, but thankfully it's just an unrequited crush in the anime. I'm not sure where people are getting Mizuki/Eriol from; I always saw Mizuki as Eriol's lackey. As to why they're there: because CLAMP is weird about relationships. It's not really a Japanese thing so much as a CLAMP thing. To the extent that there's an actual cultural difference, it's mostly just a slightly greater toleration of things-that-would-be-unacceptable-in-real-life in popular fiction. Tomoyo's behavior does sometimes cross some lines when you think about it. There's some scenes early on where she clearly makes Sakura uncomfortable, and she sometimes seems to be filming Sakura from some questionable angles. She's young enough that she should be cut some slack about that sort of thing, though.
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Oct 31, 2018 19:51
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Something that just occurred to me: We talk about the flood of dark magical girl shows following Madoka, but were there really that many of them? There was Day Break Illusion, Magical Girl Raising Project, Magical Girl Site, and now this season's Magical Girl Special Ops. Selector Infected Wixoss was Madoka-influenced but not actually a magical girl show. Was that it?
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Jan 10, 2019 17:49
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Zetetica posted:Yuyuyu was one of the more blatant ones. Oh yeah, I forgot that one. I guess that makes 6, including Madoka itself. Although I seem to remember a lot of talk about dark magical girl shows as a genre before half of them came out.
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Jan 11, 2019 01:39
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I've picked up Futari Wa Pretty Cure again (now on ep. 9), and it's getting better (the part in ep. 8 where they fight for dumb reasons and then make up struck me as very realistic writing of teenagers), but I still keep finding myself comparing it unfavorably to Cardcaptor Sakura, e.g., I like Tomoyo better than White and basically all the male characters in CCS better than Fuji-P. (Though to be fair, there's something to be said for Black having more of a spine than Sakura, even if she has less depth than Sakura in other ways, and there aren't any FWPC characters so far who I dislike as much as Mizuki-sensei.) Even the heartwarming bit with the diaries in ep. 8 had an obvious merchandise-driven aspect to it that I don't remember CCS ever indulging in. (I recognize that this is probably because the primary "merchandise" for manga adaptations like CCS is the manga itself.) I think my biggest issue, though, is just about every episode ending with a fight against the same villains, with essentially the same beats (henchman summons Zakenna into something, henchman and Zakenna smack Black and White around a bit but then do something dumb that gives them an opening, henchman and Zakenna get Marble Screwed). The conflicts in CCS were a lot more varied in comparison (and didn't even necessarily involve fights!). Am I being unfair? Do some of the things I'm talking about change as the show goes on?
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Jan 17, 2019 00:26
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On ep. 12 of Futari Wa Pretty Cure, and I'm actually starting to like this show. White is getting more opportunities to apply her intelligence, and the new villain is actually smart as well, to the point where I'm not sure how our heroines will deal with her. Of course, "I'm not sure how our heroines will deal with her" is the potential catch, but the writers seem to have gotten better at finding non-bullshit ways for the protagonists to win, so I'm not too worried. Black and White's friendship has a bit more depth to it now, too.
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Jan 18, 2019 23:26
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Silver2195 posted:On ep. 12 of Futari Wa Pretty Cure, and I'm actually starting to like this show. White is getting more opportunities to apply her intelligence, and the new villain is actually smart as well, to the point where I'm not sure how our heroines will deal with her. Of course, "I'm not sure how our heroines will deal with her" is the potential catch, but the writers seem to have gotten better at finding non-bullshit ways for the protagonists to win, so I'm not too worried. Black and White's friendship has a bit more depth to it now, too. The resolution to the episode turned out alright. Maybe it was a little bit bullshit, but I don't really care. Honoka's grandmother being a quasi-magical girl herself was cool, Nagisa pointing out that Mepple really should have escaped sooner was funny, and Poisonny running away instead of sticking around to get Marble Screwed was both cool and funny.
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Jan 19, 2019 02:13
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