Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
This rank is the hardest to do.
Having to follow Heartcatch would give anyone cold feet and Suite did it's best but it was no where near the same quality, that kind of reflects in the Cures.
Hibiki were back to the bright and full of energy pink cures, she's not bad per say but she's an awkward cross between Dream and Aqua, melding into a very botched character as it's difficult to play her as the lonely rich girl.
Kanade is very difficult to like as her bog standard girly personality doesn't mix well with some of her weaker traits such as stubbornness and for someone who's meant to be a second half to a duo, she's horribly underused as a Precure and causes the team to fall apart.
Ellen saves the team by having a good backstory, she starts as a fairy cat who gets manipulated into joining the bad guys and then after becoming permanently human gains precure powers, making her personality changes more believable, not to mention she's a great strategist and she can use her hair as a guitar, that's awesome.
Ako is a brat but with good reason having been forced into becoming a fleeing princess aged 9-10 and trying to act mature to save the Kingdom, so her rudeness is justified when other characters treat her like a kid. Plus her masked form is a homage to Doronjo
Hojo Hibiki - Cure Melody - 6.2/10
Minamino Kanade - Cure Rhythm - 4.2/10
Ellen Kurokawa - Cure Beat - 9.4/10
Ako Shirabe - Cure Muse - 8.4/10
Best Dressed Award - Cure Beat easily
Now we come to the easiest to review of the Precure series.
Heartcatch can be described as the series that went from A rank to S rank in terms of popularity and it's not difficult to see why.
In a change of pace our pink Precure leader Tsubomi is not a genki girl but a shy introvert making her unique among the other lead cures and her interactions with the others builds her up as one of the best leaders.
Erika is now the genki girl and while she's not much different to other genki characters, her saving grace is that she pairs well with introvert Tsubomi so their friendship dynamic is stronger.
Itsuki is the princely girl character, raised as a boy, has a desire to be more feminine, these character traits rarely disappoint and Itsuki is no exception, she also has the best transformation so far in the franchise.
Then there's Yuri.... she's so well written it's unbelievable that she came from Precure; up to this series, Precure kept a fairly samy set of plot lines and going more serious is rare but not only does her backstory give her more dimensions and set the standard future seasons needed to achieve, it gave a better understanding of the Precure mythology as a whole.
Hanasaki Tsubomi - Cure Blossom - 9.4/10
Kurumi Erika - Cure Marine - 9.1/10
Myoudouin Itsuki - Cure Sunshine - 9.1/10
Tsukikage Yuri - Cure Moonlight - 10/10
Best Dressed Award - Tie between Sunshine and Moonlight.
Welcome back to the Precure rankings where things start getting interesting as we move onto Fresh Precure.
The formula for Precure at this point is that pink precure is the default leader so lets start with Love.
No not the concept, the pink precure for this season cure peach's civilian identity is named Love, that has to be the laziest protagonist name since Arcana Heart's Heart Aino. Other than that she's a Hasbro executive's ideal teen girl, likes dancing, happy as hell, eager to match up her friends in romantic comedy situations, and enough emotions to relate to the viewer; she's more Glitter Force than the teams they chose to use.
Miki is an interesting case as she fits the mold for a fashion obsessed diva but is not an antagonist; I still find it pretentious that she sees herself as perfect but they somehow make her tolerable which is amazing writing.
Inori started the trend of having a younger/noticeably smaller character in the teams, they don't really add much to the team itself but gives the expected young audience a chance to look at precure through an audience surrogate especially when the other team members are teenagers, while this isn't every season and they sometimes flip it around it just makes said character's inclusion a token gesture, which Inori does well with but I'd be lying if I said she was memorable.
Setsuna is a former villain which by default always makes characters more interesting especially in a show like Precure, her arc is made stronger by her struggle to adapt to her new outlook which by extension makes Love a better character for being her adoptive sister.
Momozono Love - Cure Peach - 6.9/10
Aono Miki - Cure Berry - 7.0/10
Yamabuki Inori - Cure Pine - 6.6/10
Higashi Setsuna - Cure Passion - 8.4/10
Best Dressed Award - Cure Berry if only because of the way she works the outfit like the model she aspires to be.
Moving on to Yes Precure 5 and we introduce our first full team.
As a change of pace the fearless leader is not a tomboy but a happy go lucky girl channelling Sailor Moon. Nozomi isn't going to win any awards for personality and expect many to occur several times on this feature but her character development more than makes up for it.
Rin is lacking the same charisma as her previous tomboy precures especially when you consider that they were lead Precure, not enough to stand out.
Urara is very much like cure white and cure egret, very polite and graceful, while a few quirks do exist, she like Rin lacks the same charisma.
Komachi barely stands out at all, the bookish type with a hidden temper, being a rare green cure she should be better but no.
Karen is the lonely rich girl done right, her conflicting emotions of wanting to be the responsible one is a front to try and get over her loneliness and the story refusing her the precure form first time did wonders for her development.
Milk is the first fairy precure, she acts the responsible one of the fairies but not afraid of being devious or causing trouble but is also fearless and one of the best precures for fighting.
Yumehara Nozomi - Cure Dream - 9.0/10
Natsuki Rin - Cure Rouge - 6.0/10
Kasugano Urara - Cure Lemonade 6.5/10
Akimoto Komachi - Cure Mint 5.7/10
Minazuki Karen - Cure Aqua 9.4/10
Mimino Kurumi - Milky Rose 8.6/10
Best Dressed Award - Milky Rose, this team had lazy costume design and Milky Rose was the only one who made it work
This post will be the shortest no doubt as we only have two to rank.
As a follow up to Futari wa, they had the hardest job as Precures following white and black. First impressions are not good, they look like the first precures and act like them to the point that an outsider could easily mistake them for the original pair.
There are subtle differences, Saki is more cheerful and happy while Mai is more graceful, calm and serene.
But the lack of differences between these two and original two end when they fight, as their style of fighting is more fluid to watch than the original two, and the splash star duo can really fire some epic special moves to boot.
I can't really say the same about their 2nd cure forms, Bright and Windy's costumes are gaudy, a word I never thought I use to describe a precure costume.
Hyuuga Saki - Cure Bloom/Bright - 7.6/10
Mishou Mai - Cure Egret/Windy - 7.4/10
Best Dressed Award - Cure Egret, not much competition, the others are awful.
