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!
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.
So we begin ranking the Precures with the first season. Futari wa Precure and the 2nd season Max Heart.
Ranking cure black and white is ridiculously easy as all the good things associated with the franchise stems from them and the creators know it.
Even 15 years in they still provide advice and experience for the other cures to learn from, they are the default standard all Precures look up to.
As Nagisa and Honoka they are the perfect Lovely Angels trope; the Lovely Angels trope works like this, two girls, one tomboyish, one feminine and they both kick ass but what makes them work so well is that their personalities work off each other naturally.
Nagisa is athletic, cheerful and competitive but shows vulnerability when presented with the fantastic scenario of being a magical girl.
Honoka is smart, gentle and reserved but can be serious and willing to go that extra mile to help people.
United the two cures are unbeatable and only when their hearts unite can they rid the world of darkness.
Misumi Nagisa - Cure Black - 9.7/10
Yukishiro Honoka - Cure White - 9.3/10
I can't really say the same about Shiny Luminous; she's probably the least combat capable of the franchise despite god level powers; Hikari herself isn't much better, being a blank slate that can barely muster a proper personality; while she is important to the overall plot the series wouldn't be weakened if she was left out a sentiment shared by the creators as she doesn't always appear with Nagisa and Honoka.
Kujou Hikari - Shiny Luminous - 4.3/10
Best Dressed Award - Cure White because the default Precure dress design is based more on Cure White than Cure Black.
The fantasy zone has gone underappreciated in recent times so it will be reborn as a special anime area and kicking off the reboot will be a special on ranking the precures from beginning to current series.
Some rules
All marks are out of ten.
One off cures such as Echo, Infini, past cures, international cures, dark cures and mascot cures will not be included.
Criteria for marking is backstory, personality, powers, forms and impact. Fighting skills are kind of pointless as all precures know how to throw a punch so that will only be mentioned if they lack fighting ability or can fight in Dragonballz.
