I’m happy to report that as long as you’re familiar with the tropes of magical girl team shows, the broad strokes of this excellent episode still land, even without easy access to the show it originates from.
In a season about environmentalism and illness, Nodoka is in remission from a years-long infection and doesn’t want anyone to suffer the way she did. While she’s not quite depicted as disabled or chronically ill in the show itself, her arc focuses on recovery from a chronic illness in ways that can be similar to managing one.
Soaring Sky! PreCure is the first in the franchise to introduce a boy to the team, with Cure in his name, who isn’t a supporting character or sidekick. It’s been a long journey but this is significant for the show, and also for the genre as a whole, since Pretty Cure is now the dominant magical girl series for Japanese children. How did we get here?
We sat down with Ise at Otakon 2022 for a wide-ranging conversation. In the process, she touched on the increased pressure for voice actresses to be idols—an issue that also affects women in other public-facing professions—and how the slow change post-#MeToo (as well as #KuToo, a Japan-specific movement) has given more people space to come forward with their stories.
Tropical-Rouge balances historical attitudes with refreshing, contemporary ideas that grant its young female characters agency and thus delivers a great message to its target audience.
o a certain extent, what can I say? It’s PreCure. It’s adorable. It’s charming. It’s some colorful easy fun for tired adults and energetic children alike. But hang tight, reader, because there are a couple of aspects to this series that I want to talk about in more detail.
Tropical Rouge is the latest in a long line of Precure series, and in this first episode it’s plain to see the tried-and-trusted formula clicking into place and why that formula works so well.
As someone who’s only ever known PreCure by reputation and the occasional Twitter GIF, I was extremely curious to see how the series plays for a newcomer who’s also thoroughly outside the target age range. And the answer is…pretty (heh) good, honestly.
SPOILERS: This article covers episodes 1-29 of Hugtto! PreCure. The magical girl genre as a whole is often stereotyped as blatantly feminine. Characters fight in skirts and frills, love and kindness save the day, and our magical protagonist is almost consistently covered in pink. As a whole, the genre seems to play off of gender […]
Instead of focusing on suffering, dark magical girls can inspire young female audiences by showing that they have the power to overcome their personal pain.
