I’ve got the first 3 episodes of the new Pretty Cure, “Go! Princess Precure”. I’ve skimmed the first episode before, but yeah, gonna watch this back to back now. Dubbed as Pretty Cure Utena by the fans prior to its debut, the pilot opens with a dark skinned princely fellow giving a little girl a “charm” that’ll let her be a princess one day. Said girl’s the main Pretty Cure of the season.
Gokigenyou!
Okay, just finished the first episode, and I dare say, it’s pretty much a “perfect” first episode. In terms of hitting all the checkboxes. It’s not particularly slow paced, in fact, compared to some shows, the pace was really quick. It spent its time efficiently establishing all the themes/gimmicks of the season. Our main girl’s dream is to be a princess, and for that, she enrolled in Hope Academy, which is a school famous for a lot of people achieving their dreams (thereby becoming famous and successful in the process). Meanwhile, the villains spread despair by making people lock up their dreams. The monster of the week, a “Zetsuborg”, is created by locking someone’s dream in despair, in fact.
Of course, HER dream is a tad on the silly side. I mean, she wants to be a goddamn princess! But lo and behold, by embracing her dream, she activates the “charm” given to her when she was a kid, thereby transforming her into a Princess Pretty Cure!
They then proceeded to blow the entire show’s budget in the fight between her and the Monster of the Week. It was a really really well animated battle sequence but goddamn, they’re gonna have to outsource to whoever did Hannah Barbara’s animation back in the day at this rate.
If you treat this first ep as a one episode ova, I’d actually recommend it to whoever. I mean, I’ve no idea if the season, or hell, if the upcoming episodes will be any good. But this first episode’s a really nice standalone as far as kids programming goes.