It's been painful watching Pretty Cure over the past two years. Kira Kira Precure and Huggto Precure were good enough to watch in full, but only because the brand was so strong I couldn't bear to give up on them. It was like watching Fate/Encore for the sole reason that it had 'Fate' in the title. They were far inferior to the likes of Harukana Receive.
Star Twinkle is different. Not only is it good, in the sense that it's possible to watch in full, it's actually enjoyable to watch. But it goes beyond that too -- this is a great series, that you can enjoy watching not just once, but multiple times. The four character cast is fantastic, so different from the lackluster Precure who have come before. The music is hoppin. The art's amazing. The space theme is genuinely new and interesting.
Pretty Cure is back. Star Twinkle is on level with the great seasons of yore. It took years but we're finally back on track. No transgenders, no sentient hamsters, no villains riding around on flying hotrods powered by dark energy, no more nonsense. We're back to what made Precure work in the first place, and that's girls growing as people through the lessons fighting the dark zone teaches them. It's such a simple formula and it works so well. All you have to do is steer clear of queers and keep out zany, inexplicable plot concepts like time traveling android guitarists.
This doesn't just apply to Cure Infini, I'm just as nonplussed by Cure Macaron's romance with Cure Choco. For that matter, Cure Choco was practically a transgender herself, just this time from female to male. This social justice warrior crap was ruining the series, but Star Twinkle has actual heterosexual, cisgendered heroines again. You would think you could just take this part for granted, but not anymore.
Cure Macaron and Cure Choco were obnoxious people in and of themselves, and their dynamic together was even more obnoxious. But Cure Pudding and Cure Gelatto were equally as bad, just in terms of how forgettable and uninteresting they were. Any episode about them was just a repetitive waste of time detailing their paper-thin personas, and that was compounded by the fact that they barely got any lines even then. Only Cure Parfait and Cure Whip had any decent characterization across the series.
In Huggto, Nono Hana, Cure Yell, was the only decent character, making it even worse than Kirakira. Cure Angel was an entirely forgettable and boring repeat of so many previous blue colored Precure -- Cure Aqua, for instance, or Cure Mermaid. The figure skating girl was way too manly, and it didn't even make sense that she was attending school. Athletes aiming for the Olympics don't waste their time at public middle schools, they receive specialized training and live alone or with other athletes. She shouldn't have even existed, and she was always a third wheel -- having a crush on a guy who was already taken, and no other connection to anyone else in the series. Even her name is some stupid unpronounceable French word -- Etoile.
Cure Ma Cherie and Cure Amour were just awful. Ma Cherie couldn't do anything on her own, she was no more than Amour's extra appendage. And Amour herself had the stupidest back story imaginable with a stupid doctor frankenstein father who never explained why he kept changing sides back and forth. Of course, nothing in Huggto was ever explained sufficiently, but Amour's story was the worst in that sense. Everything about her was absolute nonsense.
Even though Cure Tomorrow was so heavily foreshadowed she never ended up doing anything, a complete letdown.
Now let's consider Star Twinkle's cast in contrast. Cure Soleil and Cure Selene have cool names after the Sun and the Moon, perfect for the space theme they're going with this time. Soleil is energetic and opinionated like you'd expect of the sun, and Selene is calm and quiet, like you'd expect of the moon. Soleil has a bunch of younger siblings she cares about, and Selene has to rebel against her parents to stay true to herself. They've already carved out their own spaces as characters that are easy to remember and relate to. Lala, with her amazing elf ears, hair highlights, antenna and star shaped pupils is an unforgettable presence whenever she's on screen, and the interesting new culture she brings to Earth as an alien with her own way of doing things based on her home planet's culture is completely unique to Cure Milky out of all the Precure who have ever been.
Cure Star's earnest and transparent personality is heartwarming and magnetic. She doesn't let fear or doubt get her down, but just plunges in fully. She literally jumped out into outer space without any protection just so she could hug a troubled friend. She enjoys fun new things without overthinking them, just living in the moment. And she's the first to jump into the fray whenever evildoers present themselves before her.
Cure Yell and Cure Whip were decent characters, as most pink pretty cure leaders are, but Cure Star easily surpasses them. The little saturn rings floating around her planetoid spherical hair tips of her twintails are just darling. She has such a great character design to go along with the space theme.
The last time a Precure season had four interesting and cool Precure at once was DokiDoki, a season so good it's legendary. With a cast like this, for Star Twinkle, not even the sky is the limit, we're all the way up to outer space over here.
With the help of Star Twinkle Precure, One Piece, Fairy Tail, Railgun, SAO Alicization and other series, I'll get back to 'over 9,000' in no time. Anime is truly back in 2019. We're in the middle of a golden age. Admittedly all based on older franchises receiving sequels, but golden nonetheless.
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