Dancing in the tides; Cure Splash!
"Play on, precure of delight!"
Minato/Cure Splash is the second of my All animals precure, and is water/jellyfish themed.
Minato lives, loves, and breathes water (not literally, though she can in cure form), and ever since she was a kid she's loved swimming, and playing in water- she'd have the biggest grin just being able to jump in puddles.
As Minato grew up, she never lost that love of water, and as well as frequently snorkelling and scuba diving around the beaches with her family, she does board diving too, and is a key part of the school team.
She is very knowledgeable about sea creatures, particularly the ones found around the reefs.
Minato has a very sensible and straightforward head on her wrt looking after those around her- especially Ame with her anxiety, but Minato also has a very mischievous side, and a good sense of humour. She is the one who would surreptitiously splash someone to get them to stop being so uptight (*cough*CureSilky/Sayako*cough*), and will try to use humour to lighten a mood or a situation.
Minato is good friends with Sayako from before they joined middle school: Minato often does litter picking on her reef dives, and on the beach, and met Sayako at one of the beach cleans. The mismatched pair became unlikely friends over their care and appreciation for underappreciated creatures.
However, their becoming cures almost destroys that friendship entirely, Sayako refusing to work with Splash and Kindness because of their apparent support for the entrapment of animals and other creatures, once she realises who they are.
Minato is the only one who can seem to control the hyperactive Chizuru: in reality, she's the only one willing to be upfront and direct enough for Chizuru to hear and understand clearly.
Kururun and the Tropical Rouge girls: Because of their seaside location, the all animals cures get along well with Tropical Rouge girls: Their enthusiasm for unexpected and less loved creatures endeared themselves to Manatsu, and when Kururun came to town to warn the All Animals that a sea creature monster was coming, Minato was the only one able to understand them- and could do so a lot more than the others, especially Ferren had thought possible. Minato: *Reels off an impossibly detailed itinerary of the problem that lead Kururun to be here*. Haruna, gobsmacked: "...you got all of that from 'Kururun'?"
Minato quickly became good buddies with Kururun, including them in her hijinks, and always looking out for them in the all stars meets to the point that Laura gets jealous and has to resort to pointedly stealing Kururun back whenever Cure Splash is around.
Part of Cure Splash's magic/ outfit is a magical umbrella, that she can use in the traditional sense, but also as a bit of a shield.
Cure Splash's outfit also changes when she enters a body of water: the bell of her skirt sweeps down and turns into a mermaid's tail (the boots disappear), allowing her to swim even better and faster underwater.
...there is a bit of irony to the fact that the most waterproof cure outfit is on the cure that gets the most wet.
Minato will happily stand up for the others, and comes across as the outgoing, reliable one, but on a quiet day will admit that she struggles with her own confidence and self-image sometimes, being on the shorter and bigger size of her peers.
(I should do an edit/design of her in her mermaid tail form. Will probs add that later)
Original design concept:
