"Am I getting emotional over a "girly" anime series?"
(P/S: I may revise this essay/thinkpiece at a later date. SOME SPOILERS AHEAD! And most importantly: DO NOT FEED MY WORK TO AI, THAT IS NASTIER THAN THE MISOGYNIST I THOUGHT WAS CUTE AND PITIFUL.)
𓆩༻˚•∘♡∘•˚༺𓆪
I’m not a baker, but let me glaze this anime series still—
𓆩༻˚•∘♡∘•˚༺𓆪
This is also the BEST time to tell you—PreCure is not just a feel-good, naive, cringe, “power of friendship”, and potentially sapphic series. It’s more. I’m currently on my fourth episode of GO! PRINCESS PRECURE, my re-entry after not watching any of the generations for so long, and the symbolism in this instalment is… quite a few actually. For this post, I’m gonna focus specifically on GO! PRINCESS PRECURE. Take a shot everytime I say the series name.
⭒˚‧︵‿⭒ཐིཋྀ ཐིཋྀ⭒‿︵‧˚⭒⭒˚‧︵‿⭒ཐིཋྀ ཐིཋྀ⭒‿︵‧˚⭒⭒˚‧︵‿⭒ཐིཋྀ ཐིཋྀ⭒‿︵‧˚⭒
If you noticed, my Tumblr blog title is “late-bloomer”, and I kid you not, I chose that name because I AM a late-bloomer. I didn’t know I’d be twinning with Cure Flora, who was referred to as “a mere bud in a garden compared to the other two, who is she?” (not the exact/verbatim words, but close enough!)
I started this blog because SOMEONE kept pestering me to “start now!” in writing, and she suggested Tumblr. I chose to be named “late-bloomer” because I acknowledge my shortcomings and, well, slowness, trusting I WILL blossom regardless—at my own pace. So now I'm gonna yap about PreCure, let's go. ⭒˚‧︵‿⭒ཐིཋྀ ཐིཋྀ⭒‿︵‧˚⭒⭒˚‧︵‿⭒ཐིཋྀ ཐིཋྀ⭒‿︵‧˚⭒⭒˚‧︵‿⭒ཐིཋྀ ཐིཋྀ⭒‿︵‧˚⭒
Watching less than 5 episodes, I felt genuinely… touched? In a way. Because:
GO! PRINCESS PRECURE is NOT our lead Haruka Haruno starting out as this flawless girl. No, she’s literally seen as the lesser of the other two at the academy. Still, our gal rose to every occasion like this dough I’m baking!
All three of these Cures—Cure Flora, Cure Mermaid, and Cure Twinkle (yes I was impatient to know what the third Princess PreCure was)—have motifs I have always loved as a child, and then growing up. Specifically, motifs of the seas. After all, I am the ocean’s gray waves
This instalment is STILL about girls fighting like they’re Saiyans--like 70% hands and 30% magic, ratio not accurate btw
But there is something else to unearth here.
GO! PRINCESS PRECURE is telling viewers to dream boldly, and being positive in making it work. God knows my dreams have long died, so watching this gave me a sense of… determination to revive it again. That, and @kafkaoftherubble injected me with the lethal dose of “DATTEBAYO!” (so many dattebayo...)
That dreams will stay dreams unless you put in actual time, work, and discipline. Tending to this blog requires all three, and anyone with ardent love for their blog will tell you it’s not always easy, but it’s rewarding once done.
GO! PRINCESS PRECURE’s transformation item is called the TRANSFORMATION DRESS UP KEY that a PreCure will insert into the PRINCESS PERFUME, invoking the phrase, “Pretty Cure, Princess Engage!” while unlocking the perfume, so to speak.
I’m gonna stop here for a moment because HOO BOY. The meaning here is that the Key, literally holding The Power of Dreams, can unlock a Princess’s potential (the perfume that gives the girls their flashy outfits and powers!) and allow her to become her strongest self. Through dreams, power is manifested. Like if that’s not cool enough, girl I don’t know what is! This is such a pretty, peppy yes, but hopeful way of encouraging especially younger viewers—as if this installment is only popular among kids. Many adults here in Japan like it too (this whole PreCure series is HUGE here, I know cause of all the merch being sold here in JUST Osaka itself). In a place often described as “bleak” by many outside of Japan, this series is a fun, cute, but VERY meaningful way to jab joy and dreams back into their hearts.
It helps the transformation sequence is sooooo satisfying as f--LORA!
Essentially, our Princesses must battle the evil that try to Close/Shut (wink-wonk) the dreams of civilians and lock them in Dyspear (winks harder), which will transform said civilians (with locked dreams/heart of despair) into mindless borgs until the Princess(es) use their KEY to unlock the locks of literal doom and gloom on these borgs to revert them back to regular folks. Ugh, the clever way of animating things—
In a way, GO! PRINCESS PRECURE has been that key for me to unravel and look closely within myself: what do I want to achieve? So many things, yet the topic of “so little time” had been my literal Close/Shut all this time. Being here in Osaka, a literal blessing I will not brag (much) or squander, I see hella many PreCure merch being sold (out). Maybe, just maybe, some are experiencing something like a writer’s block in their lives, and maybe, just maybe, this series can help remove that damn block.
This series isn’t as “naive-looking” as one would expect—it IS if we don’t look into it deeper. It challenges viewers: what ARE you willing to do for your dream(s)? Are you man girl enough to push your limits and do whatever it takes? Because Haruka literally wants to be a princess, quite a ridiculous dream she said so herself, but she's willing to go over and beyond anyway, while looking pretty. Who the hell cares if this series is too "girly"? To each their own!
PreCure is where you slay while SLAYING. PLUS ULTRA--
⭒˚‧︵‿⭒ཐིཋྀ ཐིཋྀ⭒‿︵‧˚⭒⭒˚‧︵‿⭒ཐིཋྀ ཐིཋྀ⭒‿︵‧˚⭒⭒˚‧︵‿⭒ཐིཋྀ ཐིཋྀ⭒‿︵‧˚⭒
I don’t want to spoil more than what I’ve said, primarily because there’s nothing else for me to spoil anyway LMAO, I’m only at EP 4! Yet I’ve absorbed so much. I will be writing more on this specific series as I go, so be sure to look forward to it, yeah? Even if you’re not a PreCure fan, I think you’d like the “thinkpiece” nonetheless. If my materials are worthy enough to be called a thinkpiece anyway, haha!
But this series is so lethal to me because, at a time where the world is going to s--EAS, dreams must never stay dreams. In a time with so much despair, is it wrong at all to dream and do? I'm crying in the club now--
Gorgeous! Precious! Shall we dance! On that stage! Très bien! Strong, kind and beautiful! Dreams are changing the world-- With your hands, open the door to the future!
