#witchypre

When I first saw the character designs revealed for MahoPre2, I initially thought that they (excluding Mirai) didn't change from the actual designs used for the grown-up characters at the end of the first MahoPre, so I thought they were just placeholder images.

Now that I look at it closer, there are some slight differences, notably Haa-chan is wearing a different top. From this, there are a few things we can take away.

The first is that, since the grown-up designs of Mirai and Riko closely resemble the designs they had in the epilogue, it seems MahoPre2 will take place around the same time as it, or shortly after. The epilogue takes place around five years after the final battle, meaning the girls are around 19. To add to this, Mirai's VA, Rie Takahashi, mentioned that Mirai is "now a college student" in the sequel, as she was in the epilogue.

The second is that, based on how similar the character designs are to the first MahoPre, it seems that MahoPre's character designer, Emiko Miyamoto, is returning for the sequel, unlike what OtonaPre did when Toshie Kawamura didn't return to design the grown-up versions of the cast, and another unrelated designer did instead. The last major thing Miyamoto worked on was for Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, where she was the character designer for that adaptation, and then a few small roles such as doing key animation in the recent PreCure All Stars F and GeGeGe no Kitaro films. As such, it seems she's not too busy to work on MahoPre2; hopefully other staff members such as series director Masato Mitsuka and head writer Isao Murayama are able to return!

On a side note, I remembered that in MahoPre, whenever Mirai and Riko transformed into Pretty Cure, they would noticeably "age-up," i.e. get taller. So, with the expectation that the adult Mirai and Riko will transform into Pretty Cure again, I don't expect any real change in design if they can just reuse those.

In hindsight, I find it really funny how in OtonaPre, Toei created new adult civilian designs for the cast, but made them de-age when they transformed into Pretty Cure again, while for MahoPre2, it seems that the reason they chose to do an adult sequel to this season, was because they technically already had adult designs for both the girls' civilian and Pretty Cure forms...and the adult civilian forms don't actually look that much different from their original 14-year old selves, besides being taller.

It has been over a year since Toei announced they were planning an adult sequel to Mahoutsukai Pretty Cure!, the 13th PreCure season that aired from 2016-2017, yet no real information on it has been released since. All we know is that it will air "in 2024" on the late-night ANiMAZiNG!!! program block.

Despite this, two recent bits of indirect information seem to paint a specific timeframe of when the anime will actually air.

To start off, we now know the full 2024 schedule for ANiMAZiNG!!!, with the Summer program recently announced:

The Strongest Tank's Labyrinth Raids — Jan 7 - Mar 24 (Winter 2024)

Tonari no Yokai-san — Apr 7 - TBA (Spring 2024)

Iwa-Kakeru! Climbing Girls — Jul 6 - TBA (Summer 2024) (Rerun, originally aired Fall 2020)

The Healer Who was Banished From His Party is Actually the Strongest — Starts Oct (Fall 2024)

This means that MahoPre2 will not be airing this year, which makes it odd that it still has a tentative 2024 release date, right? Not exactly.

According to Toei Animation's recent financial report, for the fiscal year ending on March 2024, they still list MahoPre2 as in production for "2024." More specifically, they list it as coming out at some point after the second quarter of the 2024 fiscal year.

In Japan, for government bureaucracies and corporations, a fiscal year lasts from April to March of the following year. For example, the 2023 fiscal year just ended this past March, hence the recent financial report. The 2024 financial year will last from April 2024 to March 2025.

The second quarter of FY2024 ends in September of this year, meaning MahoPre2 will air at some point from October onwards. (Note that Dragon Ball DAIMA, another animated project under Toei, is also listed in the same category, and was announced with a set release date of Fall 2024.)

Given that we know the entire ANiMAZiNG!!! schedule for this year has been filled, it seems very likely that MahoPre2 will air starting in January 2025; that is, the Winter 2025 season. If it airs for just 12-13 episodes like OtonaPre did, that would still put it within the range of FY2024, ending just at the March 2025 deadline.

It is now May and we still haven't heard anything about the adult Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! sequel that is supposed to air sometime this year. Nothing official or direct has been said about it since the initial announcement over a year ago, but despite that, there have been some bits of information we can piece together about it.

Going back to the initial announcement for both OtonaPre and the MahoPre sequel, it's interesting to note that they only tentatively call it Mahou Tsukai PreCure! 2. They don't outright call it something like Otona Mahou Tsukai PreCure!, so maybe it's not really tied to the OtonaPre brand.

This would be a welcome change because one of the main problems with OtonaPre was that they tried to juggle a main cast of 8, arguably 10, or even 13, in just 12 episodes. This meant that several characters got shafted in development, notably Rin, Komachi, and Mai. In a MahoPre sequel, we'd only really need focus on Mirai, Riko, Haa-chan, and Mofurun, and maybe a few of the other side characters. Realistically I don't see what other seasons they could try and jam into MahoPre2, like not GoPriPre or KiraPre. MahoPre has such a distinctive style to it with all the witchcraft stuff.

Another thing to note from that initial announcement is that MahoPre2 will be airing on the late-night Animazing!!! block owned by TV Asahi and ABC TV, on Sundays 2:00-2:30 AM. This is quite the unusual choice because even OtonaPre, which aired on NHK-E, aired as late as Saturday 6:30PM. Similarly, Tokyo Mew Mew New aired around midnight when it broadcasted. I don't know what this really means in terms of "adult content" though, because even TMMN was mostly restrained in that regard. OtonaPre aired on a night/afternoon timeslot, but it also aired in the same block that had stuff like Spongebob, so they couldn't get too "adult," the most being stuff like alcohol consumption and climate change.

From this article back in March, Producer Takashi Washio notes that when NHK-E ("E" standing for education) was chosen to air OtonaPre on, he was asked if they could focus on topics related to SDGs, sustainable development goals. This is why OtonaPre has a large focus on climate change and sustainability, despite it feeling a bit out of place. I appreciate the focus on such topics, but I felt like it was taking up too much space in OtonaPre when combined with the topics of adulthood struggles and usual PreCure stuff, especially for just 12 episodes. I also think that the aforementioned Tokyo Mew Mew New, which aired last year and earlier this year, was much better at conveying these topics.

There's not much we know about MahoPre2, but I think I can say for certain that it won't have much of heavy environmental theme to it, and more so focus on expanding the lore of the Witch World. I expect the sequel to have 12-13 episodes like OtonaPre did, so not trying to jam several themes into such a limited scope will be good.

Another thing, that's a bit small is that, personally, I wasn't a fan of the art direction, notably the character designs, of OtonaPre. Toei outsourced the anime primarily to Studio DEEN, so most of the staff, character designer, series director, animation directors, art director, etc. were assigned to people who didn't seem to be that familiar with the series and the final product sort of reflected that. It's understandable why Toei outsourced most of the production, as this year, they also had to focus on the usual yearly PreCure, One Piece, the Sailor Moon Cosmos films, etc., and I expect more of the same next year for MahoPre2.

But I think that, at least in terms of character designer, we might get Emiko Miyamoto, who was the CD for the original MahoPre, back. The reason why Toshie Kawamura, who was the CD for Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!, didn't come back for OtonaPre, seems to be that she's currently not accepting new work due to her poor health, as stated in her Twitter bio. This makes sense, as Kawamura recently did the character designs for the all-male Dancing Star PreCure, which, as a live-action stage play, had less commitments for her to deal with compared to OtonaPre. In contrast, from what I could gather, Miyamoto appears to be in good health, and she hasn't really done much work since Dragon Quest: Adventure of Dai, which ended last year. She did do some small animation work for the recent PreCure All Stars F film, but that's pretty much it. I think there will be time for her to return next year for MahoPre2, along with other staff like head writer Isao Murayama and series director Masato Mitsuka.

Ideally, I would hope that MahoPre2 has the women transform into adult Pretty Cure, unlike what OtonaPre did, but there's really nothing right now that I can predict, other than that it seemingly not being apart of the OtonaPre brand may raise some hope.

Now that Otona Pretty Cure has come and gone, I wonder when we are getting more news on "Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! 2" as it is tentatively titled. The home release for OtonaPre comes out in Japan on April 24, so maybe they're waiting until then to show any visuals. We should definitely have a logo pop up in the Japanese trademark office soon though.

Here's something interesting though. As mentioned in the initial announcement, "MahoPre2" is set to air on the late night programming block, "ANIMAZiNG!!!!" This block airs on Sundays from 2:00-2:30 AM.

Other notable anime that have aired on this block include: Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious, The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!, SK8 the Infinity, Iwa-Kakeru! Sport Climbing Girls, I Shall Survive Using Potions!, and Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement.