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Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! Ending 2: “Ganbalance de Dance ~Kibou no Relay~” (Relay of Hope) by Cure Quartet

Cure Quartet is a supergroup formed for this album comprising Gojo Mayumi, Uchiyae Yuka, Kudou Mayu, and Miyamoto Kanako. AKA all the theme song singers from the first 5 series. The B track on the single is a kind of medly/tribute to all the shows in honor of the 5th anniversary.

As usual it’s a catchy bop, this time with a little more of a full band sound to it. The animation consists of everyone doing the now-familiar dance in front of Natts House or other locations. The very first shot is the girls running out of the house and leaping into the air, wearing cheerleader uniforms. These are not seen again in this ending, or anywhere else in the show. It has always struck me as strange that they were designed and used for this one shot only.

There are no counting gags like in the previous few outros, everyone does their part and well. The moves are more or less the same as in previous Ganbalance de Dance renditions, which is to say, kind of silly. The lyrics are somewhat altered once again from the Y5 version, this time dropping any slightly negative causes from the preious version and going into full optimism. Essentially the lyrics say “keep your chin up and dance the ganbalance and everything will be okay!”

Halfway through, the girls all transform into their Cure forms and perform the rest of the dance that way. Real-time transformations are rare so it’s nice to have that here, for the remainder of the show.

While most of the dance moves are the same as ever, they simplify one step, where the characters face their backs to the audience during an instrumental transition. In the Splash Star version, the villains performed this step and were shown twisting one way and then the other. Here though, it’s just stills of the girls and fairies.

There’s some weird and funny scenes that don’t fully make much sense, like Mint and Aqua holding dishes containing bean jelly and lobster, though this is probably a reference to their questionable cooking abilities.

Also, that scene contains a brief shot of Jiya and Otaka, as well as two Cinq Lumiere students. I initially thought they were Kudou Mayu and Miyamoto Kanako, who got guest appearances in the show once last season, but they aren’t. Next I thought they might be student council members, but while the girl with pigtails resembles someone we’ve seen, I can’t find a match for the girl with straight dark har. She actually loosely resembles Honoka from FWPC, but most likely they’re just generic student designs.

Speaking of cameos, Masuko Mika appears in the ending for the first time! She’s trying to snap a picture of Lemonade and the other girls are confused/excited/upset at this.

When played at the 1080p of the blurays, the digital art looks a bit upscaled, while the CG roses used for scene transitions are extremely detailed. It’s a jarring contrast now that I’ve noticed it. Otherwise, the animation and art is good, perhaps not the best it could be, but fine quality for the remainder of the show.

The ending concludes with this nice group shot of everyone mugging the camera, it’s really fun.

The instrumentation in this one is a lot of light brass, strings, a piano, a rhythm guitar, and a drum kit. There’s a small saxophone solo in the full version. The flow is smooth and upbeat, and it feels more full than the previous versions of the song. The presence of four singers also helps this sensation. There are usually at least two people singing at the same time, with the others on backing vocals. Sometimes they’re all four singing the melody, and sometimes it’s just Miyamoto. However, I think it’s my least favorite at the same time. I liked the tune because of its simplicity, and making it a big composition takes away from that in my personal opinion.

Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! Opening: “Precure 5, Full Throttle GO GO!” by Kudou Mayu

Similar to its predecessor, this is an action song, but it’s a bit more whimsical and fantastical than the Yes 5 theme. It’s not lighter, but it evokes a different mood. As @sailorzombiestar​ described it, it screams “WE’RE BACK!” The instrumental composition is an electric guitar, violins, bass, a drum kit, piano, and brass. The full version of the song has some short one or two measure solos by each of the voice actresses for the main 5 and some instruments, like a trumpet and a guitar solo. The lyrics talk about the power of working together and how you can overcome any problem if you believe in yourself. The chorus says “I’m waiting for everyone’s help, so let’s move forward and shout together that we’re Precure 5 and our feelings are one!” which is nice and inspiring. 

The visuals are overall better than in the first series intro. There’s more unique and animated footage and less reused art from the series. While the Yes 5 intro had a build up to the title drop in the song, and therefore displaying the name of the show, in this one they sing and show it right away while the five main girls fade in from silhouettes in the background. After that, they do an interesting thing where they have all of the characters run past the camera, while the Precures are naturally first, Dream comes at the very end after Syrup, Coco, Nuts, Milk, and Kurumi/Milky Rose have been shown in order to transition to the next sequence. There’s not as much to show off each girl’s personality like there was in the Y5 intro, so they really are assuming you watched the last show. Following this, there’s some nice visual exposition by showing Flora crying, and in one of her tears is the Rose Pact. Later, there’s a scene of the cures raiding Eternal Headquarters, and a mysterious hooded figure representing the boss of Eternal is seen holding four orbs, each of which has the image of one of the four monarchs in it that the girls have to rescue over the course of the series.

Also there’s a really cool sequence where they flash between a bunch of still shots of the Precures appearing in the media, implying their existence is more widely known in this series. The first scene is a shot of Bunbee holding a newspaper, making him the only villain from this series to appear in the intro (the hooded figure above does not count). Another shot is from the journalism club, with the very strong implication that it’s Mika writing a piece on the cures, so it’s nice that she made it into the intro.

I don’t like it quite as much as the first series opening, but it’s another fun song and it’ll be good to experience for the next few months while I dig through this series.

Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! Ending 1: “Holding Hands Also Links our Hearts!!” by Kanako Miyamoto

Following in the grand tradition of Precure ending themes, this is another nonsense song. The lyrics are about holding hands to transmit energy and positivity and make each other laugh. The visuals align closely with this, and sometimes the girls lip-sync with what’s being said. They’re pretty much always acting out what’s being said. There’s some fun sight gags, like Karen coming in early on the first count-up (she’s supposed to be 5 but she comes in on 4 and both Urara and Komachi turn to look at her.) There’s a lot of floating heads in bubbles, and other times there’s a thick, colorful border surrounding the characters as they stand in front of generic backgrounds.

I caught a couple moments of particular closeness between Karen and Kurumi, as if the staff are really leaning into that pairing.

Instrumentally, it’s very heavy on the drum kit and electric guitar, with prominent brass cutting in again. There’s also a rubber piano providing harmony in the quiet parts. Other percussion like maracas can be heard at various points. At one point in the full version, there’s even a saxophone solo! The style is a very feel-good pop with lots of audience interaction.

It’s a catchy song, but I find it distinctly, maybe purposefully, non-memorable. Some Precure songs stick with me (Wonder Winter Yatta and H@ppy Together come to mind) while others are instantly forgotten when the show is over. It’s not a condemnation of the song or the work that went into it, but it doesn’t stick with me for very long at all. That being said, I think I prefer it over GoGo’s rendition of Ganbalance de Dance.

There are two things I find particularly interesting about the animation in both the opening and ending: first, Kurumi/Milky Rose is included here despite not appearing in the show until episode 11. They probably just didn’t want to re-animate these segments later to include her, lord knows all the Precure shows that have done this only half-ass it. The second thing is that they don’t reveal that Kurumi is actually Milk’s alter ego, which is definitely a big secret and I believe that isn’t properly revealed in the series until episode 14. (sorry for 12 year-old spoilers) They even go as far as to show Milk and Milky Rose together in that splash cards at the end of both songs, despite not showing off Coco, Nuts, and Syrup’s human forms at the same time as their fairy forms.