Flowering Heart is a 2016 Korean Magical Girl series produced by DR Movie and Busan DRnote , with production assistance by Bridge and Sunrise. It's a cross between the Cute Witch and Magical Girl Warrior types, as the girls often use magic to solve real-life problems—and stop the Queen of Despair, Cannabis, from filling people's hearts with despair.
Jin Ari, the main character, is a cheerful 12 year old girl that loves art, fashion, beauty and making people happy. With her friends Sunwoo Min, a tomboy, and U Suha, a proper lady, they help people out of their despair by using magical powers to become adults.
Other characters include Chess, a transformed hamster whose real form is human; Trump, the president (not that one) of Ari's school who's influenced into evil by his cat; and the mysterious Syuel, an aloof beauty who wants Cannabis's respect.
Season 1 is currently available to watch on Netflix with Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and English dub audio.
This series contains examples of:
- Animesque: You could easily assume it's an anime at first glance (especially with the animation), but this show technically isn't due to the fact that it's mostly made outside of Japan (South Korea), though a few episodes, as well as the show's compositing and post-production, were done in Japan and the lead animation house, DR Movie, works regularly on anime titles.
- Big Bad: Cannabis, the Queen of Despair who's behind all of the problems the girls face and wants to fill humanity with despair.
- Cats Are Mean: Mao the cat influences Trump into evil.
- Company Cross References: The series features four references to fellow Iconix Entertainment shows Pororo the Little Penguin and Tayo the Little Bus.
- Loopy's head is featured on the sign of the Problem Solving Club.
- In episode 2, Gichan Na draws Pororo and Tayo on his notebook.
- In episode 17, Ari wears a Loopy bag and reads a Pororo book to Min's sisters.
- Dark Magical Girl: Syuel, Suha as well after the second season.
- Evil Stepmother: Cannabis is Chess' stepmother; she banished him from the magical world when he refused to follow her orders.
- Flower Motif: Every girl has their own flower. Ari's is an azalea (greetings of love), Min's is a dandelion (happiness/gratitude), Suha's is a forget-me-not (true love/fidelity), and Syuel's is a snow beauty (nobility).
- Older Alter Ego: The girls' magical girl forms are adult women.
- Pink Means Feminine: While all the girls are girly to some degree, Ari is the only one explicitly interested in feminine things, and her hair and outfits are pink.
- Proper Lady: Suha is delicate, kind, smart and very feminine.
- Spoiler Opening: Both
openings are heavy on spoilers, particularly Syuel joining the girls. - Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Min, who loves sports and other activities but uses eyeshadow and blush to transform.
