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Cure Black and Cure White: We are Pretty Cure!
Cure White/Honoka Yukishiro: Servants of the Dark Power…
Cure Black/Nagisa Misumi: Return to the darkness from which you came!

Futari wa Pretty Cure ("The Two of Us Are Pretty Cure"), shortened to just Pretty Cure and nicknamed PreCure, is an Anime First Magical Girl show done with a modern, self-aware approach to an old genre, as well as the first series in what would become the Pretty Cure franchise.

Nagisa Misumi and Honoka Yukishiro are two eighth-grade girls who normally would have never become anything more than passing acquaintances. Nagisa is an energetic jock and ace of the lacrosse team, loved by all the girls but secretly wishing for a male admirer straight from a romance novel. Honoka is the star pupil and class president, incredibly popular with all the guys but not too fussed about acting upon it.

That was until the day Nagisa made a wish on a shooting star and (violently) came into contact with Mepple, a fairy on the run from the sinister agents of the Dusk Zone. Fleeing from the Dusk Zone's monsters, Nagisa runs into Honoka, who happens to have Mepple's partner (and lover) Mipple. To defend themselves, Nagisa and Honoka use the fairies' power to transform together into Cure Black and Cure White: the Emissaries Of Light, Pretty Cure.

After an initial awkward phase with involuntary catchphrases and their new Super-Strength, Nagisa and Honoka learn about the seven Prism Stones that protect the Garden of Light, Mepple and Mipple's homeworld. Dusk Zone has already captured five of the Prism Stones, and seek to consume both the Garden of Light and Earth once they have all seven. Mepple and Mipple have the remaining two, but need all seven to repair the damage done to the Garden of Light. Thus, the stage is set for the conflict between Pretty Cure and Dusk Zone.

Pretty Cure was aimed at both young girls and young male adults, and the amount of Postmodernism awareness of the Magical Girl genre and Parental Bonuses shows it. Nagisa in particular is flabbergasted by the silly clichés of the genre, reciting a prolonged post-transformation catchphrase and then blurting out, "Wait, what am I saying?!"

Pretty Cure bucks the formula in other ways. The girls are very physical when fighting: leaping, punching and kicking their foes and reserving magical attacks for the final blow. Both girls possess super-strength and agility, making them far more formidable in hand-to-hand combat than the usual magical girl. It's worth noting at this point that the director of Pretty Cure was Daisuke Nishio, whose resume also includes Dragon Ball Z.

All their magical abilities come from teamwork: they have no solo attacks and cannot even transform into their Pretty Cure forms unless they do so in unison. The show focuses heavily on the developing friendship between Nagisa and Honoka, even throwing in some blatant yuri subtext for the older audience. From an animation standpoint, the show seemed to have an aversion to Stock Footage: if Nagisa and Honoka were in different clothes when they transformed, a new transformation sequence would be animated. All of this makes for one of the more unique Magical Girl shows to come along in a long time.

The show proved so popular that a direct sequel, Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart, followed immediately afterwards. Following the finale of Futari wa, the Queen of Light is forced to shatter her own essence and scatter the pieces to Earth. Nagisa and Honoka are recruited once more by the Garden of Light, given upgraded powers and tasked with finding the twelve "Heartiels" that make up the Queen's heart. Aiding them is a Mysterious Waif called Hikari who transforms into Third Ranger Shiny Luminous, and avoids the usual problem with new members by acting as more of a Support Party Member to Black and White. Opposing them are the remnants of the Dusk Zone, who are seeking a way to revive the Dark King.

In 2006, after the ending of Max Heart, the series received a new installment in the form of Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star, which starred expies of Nagisa and Honoka named Saki and Mai, who became Cures in their own right.

4Kids Entertainment originally had the US license (in the same package deal rumored to also give them One Piece and Magical DoReMi), but they dropped the license before they did anything with it for unknown reasons (possibly due to the failures of DoReMi and Mew Mew Power). YTV then signed a deal with Toei to air the show in Canada in 2009 where the English dub (produced by Toei/YTV and Ocean Studios) debuted. Additionally, it has aired in this form in Australia and New Zealand on Cartoon Network; and in the UK on PopGirl. And if you live in America, you can legally watch the subtitled version from Toei right here, right now.

The original duo would later make their return in HuGtto! Pretty Cure as guest characters to celebrate the franchise's 15th anniversary as well as to promote the the All-Stars Memories Crossover movie.

Compare to My-HiME and its successor, My-Otome.


Futari wa Pretty Cure provides examples of:

  • Action Girl: Cure Black and Cure White regularly kick monster butt on a weekly basis.
  • Adapted Out: The manga leaves out many parts of the anime, focussing only in the most important parts. For example, Gekidrago's arc is outright skipped, only stating that he was defeated.
  • All Your Colors Combined: A mixed example. The Marble Screw plays it straight as can be. But some of the later attacks (namely Rainbow Storm and Rainbow Healing) somehow make rainbows out of adding black and white.
  • Alternate Continuity: The Pretty Cure universe started with this series, but aside from the All Stars movies they take place in different continuities.
  • Alternate Reality Game: Garden of Dreams, which even spawned a comic (Somewhat Cure).
  • Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The English opening is different from the Japanese version, although the dub does use some of the original songs.
  • Ambiguous Situation: The Italian dub of episode 28 of Max Heart has a couple. Whenever a reason for both happened off-screen or it was just a blunder is not known.
    • When Lulun appears, both Nagisa and Honoka are shown to know who she is despite the fact that she never appeared once before. In the original version, in fact, both girls have no idea who Lulun was.
    • Another comes from Honoka, who call Circulus by name despite the fact that no enemy introduced themselves to the Cures and the only one who they actually know the name of (with an actual explanation for it at that point) is Baldez. In the original, Honoka never call Circulus by name.
  • Androcles' Lion: In episode 6 of the first season, a bear cub rescued by Nagisa stands between the girls and its demon-possessed mother long enough for them to figure out a plan.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: Kiriya to Honoka, after she gets angry at him for having rejected a girl. Honoka can only apologize after realazing he's right.
    Kiriya: Weren't you the one who said to think about other people's feelings!? So, do you understand my feelings?! What are my feelings!?
  • Balance Between Good and Evil: As always, this trope is used to, basically, ensure that no matter what the heroines do, the evil (namely, the Evil King) is guaranteed to return to wreak more havoc.
  • Barehanded Blade Block: Honoka at one point appears to do this to a Zakenna's gigantic sword... but there was also a tree holding it in place.
  • Because Destiny Says So: Honoka and Nagisa are fated to become Magical Girls, according to their mascots.
  • Big Bad: The Dark King is the ruler of the Dusk Zone, and all the villains do their evil deeds for him.
  • Big Eater: Nagisa can scarf down lots of food in little time, sometimes taking Honoka's when she doesn't want it.
  • Big Fancy House: Honoka's home is a traditional Japanese dwelling with a garden and walled yard, but is also located in the middle of a city; upon just seeing the gate Nagisa realizes that she's way out of her economic stratum.
  • Big Guy, Little Guy: The Butler Zakenna have this dynamic. The big one is an idiot who often makes more of a mess than what he cleans while the little one tries to keep him and Hikaru under control.
  • Bittersweet Ending: At the end of the first season, the Dark King is defeated, but Mepple, Mipple, and Porun fall into an eternal sleep in order to stay with the girls, to their dismay. It gets reversed at the beginning of Max Heart.
  • Brand X: Honoka has applied "PRE-Q BAN" brand adhesive bandages to at least two different people's minor wounds.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Black and White always call out their special attacks in the Stock Footage before using them. Shiny Luminous follows in their footsteps with her attacks. From the fact it is shown by the Pretty Cure series that their In the Name of the Moon speeches are very clearly involuntary, it is implied that same applies to them calling out their special finisher moves.
  • The Cameo: Saki Shimizu from Berryz Kobo and Mari Yaguchi make a brief cameo in the second movie, but this might have been because Berryz Kobo did the film's ending theme and Yaguchi's song appears as a b-side on the single.
  • Caught Up in a Robbery: On Honoka's birthday in episode 10, she and her family are at a jewelry store that gets attacked by robbers. Honoka foils the robbery by lecturing the robbers into repenting and they end up turning themselves in when the police arrive.
  • Character Catchphrase: Nagisa is fond of shouting "I can't believe this!" (Arienai!) It's even in the theme song. You can even make a Drinking Game out of it too.
  • Chekhov's Gun: In episode 8, it is revealed that one of the things that Nagisa wrote in her Precure diary is about her smelly socks. This would become vital on episode 20 as when Nagisa was confronted with two Honoka's in the train, the real Honoka was able to state said fact, something that the other Honoka (Poisony is disguise) had no idea about it since the diary can only be read by Nagisa and/or Honoka.
  • Clark Kenting: Subverted for the most part. Nagisa and Honoka have minimal physical changes, and the bad guys regularly attack them in civilian form. They don't fight in the open either, so they don't have to worry about being seen by civilians. Still, they aren't recognized the few times they are seen in Cure form, so it still applies to them occasionally.
  • Converging-Stream Weapon: The "Pretty Cure Marble Screw" attack has Black's Black Thunder and White's White Thunder converging into a spiral-like stream mixing both as they rocket towards the target of the episode.
  • Cover Identity Anomaly: When disguising as Honoka in episode 20, Poisony mixes up Mepple and Mipple's name, something which tipped off Nagisa into believing that this Honoka isn't the real one.
  • Cross-Cast Role: Done twice by Nagisa and once by Honoka, each for a school play.
  • Crossdresser: Nagisa dresses as a boy in at least two episodes.
  • Cross-Popping Veins: Nagisa sometimes gets these when she's angry, which isn't a rare occurrence.
  • Cue the Rain: In episode 21, the weather shifted from sunny weather to heavy rain when Kiriya revealed to Honoka that he's part of the Dusk Zone.
  • Cultural Translation: Notably with takoyaki becoming doughnuts...covered in "cheese" and herbs.
  • Dancing Theme: The ending theme.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Dark King loses three times to the girls.
  • Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: For some reason the Verone Choir Club chooses the ending song to sing in a choir competition in episode 45.
  • Down to the Last Play: Each season has about 3-4 Lacrosse matches, all of which are won by Nagisa at the last second. Except one match, which was won by Shiho at the last second.
  • Do Wrong, Right: Episode 11 has an instance where Nagisa's dad catches her using a grappling move on her brother. Instead of scolding her for tormenting her Annoying Younger Sibling, he corrects her technique and goes on his way.
  • The Dragon: Ilkbo is the Dark King's second-in-command in the first arc.
  • Dramatic High Perching: The villains tend to take a high perch when they make their entrance and summon a Zakenna.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The Italian dub has Nagisa's name pronounced as "Na-gee-sa" instead of "Nag-he-sa".
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Kenta Hoshino makes a brief cameo during one episode of Max Heart.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The earlier episodes have the two demonstrating abilities like producing a barrier and the Rainbow Therapy that they never use again in the later episodes.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Despite initially having no chance against Baldez and Hikari temporarily sacrificing her existence to use the Queen's full power, Max Heart ends with the world being restored to normal, Mepple and Mipple choosing to stay, and Hikari being resurrected, much to Nagisa and Honoka's happiness.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: The Dusk Zone plans to annihilate Earth, and the heroes frequently get a glimpse of the ruins of what their world would be like if the Dusk Zone won.
  • Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: The main duo, Nagisa and Honoka, fit the bill. Nagisa is an energetic jock, while Honoka is a more thoughtful and introspective scientist.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: When she was pissed in episode 42, Cure Black's Battle Aura was the bolt in the differential necessary to destroy an entire subway car, making this one Every Subway Car Is A Pinto.
  • Evil Counterpart: In one episode, two of the heroines' classmates- who loved Pretty Cure so much that they were cosplaying as them and putting on amateur stage shows for little kids- were Brainwashed to become evil counterparts. However, far from being equals their Brainwashed state made them sluggish and gave them no other superpowers save for Super-Strength. The main obstacle came from Black and White trying not to accidentally cripple them.
  • Evolving Credits: The ending changes partway through to showcase the new Quirky Miniboss Squad and Pollun.
  • Evolving Music: The opening theme of MaX Heart is a remix of the original theme.
  • Expy: Their Alternate Continuity successors are expies of them, and they themselves are expies of the Dirty Pair.
  • Face Doodling: In episode 16, this is how Cure Black solves the problem of telling a brainwashed classmate apart from the Zakennas that have taken on said classmate's appearance.
  • Fighting Your Friend: The second movie has this happening between Cure Black and Cure White. It only took some Brainwashed and Crazy magic to make it happen.
  • Foil:
  • Frills of Justice:
    • Cure Black her short top caused quite a stir amoung Moral Guardians as a result it is covered up in Season 2. She is the only one in the entire 8 seasons to not get hair decs.
      • In the first movie her outfit gets a golden color, and her earrings and other small hearts on her clothes become diamonds.
      • In the second movie Her outfit takes on a Feather Motif. In Pretty Cure All Stars DX 2 her Cure Rainbow Black form resembles this but without the Feather Motif.
    • Cure White She only gets a minor Frilly Upgrade for season 2 same golden upgrade for movie 1 and movie 2 upgrade Cure Rainbow White in Pretty Cure All Stars DX 2 uses the same outfit but with Wings
    • Shiny Luminous[1] Her outfits follow the same upgrade line as Cure White.
  • Frilly Upgrade: Just look at their outfits in the first season, then their outfits at Max Heart.
  • Fun with Subtitles: In episode 21, Nagisa warns Mipple and Mepple for their carelessness with showing their real forms. Problem is, she's holding a bag of chips on her mouth, so Mipple can't understand her as her speech was too grumbled (Mepple was able to understand it just fine though). Arienai Fansub's release of the episode deliberately grumbled Nagisa's lines to mimic the effect of speaking while having something in your mouth.
  • Golden Super Mode: The Golden Power from the first movie comes with gold clothes and diamond jewelry.
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: Well, before they start raining hell on their opponents.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: Used differently than in most series as Pretty Cure makes no real effort to collect the Heartiels near the end of the series it's revealed they never intended to revive The Queen and are in fact offended by the idea that they would be willing to sacrifice anyone.
  • Gratuitous English: The Cure's names, transformation phrases, and attacks are all in English.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Done twice, first by Kiriya and later, in part, by King Haaku, whose life makes the turn and splits from him.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Nagisa and Honoka.
  • Human Shield: Pissard does this in episode 5 with the petrified museum goers. Forcing the Cures to hold back or risk causing Literally Shattered Lives.
  • Idiot Ball: A large portion of the conflict in the third act of the first movie is because of a few characters being oddly stupid in the second act. Despite knowing that the most likely time for the witch to attack the Kingdom of Hope and steal the Diamond Line, the ceremony, is mere minutes away and they should logically be on high alert:
    • Several of the Warriors of Hope conclude that the presence of Pretty Cure scared the witch off and she won't be coming, as if the ceremony had already happened or something. They promptly attempt to slack off.
    • Nagisa, offended by Square, decides to not only run out of the room, but across the entire castle, ensuring she is nowhere near Honoka. She even acknowledges that this leaves the Diamond Line much more vulnerable and renders the entire purpose of their being in the Kingdom of Hope pointless... but decides that it would be too awkward to head back immediately.
    • Honoka, Hikari, Mepple, Mipple and Porun also make no effort to bring Nagisa back after she runs off. None of them think to inform anyone else of the fact that they have to be together to transform, either.
    • So, of course, the witch attacks at exactly the time they all thought she would, steals the Diamond Line with little resistance and injures the queen. Way to go, everyone.
  • Ignored Enemy: In episode 8. Nagisa and Honoka are bickering while casually dodging Gekidrago's attacks, and when he demands they stop ignoring him, they shout "Be quiet! We're having a very important conversation here!" and blast him into orbit.
  • Immediate Sequel: MaX Heart picks up where the original left off.
  • In the Name of the Moon: Every time Nagisa and Honoka transform they say the same declarations automatically. The first time they do this, Nagisa responds by asking what the heck she is saying.
    Cure Black: Say what!?
  • Intertwined Fingers: The girls hold hands like this whenever they perform the Marble Screw.
  • Invisible to Normals: Subverted most of the time. Whenever Mipple, Mepple or Pollun decide to pop out because they want to have fun along with Nagisa and Honoka, the girls have to cover up and pretend that they made whatever noise the mascots made.
  • Lampshade Hanging: So much of it going around due to Nagisa that it deserved having it as its own trope.
  • Lonely Rich Kid: Honoka is very wealthy, but also somewhat isolated from her peers due to not being very social, although she does have friends in the Science Club, particularly Yuriko. When she befriends Nagisa, she also gets absorbed into her circle of friends.
  • Love Letter:
    • Nagisa and her female admirers.
    • Nagisa decides to deliver one to her own crush, but eventually doesn't go through with it.
  • Lovely Angels: Look at this picture, now look at this one. Note, jock and brain, note hair colors.
  • Magical Girl Warrior: A lot more action-based than the typical Magical Girl show.
  • Magic Realism: Hints of it; for instance, the art gallery episode
  • Malaproper: Nagisa, especially in the next episode previews where Honoka has to constantly correct her.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: The Pretty Cure Rainbow Bracelets.
  • Mini Dress Of Power: Cure White wears a short dress and is capable of bashing Zakenna or Dark Zone generals.
  • Modesty Shorts: Nagisa wears them both in her lacrosse uniform and as Cure Black.
  • Monster of the Aesop: Any Zakenna featured in an episode is related to the lesson learnt there.
  • Monster of the Week: The Zakennas serve as the first of many monsters summoned by the Dark Zone's generals.
  • Motor Mouth: Shiho, who punctuates her verbal barrages with a stutter-like triple repeat of the occasional word.
  • Never Say "Die": "Returning to the darkness"; Mipple and Mepple assure Honoka that they haven't really killed their enemies, but later on, the villains treat it as punishment and Kiriya once mentions it in a context that sounds like committing honourable suicide. This becomes a plot point later on when Kiriya manages to communicate with the girls through a rift in the darkness.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: Mipple and Mepple are the two cute critters from the Garden of Light who accompany Nagisa and Honoka in stopping the Dusk Zone.
  • Odd Couple: Honoka is a tidy, feminine intellectual from a rich family; Nagisa is a rough-and-tumble middle-class tomboy who isn't good at school.
  • Ojou: Honoka is a lady whose wealth allows her to live in basically a small Japanese mansion and she's also treated like a princess as one who is very knowledgable.
  • Pillar of Light: Their Magical Girl transformation happens inside a rainbow one; as shown in the first episode, it prevents their enemies from interrupting them.
  • Plot Tailored to the Party: Whenever Nagisa and Honoka goes on a trip, they are conveniently together by coincidence and/or by intention.
  • Post-Episode Trailer: The first time in the franchise where the next episode will be teased.
  • The Power of Friendship: Very important in the series, as the Cures' attacks are powered by their friendship.Even when they're arguing/yelling at each other, they can still manage to dodge all the enemy's attacks — in perfect sync — and pull together long enough to defeat it.
  • Professional Butt-Kisser: The vice-principal, whose Establishing Character Moment is to change opinions immediately based on what the principal says. Even the principal calls him out on saying whatever he thinks the principal wants to hear.
  • Pummel Duel: Baldez vs. Cure Black and Cure White throw rapid punches at each other at the same time at their last fight.
  • Reset Button: Not explicit, but there are a few cases, when all damage from immensely destructive battles disappears, and normals don't remember anything afterwards.
  • School Play: With added Les Yay, as the leads portray Romeo and Juliet.
  • Ship Tease: Possibly with the aforementioned School Play episode. There also is some between Nagisa and her crush Fujipi.
  • Shorttank: Nagisa wears a black tank-top sometimes and often has on a pair of minishorts.
  • Shout-Out: Sailor Moon and other Magical Girl references, both straight and satirical.
  • Significant Double Casting: Kenichi Ono plays Jaaku King and Baldez. The Grand Finale reveals that Baldez is the heir of Jaaku King's power. Baldez is Jaaku King.
  • Sixth Ranger: Hikari's a Third Ranger.
  • Slice of Life: When they're not fighting villains, this is basically what most of the episodes consist of.
  • Slow-Motion Pass-By: Nagisa and Honoka in the intro.
  • Snot Bubble: Mepple does this, sometimes with added drool.
  • So Last Season: Zig-zagged. Once the Seeds of Evil show up, Pretty Cure seem to be helpless against them without the Pretty Cure Rainbow Bracelets. However, the regular old Marble Screw still works just fine against Zakenna, and eventually they can win against the Seeds without the bracelets as well.
    • For that matter, the Marble Screw was already pretty much useless against Ilkubo several episodes before the Bracelets were introduced, forcing Pretty Cure to rely on luck and tactics to survive against him.
    • Then when MaX Heart comes along, they use an upgraded version of Marble Screw, but that too is eventually outclassed by Extreme Luminario . . . and then Marble Screw is upgraded again.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Nagisa. In the first season her screentime is roughly equal to that of Honoka's, but in MaX Heart, she gets more episodes than Hikari and Honoka combined. The first Non-Serial Movie has Nagisa doing cool things while Honoka and Hikari are barely more than Living Props. Averted in the second movie, however. Saki and Hibiki are both expies of her and both do this too.
  • Stock Footage: There's the usual stock footage (transformation, attacks), and some surprise ones, like Nagisa's lacrosse goal.
  • Super Cell Reception: Played with. The protective forms that Mipple and Mepple have to take on during their stay on earth resemble girly cellphones, resulting in everyone assuming that Nagisa and Honoka already had cells and didn't need new ones. However, Mipple and Mepple only look like cellphones, and can't be used to communicate.
  • Team Spirit: Many of the episodes put Nagisa and Honoka's teamwork to the test as Pretty Cures.
  • Teen Genius: Honoka, a second-year (later third) is regarded as the "Queen of Knowledge" in school.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: Honoka says something to that effect every single week. If Nagisa is driven to say this, however, whoever drove her to say it is going to pay dearly.
  • Title Drop: Borderline example, and the dub every instance of Pretty Cure being uttered counts since the title is shortened to simply "Pretty Cure". The girls' In the Name of the Moon speech finishes with the exclamation of "Together We are Pretty Cure!", making this a Once an Episode occurrence.
  • Together We Are X:"Futari" means "We", so "Futari wa Pretty Cure" can roughly mean "Together we are Pretty Cure", which was even a lyric of the English opening. This also extends to the follow-up, Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star.
  • Tomboyish Name: "Nagisa" is a girl's name but our hot-blooded Nagisa (aka Cure Black) is tomboyish.
  • Too Dumb to Live: After about the tenth time weird things start happening around them and they don't immediately transform, but instead decide to investigate in their normal unpowered state, you start to wonder what is wrong with them. You have superpowers, girls. If everyone around suddenly gets turned to stone, you should probably USE THEM! Even Mepple starts calling them out on it by midpoint. They don't listen.
    • By the time of HuGtto! Pretty Cure they are finally more sensitive to the disturbances and more willing to use their powers after 15 years. They transformed and Shiny Luminous put up a shield just in time to dodge the time-stopping attack from Dr. Traum so they can teleport in to save the day, when all other teams are frozen in time.
  • Transformation Sequence: Nagisa and Honoka's transformation (the first in the franchise) takes about a minute to complete.
  • Verbal Tic: Employed by the mascots.
    • Mepple constantly says "~mepo" at the end of his sentences.
    • Mipple uses "~mipo".
    • Pollun's tic is "~popo".
    • Lullun ends her lines with "~lulu".
  • Villains Out Shopping: In one episode, Nagisa and Honoka, while discussing the high likelihood of running into villains on a coincidental group family vacation, inexplicably find Poisony having a nap in a wardrobe. She manages to evade them before they can confirm that she was there for real.

Alternative Title(s): Futari Wa Pretty Cure Max Heart

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Cure Black

Cure Black battles a villain with only the heel of her boot.

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