Spoilers for the Pretty Cure entries up to Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Power of Hope ~PreCure Full Bloom~ (Kibou no Chikara ~Otona Pretty Cure '23~, literally Power of Hope ~Adult Pretty Cure '23~) is an adult-oriented spin-off miniseries in the Pretty Cure series, and the first one in the franchise overall, that focuses on the Cures from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star in their adult years, serving as a continuation to the former season. The series is directed by Takayuki Hamana (of The Prince of Tennis fame) and co-produced by Toei Animation and Studio DEEN (the latter having also worked with Toei on two other animes), with Yoshimi Narita and Naoki Sato returning as the lead writer and composer for this series respectively.
Fourteen years since their last battle, the now de-powered Yes! Cures have moved on with their lives, with Nozomi Yumehara, once a middle school student, now being a teacher at a new school educating the younger and less-experienced students. After recruiting the other Cures in a reunion, they meet Saki Hyuuga and Mai Mishou at a bar and talk a bit about their past life as Pretty Cures. However, it seems like their adventure isn't over yet, as they have to overcome the struggles of being an adult.
The series premiered on October 7, 2023 during the fall 2023 anime season for NHK Educational. Another adult-oriented Pretty Cure spin-off, Maho Girls Pretty Cure! 2, would be slated for a 2024 release note . Crunchyroll also aired the series on their streaming service.
Tropes that apply to PreCure Full Bloom
- Arc Symbol: Clocks, both digital and analog. Fitting the theme of adult difficulties, clocks represent the feeling that time is slipping away, and that there is no way to return to happier times.
- As Long as There Is Evil: As Bell warns and it's shown in The Stinger, Shadows may still pop up if the city continues to have Apathetic Citizens.
- Back for the Finale: Cure Black, Cure White, and Shiny Luminous assist the other two teams in the finale.
- Big Bad: Bell, who believes stopping time is futile and amplifies peoples' negative emotions to summon monsters called Shadows from them.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- In Episode 4, Saki and Mai are swarmed by Shadows and, before they are taken out, are rescued by Syrup in his bird mode, Nozomi and Kurumi riding with him.
- In Episode 11, Cure Black and Cure White come in to support the other two teams, with Hikari coming in the following episode.
- Breaking Old Trends: This series marks a first for the franchise...
- It's the first spin-off in the franchise, taking place in the same universe but not being connected to the main series, including the currently airing one. It's also going to be a miniseries, breaking the trend of previous seasons that were 52 or less episodes long.
- While previous installments did deal with mature themes, its primary demographic was still young girls. By contrast, PreCure Full Bloom is aimed explicitly at adults who grew up with the franchise when they were little.
- While Time Skips in the series are nothing new, they usually happen at the end of each team's season (and more often than not it gets reverted in crossovers). Here, the characters start off the series as adults with established jobs.
- This is the first season where any romance elements are not limited to casual subtext, and tropes like Frothy Mugs of Water are averted entirely, with the Cures visibly getting drunk on screen, with Kurumi having a very visible ruddy face in one clip.
- Whereas previous installments aired on TV Asahi, this is the first series to air on NHK Educational instead, and would be broadcast in the evening instead of in the morning or afternoon.
- This is the only season where the Big Bad has an active role in the battles, instead of their generals fighting for them.
- Brought Down to Normal: The series starts with both the Yes! and Splash Star girls without their transformation devices. Rin muses that it might be because they are adults, though we know certain characters have proven this is not the case. Episode 2 suggests that the crushing reality of the world around them might have caused them to lose their powers. It’s when Nozomi reaffirms her dream to be a teacher that she regains her powers.
- The Bus Came Back:
- PreCure Full Bloom brings back the Yes! Cures as the main focus after the conclusion of GoGo! in 2009 and being regulated to side characters or cameos in the All Star movies.
- Saki and Mai also make a return after the conclusion of their season, with the two only making a few cameos in the crossover movies.
- Bunbee, the only surviving villain from the Yes duology, makes his return as well and it seems he's finally gotten it in his head and has pulled a genuine Heel–Face Turn.
- And if the return of Splash Star wasn't enough, Episode 8 marks the return of Sanae Yukishiro, Honoka's grandmother from the original Futari wa Pretty Cure after a whopping 18 years since the end of Max Heart!
- Then in Episode 10, Nagisa and Honoka make a brief cameo, only to outright return in the following episode, with Hikari appearing to assist them in defeating Bell outright.
- Call-Back: When Bunbee manages to escape the Shadows and land on Syrup, he says the same thing he told the Pretty Cure when they met him again in GoGo.Bunbee: I thought I was going to die. But then I remembered I could fly.
- The Cameo: In Episode 10, as Sanae looks up at the sky, she hears a voice commenting on its color, prompting her to turn around and say that she hasn't "seen the two of them in a while". The audience doesn't see their faces but it's clear that Sanae is talking to Nagisa and Honoka, who reveal themselves fully at the end of the next episode.
- Can't Hold His Liquor:
- Rin is one of these in episode 2, devolving into Inelegant Blubbering.
- Kurumi drinks down several apple brandy mixers, and ends up
drunkenly flirting with Karen.
- Continuity Nod:
- When Nozomi and Rin discuss how their henshin devices seemingly disappeared, something made explicit in recent seasons, they correctly identify it as the CureMo instead of the Pinky Catch.
- Kurumi explains away how Nozomi can even be back on Earth after the end of GoGo, when she explains she's the current caretaker of the Flower Garden, with Coco, Nutts and Syrup working there most of the time.
- Kurumi's love of a particular apple brandy mixer is due to the apple that Karen fed her when she got sick once.
- Syrup has Urara's Image Song from Yes! 5 "Extraordinary! Door of Courage" on his smartphone.
- Cast from Lifespan: At the end of episode 9, Nozomi suddenly faints from apparent exhaustion. The following episode reveals that according to Syrup's research on the Time Flowers, the Precures de-aging shortly before transforming is a temporal phenomena enabled by the the flowers, while at the same time causing them to wilt, which will eventually spell doom for the Precures. Nozomi, having transformed the most up until that point, was the first to suffer from the Time Flower's ill effects. The Precures interpret Syrup's explanation as this, and episode 11 seems to confirm this as Cure Dream clutches her chest in pain while fighting Bell. Thankfully, Nozomi survived after the final battle, though she does wind up in a coma for a while.
- Combined Energy Attack: Dark Night Light's streamers, Michiru and Kaoru, broadcast the Final Battle and call out the Apathetic Citizens, after which they provide energy of hope to the final attack, Butterfly Effect Shining Dream.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Most Big Bads of previous Cure shows are leaders of an organization where the generals often do their dirty work up until the finale. Bell works alone, being the first Cure main antagonist to be a villain not from an evil organization. Unlike Desparaiah and the Director from Yes! and its sequel GoGo!, Bell is largely unknown to the Yes! Cure team, whom they have no idea about her existence (initially).
- Couch Gag: The Title Card for each episode has a different picture shown, usually featuring the Cure(s) who are the focus of the episode.
- Darker and Edgier: Thematically, PreCure Full Bloom presents a pretty blunt look at adult life and adult problems Precure heroines didn't have to consider as youths — unfulfilled dreams, divorce, alcoholism, financial problems, climate change, and the general encroaching despair that comes with being old enough to see innumerable problems while lacking either the responsibility or plain old ability to fix any of them, with the antagonist effectively taking away the 'wasted' time of various people for some sinister purpose...
- 11th-Hour Ranger: In the final battle, Cure Black, White, and Luminous return to help. As do the original Eleventh-Hour Rangers, Michiru and Kaoru, running support with Bunbee in the city.
- Evolving Credits: Episode 4 updates the final shot in the opening to include Saki and Mai.
- Fountain of Youth: The main cast gets aged down whenever they transform into Precures, complete with their old middle school uniforms.
- Good Costume Switch: Bell switches her color scheme to white like she was originally, after letting go of her hatred.
- Green Aesop: In the beginning of the series Nozomi gives a lecture about the dangers of climate change and global warning, and that people should take better care of their enviroment. This turns out to be Foreshadowing of Big Bad's true motives. In the epilogue Nagisa and Honoka went to research the damages to the Amazon forest and the Arctic ice repsetively.
- Growing Up Sucks: Both Nozomi and Rin are finding their chosen careers as an adult are rife with pitfalls and impossible goals, with Nozomi trying desperately to help a dancing prodigy in her class and Rin trying to sell her designs for jewelry, and Kurumi is bemoaning her work colleagues while nursing a drink when they meet her at Nozomi's favourite sushi restaurant, with it being revealed her boss is condescending towards her, and she's having problems with the human corporate mindset.
- Growing with the Audience: This show is a sequel to Yes! Pretty Cure 5 featuring the once preteen protagonists of that show (and of its immediate predecessor Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star) as adults, releasing 15 years after the current adult audience watched the original shows as kids.
- Happily Married: The series ends with Nozomi and Coco admitting their feelings and ultimately getting married.
- Heel Realization: When Bell reveals herself to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Nozomi asks why is she then attacking people she's supposed to be protecting, which makes Bell hesitate. Her Giant Mook attacking buildings indiscriminately further makes her reconsider what's she's doing.
- Humans Are Bastards: Part of Bell’s reasoning for attacking people is this, that humans are inherently selfish and self-destructive. Even Michiru and Kaoru believe that the town should be destroyed if it means getting them to see the error of their ways. Nozomi, on the other hand, is of the opinion that Humans Are Flawed and thanks Bell for the future she's shown her (much to Bell's confusion), interpreting it as a wake-up call rather than an immutable outcome.
- Internal Deconstruction: The major hurdle the grown up Cures have to deal with is that their dreams have come true, but they have not turned out the way they wanted it to be, a far cry from previous Time Skip moments:
- Nozomi did become a teacher, yes, but she can’t help her students outside her classroom as much as she wants to.
- Rin sells jewelry with football as a hobby, but her little job hasn’t worked out as it doesn’t sell as much as she hoped. And now that she's around 30, she can't keep up as well on the football field, either.
- Urara has taken to voice acting but she’s stuck with an overbearing director whose demands lead to her being unable to get into character. This has caused her to become something of a drinker to cope, along with losing her Big Eater tendencies.
- Komachi has written her award-winning novel, but is now stuck in a terrible writing block rut, to the point where she refuses to acknowledge her last achievements and has fallen into depression.
- Karen is a doctor and can heal bodies, but like Nozomi, she can’t heal the problems that come as a consequence to those injuries, like the loss of a job or a ruined dream.
- Kurumi is a part-time secretary stuck in a thankless job with a boss that forces her to work overtime with no extra pay and sometimes requires some esoteric tasks from the secretarial pool.
- Kid Hero All Grown-Up: As shown in the page image, the Cures from Yes! 5 and Splash Star are now young adults instead of the pre-teens they were at the start and end of their seasons. Their attire and hairstyle has also changed:
- Nozomi wears a light pink business suit. Her Girlish Pigtails she had on in middle school is eschewed in favor of letting her hair down. She also now works as a Cool Teacher.
- Rin's Boyish Short Hair has grown a bit, and wears a beige collared shirt with brown overalls. She's now trying to sell jewelry while also playing football as a hobby.
- Urara's pigtails are also discarded in favor of long hair; she also wears a pair of red eyeglasses, a yellow jacket, a light yellow undershirt, light brown knee-length pants, and yellow sneakers. She has also gone into acting.
- Komachi now has a tail sticking around her short hair. Her outfit consists of a light green jacket with a green undershirt, beige pants, and orange v-cut shoes. She's also working as a novelist.
- Karen wears a navy blue jacket, a light blue undershirt, a long, light beige skirt, and belt tied between the two, and has become a doctor.
- Kurumi wears a business suit like Nozomi's, albeit a dark purple one without the buttoned shirt and having a skirt instead of a pair of pants, and has become an part-time secretary, her other job being the caretaker of the Precure Flower Garden.
- Saki wears a yellow buttoned collared shirt, a necklace, a blue skirt that reaches down to her ankles, and light yellow sandals. She's also shown wearing a ring in the first trailer, implying she got married after the events of her home series, and still works at her family's bakery.
- Mai wears an outfit similar to Saki, but has a pale pink sweater worn over her shirt (which is colored white) while her skirt is instead turquoise.
- Mean Boss: Episode 2 reveals that Kurumi works for one in the form of her supervisor in her new company, who forces her to work overtime with no extra pay.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In episode 11, Bell sics a Kaiju-sized Shadow on the Precures, then invokes this trope when she witnesses it destroying the very town she sought to protect as collateral damage trying to fight the Precures.
- Mook Horror Show: When Cure Dream is fighting the shadow monsters in Episode 2, there are a few monster POV shots of Dream's rampage, complete with her face being shrouded in darkness and sporting Red Eyes.
- Older Alter Ego: Inverted. While the main cast can get their Cure powers back, it looks to turn them into their younger selves.
- Shout-Out: When Cure Lemonade and Syrup battle Bell's monsters in Episode 7, the art style is reminiscent of the style used by Mamoru Hosoda for the internet and OZ from Digimon: The Movie and Summer Wars respectively.
- Something Only They Would Say:
- In episode 1, Nozomi blurts out a "Metamorphose!" while reminiscing about her time as a Pretty Cure in the middle of a plaza, much to Rin's embarrassment. Urara, Komachi and Karen arrive on the scene almost immediately, figuring out that the noise was coming from Nozomi before even seeing her due to shouting their old transformation catchphrase.
- At the end of Episode 3, Saki and Mai realise that they're within earshot of the Yes Pretty Cures when they notice them mention the words 'henshin' and 'Pretty Cure' in casual conversation.
- 10-Minute Retirement: Coco asks the Cures to stop transforming because of the effects of the Time Flowers, for the Cures to decide to do so... after they deal with Bell, and avert the catastrophe the Time Flowers are predicting.
- There Are No Coincidences: Kurumi calls this trope out specifically when all of them meet at the same time at the same location.
- The Magic Goes Away: Potentially. When asked about her transformation device, Nozomi admits that while she did put it somewhere safe, it has completely disappeared from that location.
- The Magic Comes Back: ...However, a set of buds are found in the Precure Flower Garden, which flower when the Cures rediscover their past hopes and dreams, restoring their powers. However, Nuts did find out that the Time Flowers may not be as beneficial as they seem, and in Episode 8 Nozomi suddenly faints for a bit, hinting that the Time Flowers providing the Yes 5 team their powers may cost them later.
- Power at a Price: Oh boy... When a former Precure regains her powers, a Time Flower blooms to signify this which explains why the Cures first age down to when they first became Precures before transforming. Natts unfortunately finds out that the Time Flowers brought back their powers in exchange for sapping their lifeforce; the "hands" on the flower countdown to its wilting and therefore the death of its associated Cure.
- Retraux Flashback: Each Transformation Sequence and Stock Footage attack is lifted from their original series. When Futari wa Pretty Cure team transforms, the jump in image quality really gives away its year.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Bell comes from a Bad Future where the town is destroyed by humanity abandoning the town... and then effectively causes the town's abandonment by creating a mysterious fainting disease with no known cure.
- Sequel Series: To Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and its own sequel series GoGo!, continuing the team's story as they enter adulthood.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Coco sees his relationship with Nozomi as this, as he's the king of the Palmer Kingdom and she's a teacher living on Earth and he feels they don't deserve to be together.
- The Stinger: Episode 12 ends on a high note with the town now aware of various environmental issues, but then cuts to a bunch of drunks throwing away an empty can of beer willy-nilly and it's covered in shadows before being knocked away...
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite being spelled out that Nozomi has been relying on Power at a Price too much, she reassures others that she'll just wing it and every other Cure agrees that optimism has always prevailed. Nozomi has a heart attack mid-combat and needs to be saved by previously not present Cures.
- Take This Job and Shove It: In the final episode, Kurumi finally gets the strength to quit her job. When her manager snidely asks what she’ll do with her life, she declares she’s going to be the Prime Minister of the Palmer Kingdom and leaves without explaining, leaving him confused.
- Time Skip: PreCure Full Bloom takes place nearly a decade after the conclusions of Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star, showcasing the heroines from both series as grown women with jobs and careers.
- The Unreveal: Despite the Max Heart team showing up in the last 2 episodes in the flesh, the audience unfortunately doesn't get to see what they look like as adults note , as they don't show up for the reunion party in Episode 12. Apparently Nagisa's in the Amazon Forest while Honoka's in the Arctic, presumably for environmentalism works.
- Wham Line: Examples can be found here.
- Wham Shot:
- Episode 2: Right after one of the Time Flowers in the Cure Rose Garden bloom, a very familiar pink butterfly appears in front of Nozomi.
- In Episode 8, as Komachi, Nozomi and Coco leave Sanae's house, the nameplate on the estate zooms in to reveal that the Sanae-san they've been talking to is none other than Sanae Yukishiro from the first ever Pretty Cure series.
- Episode 9: Right as Nozomi is mobilizing the group to go to where Bell is, she suddenly faints while cutting to a Time Flower that has lost a petal.
- Episode 10: In the lead up to the Final Battle, Sanae is sitting in her house, only to be joined by two people... Nagisa and Honoka...
- What the Hell, Hero?: Kurumi reams out Coco for his decision to step aside and let Nozomi live her life without him, mostly because he did so without even telling her, leaving her confused and hurt as to why he abandoned her.
- Where It All Began: Nozomi and Coco's reunion is in the same alleyway where they met for the first time.
