Futari wa Pretty Cure
- Pisard has successfully stolen Honoka's Card Commune, rendering her unable to transform. Nagisa arrives on the scene in the nick of time before he can deal the fatal blow.
You'd Expect: Pisard to turn Nagisa to stone or use his Hypnotic Eyes while he has Honoka on the ropes. Then, he can steal Mepple, too, bringing both mascots to Jaaku King to get the last two Prism Stones. If anyone else in the Dark Five gives him flak, he can take pride in the fact that he was the one to guarantee Jaaku King all seven Prism Stones and coast off that ego boost for the rest of his life.
Instead: Pisard tosses Honoka's Card Commune back to her so he can fight the Cures at full power. His rationale seems to be that defeating them will net him both the Prism Stones and the respect of his cohorts.
As a Result: Nagisa and Honoka overpower Pisard in battle, and he gets disintegrated. - Gekidrago has Nagisa's Card Commune in his hand, like Pisard's example above. Nagisa tells him that Mepple is ill, and that if he gives the Commune back, she can heal Mepple by swiping a card to nurse him back to health.
You'd Expect: Gekidrago to ignore Nagisa. His assignment is to get the Prism Stones back at all costs, so Mepple's illness would make it much easier to take the Stone from him.
Instead: He concludes that he absolutely can't bring Mepple back in his current state and happily drops the Card Commune.
As a Result: The Cures regain the ability to transform and use their special finishers, and Gekidrago gets sent blasting off again. - In the very next episode, Gekidrago has entered a jewelry store that's securely locked down because of a robbery. Honoka is alone, so taking Mipple from her should be a cinch. She tells him that she's hidden the Prism Stone somewhere in the store and will give it to him if he can find it.
You'd Expect: Gekidrago not to trust a word Honoka says and take Mipple, like he was commanded to do. After all, he'd just gotten duped in the last episode, so he should be on his guard.
Instead: He picks through all the jewels in the jewelry store one by one, which buys Honoka enough time to meet back up with Nagisa.
As a Result: Gekidrago suffers another defeat, and Jaaku King warns him that he has no more chances left to redeem himself. - Yuriko's beloved science project, a model Earth, was transformed into a Zakenna. Electricity goes haywire throughout the building from the monster's Shock and Awe powers, and everyone is ordered to evacuate. The Cures remain in the auditorium, ready to defeat it.
You'd Expect: Yuriko to exit the building immediately, and maybe tell an adult that there are still two girls in the building.
Instead: Yuriko runs back onstage and pleads with the Cures not to destroy the science project, as it is her pride and joy.
As a Result: The Zakenna blasts the stage with lightning, and she gets caught in the ensuing explosion. - Seiko Taniguchi has tried to give her crush, Kiriya, a Love Letter, and gotten coldly rejected by the boy. Her friends are rightfully upset at how he handled things.
You'd Expect: That the friends do their best to console Seiko. The pain of rejection is a tough experience for many people their age, but Kiriya clearly isn't interested in a romantic relationship with her, so it is what it is.
Instead: When Kiriya is in earshot, they confront him directly and thrust the letter at him.
As a Result: He angrily tears the letter in half and tells them all to go away. - Mepple has gotten into a petty argument with his girlfriend, Mipple. He and Nagisa talk things over together afterwards, and they agree that he should apologize to her the next day. When the next day comes, Mepple is given the perfect opportunity.
You'd Expect: Mepple to tell Mipple he's sorry for what he said, and that he'll try to make things up to her because he loves her, mepo.
Instead: He snaps at Nagisa that he shouldn't have to apologize because he still feels insulted.
As a Result: Mepple and Mipple resume arguing from where they left off the previous day.
- Love has learned that Setsuna Higashi is really Eas, one of Moebius' agents, and looks depressed about this. Then, Miki and Inori come to cheer her up from this.
You'd Expect: They would encourage her to go to the fortune telling mansion where Eas is and try to find a way to redeem her.
Instead: Miki tried to tell Love that Setsuna is never a friend from the beginning. As a result, Love runs away from her bedroom to show how wrong she is. - Setsuna gets up in the middle of the night and discovers that Love's mother has been replaced by an imposter from Labyrinth.
You'd Expect: Setsuna to immediately wake up Love, tell her that her mom is missing, attack the imposter, get Miki and Inori, and try to find her.
Instead: Waits for the imposter to come to her room before confronting her (with words, mind you, she decides not to transform to prevent any chance of being overpowered by the imposter) and, when their heated discussion wakes up Love, phrases her outing of the imposter in just such a way so that she sounds like she's being an ungrateful asshole. Love gets angry at her, and Setsuna then doesn't do anything until the following morning when she gets Miki and Inori... and still doesn't tell Love, again leaving her alone with the imposter.
- The backstory of the show: Yuri has been fighting the Desert Apostles for quite awhile, but the threat of Dune is looming ever-so-closer. Her fairy partner, Cologne, suggests finding help as they now had two other fairies - Chypre and Coffret - using them to recruit new Cures.
You'd Expect: Yuri to take the advice, realizing three's better than one.
Instead: She decides to keep shouldering her burden and go grab the Heartcatch Mirage to get a hefty power boost, which leads to meeting the Dark Precure, Cologne's death, her depowering and leaving the fate of the Earth in the hands of a shy Innocent Flower Girl, her Jerk with a Heart of Gold Genki Girl best friend and a Bifauxnen with identity issues.
- The English Dub of Episode 16, An Quiz Book Akanbe (Buffoon) is summoned and whoever answers wrongly they get trapped in a big X, The Buffoon asks "Who was the 13th president of the United States?" Cure March (Glitter Spring) says "President Somebody".
You'd Expect: "Glitter Spring, you call that a guess?"
Instead: "April, you call that a guess?" Rule One of the Magical Girl Code is don't say the magical girls' real name morphed.- Later: He gave Cure Happy (Glitter Lucky) a question. The Question was Mary had a little _____ it's fleeces is white as snow.
You'd Expect: Cure Happy (Glitter Lucky) to say Mary had a little lamb and The Akanbe (Buffoon) would get hit by a Big O.
Instead: She answered Mary had a little puppy dog named Muffin and was trapped in a Big X, Reika (Chloe) managed to arrive during the battle and transforms into Cure Beauty(Glitter Breeze) and easily answered all the questions and finishes off the Akanbe (Buffoon).
- Later: He gave Cure Happy (Glitter Lucky) a question. The Question was Mary had a little _____ it's fleeces is white as snow.
- In Episode 9, Yayoi decides to tell Miyuki that she's transferring schools as an April Fool's Day joke. Miyuki, believing that she's serious, runs off to tell the others.
You'd Expect: That at least one of the others would remember that today was April Fool's Day, and explain to Miyuki that Yayoi was most likely playing a trick on her.
Instead: They ALL fall for it.
- Regina is brainwashed by her father, King Selfish, when she is about to join in with Mana and the others. At that point, Mana and the others are becoming defenseless with her being able to shoot Janergy from her hands. Cure Sword then suggests to use the Cure Lovely Arrow attack.
You'd Expect: Since that Regina has gotten this powerful and will not hesitate to attack, Cure Heart will shoot her down with the attack and be done with it.
Instead: Due to her lovely nature, she refuses to make any attack, allowing Regina to curb-stomp her and her friends before Cure Ace shows up to win.
Worse: The reason she hesitated is that she believes that the Cure Lovely Arrow attack wouldn't work on her. - Aguri has learned the truth of her birth that she is the light part of Marie Ange's soul while Regina is the dark part of her soul and how the Trump Kingdom got destroyed by the hands of the Trump King being transformed into King Selfish.
You'd Expect: That she would immediately tell Mana about it. Considering that she knows a big deal on how to redeem Regina despite all her attempts failed before she comes to the picture, she should think of what Mana should do before making any necessary moves.
Instead: She only tells Makoto and Jonathan of what she learned, and has them go with her to the Trump Kingdom to confront Regina on her own. At that time, she doesn't tell Mana about the truth, knowing her friendship with Regina would allow her to stop this fight.
As a Result: Her fight with Regina results in the two of them being down, allowing Bel to get them. Mana, along with Rikka and Alice, arrives for the rescue, and gives her the What the Hell, Hero? moment for trying to kill Regina. This gives Aguri no other choice but to tell her the truth of her origins.
Worse: Aguri has been guiding, training, and preparing her teammates for this very moment which makes her come across as a Hypocrite to many viewers.
- Whenever the moment where Iona looks tense when seeing Hime.
You'd Expect: That Megumi and her circle of friends would put two and two together that she is Cure Fortune since her antagonism on Hime matches Fortune's antagonism on Princess.
Instead: They never think of doing this. - Hime's Dark Secret: She gets curious about the Axia Box and decides to check it out.
You'd Expect: That Hime would not be that dumb and open it.
Instead: You guessed it: she opens it, but she didn't mean to. - After Iona reveals Hime's Dark Secret, Megumi confides in Yuuko that she's not going to turn her away after the girl runs off crying. Yuuko hunts down Hime while circumstances force Megumi and Iona to team up again. Yuuko convinces Hime that nothing will go wrong and Megumi still trusts her. Hime decides to confront Megumi.
You'd Expect: That everything will be fine and Megumi will explain everything.
Instead: Hime finds Megumi with Iona after a monster fight and her imagination goes into overdrive, thinking that Megumi decided otherwise and the Happiness Charge team is dead. She runs off before Megumi can tell her anything. - Iona's Dark Secret: she follows Maria to her battle against Phantom.
You'd Expect: That Iona would be smart enough not to get involved in the battle and just leave.
Instead: You guessed it: she watches the battle. Phantom started to target her until Maria performed a Heroic Sacrifice and got captured instead. Way to go, Iona. - In episode 26, Megumi, Yuuko, and Iona were asleep except for Hime and Seiji during a moving train, and when the train stops for the other route, Hime was thirsty and wants Seiji to buy a drink from a vending machine from him and then, they won a free drink when he picks a drink for her, and then surprisingly, it keeps going.
You'd Expect: That either one of them, to stop getting all these drinks if the "win a free drink" thing keeps going and get back in the train.
Instead: They're still picking up free drinks everytime they keep winning.
As a Result: You guessed it: They missed the train, but Hime and Seiji left her PreChanMirror and his phone in train and won't get back into the same train until the next 5 hours and decides to wander off somewhere. - The second time Cure Fortune fights against Phantom. She only survived on her first encounter with him because she teamed up with Cure Lovely.
You'd Expect: Her to realize that she's outmatched either way, and to not try anything stupid.
Instead: She tries to fight him alone, and is easily beaten. Even worse, she loses her powers, and is almost sealed away in a mirror like her sister before her. - Before the series, Phantom was once a fairy partner of Queen Mirage named PhanPhan who has witnessed Mirage's fall to evil.
You'd Expect: That he'd turn to Blue to find additional Precures in order to turn her back to normal.
Instead: He pulled a Face–Heel Turn, starting to blame Blue for Mirage's fall, and sides with her in the dark.
KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode
- In #24, students tempt Ciel with lunch, which causes her stomach to grumble.
You'd Expect: Ciel to eat the food or even run out the room and hide.
Instead: Ciel does nothing and reverts into a fairy... in front of a bunch of muggles!
- In episode 14, Rita Yoshimi, annoyed that the crying of the neighborhood daycare babies is ruining her idea for a fashion design, addresses the problem to the daycare workers. They apologize and say that the babies were crying because they were tired.
You'd Expect: Her to walk away and go back home. This is a normal thing for babies to do, since crying is how they communicate.
Instead: She argues with them about how this happens every day, which causes her to be a target for the Monster of the Week.- The same episode has a scene where the Oshimaida causes the babies in the daycare to wake up. Cure Yell notices this and tries to comfort them.
You'd Expect: To explain to the babies that it's just a monster and go on to fight it herself.
Instead: She changes their diapers, even though the Oshimaeda was summoned minutes after the babies had their snack and took a nap. Funnily enough, Cure Etoile does tell children that they will deal with the monster, but they're older than the babies Yell took care of.
Then Again: This scenario is Truth in Television for Japanese daycares, where teachers will often change the diapers of babies every hour, even when it's not necessary
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- The same episode has a scene where the Oshimaida causes the babies in the daycare to wake up. Cure Yell notices this and tries to comfort them.
- In episode 22, Emiru and Lulu are fighting over a broken guitar. Harry decides to try and stop the argument, only for Hugtan to cry.
You'd Expect: For Harry to try and explain the situation to Hugtan.
Instead: He asks if she's ready for her diaper to be changed. Hugtan then reacts in a confused manner to this, but Emiru still takes her out anyway. - In episode 27, the Cures must fight against Dr. Traum's Monster of the Week without causing too much noise so they don't wake up all the sleeping children in the maternity ward.
You'd Expect: That Yell, Ange and Etolle use their Trinity Concert finisher, since it's a classical-themed attack that's not too harsh on the ears, unlike Amour and Ma'Cherie's Twin Love Rock Beat.
Instead: Yell tells Amour and Ma'Cherie to use their Twin Love Rock Beat anyways, which results in all of the babies waking up in a crying fit. Even Dr. Traum calls them out on this.
- In episode 19, during the Cures's fight with Aiwarn, the Dark Aries Pen and the Gemini Pen fell from her hands, Prince tell Star and Milky to pick them up quickly, only for the now rising Aiwarn to stop them.
You'd Expect: To Star to quickly pick up the Dark Pen from the ground.
Instead: She doesn't and she and Milky get flung away and the Dark Pen flew back to Aiwarn's hands as a result while Milky succeed to catch the Gemini Pen.
- In episode 10, the Cure fight against multiple Megabjögens... separately. Their respective Healing Animal partners advice them to work together as a team, Fontaine and Sparkle agree.
You'd Expect: To Grace to agree to work as a team as well.
Instead: She doesn't heed the advice and acts recklessly to attack the Megabjögen alone. This results her being nearly defeated and Latte gets even sicker. - In episode 27, following the hot air balloon competition, Nodoka notices something going on in the forest. It turns out to be Daruzien trying to use a Mega Part on a bird to create a new general.
You'd Expect: For Nodoka to ignore this event and just walk away, or, if possible, call forth the rest of her team so they have a 4-on-1 advantage. Even if a new general was created, Cure Earth could easily put a stop to it, as it probably wouldn't be that competent of a general anyways. Alternatively, since Nodoka's arrival scared the bird away, she could've left once the bird had flown away since there didn't seem to be any other creatures nearby for Daruizen to use the Mega Part on.
Instead: She transforms into Cure Grace and tries to stop him, only for her to get stabbed with the Mega Part herself, which leads to Nodoka getting sick again. - Episode 29 has a strange one for the team. Guaiwaru has just experimented on a Megabjögen of a trumpet by injecting a ton of Mega Parts onto it (in fact, he's put more than usual compared to other villains). Said monster is extremely powerful due to it, and once again, Cure Earth is with them. There's also civilians trying to get out of the way.
You'd Expect: Cure Grace to get herself, Fontaine, or Sparkle to lead the civilians to safety while Cure Earth fights the monster.
Instead: Cure Grace outright gives Cure Earth the job to lead the civilians to safety.
As a Result: Said monster easily overpowers the Cures and almost crushes Cure Grace herself. Thankfully Cure Earth came in right in time and quickly turned things around, questioning why she couldn't have just taken it on in the first place other than the fact the episode focused on Nodoka's character development.
- With a few exceptions, The Witch of Procrastination's henchmen generally have trouble trying to steal motivation from Aozora City due to the Cures constantly interfering.
You'd Expect: The villains to attack another area that the Cures aren't familiar with. Chongire, Numeri, and Elda could even split up and sap motivation from different cities so the Cures wouldn't be able to stop them all at once, especially considering that even a Zenzen Yaraneeda requires teamwork. While the Cures are focused on one of the threats, the other two villains could give their motivation back to the Witch of Procrastination and fuel her ambitions quickly.
Instead: The villains still insist on attacking Aozora City and making a scene (a huge purple sphere is generally seen from a distance), therefore alerting the Cures that there's trouble.
As a Result: The Cures generally beat the villains and take their motivation back. Besides of some small victories, the Yaraneedas are defeated and the villains are sent back to the mansion, constantly getting scolded by Butler to gather more motivation. - In episode 20, Manatsu wins the special edition Tropical Melon Bread. After arriving in the student council room, an announcement comes on the speakers that somebody left their wallet at the school store.
You'd Expect: Manatsu to take the bread with her while she goes to get her wallet.
Instead: Manatsu leaves the bread in the club room.
As a Result: Kururun finds the bread and puts it in the Mermaid Aqua Pot's fridge, leading to Laura finding it and eating it. - Butler decides to personally lead a Yaraneeda attack and throws a Chou Zettai Yaraneeda egg inside of a swimming pool, spawning a ton of Yaraneedas that attack everywhere in Aozora City. Since there are so many being spawned from the pool as numerous water monsters, Laura can only find the source of motivation from the real one. Due to this, many people are getting their motivation sapped and nobody can really stop them.
You'd Expect: Butler to get the main Yaraneeda to take the motivation back to the Witch of Delays while the Cures are focusing on decoy Yaraneedas. Besides, he probably has a lot more motivation with this.
Instead: For some odd reason, Butler doesn't think this through and lets the source one be part of the ones that attack the Cures.
As a Result: Although the Cures aren't able to finish it off with their regular finishers at first, they end up getting the usual group finisher attack that allows them to finish off the Yaraneeda and give back motivation to Aozora City.
- Other than a small victory at the beginning of the series (due to not having an established team yet), the Bunduru Gang have been generally not been succeeding due to the Cures intervening. Additionally Gentlu, the Starter Villain, has been the only one initially attacking, with her leading the assaults for the first ten episodes. Everyone in the Bunduru Gang calls her useless too.
You'd Expect: Narcissistoru or Secretoru to get their hands dirty and attack if they've been seeing that constantly sending Gentlu over hasn't been bringing results.
Instead: They constantly get Gentlu (who is also confirmed to be brainwashed nonetheless) to keep attacking.
As a Result: Their Ubauzos get beaten up by the Cures. Additionally, the strain of losing against the Cures has also been slowly wearing off her brainwashing too. - Gentlu has been using Ran's Curesta account to find the good targets for Recippipis to steal. Ran sees this and decides to change the format of her posting so she posts takeout instead of at the restaurants themselves. Gentlu notices this change pretty quickly.
You'd Expect: Gentlu to stalk another social media account. Maybe there's another food critic that could be posting really good restaurant food and that could be a perfect target. Ran's possibly not the only food connoisseur. In fact, the fifteenth episode reveals that Kokone's butler and chauffeur is another food connoisseur, meaning his restaurants could also be another target.
Instead: Gentlu complains that the missions are getting harder and still keeps looking at Ran's social media account.
As a Result: Gentlu instead has to find random restaurants/events herself to find more targets.
Power of Hope ~PreCure Full Bloom~
- Bell, the Guardian Angel of a city, witnesses the effects of anthropogenic climate change in the near future. Droughts and violent storms strike the city, which results in a mass exodus that leaves it completely abandoned and eventually Reclaimed by Nature. She possesses incredible supernatural powers, including time travel, casting illusions, thinking up portals, controlling darkness, and shapeshifting.
You'd Expect: Bell to return to the past and and warn the populace (if not the world) what will happen if they continue on their current path. If any skeptics exist, she can easily convince them with an illusory image of the Bad Future or another display of her powers.
Instead: Bell develops a hatred of humankind because she believes they are either too selfish or apathetic to save the planet. She decides to protect her home city all by herself, without human interference.
You'd Then Expect: Bell to surreptitiously use her powers to clean up the city in various time periods. For example, she could use portals to teleport all of the garbage and litter into her Pocket Dimension, a volcano, or the surface of the sun. If she is concerned about pollution, she could use magic to tamper with the machinery in factories, or shapeshift herself into the CEOs of known polluters and shut their companies down from the inside. With her wide array of abilities, the possibilities are almost endless.
Instead: Bell returns to the present day, an era climate scientists have argued is "the point of no return" for the entire world. She uses her powers, not to help the city, but to turn humans into Shadows — an act done with the express aim of sending the entire population into a Forced Sleep so they can't harm the city.
As a Result: Bell's nightly Shadow attacks soon attract the attention of a group of former Pretty Cures. One of them, Nozomi Yumehara, reawakens her powers and becomes Cure Dream in an effort to stop innocents from getting turned into monsters. Now Bell looks like a villain and has a group of Magical Girl Warriors, all of whom have saved the world multiple times before, as her enemies when they could have easily been working together for a common cause. Additionally, summoning Shadows is now a clear waste of Bell's time, as a single kick from Cure Dream can destroy them in one hit.
You'd Then Expect: Bell to appear in front of Cure Dream immediately and explain herself. If she can't protect the city with Shadows, she can at least ally herself with Cure Dream and the rest of the group. After all, Nozomi Yumehara is a very forgiving heroine, and she would completely understand Bell's motivations. Bell has telepathy, so she could easily learn this information by reading Cure Dream's mind.
Instead: Bell doesn't think to confront Cure Dream directly until episode 5. When she does, she chooses to make Cure Dream lose her will to fight back instead of trying to explain herself or reason with her, and attempts to do the same thing to her boyfriend Coco.
As a Result: Cure Dream, being The Pollyanna, shrugs off Bell's harsh words and swears to defeat her. Now that Bell has tried to harm her and her beloved, It's Personal.
You'd Then Expect: Bell to explain everything to Karen or Komachi, two of the most level-headed members of the team. If she can't convince a flighty Womanchild schoolteacher to consider her side, she could at least try to warn the medical doctor or the Caring Gardener how climate change will affect the future.
Instead: Bell retreats to her dimension and spends the rest of the show summoning stronger and stronger Shadows, causing more and more Cures to awaken their powers. She only thinks to come out of hiding and explain herself when eight of them have decided to storm her clock tower for the final battle.
As a Result: The Cures, who freely admit they might have been allies with Bell, decide that she's too far gone and must be stopped.
You'd Then Expect: Bell to understand she'd be royally screwed in a battle against eight Pretty Cures, get the heck out of dodge, and never trouble the city with Shadow attacks ever again.
Instead: A cornered Bell decides to combine every single Shadow into a super-powerful monster that can defeat them once and for all.
As a Result: Being made of all the negative traits Bell hates about humans, the resulting Kaiju disobeys her and begins destroying anything and everything it can get its shadowy tentacles on, up to and including all the buildings (which its attacks vaporize into nothingness). This Shadow turns out to be so powerful that a team of ten Cures can't stop it without outside help, and ironically threatens to be even more destructive to city infrastructure than the climate change Bell was trying to prevent.
