Hello there, socially adjusted internet mole-people! Today I return to you to finish what I started a few minutes ago, so get ready for Toku Special Part 4 resumes in 3, 2, 1...
Part 4: A Fresh Hope Vol. 2
HeartCatch PreCure
Of all the PreCure seasons HeartCatch has to be most famous one, partly because of its mainstream appeal (turns out PreCure is a niche thing. Shocking, I know) which no doubt has something to do with Yoshihiko Umakoshi´s involvement, but the fact that it is a pretty damn good show certainly helps. Amongst the reasons why HeartCatch is so popular are its great music, animation, compelling storyline and memorable characters. It was also shock full of Toku references.
And explosions, don´t forget the explosions.
If you have watched the show, then that might seem like an exaggeration to you (the Toku part, not the explosions), after all HeartCatch is a very “Magical” show so to speak. The particular character designs give the show a very innocent look and the story has a tendency to focus on very personal issues like growing up and dealing with trauma or anxiety, so the show seems more like a children´s drama than a proper action series. Add some very heavy use of themes like fashion and flowers and you have a show that is the furthest possible thing away from a male-oriented, action genre like Toku.
I don´t see it.
That, my friends, is HeartCatch´s greatest trump card; the show might be the girliest thing ever gazed upon by human eyes, but I’ll be damned if this show is not also one of the most hot-blooded things I have ever seen. I am serious, while the show is very personal in its nature, the drama in it never crosses the line of tragedy and it’s usually resolved through a combinations of friendship, hope and punching things.
AKA the Kisaragi Gentarou Method.
Why yes, there is a lot of action, in fact this show is kind of famous for how action heavy it is, something that surprises many because it shatters the Magical Girl image most people get from it, but it is also a good reminder that A)You are watching PreCure and B)The PreCure are goddamn Super Heroes.
In case that wasn´t subtle enough.
And this is where it all circles back to Toku: even if HeartCatch is a very Girly looking show and has some really heavy focus on its characters, it was still built using the Super Hero template that Fresh used, so even if HeartCatch can be quite different from its predecessor, it still relies heavily on Super Hero concepts, like the Cures being the local heroes or an evil organization that preys on the hopes and dreams of people and that needs a good old kick on their back behind.
Close enough.
Hey, speaking of evil organizations, tell me if you notice something odd about this picture:
They can seemingly levitate at random?
Nothing? Here´s a hint: those are the Sunakis, the evil troopers that comprise the big majority of the Desert Apostles army and are essentially the fodder the Precure must annihilate before going against the Desertrians. Let´s give it another shot:
Kiiii Kiiii!!!
Still no? Okay, than maybe this will clear things up:
Now that´s a Shocker. No, I am not sorry.
What you are seeing here are the original masked Shocker Combatants, who were the foot soldiers used by Shocker, the original Evil organization from the first Kamen Rider series. This is one of those things that are so obvious that there is no way to hide it: the Sunakis are literally based on the classic Shocker soldiers. Curiously, HeartCatch is the very first PreCure series to ever use foot soldiers, and it is quite telling that they went straight to the source when designing the Sunakis. Now to be fair, there were a lot of similar foot soldiers in classic Toku shows, and even the Shocker troopers had many different designs (the masked version is the second iteration), but the Sunakis are quite literally an animated rendition of the masked Shocker, even using the same “Kii Kiiii” sound and the Hail Shocker pose.
So yeah, the HeartCatch Cures fight the same enemies as Kamen Rider, and as if that weren´t obvious enough, it actually gets better:
Now, those are some suspicious looking Sunak--- Ooohh!!
There is a moment during the final arc of the show where the Cures must infiltrate the base of the Desert apostles in order to save the earth, and once inside Cure Marine and Cure Sunshine figure out that the best way to remain unnoticed is to steal the skin/uniforms of a couple of Sunakis and disguise themselves in order to explore the base freely. The funny thing about it is that stealing a uniform to infiltrate an enemy base is one of the recurrent strategies used by Kamen Rider, and I mean the original one.
He is the one with the mask.
In fact, this strategy was used so often in the old days that it became a joke of sorts, to the point that most evil organizations got wise about it and could spot wandering Riders within their base rather easily. Suffice to say that this was a classic Rider strategy and the fact that HeartCatch quite literally borrowed it is quite hilarious. Really, if you want to make your Magical Girls into Super Heroes, it doesn´t get more Super Hero-y than that.
No wait, it actually does.
Are you familiar with the “Toh!” expression? Chances are that you aren´t so let me explain: the “Toh!” sound is a common shout used in martial arts similar to “HIAA!” except that Toh! Is more commonly associated with disciplines like Judo, which is important because Hiroshi Fujioka, the actor/badass who portrayed Takeshi Hongo/Kamen Rider Ichigo was a Judo black belt and actually incorporated the Toh! shout in his fighting as Kamen Rider. As a result, Toh! became a rather popular expression among Toku Heroes during the 70´s and 80´s, though it has always been associated primarily with Kamen Rider. But wait, what does this have to do with HeartCa-
Oh. Oooohhh!
For reasons that can only be described as divine providence, Cure Blossom and Cure Marine had a penchant for using the famous shout while fighting. Admittedly, they used it sparingly (mostly in the first episodes) and you do need a trained ear to hear it, but it is unmistakingly there. Now, you might think that this kind of thing is common, but it isn´t; beyond the older shows, the Toh! shout is barely used anymore, even in Kamen Rider, and when it does it mostly a throwback to the classic heroes, like they did in that Kamen Rider Skull movie thing. If we were to look for Toku references in anime, the Toh! shout is probably the second most common reference to classic Toku right after “The Pose”.
Do yourself a favor and commit this to your memory.
This is one of those things that you really need the see the context to really appreciate it though; while several anime´s like to make this reference, it is usually as a homage that never goes beyond some character doing the pose/shout because it´s cool, but in HeartCatch´s (and Precure´s) case it is played for the purpose of showing that the Cures are, indeed, heroes. It really is amazing when you think about it: HeartCatch PreCure is a season famous even among the so called “Otakus” that don´t usually watch Precure, but even within the Precure community very few people realize that this show about cute girls who kickass doubles as a love letter to Kamen Rider. Actually, it is not that surprising once you consider that fact that Takeshi Hongo was kind of dreamy.
He is holding puppies. PUPPIES!
But contrary to what logic, the Geneva Convention and my constant gushing would have you believe, not everything in HeartCatch is somehow connected to Kamen Rider; similarly to Fresh, HeartCatch likes to use common stock plots that were more likely popularized by Super Sentai, and while it certainly gives more priority to its main storyline and has more “Middle school” type situations, it still goes for the Super Hero vibe that the previous season did.
A good example of this is actually the Christmas episode of the season, which revolves around a child who tries to impress her friends by saying that she is friends with the PreCure, and so the plot consists of her trying to set up a meeting up with her heroes and her friends calling her a liar, all of this while the Cures decide how to handle the situation. This of course is a rather common Super Sentai plot, where one child lies to his friends about being friends with the Rangers and somehow ends up in the middle of a monster attack. At the end, the child gains to courage to tell the truth, renews its friendship and promises to never lie again.
And then gets to play around with MegaPink.
Speaking of playing around (worst segway ever), I bet some people are wondering when I will get to talk about Cure Moonlight, after all, you have to mention her when talking about HeartCatch and, statistically speaking, 7 out of 10 of all the things I say are Moonlight related.
Mandatory Yuri pic for the article.
One of the common Toku/PreCure jokes you can find on the internet (yes, they are a thing) is the comparison between the rivalries of Cure Moonlight/Kamen Rider Black and Dark PreCure/Shadow Moon, and I can certainly understand where they are coming from. There are some parallels you can draw between both stories, particularly when it comes to Dark PreCure and Shadow Moon, but at the end I think that the Moonlight/Dark PreCure rivalry is mostly based on Casshern Sins, another show Umakoshi worked on. I don´t have pics of that show so have another one of Moonlight instead.
I have a folder full of these and I am going to use them, damn it.
That said, I do think that Dark PreCure is based on the archetype of the anti-hero used in classic Toku, which is basically a character who is ridiculously strong, is related to the main character in some way and his only purpose in life is to destroy our hero. So what I am saying here is that she is basically Hakaider.
Notice the Black Outfit and lack of damns to give.
I admit that this might be a generalization, but Hakaider is arguably the most famous Anti-hero villain in Japanese media and is the quintessential example of this type of character, so much in fact that there are heaps (HEAPS!) of characters based on him, and even if Dark PreCure is not directly based on him, she might as well be. I guess it could also be said that Moonlight herself is based on the ideal of the altruistic hero whose kindness borders in self-destructive behavior, which is arguably the premise of ‘Kamen Rider’, but that is such a complex subject that it deserves an article of its own (*wink* *wink*).
Moving on onto less depressing matters, let´s talk a bit about Cure Marine (better segway).
In terms of Toku there really isn´t much to say since Marine is mostly a subversion on the blue archetype that obviously originated in Sentai and that PreCure has been using since forever (2004), but there are two things that do stand out about her:
1. The little girl is a fighting machine.
Exhibit A.
2.One of her attacks, Marine Dynamite, is obviously based on Ultraman Taro´s Ultra Dynamite.
Exhibit B.
In the odd, unlikely case that you don´t know what I am talking about, one of Ultraman Taro´s most recognizable attacks was the Ultra Dynamite, a technique where he build up energy and then charged against the Kaiju of the week, exploding alongside him. Suffice to say that Marine executes this very same attack, except that she merely detonates the energy without self-destructing in the process since she does not have Taro´s regenerating abilities. Or at least not that I know of, in which case you should be really afraid.
I am pretty sure chests are not supposed to do that.
To close this off I just want to mention something that is more likely a weird coincidence, but it is still kind of interesting in the context of these shows: one of the things that really set HeartCatch apart from other series was the way in which it chose to subvert character expectations, so instead of having your usual bookworm as the Blue Cure, Marine was a hot-blooded 14 year-old who managed to be a cartoon within a cartoon, and the Pink Cure, Hanasaki Tsubomi/Cure Blossom, was an introverted girl with confidence issues instead of the always optimistic leader with boundless energy.
Seen here channeling Kadoya Tsukasa.
This change was a complete reversal of the model the franchise had followed so far, but it wasn´t entirely unheard of since Kamen Rider pulled off the exact same stunt two years before: in 2008, Kamen Rider Den-O radically changed the Rider formula, most notably by introducing Nogami Ryotaro/Den-O, a weakling with confidence issues and an unbelievable bad luck that was pretty much the exact opposite of every Rider protagonist before him. As you can tell, both Tsubomi and Ryotaro defy character archetypes by being completely different from your usual Super Hero protagonists, but they more than make up for it by simply being great characters.
Chances are that these changes in the paradigm of Sunday morning children shows were completely unrelated cases driven by artistic decisions, but I still wonder if this was not somehow an attempt by Toei to make ‘wimp’ into the new badass.
So cool.
And that´s HeartCatch Precure, a show that in all honestly is nothing like what you would expect; the overly cute design creates an incredibly jarring contrast with some of the more serious and darker elements of the show, but against all odds that ends up creating a show that is far more awesome than it has any right to be. Add the very prominent influences of the Super Hero Genre that PreCure is known for and you have a series that while it looks like a wonderfully girly show about friendship, it ends up being one of the manliest things you will have ever see. About friendship.
Well, that ran a bit long, but at least I managed to avoid talking about the mother´s day epi- AAHHH GODDAMN IT!!
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE
The Seiyuu Connection
Welcome to the section of this article where you can discover things that anyone with basic Google skills should be able to find out but are too lazy/don´t care enough to do it!
In case you need a reminder (which further proves how much I underestimate my audience), here we are going to take a look that the voice actors who brought to life the characters from the PreCure franchise and see which of them have had roles in Tokusatsu, which sounds like a pointless endeavor but in truth it is far more entertaining than it has any right to be.
And with that note, let´s kick things off with Cure Blossom.
Nana Mizuki lent her voice to the main protagonist of HeartCatch PreCure. It just so happens that Nana Mizuki is a singer who is quite famous and that is apparently completely unrelated to Ichiro Mizuki, but while she is a very popular so far she has only had one role in Toku as the artificial intelligence Psycholon, from the Super Hero Taisen Z movie.
One of them is a force of destruction, the other… is one too, actually.
It was a small-yet-fundamental role in so-so movie, but its Nana Mizuki so I had to mention her or risk being beheaded by an angry/passionate mob.
And while we are on the family, next we have Chika Sakamoto, who lent her voice to Kaoruko Godai Hanasaki/Cure Flower, and that had a few roles in Toku as monsters of the week.
Left: Wamikle from Go-Onger. Right: Cure Flower.
Okay, I will admit that this is a really, really bizarre association. Let´s move on before I ruin another character.
This one is nice, the voice of the Fairy Cologne (I will give you a moment to sigh) was provided by Akira Ishida, who also did the voice for the annoying Fly Bae from Gekiranger and the annoying dragon-thing Tatsulot from Kamen Rider Kiva.
One of them is dead, the other two you wish they were.
Huh, suddenly all those fan arts of Cure Moonlight as Kiva Emperor are starting to make a lot of sense.
Oh, this one is also neat: the legendary Fairy Coupe-sama was voiced by Kenyu Horiuchi, who back in the 80´s provided the voice for Ultraman in a couple of movies.
One of them is a hottie. The other one wears glasses.
I admit that Coupe-sama doesn´t talk a lot, but neither does Ultraman, so it is fitting in a way. Since there´s not much else to say, have a pic of Coupe-sama punching a Dragon.
I love how I don´t have to make up any of this stuff.
Here´s a minor one but still kind of interesting: Koichi Tochika portrayed Ryounusuke Kurumi, the father of Erika Kurumi, and once upon a time he also did the voice for the lamp of justice, Daigoyou from Shinkenger:
Damn it Erika, stop photobombing.
The fact that his daughter is Cure Marine actually makes a terrifying amount of sense.
That´s it for secondary characters, so let´s move onto the villains, shall we?
First we have the Hot-blooded Desert Apostle Kumojacky who vwas voiced by Eiji Takemoto and who also provided the voice for the Scorpion Zodiarts and the Zodiart Switches in Kamen Rider Fourze:
Why yes, all of them have toys.
This is funny because, in a roundabout way, the Scorpio Zodiart got curb stomped by Cure Marine.
Seriously, someone should stop her. Not me, though.
Following that we have the Beautiful Cobraja, voiced by Hirofumi Nojima who also provided the voice for Lord Waruzu Gills, one of the main villains from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger.
… I am not entirely sure which is which.
The fact that technically Warz Gill got beaten by Cure Sunshine is oddly satisfying.
Next we have the movie Villain Baron Salamander, voiced Keiji Fujiwara, who also portrayed Cheeda Nick in Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters.
One is a motorcycle, the other wears a top hat. Together they fight crime.
Question, does it counts as Typecast if he played two characters that got stuck raising children that were not their own?
Anyways, finally we have Hikaru Midorikawa, an experienced voice actor who portrayed the final villain Dune and that also has plenty of roles in Tokusatsu, like Prince Salamandes of GoGoFive and MirrorKnight from the Ultraman Zero Movie.
Wait, is the salamander on his shoulder a reference to Salamandes?
Those are cool and all, but you know what´s cooler? Freaking Gridman.
Pshaw.
Man, when I think about it, the final villains of PreCure always seem to be voiced by awesome actors.
And speaking of awesome voice actors, you all knew this one was coming.
There are still more from where this came from.
Aya Hisakawa, veteran voice actress known mostly for her role as Mizuno Ami/Sailor Mercury, also portrayed everyone´s favorite Purple Cure, Cure Moonlight. Yes, I know that technically she is Silver, shut up. While she is primarily an anime VA, recently she landed what seems to be her very first Toku role as Madam Noir of Ressha Sentai ToQger.
This one is Purple, all right.
Funnily enough, ever since her portrayal of Cure Moonlight, Aya Hisakawa seems to have become more active as a voice actress, or at least more active in things I actually care about. She even recently got a role in Jojo´s Bizarre Adventure as The High Priestess Stand…
OH GOD!! KILL IT, KILL IT WITH FIRE!!
Okay, that´s it, end of the article, let´s all just go home.
Closing Thoughts.
I realize that I went a little overboard with this one, but I really can´t overstate how important these two seasons were to the franchise in general: I could argue that Fresh and HeartCatch were the point where PreCure proved that it could stand on its own as a serialized show and was not just some mere fad that would eventually vanish only to try and make several comebacks a few years later (I am looking at you Digimon), not to mention that by the time Fresh rolled around PreCure officially became bigger than Sailor Moon (haters, come at me). But probably the most outstanding thing about these seasons is, at least to me, the radical change in tone compared to seasons past; the original five seasons of PreCure were undeniably Magical Girls shows with a Super Hero Spin on them, but starting with Fresh the show pretty much ditched any pretense and portrayed the Cures as actual Super Heroes who just happened to be girls wearing pretty dresses.
Say what you want, but you can´t deny how cool that is.
So what do you think? Did these two season really revolutionized PreCure? Was Godai Kaoruko a reference to Godai Yuusuke/Kamen Rider Kuuga? Am i the only person around here who has seen Android Kikaider/Kikaider 01? I certainly hope i am not since those shows are amazing.
Anyways leave a comment if wish to start a fight share your opinion and i will see you in a week with Part 5!!!
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