Glitter Force Doki Doki

There is a natural human tendency to be complacent and repeat the same formula over and over again. This includes the Precure franchise with the previous Smile Precure being nothing more than a rehashed Yes5, according to reliable sources. The inability to adapt to a changing world has been the cause of failure of governments, corporations and society. Dokidoki has shown that even a well-established franchise is able to change with the times and cater to Generation Z children who have evolving and different needs. The first and foremost difference is that the Pink cure, Mana takes a far stronger leadership role inthis series compared to the past. In the run-up to Dokidoki, Japan has faced a leadership crisis, having 6 different Prime Ministers in as many years. Mana is a kind, but domineering character who knows no fear of attempting the impossible. Mana's ultimate dream of becoming a Prime Minister is no coincidence and her character is an inspiration to the children of Japan to take more risks, and get the job done in an otherwise risk-averse society. Despite Mana's superb level of competancy in many things, one that children should aspire for through diligence and hard work, it is strongly emphasized that she is only human and is imperfect. At one point, Mana loses motivation and a new character, much like the political opposition takes over the leadership role for a while, developing Mana and the cast until Mana is well again. This really draws paralells with the second coming of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who after a weak first stint, has returned with strength, dominance and assertiveness not seen since the Koizumi era. That said, governments are essentially a team who need excellent leaders and followers. The cast knows when to stand up and lead, and when to provide excellent support to Mana. Even the said opposition is able to accomplish both roles, a life skill that is necessary for everyone. Dokidoki also takes a concept that is very relevant in life; selfishness. This relatability is a change from fantasy elements such as music, flowers and fairy tales. Almost every episode involves a person having selfish desires. Even the smallest selfish thought can escalate into something big, and Dokidoki shows how such thoughts can be suppressed, a crucial life skill that children need. Each member of the cast faces their own relatable trials and challenges in life and is given time for growth and development. An excellent example of this is the exploration of the theme of conflicting friendships. Little girls have a tendency to become upset when their best friend decides to get to know a new person. They become lonely and jealous, resulting in petty arguments along the lines of "I'm her best friend, how dare you take her away from me?" Dokidoki recreates this situation and provides a viable resolution. The theme of separation is also explored like never before in previous Precure seasons, something very relevant to the globalizing world. The Children of today are more likely to part ways and travel to far-flung places in their lives than ever before. The common reaction of sadness and depression is a strong theme and Dokidoki provides meaningful advice to children in the same situation in order to stand up, keep going, finding happy things in life and getting the job done. Another big theme is brainwashing. In this information age, we have easy access to a wide range of different sources, including less reputable ones. Children are especially vulnerable when it comes to listening to an unreliable source. Dokidoki explores one character who faces such a situation and the amount of love and care that is needed in order to restore and rehabilitate such children who take the wrong path in life. Last but not least, Dokidoki's plot has so many twists and turns that will put Code Geass to shame, catering perfectly to a generation that has ever-shortening attention spans. The wide range of themes that are covered, and the sudden changes in the predicament of the cures will put anyone at the edge of their seats. The transformation scenes are no-nonsense and different background music is substituted in to convey the mood of the situation, in what must be a first for the franchise and is rarely seen in the Mahou Shoujo genre. The endgame also takes a shocking twist which would leave the audience in awe. Combined with a character design that is easy on the eyes, consistently high quality artwork, animation and effective use of music, Dokidoki is a series that has succesfully managed to move on and adapt with the times. This is evidenced by a YouTube reaction video of a 5 year old who is fully engaged with the series, and is shocked and awed by the attention-seeking techniques that Toei animation has used in order to keep today's audience glued to their screens. The antithesis to Dokidoki is the "Aria the Animation" franchise. This series should never be watched as it was made for a previous generation born in the 1990s and is familiar with devices such as the VHS and the floppy disk. These devices are common in the fact that they are slow, and will sedate anyone from the 2000s generation into boredom and sleep.

If you were to go back to the beginning of 2013 and asked a general Precure fan what the worst season was claimed to be, the chances are they would've said Suite, and usually for the universal reason that it wasn't the well-acclaimed Heartcatch season. If we're to go back to the present and you asked a general Precure fan what the worst season is, you'll probably hear them say DokiDoki, except for very, very good reasons. DokiDoki Precure is a Precure season that not only fails to be a good show in general, but it fails to be a good show for this franchise ingeneral. When I say that, I mean that there are general things in Precure that makes the franchise very worthwhile, and DokiDoki fails at even delivering those. While the plot of this season appears to be a simplistic one, the show is intent on continuing to expand upon the plot until many holes begin to to show up and many things are left both unexplained or are given improper care time. People praised DokiDoki in the beginning for being more plot-centric than past seasons, though DokiDoki ultimately suffers from this formula. Since the plot and characters go hand in hand, let's discuss the characters too. The reason DokiDoki suffers from its plot-centric formula is because it shafts its characters, their development and their interactions in favor of things like a badly done plot point or more time for our main character. (whom I'll rant about later) There is one characters whose school uniform we don't get to see until episode 49. The last episode. That's how long it takes. The show also made two instances of randomly introducing new characters into the plot in the middle of the show. First case was with a poorly-done character, Regina, who basically starts off as a bad guy, decides she's pretty much in love with our main girls, tries to become good, becomes bad again, becomes good again, then becomes brainwashed into being bad and we don't see her again for about 20 episodes since they decide to shoehorn in another character who we had no indication of appearing prior. This character is Madoka Aguri, Cure Ace. Fun fact: There's a video up on YouTube where a 5 year old girl who watches the episode that Ace debuts is very confused and upset because of how random her appearance is. That's how bad it is. Ace is, essentially, an over-powered 10 year old who had no foreshadowing of appearing and is there to basically lecture the other girls into "getting stronger" and takes credit for a lot of their development episodes. She is bound by a time limit which the plot removes when they need it too, and is basically the second strongest character next to the over-overpowered main lead. Speaking of this main lead... Mana Aida. In some seasons, there is definitely some leader bias, but never before has it been this bad. The worst part is that Mana is bland. She is bland, she is flawless according to the show, the show never acknowledges her flawed logic, and she is given everything. Mana has all the other Cures transfer THEIR power to HER. Teamwork? Who needs that, just give all the power to Mana! Most of their combo attacks revolve around giving Mana the power and her taking them out. She is loved by everyone. She is the student council president, has a bunch of friends, and when she outs her Cure identity everyone is okay with it. Mana is also the only one who gets a leader upgrade at the end of the season. She single handedly takes out the big bad using everyone elses' power. She is the one who basically restores everything. All the Cures' and their resolves revolve around Mana. Their reason to fight? Mana. It's all about Mana and it's terrible, because this show has 5 other characters, 3 of which are already shafted as it is, that it could focus on and develop but it instead focuses on and DOESN'T develop the overpowered and generic main lead. Other Cure leaders may have been some spotlight hogs, but at least they had some good interactions and growth with their friends. At least it somewhat made sense that Nagisa had a lot of attention since there WERE only two cures (eventually three) in that season. There is no excuse here, just bias, and it results in an extremely bland main character who gets everything without reason and sucks everything away from all the other characters who deserve it. When the show didn't focus too much on Mana, it focused too much on Reginas' shoddily written character arc that relied on shifting her sides when the plot demanded it, or too much on Ace, who bossed the Cures' around and took credit for their growth and served as a deus ex machina plot device. The villains, honestly, the only one with actual character was probably Ira. He had one interaction episode with Rikka, one that had lots of great potential with her, only for that episode to end and for it to never be directly spoken about again. Its implied a few times in the finale, yes, but overall his time with her is wasted in favor of, you guessed it, more Mana. Basically, the plot is a big mess that ends up shafting a bunch of characters in exchange of more Mana, Ace, Regina, or some other plot points that they feel like bringing up to expand things more that only result in everything becoming more confusing and unnecessarily complicated and stupid. Art and sound are mediocre. The transformations, aside from Ace, are extremely average at best and are very dynamic and honestly pretty boring. The endings have some nice artwork and some catchy tunes, though nothing else really stood out besides that. There's quite a lot of QUALITY inducing scenes within the show, but the overall art isn't exactly that bad. I mean, as someone who likes mahou shoujo, I enjoyed it.. to an extent. Sort of. Though honestly, there was nothing appealing in this season. A plot centric season? Yeah, a BADLY written plot-centric season. Character centric? Well, it was Mana centric, where none of the girls' interactions with Mana went outside of 'we need you.' DokiDoki has nothing going for it, nothing at all. Not as a show in general, or as a Precure season. When it fails on both accounts, there's nothing really worth watching here. If you want to start Precure, go with any other season that isn't Max Heart or GoGo!. (They're sequels) Just don't start with this, there is nothing to gain from this season of Precure and let's just hope the next season succeeds in the things DokiDoki didn't.

You know, as long as I've been doing this I'm surprised that this is the first Precure series I'm looking at. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Precure or Pretty Cure is a long running magical girl franchise from Toei animation. It all started with Futari wa Pretty Cure and the most recent installment is Happiness Charge Precure, which is currently ongoing. Most of the series within the frranchise don't have anything to do with one another aside from a similar aesthetic and Doki Doki Precure is the tenth series within the franchise. The writing for this one was handled by Yamaguchi Ryota,who anime fans may recognise as the writer behind the Escaflowne anime. So, how does this one hold up? Story: Our story opens with a Precure, we later learn that her name is Cure Sword, fighting monsters in a desolate landscape. Skip ahead to a group of students on a field trip and student council President Aida Mana's efforts to keep order. Their trip is interrupted when a teal-haired boy creates a monster from a person's heart which attacks the area. Mana is told that she can transform, which she does, enabling her to save the day. She finds out that the monsters are called the Selfish and they're attempting to gather dark energy to unseal their ruler, King Selfish, who was trapped in stone during the Selfish's invasion of the Trump Kingdom. It's a pretty standard magical girl plot. So, the question becomes, how well is it executed? Well, let's start with the positive aspects. The way the Selfish turn people into monsters is interesting and I do like that they always use the kinds of selfish thoughts that we all have at times. The antagonists in general are well handled, not being portrayed as outright evil but more as inconsiderate jerks which both makes for an interesting conflict and opens up the possibility of redemption, which is definitely taken full advantage of. The story also has some really good twists which are hinted at but are still difficult to anticipate. There are some excellent humourous moments as well and quite a few superb heartwarming moments. The series also manages some crowning moments of awesome. So, with all that going for it, what are the weaknesses? The truth is that there's only one major flaw to the storytelling. There are five episodes towards the end of the series (34-38) that have no bearing on the plot and are just kind of filler. Now, that probably doesn't sound that bad. But these episodes are just annoying. The character interactions in them are weak. They lack the good humour of the rest of the series and four of the five put the focus on the worst character in the series, but we'll get to her later. Characters: Most of the characters in this series are really lovable and just generally amazing. Mana, Rikka, Alice, Makoto and Regina are all great characters who interact perfectly with one another and they're a lot of fun to watch. Most of the side characters are quite enjoyable as well, especially Sebastian. (I wouldn't mind seeing more of that charming man and his epic mustache.) There are really two weaknesses here. The first is Aguri. She is a severely under-developed character. Whereas the other girls act and feel like actual girls, Aguri is just kind of two-dimensional. Her main defining characteristics are that she scolds people and likes sweets. Her scolding can also get a little grating at times. That being said, Aguri is not that bad. The series has Ai for that. Ai is the exceedingly obnoxious character I mentioned earlier who gets the focus for four of those five bad episodes. Most of the time Ai stays, thankfully, in the background, but there are moments when she comes into the forefront and she spends all her time there crying, throwing tantrums or just being generally the most obnoxious thing since Navi. Now, some of you are probably thinking “she's a baby character, aren't you being harsh?” No, no I'm not. There are two main reasons. One, she frequently doesn't even act like a real baby so you can't say “well, it's a realistic portrayal of an infant.” It's like she was deliberately written just to be annoying. Two, she is a pointless character. I'm not even kidding. The explanation they give to justify her existence in the story is really flimsy. You could literally replace her with a black Labrador and the story would still be just as cohesive, if not more so since most of the stupid and pointless episodes would be gone. Art: The art is done in kind of a cutesy style, which does work perfectly for the aesthetic of the series. I do appreciate that the girls look very different when they transform into Precures, which makes it realistic that they wouldn't have their identities discovered. Unlike some magical girl series where they're just wearing different outfits. I love Sailor Moon, but it's a prime example of that as a problem. The monster designs are strange. There's a mailbox goat, a stoplight monster and many others that are just weird. That being said, the designs are creative and I rather like most of them. Sure, a lot of them are silly but that works for the franchise. The usual transformation and special attack stock footage are present and they're just as lazy as they usually are. In all fairness, however, they aren't bad sequences in the slightest. The special attacks are dynamic and the transformations, except possibly Aguri's, do look good. I will give the series credit for its action sequences, a good percentage of the special moves involve actual weapons instead of wands, microphones, castanets and the like. The action sequences also involve actual fighting moves with punches and kicks. The combination of that with the stock attacks does make the action scenes a lot more dynamic and interesting. Most of the action sequences are really good, but there are some that move up into excellent. I don't want to give anything major away, but I will give one example. There's a particular scene where an enemy breaks Alice's shield in half. In a true crowning moment of awesomeness, she actually grabs the pieces and uses them like swords. It is just as cool as it sounds and definitely ranks among the best action sequences I've ever seen in a magical girl anime. Sound: Doki Doki Precure has some really talented actors. Mana is voiced by Nabatame Hitomi (Gokujou Seitokai's Kanade.) The other main characters, Rikka, Makoto, Alice and Regina, are voiced by Kotobuki Minako (K-on's Mugi), Miyamoto Kanako (who I have not heard in any other major roles), Fuchigami Mai (Girls Und Panzer's Miho), and Watanabe Kumiko (Sailor Moon's JunJun.) They all give good performances. The music is really good. Especially Makoto's songs. That being said, it's not all positive. The faeries all have verbal ticks that can get kind of annoying. Ai doesn't get much dialogue aside from her usual shrill screaming, but when she does it's pretty grating. The unfortunate task of voicing her went to Imai Yuka, who is not a bad actor by any means. You can even tell that from this series since she also voices Princess Ange, who is not obnoxious to listen to. Ho-Yay: You know, I've seen a lot of anime with shoujo-ai subtext, subtext so blatant it might as well be text and text. This is the first time I've seen a series that has a shoujo-ai poly-amorous five-some. Mana, Rikka, Alica, Makoto and Regina all seem to be into one another, all of them but Regina even come out and say they love all the others. Regina only ever says that she loves Mana, but there are some really homo-erotic scenes where the other three reach her heart, particularly Makoto and Alice. You also get some lovely scenes wherein Rikka is said to be an ideal wife for Mana, which Mana agrees with, and wherein Makoto and Mana are likened to a newlywed couple. Some of you are probably wondering which pairing makes the most sense when it comes to those five? The answer really is a poly-amorous grouping. All five of these girls are incredibly homo-erotic with one another, and I respect their decision. That isn't even the extent of the les-yay in this series. Even Aguri gets some homo-erotic scenes with one of her classmates, Eru. It's also heavily implied that Makoto had a crush on Princess Ange before the Trump Kingdom fell and, unlike some magical girl anime, there are no gratuitous male love interests to try and disguise it. The Ho-yay is at a solid 7/10 for a huge number of really cute scenes. Final Thoughts: This anime is cutesy, overly optimistic, kind of cheesy and I absolutely love it. It's a highly enjoyable series with some great characters who have awesome interactions, surprisingly epic scenes, and some amazing tender scenes. It's just a delight to watch. That being said, it does suffer from Ai, five bad episodes, Ai, a reliance on stock footage and, of course, Ai. Fortunately, those aren't major problems since Ai is mostly kept to the background, and the bad episodes can be easily skipped without losing anything of value. I do highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys the magical girl aesthetic. Unless you're one of those people who thinks that the worst trope commonly used in magical girl anime is the shoujo ai subtext (yes, those people do exist. No, I don't understand it either) because there is a massive amount of it in this series. For myself, I give it a 9/10. Next week I'll take a look at Sword Art Online now if you'll excuse me I'm going to look for plushies of Mana, Rikka, Alice, Makoto and Regina.

Once upon a time when the topic of the worst Precure Season was brought up, I'd have no idea what to say. Even putting aside my lack of experience with the franchise, I had no idea what would drive me to think so negatively about a light hearted kid's show with healthy morals. Even when I went and watched past seasons that were looked upon unfavourably I still enjoyed them for what they were despite their flaws. And now we come to the present day. While I've still yet to make my way through every past season of the show, I can now confidently answerthe previous question of what the worst Precure season is. And despite what people would have said before Doki aired, it isn't Suite or Smile. Despite the fact that I enjoy the Precure franchise in general, I will freely admit that the basic plot structure of each season is somewhat predictable. But when it comes down to it you can't really criticise the franchise for being predictable when you consider the target audience. So by that logic does that make DokiDoki bulletproof? Well, not quite. When it comes down to it the execution is what matters the most. Despite being aimed at a younger audience it hasn't stopped Precure from excelling in different areas and it doesn't stop DokiDoki from being great either. What stops DokiDoki from being great is DokiDoki itself. With the initial character introductions the main cast comes off as likeable. However despite a good chunk of the show supposedly being devoted to character development the fruits of their labour are never really felt. While they gain a multitude of new powers and save the Earth from certain doom they're pretty much the exact same people they were 48 episodes before. Especially when it comes to Mana, Rikka and Alice who, while not particularly unlikeable, are privileged and flawless and about as far removed from relatable as you can get. Even when it comes to the characters that initially had a lot of potential they suffer greatly due to the lack of focus When such flawed characters this leads to a lot of other problems. Monster of the week episodes which previous seasons used for character development are just mindless filler and nothing more. Whether the plot developments are hits or misses doesn't really matter because the characters will remain stagnant regardless. No matter how substantial, the moral lessons contained in each episode all feel hollow considering they rarely contribute to the character's development or the overall plot. Even putting aside the characters and plot the action scenes which take up at least half of each episode mainly consist of the characters spamming their bland magic attacks. No fisticuffs, no surprises, just repeated animation. The animation budget seems to significantly lower than previous seasons with a plethora of QUALITY moments. The art isn't offensively bad but the animation is very sub par by modern standards. The transformation sequences are an integral part of magical girl anime and often quite well done but the ones in Doki had me clicking the fast forward button almost every time. On the topic of sound, the OST isn't obnoxiously bad and has some nice songs but is often times repetitive and forgettable. The OP sequence used for the show is also somewhat forgettable but catchy enough to fulfil its purpose. And if it wasn't the boredom that made me want to see the end of an episode, it was the one of the two glorious CG ED themes by now series regular Hitomi Yoshida. The voice acting was also of a high standard with famous VAs such as Rie Kugimiya (Except this time not a tsundere), Mayumi Tanaka (Luffy from One Piece), Minako Kotobuki (Mugi from K-ON and member of idol group Sphere) among others. I will say that I enjoyed DokiDoki for the basic reasons I enjoy the mahou shoujo genre in general. But that's about it. While I was somewhat entertained by the beginning and the ending a large portion of the show had me wishing I was watching something else. So overall, I guess I didn't really enjoy my time with DokiDoki even though it has the sentimental value of being the first Precure Season I watched as it aired. In fact, I'd go as far as saying the show is noticeably quite boring. If you want a good magical girl series, DokiDoki doesn't deliver. If you want a nice kid's show that teaches healthy moral lessons about eating vitamins and saying prayers, you won't get that either. If you were expecting quality entertainment, then boy have you ever come to the wrong place. DokiDoki Precure is your typical mediocre and completely forgettable kid's show from a franchise that is anything but mediocre and forgettable. But hey, if this is the worst thing to happen to Precure than we can only hope it's all uphill from here.