You and Idol Precure♪

This review is going to be impassioned, but will avoid spoilers. I will be making reference to the basic setup of You and Idol Precure, as well as the setup in Princession Orchestra. The reason I will be doing this is because during its airing, You and Idol was consistently compared to Princession by magical girl fans, on this site and everywhere else. I will get into the topic in this review later, but first: we discuss You And Idol. The story begins when our main protagonist, Uta Sakura, is out walking her dog, and discovers a large floating peach in the river. This setupis actually borrowed from a classic Japanese myth about a chosen hero boy, named Momotaro. And just like Momotaro the boy of legend came out from the peach, Uta sees a fellow life come out from the floating peach. Inside is Purirun, perhaps one of the funniest and most unique mascots I have ever seen in Precure (and I’ve seen many seasons). Purirun has a childish voice, is squishy and extremely friendly, immediately introducing themselves to Uta (while the camera does a panning shot over their behind, as their squishy mascot tail wags back and forth just to make us think “ok this thing is completely innocent”. What’s particularly great about Purirun though is their subversion. While Purirun seems childish and innocent, they’re actually like, the greatest chosen hero of the mascot kingdom that they come from (oh hey, exactly like Momotaro who they are based on!), and on top of that, they’re also one of the generally older mascots physically (we later learn they’re actually older than Uta, though still not quite old enough to be a high school senior!). Upon finishing this strong introduction to Purirun, we spend the majority of the first episode with Uta trying to understand what it means to be a Precure, why Purirun believes she has the potential to be one, and just generally trying to be a good friend to Purirun. This setup and its focus on the bond between a normal girl and her mascot friend really gave me a retro throwback vibe in the best possible ways. Sometimes the classic story of a kid and their not-quite-human magical creature is simply really compelling, and You and Idol Precure completely understands that. Furthermore, the way that Uta didn’t fit into the Idol Precure role right away, even insisting that she is neither strong enough or passionate enough to be a Precure (though Purirun insists about just how much of a legend she is). However while I give all this praise, I do also need to acknowledge a flaw which was in episode 2, as there was a scene where Purirun’s hair (head fur? What is the fur on a mascot’s head called??) gets turned into an Afro, and both Purirun and Uta are embarrassed and disturbed about it being in an Afro. As someone who has known several people who absolutely rock the Afro hairstyle irl, Uta and Purirun are simply wrong to think an Afro would be weird as a hairstyle… Anyway, moving swiftly on, I’d like to discuss the fight scenes in this show, they’re awesome! The previous season of Precure which was known as Wonderful Precure, had much less of a focus on fight scenes, and was more about playing tag and befriending the enemies (considering the fact that Wonderful Precure had the enemies be normal innocent animals that had been possessed, it makes sense that our heroes wanted to play with these enemy animals, and not hurt them). But, rest assured, for anyone who severely missed the classic Precure fights with punches and kicks, this season will give you more of what you want! The fights here were awesome, as we see Uta, and later two other friends, transform into Precure to punch, kick, and use special attacks, against villian generals who turned possessed citizens, into monsters (yes, I missed this!!) Next up, after we have established the core cast comprised of Kokoro Shigure and Aokaze Nana, we spend just a few episodes with Purirun and the 3 girls, until, a 4th girl shows up, except… she’s not a human, she’s a mascot! Yep, in classic Precure fashion, we have a character introduced to shake up the status quo, and this one is a really cool mascot with vaguely gothic fashion (at least I think it would be called Goth), named Meroron. Meroron provides a really fun shakeup upon her introduction, in a way that reminded me a lot of Milk from Yes Precure 5. Much like Milk, we are introduced to this new fairy with an honestly… simp level devotion to the first fairy, and it’s frankly hilarious. Beyond just being good comedy though, it also does wonders to endear us to Meroron’s character immediately. We have been spending this whole show so far seeing Purirun as very innocent, and worth protecting (Uta even made a whole dramatic moment of wiping away Purirun’s tears for instance). And so when Meroron shows up and immediately assigns herself to simping for her Onee-Sama/sister Purirun, we as an audience are immediately endeared to Meroron as well! A YouTuber who is probably one of the best in the magical girl community, Caribou Kun, has once said (in Reasons to Watch: Ojamajo Doremi), that the best way to make us an audience resonate with a new character added much later after the beginning, is to make them friendly with other members of the cast. As if the new character has a little part of all those characters we love, in them as well. I believe that Meroron was introduced wonderfully into the show in this regard, one of the best late season fairies I have ever seen. As previously mentioned, the magical girl community has argued that the brand new series Princession, offers superior magical girl action storytelling for the intended audience of children. However, I believe that Princession has an uninteresting (and occasionally creepy) cast, a slow pace, and attempts to crib the style of other previous magical girl shows by the same people (Princession is by the creators of Symphogear, and the show's director was trained by the director of Madoka Magica). You and Idol provides an experience that children will find entertaining, with humor and emotional pathos that feels kid oriented, instead of just feeling like it borrows elements (such as the surreal paper cutout style) from Madoka Magica. I believe, that once we look past the clean, Symphogear inspired presentation of Princession Orchestra, it is an inferior magical girl series to You And Idol Precure. As previously mentioned, You and Idol Precure offers a likable cast of multiple mascot characters in the main cast, who are not annoying, and even managed to be helpful. Meanwhile in Princession Orchestra, the majority of the focus is on the singular bunny mascot Naville, and while Princession did not make Naville annoying, it also doesn't really seem to do anything with him, until later in the show when the writers seemed to treat him extremely cruelly, just making me pity Naville. The mascots of You And Idol are given much more respect, with kid friendly roles in this show, as both Purirun and Meroron (the mascots of You And Idol) begin the show as flawed and somewhat childish, but as the show goes on, they become true heroes. I believe that on the whole, You And Idol provides writing and characters that will be more child appropriate. Because while I am sure that some in the magical girl community are tired of seeing these type of child friendly stories, and so they are attracted to the Symphogear-Madoka-style of Princession Orchestra, I believe that they are more forgiving of Princession's flaws, because, they are sick of seeing the same Precure tropes. But just because You and Idol Precure is a typical kids show, does not make it bad. I will be the first to admit that You and Idol does many of the same plot points as previous Precure entries, such as the mascots having a similar arc to Smile Precure, and more. But the thing is, these storytelling tropes of Precure work for a reason, and You and Idol Precure remains a highly recommendable piece of entertainment for its intended audience of children.