Fresh Pretty Cure
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"The pink heart is the emblem of love! Freshly picked, Cure Peach!" |
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The sixth entry in the Pretty Cure franchise. The title comes from the heroines' fresh fruit Edible Theme Naming.
Love Momozono is a ridiculously-positive and empathetic girl who loves dancing. While attending a concert by her para-para idols Trinity, she is caught in an attack by the evil forces of Labyrinth, who seek to conquer The Multiverse by finding a MacGuffin called "Infinity". Love's desire to protect her idols and the happiness of those around her transform her into Cure Peach, one of the Legendary Warriors known as Pretty Cure.
She soon forms a Power Trio with her childhood friends: Miki Aono, an Insufferable Genius and fashion model who transforms into Cure Berry; and Inori Yamabuki, a kind-hearted animal lover who becomes Cure Pine. Together with Weasel Mascot Tart and baby puffball thing Chiffon, they must track down Infinity and protect the world from Labyrinth's machinations.
Fresh was an attempt to refresh (no pun intended) the Pretty Cure franchise after the successful but derivative Yes! Pretty Cure 5. It lowered the number of main characters to a manageable three, allowing for more development per character, and increased the amount of action and drama. The show later introduces a Story Arc focused on Labyrinth agent Eas, who attempts to infiltrate Love's group and steal her Transformation Trinket, only for the story to deconstruct Becoming the Mask in the most painful way possible, culminating in the birth of the fourth Pretty Cure, Cure Passion.
Tropes used in Fresh Pretty Cure include:
- Alternate Continuity (to the other series)
- Anime First
- Bad Boss (Moebius is physically and emotionally abusive, especially to Eas, who just wants his recognition.)
- Bare Your Midriff (Miki as Cure Berry)
- Battle in the Rain (Peach's last fight with Eas)
- Becoming the Mask (Horrifically de-constructed. Eas' new feelings of friendship towards Love cause her nothing but confusion and pain as Love systematically disproves her entire world view.)
- Berserk Button (Apparently, Northa got the bright idea to try and brainwash Setsuna into coming back to Labyrinth -- and when that doesn't work, capture her instead -- in episode 42. Then the Cures, especially Love, become Big Damn Heroes and save Setsuna. Keep in mind that Love would hate to lose Setsuna a second time, especially after what both she and Setsuna went through right before Setsuna's Heel Face Turn, and so she will not tolerate anyone trying to tear them apart now that their friendship has been set in stone as of the final moments of episode 23.)
- Big Damn Heroes (Episode 42)
- Episode 48: Just when it seems as if Pretty Cure is about to be defeated once and for all by The Dragon, Westar and Soular, who had supposedly died two episodes prior, swoop in to defend the girls. The general populace of Labyrinth may be considered Big Damn Heroes as well, since they are the ones who gave Pretty Cure the power to actually get back up and fight.
- Boke and Tsukkomi Routine (Episode 27 is entirely dedicated to this, including a guest appearance from the very real comedy duo Audrey.)
- And earlier on, someone mentioned that at one point in episode 1, Love looked like a combination of Boke and Tsukkomi: "She says and does stupid things and then ALSO does the punch lines to herself".
- But Now I Must Go (Setsuna, Hayato, and Shun head back to Labyrinth in the finale. Of course, there's no reason why they can't come back and visit.)
- By the Power of Greyskull ("Change! Pretty Cure! Beat Up!")
- Calling Your Attacks (Not just the actual attacks, but also Double Pretty Cure Punch, Double Pretty Cure Kick, Triple Pretty Cure Punch, and so on and so forth.)
- Cast from Hit Points (The Nakisakebe card works this way)
- Catch Phrase (Love's "Let's obtain happiness!"[1], Miki's "I am perfect!"[2], Inori's "I believe!"[3], and Setsuna's "I will do my best!"[4])
- Chest Insignia (the colorful four-leaf clover)
- The Computer Is Your Friend (Moebius was a computer created by Labyrinth's citizens to manage the country. He soon decided that his creators were too weak to do anything for themselves and took his assigned function to its logical conclusion.)
- Combined Energy Attack: Lucky Clover Grand Finale.
- Cue the Sun (Cure Passion's first appearance.)
- Dancing Theme (And in 3D to boot!)
- Debut Queue (Introduction of the Cures; subverted during the power-up spree, since Inori gets her Mid-Season Upgrade before Miki.)
- Disappeared Dad (Miki. Her parents are divorced and she lives with her mother. Her brother lives with her father.)
- Disney Death (Setsuna is resurrected as Cure Passion, and later in the series, Westar and Souler prove that you can, in fact, survive being sucked into a black hole. Guess the only one of the four cardinal directions villains whose death is going to be permanent is Northa's.)
- The Dragon (The frightening and androgynous fusion of Northa and Cline, though Northa and Cline themselves may be considered dragons to some extent. Cline even takes on the form of an actual dragon before the fusion with Northa.)
- Everything's Better with Spinning (Pretty Cure Happiness Hurricane)
- Evil Twin (Cure Passion has to deal with an impersonator of her former self, Eas, in episode 25.)
- Evolving Credits (Adding Cure Passion.)
- Extraordinarily Empowered Girl
- Freaky Friday Flip (episode 10)
- Frilly Upgrade (Cure Peach gets these after transforming into Cure Angel in the movie... and eventually, the rest of the Cures get them as well, after accessing their own Cure Angel upgrades during the penultimate episode.)
- Funny Afro (Love gets a couple of these every so often throughout the series.)
- Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! (Done by Cure Berry to Cure Peach in The Movie.)
- Girlish Pigtails (Love has Innocent/Ignorant Pigtails)
- Gratuitous English
- Heel Face Mind Screw (Mercifully averted, as the girls arrive just in time to save their comrade Setsuna from being brainwashed back into Labyrinth in episode 42)
- Heel Face Turn (Setsuna/Eas became Cure Passion, the Fourth Ranger to the girls, in episode 23. Then Westar and Souler, having recovered from being sucked into a black hole two episodes earlier, help the Cures in their fight againt Northa in episode 48.)
- Hey, It's That Voice! (it's the mascots this time -- Tarte is clearly Agumon and the guy wields nunchucks, and Chiffon... well, Chi. Also, you'll probably recognize Miyuki's voice as that of Misty. Oh, and Northa is Nefertari Vivi.)
- Ayumi, Love's mother, is the main protagonist of Wedding Peach.
- Setsuna would later go on to voice Neytiri.
- Tarte and Inori = Kindaichi and Miyuki. Freaky Friday Flip episode might be played because of this.
- Thank God Soular never screams STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! in-series.
- High Heel Face Turn (Setsuna/Eas, sole female member of the antagonists, becomes Cure Passion and joins the protagonists. The sole evil female position, though, was filled by the decidedly more evil Northa.)
- Idiot Hero (Love, naturally)
- Idol Singer (more like Idol Dancer)
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight (A rare villainous version: Wester tries one of these on Setsuna shortly after her Heel Face Turn. Unfortunately for him, as he's not a hero it didn't work.)
- I Surrender, Suckers (Setsuna pulls a heroic version of this, pretending to accept Moebius' forgiveness so she can have a shot at destroying the Fuko gauge.)
- Kamehame Hadoken (The appearance when the Cures continue shooting finishing moves, as seen on episode 7.)
- Last-Minute Hookup: Averted with Love and Daisuke, but it looks good for them.
- Late Arrival Spoiler (Cure Passion's identity was spoiled left and right by merchandising at least a month before she actually appeared on-screen.)
- Licked by the Dog (Setsuna in episode 25, ironically enough by the same dog she kicked back in episode 3, just to show that this dog is NOT ashamed of her.)
- Living MacGuffin (Chiffon was Infinity all along.)
- Lotus Eater Machine (The world of memories, created by Camera Nakewameke.)
- Magical Girl
- Magic Skirt (Both forms; thank the petticoats in Cure forms!)
- Meaningful Name
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal (Double subverted. Eas receives a letter declaring that she's fired and that Klein, who can end the life of any Labyrinth citizen with the push of a button, is severely shortening her lifespan. Instead of running to Love for help, she becomes more determined to defeat Love before these "strange feelings" of friendship and self-worth that the Cures give her take over, so that he'll change his mind about her having become useless. However, Eas gives up in her fight against Peach, Klein kills her anyway, and the Akarun brings her back to life as a Cure. Disgusted with her previous actions, she joins the side of good.
- Monster of the Week (Nakewameke, which abandon the more or less freeform look of previous MOTWs in favor of a more natural-looking appearance, while still being will-the-Precure-please-get-giant-robots-already big. It later gains a power-up version called Nakisakebe.)
- The Movie (The Kingdom of Toys has Lots of Secrets?!)
- Non-Serial Movie (Subverted; the Toy Kingdom and Cure Angel do appear in the series, and Usapyon makes a brief cameo in episode 26.)
- Mythology Gag (Many throughout the series.)
- Name's the Same (Name another Miki who has blue as her theme color and the spade from playing cards as her symbol; Shugo Chara may come to mind.)
- Take Love's surname, transfer it to Miki, and you pretty much got the civilian name of Goggle Pink.
- Nightmare Face (Employed by Setsuna, herself a Face for several episodes at the time, and Love, of all people, in episode 30 simultaneously.)
- Non-Human Sidekick (Chiffon and Tarte)
- Parents in Distress (Love's mother gets switched with a mirror enemy in one story and it's up to Love (her real daughter) and Setsuna (her surrogate daughter) to rescue her.
- Portmanteau Series Nickname ("H@ppy Together", the seconding Dancing Theme, has them spelling it out: P•R•E•C•U•R•E.)
- Power Gives You Wings (Cure Angel in the movie... and all four Heavenly Cures in the series.)
- The Power of Love (Guess which one of the girls has this power.)
- Quirky Miniboss Squad (Although unlike other Pretty Cure examples, it starts to disband after Cure Passion's appearance.)
- Redemption Equals Death (reversed--Death Equals Redemption, leading to Redemption Earns Life.)
- Played straight and averted later with Westar and Souler, who are seemingly pulled into a black hole for deletion after saving Berry and Passion from the same fate. And then they get better two episodes later. )
- Red Herring (The girls at first think Miyuki is Cure Passion, but they're wrong...)
- Ridiculously-Human Robots (a popular fan theory for the nature of the people of Labyrinth; they can eat food and feel pain, but there's something not-quite-right about them nevertheless.) subverted at the end of the series when it's revealed that they really were all human, just being mind-controlled by a robot.
- Secret Keeper (The first Pretty Cure series to have them!)
- Media Franchise
- Ship Tease (Miki hugging Inori in one of the previews)
- Shojo
- Shout-Out: Episode 12 is full of these. Just look at the wigs. There's even a Sazh wig!
- Compare Westar and Soular's explanation about their comeback with the prologue of Kamen Rider Black RX. Cue Kamen Rider jokes about those two spread within the fandom.
- Angel Peach's and Angel Berry's pose may seem familiar...
- Peach and Eas' fight in episode 23 looks familiar...
- Sixth Ranger: More like "Fourth Ranger". Anyway, Setsuna fills this slot starting in episode 23.
- Eleventh-Hour Ranger: Azukina decides to join the girls from episode 45 onwards. Same with Westar and Soular after episode 48.
- Spanner in the Works (Cline didn't count on the Akarun reviving Setsuna as Cure Passion, and he certainly didn't expect her to be a Cure. Hell, not even Setsuna herself was aware that she was Cure Passion until redemption earned her back her life.)
- Special Edition Title (advertising the Bat Family Crossover)
- Spell My Name with an "S" (Is it Westar or Wester? Soular or Souler? Northa or Norza? Tart or Tarte? Despite there being trading cards that show some of those names, the fandom still can't seem to come to consensus about which spelling is correct for any of them.)
- Takahashi Couple: Love and Daisuke (even if Love's more genki than most tsunderes around), almost reminiscent of Momoko and Yousuke.
- Taking You with Me Moebius rages at the fact that he cannot control the Cures and decides to blow himself up with them inside. Luckily, they're bailed out by Chiffon just in time.
- Teleporters and Transporters (Setsuna's Transformation Trinket has the ability to teleport the characters to desired locations. Upon discovering this new power, the girls used it to retrieve forgotten items from their homes.)
- Theme Tune Cameo (The second ending music is used repeatedly during the series, and the first ending music is the song the Trinity group dances to in the first episode.)
- Theme Naming (Jumping on the previous season's bandwagon, not only the mascots are named after food, but the Cures are as well. Also, four of the villains are named after cardinal directions.)
- Actually, there's more than that for Labyrinth members: they're all about 'directions'/'orientation'. Moebius and Klein are actually taken from "Moebius strip" and "Klein bottle".
- They Still Belong to Us Lecture: Attempted several times after Eas' Heel Face Turn. Wester invokes this because he is genuinely hurt by Setsuna's defection and wants his comrade to return. Later on, Northa uses it purely as part of a Moral Event Horizon-crossing More Than Mind Control gambit.
- Three Plus One
- Title Theme Tune
- Transformation Sequence
- Transformation Trinket
- True Companions
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: You would think, that enormous Monsters of the Week (that cannot be Invisible to Normals due to their very purpose) and Pretty Cures beating crap out of each other in the middle of the town would draw some serious attention from the world.
- Weasel Mascot (Tarte, more of a ferret than a weasel)
- Where the Hell Is Springfield? (We know they're in Japan, but where the heck can we find Clover Town Street?)
- What Measure Is a Non-Cute? (Eas basically fits this trope, since, due to having equally cute villain and human forms, she was spared being Killed Off for Real)
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? (Inori, who loves animals, except ferrets, and Tarte just happened to be a ferret. Luckily, as of episode 10 she's no longer afraid of him.
- Also, Daisuke's afraid of thunder, as revealed in episode 16.
- Miki is afraid of anything made of octopus, shown in episode 33.
- Yeah! Shot
- You Are Number Six (The citizens of Labyrinth are all numbered; although they don't use those numbers as names, Eas is addressed by hers in her letter.)
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair (Miki, more like bluish-purple. Also, her brother Kazuki, and villains Wester and Souler when transformed. Setsuna, in every form, can also count, although in civillian form it could be considered as stylized black.)
- You Have Failed Me...
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness
- Zettai Ryouiki (Eas, who combines it with hot pants, and Cure Berry)