Tropical-Rouge! PrecureSo I’ve pointed this out before, but it’s weird how all o

Tropical-Rouge! Precure

So I’ve pointed this out before, but it’s weird how all of Toei’s heroes, apart from Revi/Vice, are all concurrently white. We’ve got Zenkaiser whose second in command is red, Gammamon who’s the first main Digimon to not be a primary color, and, the subject of today, Cure Summer. While pink isn’t as set in stone as red is for Sentai, white is more often a second-in-command-ish color (White, Egret, Rhythm), though I suppose all 3 of the aforementioned heroes are also very colorful apart from being just white. Zenkaiser and Summer both have stripes of their team’s colors, and Gammamon evolves into four different Digimon (red, blue, green, and black). It’s an interesting change of pace, and I’m very curious as to why they decided to do this.

The Good: This was a very strong season. Coming off the very mellow Healin’ Good Precure,Tropical Rouge is immediately bursting with energy in contrast. Manatsuis very much like Kamen RIder Fourze’s Gentarou; she’s a character that undergoes very little development herself, and is instead a positive force of change for the people around her. That being said, she might also be one of the weakest characters on the team, and is a strange instance of the team leader not being the main character. I liked Sango, but shewas also kind of weak. She wasn’t a bad character, and her individual character episodes were always interesting even if not my favorites, but the other girls each had a backstory and development that was built up throughout the season, while Sango felt mostly like a background character. I found Minorito be very funny, partly because of how much more animated she was when a Precure than she was normally. Her story was built up throughout the season, and the finale was technically her payoff. Asukawas definitely the strongest of the original four, with a very strong overarching plot that popped up very often over the course of the show. My only real issue with her story was that the student council prez was very antagonistic toward the group throughout the show, but had a somewhat abrupt face turn right at the end. Laura, despite starting the show as the team’s “fairy” and not being the leader, was the main character. She undergoes the most development of all the characters, usually is directly involved in everyone else’s to a greater extent than even Manatsu, and most of the ongoing plot is centered around her. At the beginning, I had the feeling they were going to speed her along to getting her legs, which I thought as a bit of a cop out, but the way they developed her character made me quickly start rooting for her to get them. I don’t think the show wouldn’t be as good as it was without Laura around.

The overall plotwas interesting, too. Every time we got a bit of information about the Procrastination Queen it got me theorizing about what her end goal was, what her connection to Cure Oasis was, and while I think a few of my theories were a little more interesting than what actually happened, it was still cool to see the mystery answered in a very Precureway.

Lastly, the animationthis season was phenomenal. Episode 29 is probably the best animated episode in the history of the show. I can’t help but feel that they took all the time and manpower they would usually use for their Spring/Summer movie on it. And it’s not a one-off instance, as there were periodically some amazing animated moments.

The Bad: I brought this up briefly, but while Laura, Minori, and Asuka were all well developed, Manatsu didn’t have any developmentand Sango had so little she sometimes felt like a side character. Honestly, some of the villains felt more developed than them, which is odd considering they were the first and second members of the team. Don’t get me wrong, I really like that they broke the norm and made the fairy character the focus of the season, but I also really enjoyed the interactions between Manatsu and Laura, and it would have been nice if Manatsu was more important to Laura’s story.

Just because it bothers me so much, I do want to bring up the Asuka vs Prez thing. This is probably American vs Japanese ideals, but when we learn their backstory during the train episode, Asuka is entirely in the right, IMO. She catches their opponents cheating, does nothing but grabs one of their wrists to stop them and yells, which are pretty understandable reactions, and the Prez gives the cheaters exactly what they want and drop out of the match, something they didn’t have to do at all. Asuka also didn’t want them disqualified or anything, she just wanted to beat them at tennis, which is a very honorable way of going about things. And even if Asuka got understandably upset and left the room, the Prez had over a year to talk to her and try and patch things up and get her to rejoin the team, but instead she acts like a jerk toward her. I like that they end the show on good terms, and being friends with Asuka improves her personality, but I would have liked an apology or admission she put her supposedly best friend in a pretty unfair situation.

And as much as I enjoyed the plotwe got, it was very sparsely added to. Basically, every time we went through a full round or two of character focused stories we’d get a small tidbit. I really wish there was a bit more sprinkled in, as at times it felt like I could skip maybe half the series and still get the full story. This form of writing also made it awkward right after Laura learned about the memory erasure, as she was still going on about being queen even though she felt like she was having second thoughts the episode before.

Overall, this was a very good series, my gripes aside. I might have to go rewatch Heartcatch(which may be apropos as this season crosses over with it), but Tropical Rouge may surpass it as my second favorite season of the show on the merits of Laura’s character arc alone. It’s definitely hard to beat Go! Princess in my books, but during the first half of the show I was wondering if it would beat it out. Despite my complaints about Manatsu and Sango, I still like them, and the individual episodes are still strong even if they don’t always move a character’s or the overarching plot forward.

I’m not super excited about going into another season with a baby. I’ve aired my conspiracy theories about that already, so I won’t go into it here. I’m kind of excited that we’re getting a male main character, since we haven’t really gotten that since Go! PrincessandHappiness Charge. I guess my opinions going in are very neutral, so let’s hope it’s a good one and my worries will be easily and quickly subverted. Still, I’ve never watched a season of PrecureI thought was bad, it just probably won’t be as good as this one.