FIFTEEN SEASONS.
♪DANZEN! Futari wa Prety Cure (Ver. Max Heart)♪
Hugtto Precure marks the fifteenth consecutive
year of the Pretty Cure multimedia franchise
and ho boy, did Toei, season director Junichi
Satou (yes, that one), and all the creative
staff behind this season go bloody all out.
This season is in so many ways a culmination
and celebration of Precure, and in a much
more successful manner than the last time
they tried to do that.
It re-interrogates and reaffirms so many of
the themes and ideas Precure has built itself
around since its inception while striking
out with a couple of ideas of its own.
Hugtto builds a warm cast with a couple of
genuinely affecting characters that wrangled
more emotions out of my stone cold heart than
anything in this series since maybe the crossover
movie from the Mahoutsukai era.
It doubles down on the series’ common appeal,
consistently showering us with cuteness and
incredible action scene after incredible action
scene to an extent that hasn’t been seen
since Heartcatch, which I feel like I’ve
probably said before but it’s honestly true, people.
And it also created a new appeal in a few
of the scripts’ abilities to seamlessly
weave numerous character and narrative threads
to a degree that none of the rest of the franchise
has honestly come close to matching.
It celebrates its past while boldly looking
toward the future.
It's...
it’s pretty fuckin’ good, is
what I’m saying.
Let’s start by discussing how Hugtto Precure
is a thematic culmination of the series up 'til now.
One theme that has popped up time and again
throughout a few of the past seasons is the
idea of good and evil being two sides of the
same coin.
Whether you want to call it hope and despair
or light and darkness or what have you, the
general idea is that in life, even as you
strive for happiness, you will inevitably
encounter hardships and suffering, but learning
to accept and overcome those hardships make
achieving happiness all the sweeter.
This has come up in Suite, with its villain
being the incarnation of the cumulative sorrow
spawned from human hearts; the interwoven
nature of selfishness and love in DokiDoki;
love and loss in Happiness Charge; and despair
and hope in Go! Princess.
Feel free to name other examples, they definitely
exist.
Anyway, this season has its own spin on that
concept, and of all those seasons I just mentioned,
it does the best job of literalizing it; it’s
not just an abstract theme but a concrete
motivation, a tangible part of the narrative.
How did Hugtto manage to pull that?
Well, let’s rewind back to the very first
episode.
Episode one sees our protagonist, Hana Nono,
out on her way to school after a botched attempt
at cutting her own hair when all of a sudden
「ZA WARUDO」
For just a moment, time freezes.
It’s weird, but more importantly it’s
unsettling, as telegraphed by the echoing
cries of a baby - and then we’re back to
normal, we’re okay.
Well, Hana’s not, but she’ll be fine.
The march of time allowed her to save this
old lady, after all.
From this very first moment, we’re already
being told what this season is about: time.
You can’t stop time.
Time will march on, whether you like it nor
not.
But if you could, what reason might you have
for doing so?
This is where Precure’s obsession with the
intrinsically tied nature of the ups and downs
of life comes into play.
This series has always preached acceptance,
learning to live with the tough parts of life
so as to fully enjoy its high points.
But what if you rejected that notion?
What if you were so caught up in your present
happiness that you refused to accept that
it might not last forever?
What if you were afraid of the hardships ahead?
Then, you might just feel like quitting while
you’re ahead.
Then, you just might think to freeze time.
♪Komm, süsser Tod♪
(yes this was way too obvious but i did it anyway)
At the start of the season, Homare Kagayaki
is settled.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s happy,
but she’s more or less accepted her current
position and isn’t inclined to try to move
on or change.
She’s a skating prodigy who can’t bring
herself to get back on the ice after messing
up a jump and injuring herself.
She’s scared to so much as try, and the
fear she feels could stem from a whole host
of mental hang-ups.
Whether she fears disappointing the people
in her life or even letting herself down,
what matters is that she can’t push herself
forward.
She’s stuck idealizing a past version of
herself and fearing that her future self might
not be able to attain the same or even greater
heights.
Her fear of that potential disappointment
is so intense that it overrides her passion
for skating, the joy and love that made her
reach for those heights in the first place.
That fear prevents her from reaching to the
future - thus, she’s frozen in time.
But you can’t stop time.
Life marches on with or without you - and
are you about to stand there and let life
pass you by?
You can’t let fear override your desires,
freeze you in place.
You have to march forward, match life’s
stride.
Doing so you’ll almost inevitably encounter
pain and hardships, sure, but if you can overcome
them there’s joy and fulfillment on the
other side, too.
By the end of the season, Homare has found
that fulfillment, and she did so by, after
receiving an injection of cheer and self-confidence
from her pals, picking herself up and learning
to live with and push past her failures.
Throughout the season, she never stops failing.
We’ll see her fail that jump again and again,
and we’ll see her fall in love with a man
she knows she can never be with, but even
as all of that hurts, she never lets that
stop her.
It all hurts but that’s all okay because
she comes out the other side having learned
and grown stronger for it.
She accepted the pain that comes with living
and was thus able to find her happiness.
So that’s a pretty standard Precure take
on the concept so far - accepting the bad
that goes with the good and all that - but
Hugtto goes just a little extra with it because
remember, this is about time.
And not just its inevitable march, but trying
to stop it.
This is a show terribly concerned with the
futures of its characters.
Many a past Cure could be said to fight for
the future, but this is the first time where
that’s a very literal statement.
In a show whose message is about not fearing
your future, about bravely stepping into it,
the antithesis of that is literalized through
the show’s villains actually aiming to freeze
time altogether.
When the girls are fighting for the future,
they’re not just fighting for their own
or fighting for it in an abstract sense, they
are literally fighting for the future.
So when this show is moralizing about not
fearing the future, it’s not just doing
that with vague platitudes and pretty speeches.
It’s doing that by having magical girls
use their fists and sheer force of will to
force the villains and indeed time itself
to move on.
They’re a shining example to follow - if
they can do it, why can’t you?
If they can do it, so can you.
In that sense, we’re all, in our own way,
Precure.
One way that Precure has always been concerned
with the future of its characters is through
their dreams and life ambitions.
What do they want to be when they grow up?
This was of particular focus in Yes!
5 and in Kirakira, and definitely in a bunch
of other places, too.
Which, I mean, obviously, right?
Of course a series about teenagers growing
up is going to be concerned with what they
want to do with themselves.
But a lot of the prior seasons have featured
characters who already more or less know what
they want to do with themselves, and then
it becomes more about finding the path to
the future they want to achieve.
But Hugtto takes a slightly different approach.
Saaya Yakushiji is an actor.
Her famous actor mother is a huge source of
inspiration for her, and her dream is to one
day do an acting alongside her.
(This sounds vaguely familiar.)
Anyway, in episode 44 she actually achieves
that dream and in any other season that might
be it, but this isn’t any other season.
This is Hugtto.
And in Hugtto, the future marches on.
You have time to figure out who you want to
be.
Throughout the season, Saaya isn’t sure
she wants to dedicate her life to acting.
She wants to do the thing with her mom, sure,
but after that?
She has no idea.
But, as the show’s repeated opening refrain
stated, she could be anything, do anything.
The future may be inevitable, but aside from
that, nothing about it is set in stone.
It’s malleable - you can shape it if you
have the will to do so.
For Saaya, just because she was already doing
something didn’t mean her current path was
carved in stone.
Her uncertainty eventually turns to realization:
she eventually decides on a new dream, a new
future for herself.
All she needed was the will to admit it to
herself and those around her.
Saaya changes her own future, a daring expression
of independence for someone otherwise as reserved
as she, and in so doing further plays into
Hugtto’s message of accepting and making
work for you the inevitable progression of
time.
Hugtto’s celebration of all things Precure
isn’t just thematic, mind you.
There’s also the very obvious inclusion of
Yeah, so uh, that’s new.
A rather pleasant surprise in the moment and
definitely the single greatest cliffhanger
in the history of Precure, that’s for sure.
This season has two separate crossover occasions.
In the first, Nagisa and Honoka from Furtai
wa just drop out of the sky and hang around
for a bit.
In the context of that episode, they honestly
weren’t necessary for the drama going on
which involved best girls Emiru and Lulu (we’ll
get to them I promise).
They helped, I guess, but they were more a
novelty than anything.
At most we got a good action scene out of
it.
But then episode 36 rolls around and hang
on a minute, what’s the adult Kirakira crew doing here?
MARTY MCFLY: "Hey!"
"Hey, I've seen this one,
I've seen this one!"
"This is a classic!"
Episodes 36 and 37 just go bananas with the
crossover shenanigans; it’s pretty much
one of the crossover movies crammed into two
episodes.
Because of that, they definitely feel over-stuffed,
and aside from a bit with Lulu and the doc
at the end, we don’t get much of the drama
at the heart of the season that makes it so
compelling, but it’s easy to forget about
that when all the cool shit is happening in
front of your face, like dude they just crammed
in all the animation here, like, all of it.
It’s rule of cool on a galactic scale.
It’s a stuff-popcorn-in-your face celebration
of why animation nerds everywhere swear on
Precure like it’s the Bible.
I totally just made that up but you get the
idea.
It’s the purest distillation of one of Precure’s
main appeals: cute and cool girls kicking
all sorts of ass.
What’s not to love?
OH LOOK, THEY DID THE THING, THEY DID THE
THING .
Now that we’ve discussed how Hugtto is a
culmination of Precure - though we’re not
wholly done with it in terms of the wider
series - let’s discuss some of its own unique
focuses, thematic or otherwise.
How deep into this video and I’ve
mentioned the main character once?
Let’s fix that.
Hana Nono - oh God that just, that just sounds so wrong.
It's Nono Hana but
We, we are not glorious nihonjin.
I'm sorry. Anyway,
Hana Nono goes through quite the personal
reckoning, doesn’t she?
She’s a cheerful girl in more than one way
and clumsy like oh so many pink-haired protags
before her, but aside from that, her thing
is that she doesn’t have a thing, and she
gets called out for it and spends a not insignificant
amount of time having an existential crisis
about it.
Hana is the cheerleader, the ultimate supportive
friend.
She makes a point of always being there for
those she cares about, cheering them on when
they’re down and generally being awesome,
but aside from that, what does she do?
And especially in comparison to those friends
that she cheers on, what does she do?
Saaya is a talented actor who always has an
audition or job lined up; Homare’s always
on the ice, practicing for and putting on
incredible performances; and Emiru and Lulu
somehow become local pop celebrities.
In comparison to all the cool and amazing
things her friends are doing, Hana simply
cheering them on doesn’t seem like much
of anything, does it?
So not only is Hana’s one thing singled
out as seeming somewhat trite, but the show
also goes on to force Hana to question the
very value of cheering at all through a direct
callout via Henri Wakamiya.
In the worst-case scenario, simply trying
to cheer someone on, telling them “ganbare,”
might not be what they need in the moment.
Hell, for someone in a certain mindset, it
just might make them feel worse about themselves.
So, how does the cheerleader account for that?
What is the value of cheering, and can it
ever be enough?
Of course, this being magical girl fare, cheering
does have value, and it can be a source of
happiness and inspiration, so long as it’s
not thoughtless.
You can’t just tell Homare Kagayaki that
you believe in her - that won’t do her any
good if she doesn’t already believe in herself.
The support she requires is a boost of self-confidence,
and cheering can provide that, but only if
you know how.
And the how isn’t by simply saying “you
can do it” - it’s by showing her she can
do it.
Despite Hana’s repeated refrain of “hooray,
hooray,” the most powerful tool in her arsenal
isn’t those words, the literal action of
cheering someone on with her mouth.
The words are a reminder that Hana’s there
for you and reinforcement of her support,
but they only have power because the person
saying them always acts to support her friends
instead of standing off to the side.
Homare isn’t inspired to return to the ice
just because Hana said she believed she could,
but rather because she reinforced her belief
by showing her that they were all capable
of performing miracles through doing the whole
Precure thing.
Hana’s cheers have weight not only because
they’re omnipresent but because she puts
in the effort and work to show that she believes
in her friends; she leads them to believe
they can do anything by shining example, and
thus is the most powerful cheerleader in the multiverse.
Incidentally, this also ties to why she rejects
that sword.
Her power doesn’t stem from weapons or the
ability to hurt people or anything like that.
Her power stems from her belief in the strength
and goodness of herself and her friends and
everyone, really.
Precure - nay, magical girls don’t need
swords; the strength of their convictions
is enough to change the world.
…Which makes it pretty wild when this season’s
*second* crossover movie rolls around and
the Yes 5 crew just whips out a bunch of lightsabers,
which they have.
I don’t… uh, okay.
You’re behind the curve there, girls, the
future’s waiting for you to catch up.
I guess if you frame Hugtto against that,
then it’s a step forward, into the future
- and ha, we’re still talking about that.
But okay, let’s actually move on now.
Divorced from the wider Precure context, let’s
just talk about this season’s greatest contribution
to the wider human experience: that’s right
baby, it’s time for
THE ADVENTURES OF TALL AND SMOL.
Emiru Aisaki and Lulu Amour are two of my
new favorite characters in media.
They’re both fun in and of themselves, but
it’s together that they shine.
Their relationship is incredible not just
because it’s gay as fuck and melts my cold
dead heart but because it’s inexorably tied
to their growths as characters.
And that’s just, you know, for lack of a
better term, good writing.
Like the show, let’s take this one at a
time, then together.
Emiru is just a bundle of personality.
She’s the daughter of a rich family who
loves to rock and roll but that’s frowned
upon by her older brother (wait that sounds
really familiar) so she has to hide her desires
a lot and thus isn’t the most practiced
with expressing herself.
Thus, when she is able to express herself,
she does it with such an over-the-top, no-holds-barred
earnestness that you can’t help but fall
in love with her.
She’s genuine to a fault; she wants so bad
to look after her friends, to protect and
in some sense control the part of her life
that her family has no influence over, that
she doesn’t know when to stop, and therefore
she just goes ham.
And let’s not fail to give credit to the
animators and her seiyuu here; the former
go all-in with her eccentric character animation
and the latter just goes one thousand percent
with her vocal performance.
Mix that together and what you get is one
of Precure’s most delightfully energetic characters.
*emiru noises*
HUGTAN: *squeal*
Yes Hugtan, I agree.
And then we’ve got Lulu, who is in many
ways Emiru’s polar opposite.
Aside from the staggering height difference,
the most notable contrast is Lulu’s startling
lack of personality.
She’s an android from the future - which,
side note, Precure’s getting pretty out-there
with its weird sci-fi concepts, huh?
I know this is a pattern because we’ve got
Star Twinkle next.
Anyway, being an android means that she starts
out fairly deadpan.
She isn’t devoid of emotions, she just lacks
any familiarity with or understanding of them.
She was just a drone there to do a job - or
at least, so her villain comrades thought.
Of course, she’s more than a drone, she’s
a person; all she’s gotta do is learn how
to be one.
And it’s in that learning, her growing from
a cold, careless worker bee to a kind, caring,
and empathetic person, facilitated primarily
through her relationship with Emiru, that
we find Hugtto Precure’s most emotionally
resonant arc.
Emiru and Lulu, as a direct result of meeting
and falling in love with each other, grow
into better people; their relationship is
meaningful and impactful to us viewers because
it’s just as affecting for them.
The pair first run into each other in episode
15, and they immediately hit it off as a comedic
duo, with Emiru doing her over-the-top shtick
and Lulu acting as the deadpan straight man.
*more emiru noises*
LULU: the fuck
This is a natural and amusing clash of their
personalities as have been established, but
where it starts to get interesting is where
there personal dramas intersect.
Up until this point, Lulu’s been trying
to compute some unknown manifestations in
her circuitry (read: emotions) after Hana
was the first person to ever tell her that
she liked her and then after breaking protocol
to jump in and protect some kids in the previous
episode, but being with Emiru, being witness
to her problems and helping her overcome them
helps Lulu start to come to grips with her
own.
See, Emiru loves to play her electric guitar
but her conservative rich family, especially
her brother, don’t just frown on that but
actively try to squash her freedom and individuality.
Lulu, being a third party witness, is able
to see through and call out the bullshit,
not immediately realizing that even as she’s
doing so, she’s lambasting the very same
forces that are making her life so confusing
and painful.
As she ardently vies for Emiru’s freedom,
so too is she subconsciously pleading for her own.
Thus, their personal character threads, once
separate, have seemingly effortlessly come
together and affected one another.
AND THEN THE SHOW JUST GOES HARDER.
That stretch of episodes from 15 to 22, with
their focus on Emiru and Lulu’s relationship,
their personal development, and the corresponding
interwoven character and narrative threads
that all play into and affect one another;
that’s all just an absolutely transcendent
set of episodes.
There’s so much more that I could just absolutely
gush about with regard to those two and that
set of episodes, from the more complicated
emotions they aim to tackle to that interwoven
narrative structure that always keeps multiple
things moving forward and the song and how
these two have just the best transformation
sequence in this whole goddamn franchise,
but I mean there’s just so much, man.
Like, fuck.
Just, in short, Emiru and Lulu are the greatest;
their set of episodes is so tightly written,
their personal growths so compelling, their
relationship so endearing, that guys, I think
this is it.
I think this franchise has peaked.
…Although.
There’s just this one thing with them that
gives me pause, and it has to do with the
season’s ending.
So.
Lulu, Harry, the baby, and the gaggle of ex-baddies
are all from the future, and in the last episode,
after the day and the future are saved, they
have to return to it.
There’s a lot of sad goodbyes, but what’s
important to note is that Lulu says to Emiru
Okay.
Cut to the future, 2030, and the main three
are all off adulting, but then we find Emiru,
and she’s, uh… well, she meets a small
Lulu.
At first, their relative heights being inverted
was amusing; like “ha, now I am the tall
and you are the smol,” but then I started
thinking about how this came to pass and a
sense of unease came over me.
Note: this is our Emiru, but this is not Emiru’s
Lulu.
Lulu said she’d be waiting for her, so where
is she?
In order to answer that question, we have
to consider what this show’s time travel
mechanics are.
Hugtto is never explicit about this, so we
have to do some guessing.
The lack of our Lulu in this time has different
explanations based on whether you believe
there’s only one timeline or multiple, and
neither are very fun to contemplate.
If there are multiple timelines, then that
means that the crew corrected only their own,
and when Lulu and co.
returned to the future they returned to their
own corrupted timeline and still have to fix
that on their own.
And even if they do, their timeline is one
where the Hugtto Precure never formed and
thus Lulu and Emiru never met, so even if
Lulu did meet Emiru in that timeline that
Emiru would be a stranger.
In that scenario, our Emiru and Lulu are permanently
separated, which, oh no.
But what if there’s just one timeline?
That might be even worse.
If there’s just one timeline, fixing the
past meant irrevocably altering the future,
and given the lack of our Lulu in 2030, changing
the future meant changing it into one where
Lulu never existed, which means that by returning
to the future Lulu was essentially erasing
her own existence?
Oh no.
So all that’s kind of depressing (and honestly it's probably the former option), but there is a silver lining here.
While Emiru may be permanently separated from
her Lulu by time and space, she at least hasn’t
let her lost love hold her in the past, pining
for what’s lost.
She’s lived a life in the time between and
matured, not just literally but as a person,
as we can tell by her much calmer demeanor.
She’ll never find that old love again, the
past is the past, but that doesn’t mean
she can’t love again.
It’ll be a different sort of love this time,
granted.
Smolu is now but a child, and Emiru’s a
grown woman and has a lifetime’s worth of
experiences to look back on.
This new relationship can’t be the same,
but that’s okay; it’s simply something
new, a new experience for the both of them.
In the past, they helped each other to grow.
Now, Emiru can pass on all her experiences
to Smolu - in other words, raise her, be a
mom, and in so doing ensure the best future
for herself and her child.
And wouldn’t you know it, just as that’s
happening Hana’s giving birth to her own
child, a child that will grow into a Precure
herself and protect the future just as her
mother did.
And I ask you: what’s more future-focused
then raising the next generation of humans?
(Or, in our case, Precure?)
Thus, the show ends just as it began: with
an eye for tomorrow.
Alright, that was a tad melancholic; whaddya
say we lighten the mood?
Who wants to see some action?
Precure has always been a magnet for sakuga
fans due to the series’ consistently exciting
and occasionally incredible action animation;
this season not only recognizes that but leans
into that aspect hard.
It doesn’t exactly do much new with its
fight scenes, but it does maintain a consistent
level of quality across them such that an
episode rarely passes without something to marvel at.
In fact, the season’s first of several stellar
monster battles, the one in episode 4, not
only really got the ball rolling for the season
but is also an all-time franchise highlight.
Actually, in general, episode 4 was where
the season really started to pick up steam;
it’s no coincidence that it was directed
by Yuta Tanaka, the director of Go! Princess
and also episode 15, another fantastic one
which was also the first Emiruru outing.
There’s lots of great directing bits here
you could dissect; I like this bit toward
the end of the episode where a dejected Homare
is walking away from her shot at being Precure--
Don't throw away your shot, Homare.
(BG: ♪My Shot♪ from Hamilton.)
and the sun is shining between Hana and Saaya;
they’re the light she needs to reach for
but just can’t yet.
But I’m getting off track here.
The cut of animation that this episode is
famous for, that made Twitter explode when
it happened is, well, just watch.
UH.
Like, fuck.
I’m truly out of my depth here.
I lack the thorough understanding of advanced
animation techniques to even begin to try
to describe how bloody incredible that was.
It leaves me slack-jawed, and all the flowery
rhetoric in the world can’t do me much good
here, so all I can do is stand from my seat
and applaud at my computer screen and hope
that’ll get across even a fraction of how
much I think this fucking rules.
And now, before moving on to the final big
thing on the docket, I’d like to take the
time to cover some miscellaneous points that
I couldn’t fit elsewhere.
First, I’d like to talk about this season’s
fairy-adjacent companion, Harry Hariham.
He is both hamster and absolute stud, but
the thing that sticks out most about him is
the girls’, uh, kind of poor treatment of
him?
When he’s first introduced they mistake
him for a mouse, and then he gets upset and
corrects them… but then they continue to
refer to him as a mouse throughout the rest
of the season, and he gets upset every time.
Like, when someone tells you they don’t
want to be called something, the correct response
in that situation is “okay.”
You respect their identity.
But the Hugtto girls just don’t do that
for Harry and only Harry, which comes off
as uncharacteristically rude and insensitive
on their part.
And I’m struggling to think of why this
is a thing.
Is it supposed to be a recurring gag?
Is it funny?
Did anyone laugh at this?
Did any of the children in the audience even
laugh at this?
Wha… why did they do this?
Why?
And it’s especially weird because in every
other way Harry’s very much one of the fam,
respected, even loved by Homare. It’s just this one thing that they keep doing and I…
I just don’t get it.
Next, I’m a big fan of how, in the future
in the last episode, Homare can be read as
the dad of Hana’s kid.
Now before you say anything, I’m not an
idiot; I know that the rest of the season
hinted that in the future the big bad and
Hana at least knew each other and might have
been a thing, and in that last episodes there
were some pretty disconnected shots of some
unknown man in a suit with flowers running
somewhere, but as far as I’m concerned because
whoever this is didn’t actually show up
he could be an entirely unrelated figure and
there’s no need to acknowledge his existence.
Look, Homare actually showed up while Hana
was giving birth and held her hand and was
there for her like Hana was always there for
her, and it was Homare who did what any responsible
partner and soon-to-be parent would do: show
up for the birth of their kid, so you know what?
She’s the dad, end of story.
I know that’s probably not how this scene
was meant to be read, but also I’m plugging
my ears now I can’t hear you la la la la
la la la la la la--
Okay, alright, while I appreciate deadbeat
dad memes, I have to step in for Tyranno here.
The name is Kai, and I run another YouTube
channel, clearandsweet, where I talk a lot
about critical analysis of magical girl shows.
The central focus of Hugtto's plot conflict
- whether we like it or not - revolves around
George Kurai - Hana's (presumably) future
husband - and his corporation - Kuraiasu,
or Dark Tomorrow Corporation, if you translate
it literally, and their attempts to stop the
future from coming.
But the puns don't stop there.
The bad guys call upon monsters called Oshimaida,
which literally translate as "this is the
end" or "I'm finished".
And it’s all because hopelessness is the
true enemy in Hugtto Precure.
Having that embodied by a rigid monolithic
corporation, having mid-level baddies all
be various business-y types who complain incessantly
about company procedure, backstabbing for
self-gain, hating their job, and social status
should be fairly poignant, even moreso in
a country like Japan and its intimate relationship
with soul-sucking office work and strong social pressures.
So that makes it even more beautiful when
the baddies find redemption by changing their
values and their futures, instead finding
fulfillment in chasing their passions: running
talent agencies, opening a bakery, being a
real father, having a threesome with butler
twins… er, well, being a construction worker
and selling potatoes.
Likewise, even the Oshimaida resign when purified.
And while the Precure embody these values
of change, George brought the Kuraiasu corp
back from a future where it is heavily implied
that Hana died, and his actions to influence
the past stem from his desire to prevent that
pain.
He would have the world stop, as tomorrow
won't be better than yesterday was.
Hana's rejection of George's philosophy forms
the thematic backbone of the climax and of
the show, and in part of the genre.
From her cheers in the first shot of the show
to her daughter standing tall as Cure Tomorrow,
everything about Hana embodies the indominability
of hope, that tomorrow will be better than
yesterday was.
Using George's Mamoru-gone-crazy aesthetic
to represent a warped idea of altruism that
avoids change instead of embracing it and everything that comes along with it foils Hana perfectly.
And hey.
If you like thematic foils, boy, you gotta
check out me talking about Sayaka Mika and
Kyouko Sakura in my Madoka Magica breakdowns
over on clearandsweet.
Back to you, Tyranno.
...lalala.
Okay, now that we’re done ignoring George
for his dad crimes; speaking of Hana giving
birth, this season had quite the focus on
babies, which, *shrug*.
Always has been.
I’m not the cynical baby-hater I used to
be - I think I’ve got some ancient animal
instincts taking over and reprogramming my
brain to find the little gremlins adorable
- but, between Hugtan and all the babies at
the hospital and daycare, I don’t think
they were very effectively utilized beyond
“aw ain’t they cute.”
I think the biggest missed potential here
came in when Lulu was questioning why they
were caring for the young when the job was
so stressful.
Given the season’s thematic focus on the
future, that was a great opportunity to wax
poetic about how children represent the hope
for the future, but instead it was something
blithe and undercooked like caring because
reasons, which…
I, I mean I guess.
Granted, this issue was somewhat rectified
by the final episode as we’ve already discussed,
but the keyword there is somewhat.
One last thing I can’t go without mentioning
is that the grannies in episode 29 are, amazingly,
the universe’s ultimate badasses.
This one has muscles for days, and Hana’s
grandma doesn’t even need to transform to
fight monsters, she just goes and fuckin’
bang.
Like holy shit, this brings new meaning to
respect your elders, I love it.
Alright. With all that said, I’ve got one last big
thing I want to talk about that also ties
into this season’s larger thematic focus
on the future.
Yeah, you knew it was coming.
Let’s talk about Henri Wakamiya.
Henri, like so many characters this season,
fears the future.
He’s built his identity around being the
talented figure skater that he is, but that
can’t last forever.
Some unspecified injuries around his feet
that surgeries couldn’t correct for mean
that his days as a professional skater are
coming to an end, and then what will he be
left with?
If going into the future means leaving behind
the thing he loves, is going on even worth it?
What’s even left to live for?
Henri fears the paradigm-altering change that
the future heralds.
Of course, in keeping with Huggto’s themes
and refrains, he eventually learns to not
fear the coming change but accept it; he can
be anything, do anything, carve a new life
for himself.
All that’s well and expected.
But in doing all that, Henri creates a more
meta-level paradigm shift of his own: he transforms
into his own magical girl, Cure Infini.
You can be anything, you can do anything.
Thanks to Henri, that message is no longer
about just telling the kids in the audience
that they can pursue whatever job they want
when they grow up.
It’s been broadened to reflect personal
identity with regard to gender expression
and to maybe even expand the very definition
of magical girl.
Henri makes no secret of his love for dresses
and and beauty, regardless of anyone scoffing
at him for not being manly or whatever, showing
that neither he nor anyone has to let their
sex determine how they express themselves,
which is not only a poignant message for the
kids that’ll be watching this but is also
something that a lot of man babies could stand
to learn.
Hell, actually, this show does have a man
baby learn it: Emiru’s brother, who starts
out as a repressive, sexist ass, eventually
opens his heart because of and for Henri,
and the two are gay as fuck and it’s great.
And on top of all of that, Henri transforming
into Cure Infini shifts our understanding
of what it means to be a magical girl because
now, magical girls can be anyone, even a boy,
just so long as they believe in themselves
and their friends.
And I do mean anyone, as the finale has literally
every character, main or side, boy or girl,
TALL OR SMOL,
transform into a magical girl just fir a moment.
You can be anything, you can do anything - even
be a magical girl.
And by making this move - by making Henri
into a Cure and all that entails - Precure
is carving a new path into the future for
itself.
If Precure can make a boy into a magical girl,
who’s to say what else Precure can do?
Precure has no limits now - it can shoot for
the stars and beyond, which I know to be true
because the next season is Star Twinkle, which
sees its girls literally going to the stars.
Just as Hugtto pushed its own characters into
the future, so too did Precure push its own
franchise forward through those same characters.
You can do anything, be anything; girls can
pursue any career they choose, and boys can
be feminine, Precure even.
And I think Hugtto was able to so thoroughly
and successfully explore and go into the future
because it had an understanding of the past
- both Precure’s and that of magical girls
in general.
As I mentioned at the start, Hugtto Precure
was co-directed by Junichi Satou.
While this was his first and, as far as I
can tell, only contribution to Precure, it
makes sense that the season he directed was
so deeply reflective.
Why’s that?
Well, he’s also the director of this other
magical girl anime, you may have heard of it.
What was it called again?
Oh yeah.
SAILOR MOON.
An anime without which the modern magical
girl landscape would probably look very different,
and without which Precure would not exist.
Satou, also known for directing works such
as the Aria franchise and Princess Tutu, given
his deep ties to such a seminal work of the
magical girl genre, well, it’s no stretch
to say that he has a deeper relationship with
and understanding of the genre than any of
us peons basking in his excellence.
Given that, it’s no wonder that when he
was brought on to direct a season of one of
the most pervasive magical girl shows since
his own during its big fifteenth anniversary
celebratory blowout, he ended up producing
a show that not only reflected a deep understanding
of its franchise and genre but painted a portrait
of what an exciting new future for this franchise
and genre could look like.
But I’m not saying Junichi Satou deserves
100% of the credit - on top of sharing a co-directing
credit with Precure veteran Akifumi Zako,
nailing down any specific moments that are
like “yes he definitely made this” is
usually a fool’s errand.
You could point to Hana’s sword moment as
a callback to the Sailor Moon finale,
but aside from that, his job as a director
may have been more broad in scope, making
calls on overarching narrative and character
beats as opposed to dictating the moment-to-moment
progression of any given episode.
His directing approach is more about letting
the creative energy of the show’s staff
shine.
Here he is tweeting his awe of the spectacular
work that went into episode four, like he
had no part in it and was just an outside
observer.
That’s not to say he actually was - just
look at the fact that he did storyboards for
episode five.
The broader point here is just that we can’t
know the exact level of influence his directing
had on everything, but we can certainly feel
his presence.
Given that, I think I can confidently say
that in the hands of any other director, or
pair of directors, this season would not have
come out near as strong or thematically cohesive
as it did, so, props to them; and, of course,
to all the staff at Toei who poured their
overworked souls into this corporate machine.
You all nailed it.
And that all, finally, is Hugtto Precure.
It was pretty fucking good.
It had an eye for the future.
It knew what we all loved about Precure and
played into those strengths while making sure
to show us something new and attempting
to push its franchise forward.
It had two of the greatest most lovable characters
in the whole damn franchise, it was consistently
exciting in its presentation, and its consistent
thematic focus made the whole feel more cohesive
than almost every other season.
It was an excellent celebration of itself,
everything that came before, and the future,
and that is something worth celebrating.
Thanks for sitting through my ramblings about
a children’s magical cartoon show.
What did you think about this season?
Anything cool that I didn’t mention?
Leave them thoughts in the comments.
And make sure to do all the other things
that please the YouTube algorithm,
Special thanks to my pal Kai who contributed
that bit about deadbeat George and who also
helped me flesh out some other parts of this
video; please check out his channel, it is
excellent.
Next month’s video I’m not quite certain
of yet.
I promised a certain thing, but then it turned
out that thing was 50 episodes, and while
it’ll still happening I’m not sure about
the timing of it, so we’ll see.
Anyway, that’ll do it for me.
Thanks again for watching, and don’t forget
to be gay and do crimes.
