Well, it's over. Happiness Charge Precure has ended its run and while it was certainly not the best Pretty Cure ever, it was at least a step in the right direction again.
Just yesterday I finished watching the final episodes of Happiness Charge Precure, after deliberately stopping after the New Year break, knowing the final episodes were best watched together. I figured I'd at least put down my impressions on this latest installment of the franchise. Careful: There will be SPOILERS.
Happiness Charge Precure certainly is a mixed bag. For a long time now I have been despairing over the decline of the franchise since the disaster called Smile. *shudder* Doki Doki was at least watchable again, however, lots of good attempts were subverted by horribly placed deus ex machina and other abrupt changes coming out of the blue (yes, I'm talking about you Ace, among other things). Happiness Charge Precure started out in a way that made me pretty much declare somewhere halfway through Spring season that the franchise would be better off not releasing another and stop at this point. Not that HP was bad. But I had expected a little more, especially out of the form changes, they sounded a lot like Splash Star and I would have really enjoyed seeing the idea of different Pretty Cure transformations for varying situations... Alas, that was not to be. The characters could also be somewhat grating at this point. Megumi was a one-track pony with her talk about happiness (really, few lead characters have been THAT abusive with their catchphrases) and Hime could also get on your nerves at times.
You can sense a but coming I'm sure and there is. So what changed? Let's start with the when. It took a long time actually that the strengths of this installment actually snuck up on me. Not until the mid thirty episodes actually. But the last stretch really showed what the series was really about and that it dealt with certain issue to a degree of maturity not seen since Heartcatch really. Megumi's belief got gradually challenged and as annoying as it was in the end, I believe now that it was for the best. You could really see her development towards the end and it culminated nicely into the final few episodes where she had to defend her ideals to the last.
At the same time, Happiness Charge Precure might have marked the first non-Cure/Fairy male character in a constantly (semi-)important role, not to mention actually facing on the issue of romantic love past a side attraction. In fact the Megumi/Seiji/Blue-dynamic leant a great amount to the more mature feel of this series.
And finally, the action. Granted DokiDoki had already recovered from the utter failure of Smile in that category but here the heart of Pretty Cure has returned. Not your run of the mill magical girl battle where everyone runs away from the enemy/monster of the week, before getting some backbone/motivation boost and conveniently remembering they can just blast them away. No, Happiness Charge Precure once again had the hands-on, bone-crushing action that made the franchise what it is. Especially in the last 15 or so episodes several pretty spectacular fights happened and the second to last episode was fairly reminiscent of its equivalent in Heartcatch. These action scenes in the latter half clearly were the first things that had me take notice again. And while I'm sure many people have different opinions, I absolutely loved the concept of a final group attack with singing! This has never been done before and this alone puts Innocence Purification in a special category.
As such I was fairly excited for the ending only to be let down somewhat again. Don't get me wrong. It was a good ending but at the same time this ending also pointed out some of the flaws of what was otherwise a rather good final. Certainly Forever Lovely was great and the culmination of her character growth. However, at the same time this focus hurt the rest of the characters. Sure, everyone got their time within the series but let us step back for a moment and look at just the last couple of battles. Lovely fought Seiji almost entirely by herself until the end already and then she brought down Red as Forever Lovely by herself as well. Let's not even mention that she had her personal showdown with Mirage as well... This has never been done before, not to this extent. The final struggle was always a group effort and frankly it should have been because that is another core element of Pretty Cure which I feel the big focus on Megumi at the end has robbed the others of their spotlight in the final confrontation. Forever Lovely is a plot device mostly seen in movies and that is where it should have stayed even if doing this made a certain amount of sense.
Part of this probably is to blame on the unusually strong romance here along with Seiji's character. As such while I still think it is somewhat of a positive, it also distracts from the value of the other characters somewhat.
So... In the end I really can't decide, much like with Doki, whether Happiness Charge Precure was a success or not, something in between I suppose. However, whereas Doki Doki was rather jumpy with its good and bad moments, Happiness Charge at least was consistent in its buildup, getting stronger as the season progressed. It gives me hope that the script writers of the franchise are still capable of doing something with the series. I definitely had some good moments with this series but the very slow start along with some debatable parts of the final leave a bit of a damper. At the very least what I've seen in the final stretch has given me hope again, hope and actually will to give Princess Precure a chance. The concept of a setting in a boarding school is new and intriguing, even if some of it almost sounds like a rip-off from Wedding Peach (what with the Princess form and such). I'll keep my fingers crossed, even if I do not expect terribly much.
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