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cypsiman2Fresh Precure is a very good, tightly focused show with some interesting themes. In fact, sometimes it's a bit too tightly focused for its own good.
Love and Setsuna get far more focus than Miki and Buki, the former getting long and involved character arcs and development while the latter mostly end up with the occasional one-shot episode. This is particularly disappointing for me with regards to Miki because there is absolutely a story there that I really wanted to see fleshed out; specifically, early on we learn that Miki has a habit of claiming her younger brother is her boyfriend, seemingly as a way of keeping anyone who would be interested in dating her at a distance. Combine this with her parents' separation/divorce, and there is a family situation that is ripe for exploration. But the show doesn't do anything with that, which I find disappointing. By contrast, Buki didn't really need a big, in-your-face character arc, her characterization and development worked better in little vignettes here and there, she just could have used a few more in my opinion.
On the topic of themes, while it is stronger in the first half of the show, Fresh Precure does have a very strong theme of "motherhood" and "caretaking" throughout its run, most of which is exhibited by how the precure girls have to raise Chiffon and face many of the challenges that young mothers would face when dealing with a new baby. It is also displayed in the way Love's mother Ayumi ends up becoming a surrogate mother for Setsuna. The other major theme of the show is the conflict between "Law" and "Chaos", the former being embodied by Labyrinth and the latter embodied by Clover Town Street. The show ends up taking a surprisingly nuanced approach to this theme, showing how and why something like Labyrinth and Lord Moebius would emerge.
Finally, I find the show does very well with its focus on a small supporting cast, rather then a sprawling series of one-shot characters as one more often gets in this sort of show.
Love and Setsuna get far more focus than Miki and Buki, the former getting long and involved character arcs and development while the latter mostly end up with the occasional one-shot episode. This is particularly disappointing for me with regards to Miki because there is absolutely a story there that I really wanted to see fleshed out; specifically, early on we learn that Miki has a habit of claiming her younger brother is her boyfriend, seemingly as a way of keeping anyone who would be interested in dating her at a distance. Combine this with her parents' separation/divorce, and there is a family situation that is ripe for exploration. But the show doesn't do anything with that, which I find disappointing. By contrast, Buki didn't really need a big, in-your-face character arc, her characterization and development worked better in little vignettes here and there, she just could have used a few more in my opinion.
On the topic of themes, while it is stronger in the first half of the show, Fresh Precure does have a very strong theme of "motherhood" and "caretaking" throughout its run, most of which is exhibited by how the precure girls have to raise Chiffon and face many of the challenges that young mothers would face when dealing with a new baby. It is also displayed in the way Love's mother Ayumi ends up becoming a surrogate mother for Setsuna. The other major theme of the show is the conflict between "Law" and "Chaos", the former being embodied by Labyrinth and the latter embodied by Clover Town Street. The show ends up taking a surprisingly nuanced approach to this theme, showing how and why something like Labyrinth and Lord Moebius would emerge.
Finally, I find the show does very well with its focus on a small supporting cast, rather then a sprawling series of one-shot characters as one more often gets in this sort of show.
