New poster here!
This is Ember, Pike’s girlfriend who got her into Pretty Cure! I’ve
been working on a pretty ambitious meta series for this blog, but
it’s kind of been stalled out for a while, so in the mean time, I’ve
decided to introduce myself with a birthday tribute to one of my
all-time favorite Cures, Arisugawa Himari, aka Cure Custard!
I’ve found that Himari is pretty direly underappreciated in Pretty Cure fandom! In my opinion, KiraPre as a whole is underappreciated, but I’ve also heard people specifically say that they found Himari’s arc underwhelming, which I really don’t get because I feel she had the most satisfying and well-constructed arc out of all six heroines in her season. Here, I’m going to break it down to try to explain why! It might get rambly, but I suspect that Himarin would appreciate a loving infodump as a birthday tribute even if it is a bit unpolished!
So, translations. If you watch anime and don’t have a decent grasp of Japanese then you have to deal with them. Sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they turn into a meme.
This was my senior quote in the high school yearbook. This factoid will both date me considerably and also cement my status as a colossal loser.
So Precure has been around the block. It’s had official translations, fan translations, and it’s been dubbed in English (and other languages). Between all the seasons and all the different versions, it’s been translated, like… dozens upon dozens of times.
And sometimes it’s adorable.
“Call me Nat, okay?”
Futari wa Pretty Cure got an official English dub (as well as an official English sub) as “Pretty Cure”. This involved localizing the names, meaning that Yukishiro Honoka and Misumi Nagisa becamse Hannah Whitecastle and Natalie Blackstone, respectively. Which is already cute as is because it keeps the first letter of each girl’s given name as well as keeping the pun in the last name relatively intact – “Yukishiro” contains the kanji for “snow castle” and Misumi contains the kanji for “beautiful ink”.
Anyway, in this particular scene that I’m going to talk about, the English dub had to figure out a way to localize a particular Japanese custom that was essential to move the character development of the two girls forward. Specifically, at the end of episode eight, Nagisa and Honoka would refer to each other as their given names for the first time, rather than the more polite Misumi-san and Yukishiro-san that they had been addressing each other as before. This is an important step in their growing relationship with each other.
The English dub could have bypassed this detail entirely and kept the basics of the episode the same but they actually made the effort to localize it the best they could. In this case, they gave Natalie the nickname “Nat”, which only her friends could use, and then they had her tell Hannah that it was okay for her to use it as well. This is genuinely an admirable bit of localization and is probably the closest you can get to naturally conveying the original exchange.
(That said, I do think there is something interesting to be said about the fact that it tweaks the scene slightly – in the original Japanese, Honoka was the first one to attempt this sort of intimate peacemaking gesture, whereas the dub makes Nagisa/Natalie the one to do it. But that’s all a subject for a different blog post.)
Anyway, like I said. Adorable and also clever.
Mackenzie Makoto
So let’s talk about Glitter Force. It’s an English dub of Smile Precure, and later Doki Doki Precure, that was abridged and then put on Netflix. If you are a Precure fan, you’ve probably heard of it. In fact, there’s a good chance you hate it.
BUT WAIT, HEAR ME OUT.
Kenzaki Makoto, aka Cure Sword (or Glitter Spade) got the CUTEST EVER NAME LOCALIZATION. Her new name is… Mackenzie Mack. Which somehow managed not only to incorporate the unique sounding “kenz” present in her family name, but also kept the “mak” part in her first.
Oh, and there’s a famous song called Mack the Knife. A knife is like a sword.
Regardless of whether or not you think Precure localization needs to rename the characters, this is flipping adorable.
A cute name for a cute character!
“I write the O like a heart!”
We’re moving on from official translations now to fan ones and I’m going to start with Fresh Precure. Specifically, I’m going to talk about a scene where the main character Love introduces herself to another character, Miyuki. Miyuki asks for her name, and the sub tells us:
“I’m Love Momozono! I write the ‘o’ like a heart!”
Which is incredibly cute and incredibly in-character for her.
It’s also not actually what she says. She says “Momozono Love desu! Katakana de Love!” – denoting that she writes the name “Love”, which is a foreign word, with katakana, the Japanese script that is usually used to write foreign words.
A neat little detail, but not one that a lot of Westerners just here for a cute magical girl show would care about. So we get “I write the ‘o’ like a heart!” instead and you know what, it’s adorable and it works.
In which Eas makes a bad pun in more than one language
Now let’s move on to the next episode of Fresh (I’m rewatching this; can you tell?) Eas makes a terrible word pun in Japanese. She’s attacking with a… Juice Monster (I love Precure) and she riffs off of the phrase “sou da” (“that’s right”), because it sounds like “soda”, which she contrasts with juice.
If you translated that straight into English, you’d lose the pun.
Not to fear, fansubs are here:
“More power… or in this case, more juice!”
Pun is intact and Eas is a huge dork. Well done.
Fuwa-Fuwa Time
Now we’re jumping way forward in the future to the currently airing season, Star Twinkle Precure. There are a few different groups fansubbing this, and they’re all translating it a bit differently. Is Hikaru’s catchphrase “Twin-cool” (twinkle)? Is it “Galactastic”? Is it “Glitteriffic?” (Hi Glitter Force, we meet again). They’re all cute in their own way.
But today I’m talking about this mascot character:
Her name is Fuwa, which comes from “Fuwafuwa”, onomatopoeia for “fluffy”.
And this one sub I’m watching?
Translated it as Puff.
PUFF.
IT’S ADORABLE. IT’S SO CUTE. I CAN’T DEAL.
Okay, anyway. There’s good translations, and bad translations, and there are translations full of old bad memes (I’m looking at you Splash Star fansub) and then there are translations that are cute and clever and that’s what I’m saluting today. Well done all around!
For anyone who is into magical girls, Precure is a near inescapable juggernaut. It may not have the worldwide clout that Sailor Moon has, but in Japan it’s big business and, well… a career option, for a lot of kids. No, really. (My only question is: why is it not number one? Because it would be number one for me.)
The best part is I think most of these have been involved in a Precure series at some point.
Whereas other shows come and go, Precure never ends, consistently releasing an all new series every year. And to think it all began fifteen years ago today thanks to these dorks:
Yeah I literally did this. I bought my plushies a cupcake.
You’re awesome, Precure. Don’t ever change (except for the better)!
So if you know anything about me whatsoever you probably know that I like Precure. A lot. …A LOT.
Because of this, people ask me a lot of questions about it when they find out. Probably the three most common ones I get are “Where do I watch Precure,” “What Precure do I start with,” and “Should I watch Precure”.
Well, the answer to the first one is “most of it isn’t officially streaming anywhere in the West so type it into your preferred search engine” and the second one is a valid question which I’ll probably post about at some point but for now we’re going to focus on the third.
Should you watch Precure?
Let’s take a look, because a lot of people come into this series for the wrong reasons and then aren’t impressed with it, so it will save us all a lot of hassle if you know what you’re getting into first.
Q: “I want action. Will Precure give me cute girls kicking ass?”
A: Yes, mostly.
Every Precure series is a little bit different so some of them are more action-packed than others but as a whole the franchise sort of distinguishes itself from most other magical girl shows by being very action-oriented. There are lots of punches and kicks and wild aerial maneuvers. Think Dragon Ball Z except with, like, 14 year old schoolgirls. If that sounds like your thing, then welcome aboard.
Q: “I want something like Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura et al. Is Precure for me?”
A: Probably, with a caveat.
With the ever so obligatory disclaimer that every season is different, Precure is a bit different in tone than many other “similar” magical girl shows. There are a variety of reasons for this but the big one is that while a lot of these other shows are aimed at older kids and teenagers, Precure’s target audience is five year olds. I really cannot stress this enough because I see too many people looking for something super intense and mature and then are turned off by what is essentially the anime equivalent of My Little Pony.
I am actually an expert on both subjects.
That’s far from a bad thing, but you need to be aware of it going in. Episodes and storylines are peppy and optimistic and while there’s a lot of action you’re not going to get, say, the dramatic death scenes that Sailor Moon is fond of. Remember: five year olds.
Q: “I want something like Madoka Magica, is Precure for me?”
A: Probably not, but..
…if you liked Madoka for kickass girls in cute outfits (and shipping potential between said cute girls in cute outfits) then yeah welcome aboard. If you liked Madoka because it was dark and dramatic and because Kyubey was nightmare fuel then no you probably aren’t gonna get that here.
Q: “I tried to watch Precure but it was basically just a huge toy commercial, should I keep watching?”
A: If the merchandising isn’t your thing you probably won’t like Precure.
Like, I’m just gonna say it straight out. Toei wants five year old kids to buy their toys. It’s a cash cow franchise and toy sales are fueling it. If you’re like me, you don’t give a damn because it’s all just so adorable and because let’s face it, most of what I watched as a kid was also just extended toy commercials. But if you don’t like it, well… it’s kind of one of the tentpoles of Precure, so you may want to look elsewhere.
Q: “I want to ship cute girls, should I watch Precure?”
A: Yes.
This series
Is yuri bait
And sometimes it’s even canon
These two get their own incredibly gay episode.
If you want to ship cute girls then welcome to Precure Hell, enjoy your stay.
Q: “I want to watch something dubbed so I don’t have to stare at subtitles the whole time, does Precure have that?”
A: Sometimes.
The very first season of Precure, Futari wa Precure, received an official English dub which is relatively faithful to the source material. Two other series, Smile Precure and Doki Doki! Precure, are available dubbed on Netflix as Glitter Force. These versions are somewhat truncated from the original so you won’t be getting the complete experience but they are an option if not having dubs is a dealbreaker.
Q: “I’m looking for something really fun and cute and wholesome, should I watch Precure?”
A: ABSOLUTELY.
Everything about Precure is a delight. The characters are wonderful, the storylines are about girls overcoming adversity with the power of love and friendship, the songs are catchy, and there are even redemption arcs showing that anyone can be a magical girl regardless of their background. Look, unless a.) one of the above points really turned you off, or b.) you hate things that are fun and cute, this is something you need in your life.
