Fandom/Canon Name: Pretty Cure! I'm nominating two this year, my favorites of the franchise, Heartcatch Precure and Go! Princess Precure.
What's awesome about it: They're magical girl shows that are aimed squarely at children but are written strongly enough to appeal to adults. Heroines and villains alike can play against type in twisty little ways, and won't always develop the way you'd expect. Both shows avoid the frequent pit-trap of Young Girls versus Older Women, and allow male characters to exist in-universe--sometimes even quite prominently!--without yoking the heroines' happiness to romance. In different ways, both shows make the victim-of-the-day trope matter, giving the "filler" episodes some real thematic pay-off in the end. Both dabble in melancholy and unresolved issues, but prove to be ultimately compassionate. They're also both just very cool. The franchise's signature focus on physical combat brings all manner of talent to play in the sandbox; you simply will not find better choreographed magical girl teamwork action than when a Pretty Cure animation team is bringing their A-Game. As to how they're differently awesome...
This is the late-season Heartcatch finisher attack. If you can argue with a fifty-foot tall woman with flowing pink hair and a glowing white dress wearing gold-spiked knuckle dusters piledriving monsters of the day into the ground to "purify" them, well, you're a stronger person than me.
In seriousness, though, Heartcatch does have the more solid structure of the two, with by far the more effective villain, and a really great core pair in Tsubomi and Erika. It's more light-hearted overall, though veteran Cure Moonlight is keeping a stoic face on significantly more searing trauma than the other cast members, which Tsubomi and Erika eventually come face-to-face with. It also engages with its history and lore far more than the average magical girl show, making it a great watch for people interested in magical girl shows with interesting world-building, and anyone who ever wondered what happens to a magical girl after she wins her fight and grows up. Its finale inspired Madoka Magica in a big obvious pink way, and if it can impress someone like Urobochi Gen, I really think that says it all, don't you?
Meanwhile, Princess also has a great core heroine group, but really sets itself apart with the way it incorporates its side cast into the heroines' struggles. It has a unique La Resistance flavor to its structure, as its villain begins episode one wrapping up loose ends from her victory in the backstory. Friends, teachers, classmates, displaced magical royalty, talking fairy animals, redeemed villains--if you ever wished Sailor Moon remembered the existence of any of these allies come time to fight a season boss, Go! Princess Precure is a show you should watch.
It's also very friendly to a queer reading! For those who like femslash, it features very close relationships between its heroines (think dreamy dance sequences and domestic intimacies) and limited if not wholly absent options for male love interests. Less ambiguously, it also features a male villain whose interest in fashion and makeup is never conflated with his villainy, but rather treated with such casual positivity that one of the talking animal fairies gives him a pep-talk about it late in the show.
Where to find: Pick your poison for unlicensed anime, I'm afraid. But they're around and streamable, if you're looking to binge.
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What's awesome about it: They're magical girl shows that are aimed squarely at children but are written strongly enough to appeal to adults. Heroines and villains alike can play against type in twisty little ways, and won't always develop the way you'd expect. Both shows avoid the frequent pit-trap of Young Girls versus Older Women, and allow male characters to exist in-universe--sometimes even quite prominently!--without yoking the heroines' happiness to romance. In different ways, both shows make the victim-of-the-day trope matter, giving the "filler" episodes some real thematic pay-off in the end. Both dabble in melancholy and unresolved issues, but prove to be ultimately compassionate. They're also both just very cool. The franchise's signature focus on physical combat brings all manner of talent to play in the sandbox; you simply will not find better choreographed magical girl teamwork action than when a Pretty Cure animation team is bringing their A-Game. As to how they're differently awesome...
This is the late-season Heartcatch finisher attack. If you can argue with a fifty-foot tall woman with flowing pink hair and a glowing white dress wearing gold-spiked knuckle dusters piledriving monsters of the day into the ground to "purify" them, well, you're a stronger person than me.
In seriousness, though, Heartcatch does have the more solid structure of the two, with by far the more effective villain, and a really great core pair in Tsubomi and Erika. It's more light-hearted overall, though veteran Cure Moonlight is keeping a stoic face on significantly more searing trauma than the other cast members, which Tsubomi and Erika eventually come face-to-face with. It also engages with its history and lore far more than the average magical girl show, making it a great watch for people interested in magical girl shows with interesting world-building, and anyone who ever wondered what happens to a magical girl after she wins her fight and grows up. Its finale inspired Madoka Magica in a big obvious pink way, and if it can impress someone like Urobochi Gen, I really think that says it all, don't you?
Meanwhile, Princess also has a great core heroine group, but really sets itself apart with the way it incorporates its side cast into the heroines' struggles. It has a unique La Resistance flavor to its structure, as its villain begins episode one wrapping up loose ends from her victory in the backstory. Friends, teachers, classmates, displaced magical royalty, talking fairy animals, redeemed villains--if you ever wished Sailor Moon remembered the existence of any of these allies come time to fight a season boss, Go! Princess Precure is a show you should watch.
It's also very friendly to a queer reading! For those who like femslash, it features very close relationships between its heroines (think dreamy dance sequences and domestic intimacies) and limited if not wholly absent options for male love interests. Less ambiguously, it also features a male villain whose interest in fashion and makeup is never conflated with his villainy, but rather treated with such casual positivity that one of the talking animal fairies gives him a pep-talk about it late in the show.
Where to find: Pick your poison for unlicensed anime, I'm afraid. But they're around and streamable, if you're looking to binge.