While this season of Pretty Cure is unique in several ways, there are two that stand out, at least among legally available series in the west. The first is the overt romantic subplot that truly gets off the ground in episode thirty-six; while Delicious Party Pretty Cure did have the Black Pepper/Cure Precious storyline, his feelings were never formally reciprocated. There are hints of romance in Kira Kira Pretty Cure a la Mode, but these aren’t fully developed, which goes for Go! Princess Pretty Cure as well. (I’m not counting Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom because that’s picking up where the unlicensed-as-of-this-writing Yes 5 and Go Go seasons left off.) But Satoru and Iroha have both fully confessed their feelings as of episode thirty-six, with Iroha spending much of the episode trying to think through her emotions and a potential change in her relationship with her friend. It’s a major plot point in her character arc, showing her growing up differently than the other Cures and building on the healthy relationship modeled by her parents.
This ties in with the other major difference in this season of the long-running franchise. The Cures themselves are much more important than the battles they’re fighting. It was obvious early on that Wonderful Pretty Cure would have less of a focus on “beating” the villains in favor of a less violent, gentler approach – rehabilitation rather than a beatdown. The result is more about soothing anger than destroying a monster but also a more introspective angle on the franchise. We saw that Mayu was only able to transform into Cure Lillian once she became more comfortable and confident in herself, and that’s a regular theme for the series, with Yuki becoming a better Cure when she accepts that she can’t control Mayu’s life and Iroha and Komugi’s strength proportionate to how strong their relationship is. Iroha’s budding relationship with Satoru stands to have a major effect on her going forward. We begin to see that in the final episode of this set. When Zakuro, one of Gaou’s generals, attempts to kidnap Satoru during a fight with the gaogaon, Cure Friendy is plunged into panic. She doesn’t even stop using the “Help! Kirarin Animal” power; she simply pushes off the sand in an attempt to reach him with the power of her jump alone. It’s only when she fails and realizes that she has to use everything at her disposal to successfully rescue him that she’s able to succeed, a parallel to Mayu’s ongoing character arc as she learns to become more comfortable in her skin. Friendy’s feelings for Satoru help her to overcome her panic, and it’s only in realizing them that she can triumph.
This scene is important for the overall team, as well. Friendy may begin acting alone, but by the end, Nyammy, Lillian, and Wonderful join in helping Friendy and Satoru return safely. Contrasting Zakuro and her fellow general Torame; they are rarely shown interacting and always attack alone. They also don’t get much help or feedback from Gaou, leaving them to their devices. The implication is that the Cures are stronger not just because they’re on the side of good, but also because they work together and have outside help in the form of Satoru, Niko, and Daifuku. (Mey Mey, at this point, is mostly comic relief, although I daresay Satoru might call him something else after the events of episode thirty-five.) Zakuro steals Satoru because she thinks he’s attractive; Friendy gets him back because she knows he’s a whole person who’s important to her, a level of emotional intelligence that Zakuro isn’t capable of achieving.
The focus on interpersonal relationships over battles is possible because the series takes the symbiotic relationship between people and their pets as a base. Alongside a reminder that Daifuku loves and supports Satoru despite not being able to talk to him, this is explored in a wider context in these episodes when the group visits a zoo and a farm, allowing the story to look at how people and animals interact in these contexts. The farm episode features a working sheepdog, a drastically different human/dog relationship than Komugi and Iroha. The show takes care to demonstrate that “different” doesn’t mean that their classmate Okuma and her border collie Andy don’t have just as warm a partnership as Iroha and Komugi do, while also opening the door to a discussion of how having a working dog is different from a lot of other breeds. (You don’t want to have one and not give them a job – trust me.) The zoo episode highlights Iroha’s fondness for one of the zoo’s residents, while also gently exploring the ethics of zoos as an institution. Satoru’s scientific explanation – that zoos allow humans to see and understand animals – stands in contrast to Zakuro’s fury that animals are kept in zoos at all. It shies away from saying that Zakuro may be right, but it does open the door for the intended child audience to discuss the topic with adults, which is important.
With the arrival of Niko, the world’s smallest and perkiest unicorn, the Cures also get their all-important power up. Similarly to Go Princess, this comes in the form of a plastic castle that, once unlocked, provides a new set of fancier outfits and a group attack. In this case, the look is Diamond Ribbon Style, and there’s a nice proactive element to the transformation, with the Cures pressing the center of their magic-infused ribbons to activate it. The dresses have an interesting feather theme, which feels mildly odd since Niko is a unicorn rather than a Pegasus. Still, the look is nice, feeling closer thematically to the girls’ regular outfits than many other seasons. Niko herself doesn’t seem to do much just yet, apart from restraining Mey Mey from his impulses, but this simply backs up the assertion that this season is about the characters rather than the action. They need Niko and their transformations to fight, but their true strength comes from themselves and their relationships.
With this, Wonderful Precure! moves into its final cours. It doesn’t look like Satoru and Daifuku will get to transform outside of the movie, but as we saw in Go Princess, that doesn’t mean that they’re powerless or unimportant. Every friendship matters whether it’s new or reclaimed, and in the final twelve-odd episodes, we’ll see if that magic can be applied to Gaou and his minions.
