[SideswipePrime]

HeartCatch! Precure:

Alright, I just finished the series, so here are my thoughts...

The characters are pretty fun, and they all develop well enough. The action was very good in the series, it felt like every punch had a lot of weight to it. The animation was alright for a children's cartoon. It was good, in terms of flowing nicely, but aesthetic wise it could look a little rough at times. I absolutely love the artist's style, it makes me really want to watch Casshern Sins now. Overall I just wish it took more risks than it did. It really felt afraid to leave it's Monster of the Week Formula, and as such the heroines rarely lost any fights, which made the heroines seem overpowered, and made the three villain generals seem very incompetent. The moments it does decide to take risks are awesome, I just felt like they were too few and far between. It doesn't make the show bad by any means, just not as good as it could be. What bothered me about two villians in particular, Sabaku and Dark Precure, are that they saved their character arcs for the very end, so they didn't do much or have much character until the very end, at the same time that could be a positive because it let them have this heir of mystery too them...but I feel like they dragged out the mystery for too long. The three generals were fine I think Kumojacky and Cobraja are the two that are the best, as I didn't like Sasorina much as a character, but she did have some good development...albeit kind of weird since they did something to get rid of her development, but then brought back the development later, but I think the explanation was that even that couldn't entirely darken her heart again. So, I guess it was okay...just a bit odd. The amount of filler bothers me too, in the last ten episodes there were about 2 maybe 3 filler episodes, one of which was a Christmas episode, but I bale Toei for that because "Omg! We NEED a Christmas episode guys!" The voice acting in this show is very good, with a very talented voice cast, and the soundtrack is one of the best points about the series, it's something I would listen to on its own, and heck even buy. In terms of being a kid's show...I find it interesting that they tackle certain topics that most kid's shows don't from the death of a parent, to divorce, to bullying (and it isn't heavy handed like a lot of other shows do it), to even gender identity with Itsuki a.k.a Cure Sunshine (although subtextually). So, I feel like that makes it stand out among kids cartoons from both the east and the west. The ending was also pretty good, again...it does something most kid's cartoons don't the show straight up pulls a Class 6 on the Apocalypse How scale (go to TV Tropes, if you don't know what this means).

So, overall, I'd give this series a 6.5 out of 10. It's pretty good, but I just feel like it was too afraid of leaving it's monster of the week formula, and didn't take enough risks, but I feel that the characters, the moments where it does take a risk, and certain aspects of the ending (and that awesome soundtrack) push it up to well above average.