[DreamSword]

Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!

What is love? (Baby don't hurt me.)

The exact intent behind love and happiness is the question that gets explored in Happiness Charge Pretty Cure, which has quite the reputation.

In my (admittedly very limited) glancing about on internet viewpoints on this show, Happiness Charge is often noted to be one of, if not the weakest entry in the Pretty Cure franchise, and I kinda get why.

I think that the biggest problem the show has is that it doesn't do the best job in exploring or even promoting its idea that love and happiness are things that are always worth fighting for. The show's' writing more often than not takes the stance of such an idea going without saying.

And sure, one could argue that depending on their own personal philosophy, the problem is that this is a story with a message it's trying to promote to young kids. And it's not exactly a good look when the villains are making very valid points as to why they're wallowing in their own vices and the heroes are doing little more than talk past them rather than to them, if that makes sense.

On a related note, the character work isn't always the best either. Both the amount of focus each character gets as well as the ways inwhich their arcs turn out tend to be all over the place. I think the best example of this is Cure Fortune, who after her initial arc(which also serves as the finale to the first half of the show), slowly fades more and more into the background; As if the writers had no idea what to do with her from that point on.

That all being said, I still had a rather fun time watching this show.

Because really, this is still a season of Precure, and many of things that still make the franchise as enjoyable as it is are still here on display.

The action is still every bit as hype inducing as ever, when the character work is done well, it really works well, and the animation, while it cuts corners at times, can still be done very wonderfully(huge shout out to episode 43 especially!).

It also helps that whenever the show does get a good handle on what it's doing, it's every bit as engaging as any other given season. Cure Princess ended up being my favorite character this time around(and I'd argue she's the real main character of the show) due to just how good her character development was.

Plus, even if I felt the villains hadn't been countered strongly enough, I did atleast respect that the show had the guts to actually bring up various reasons people would turn their backs on love and joy. The loss of loved ones, the crushing weight of failure, the daunting expectations of society, starvation(physical and mental)... these are all very real world things that people have to deal with.

Also helping this show out is that I, for the most part, didn't feel as negatively towards alot of aspects of it that many others seem to? The biggest example being Blue, who is arguably one of the most infamous characters in the fandom. And sure, many aspects of him could've been handled better, I really don't think he was handled all that badly? I'd more blame the plot rather than him as a character, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.

In any case, I'm not here to claim that HCPC is some sort of hidden masterpiece(though I would say it's underrated), but I think that if one goes into it with a fresh perspective, they could find alot of fun to be had within it, just as I did. Is it the absolute best the franchise has to offer? No, but it still carries alot of what makes Cure shows so good to beginwith. As such, I give the show a 3/6. Nothing super incredible, but worth the watch, especially if you're into magical girl shows.

If this is the worst that Precure has to offer, then this franchise is in a very good state.