This worked out a lot better in Honey and Clover.

The best show of Spring 2009 is Hatsukoi Limited. A mostly wistful look at first love, Hatsukoi Limited is a textbook example of how J.C. Staff can succeed wildly when it plays to its strengths. It helps that the source material is good, as the anime remained mostly faithful to the manga, and diverged mostly for the better on the rare occasions when there were changes.

It is entirely too early in the morning for relationship traumarama.
Go back to bed.

One sure sign of a successful show is an ending that leaves viewers wanting more. That is certainly the case with Hatsukoi Limited, as 12 episodes are not nearly enough to fully explore the myriad interwoven relationships of the ensemble cast. Even for the characters given the most attention (Kusada and Kei), the viewer only sees a tiny portion of what must be a fairly rich story. Alas, the manga ended early as well, so all the reader gets to know about the various new couples and remaining victims of unrequited love is that (a) some of these characters hit the jackpot and (b) others got completely screwed.

First Love, Best Case Scenario (depending on your point of view).

I'd like to see the anime continue for another season by producing new material. Unfortunately, these kinds of scenarios appear to be rather uncommon. There are plenty of instances where a manga begins, grows popular, and gets an anime adaptation that fudges its ending because it outstrips the source material (often diverging dramatically and culminating in unsatisfying conclusions almost universally decried as being vastly inferior to the eventual manga endings), but manga-based anime that keep going after exhausting the source material appear to be rare at best. Since the chances of seeing new, original episodes of Hatsukoi Limited waver between slim to none, I suppose the best I can hope for is the anime's popularity inspiring new chapters continuing where the manga left off. It could happen—if Hatsukoi Limited preaches anything, it's optimism.

Seriously, though. How do you jack up a show this simple?

So, initial reports detail four separate instances where one or more characters in the new fan service-heavy romp Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-chan!! piss themselves. Yeah, that's a deal breaker, so I won't even be starting this series unless it turns out Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-chan!! episode one is like episode one of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. You know, the Adventures of Asahina Mikuru one. That's probably pretty unlikely.

Just doing my part to hype Canaan for no real good reason.

I've joked a few times that this summer I'll just re-watch Gainax shows instead of following anything new. However, now that I think about it, that's a legitimate possibility. (Probably Mahoromatic, for one.) If a low-brow fan service show can't even manage to properly hit its marks, it's not a good sign. And even I have to admit the chances of Not Idolm@ster Baseball Taisho Yakyuu Musume being good is yet uncertain. C'mon, Canaan.

So apparently the matters I speculated about last month were already widely known among the die hard Pretty Cure fan base. After catching up with what they know, it seems to me there shouldn't be any real surprises in the coming episodes to anyone already watching Fresh Pretty Cure raws. The English subtitles are still far back enough that a casual viewer might be caught off guard, so if you don't know what I'm talking about and you care about Fresh Pretty Cure spoilers, avert your eyes…now.

Miyuki becoming a Cure is a red herring.

The identity of Cure Passion was officially revealed in the end-of-show eyecatch to episode 19. Unofficially, that information had been available through other channels—namely merchandising ones—possibly for months already. I still don't know the exact details of the transformation, but I know who it is, and I can guess how it transpires. What I don't know is how this is going to change the shape of the Fresh Pretty Cure season. There's a good chance this change could elevate it from "unexpectedly good" to AWESOME.

Episode 19 gave us the profile, 20 the full frontal Cure.

So, that pretty much ends any debate as to who the legendary Fourth Cure will be. Like I said, this is pretty obvious if you've been following the raws and watching Setsuna's and Love's friendship develop. One thing I find perplexing, however, is that Buki mentions Setsuna is about the same age as the other Cures (i.e., 14) which I guess I can accept, as Setsuna does look younger than Easy. But there's no way "Eas" is 14. Assuming the Labyrinth version is her true form, does this mean Easy is going to get stuck between the Setsuna and Cure Passion guises? Or will she be able to return to her normal "bad girl" form? I say normal, because that's what she uses when she's just bumming around the house after work.

Easy chills out after a hard day of goofing off with Love.

If Easy becomes a Cure, that creates a vacancy among Moebius' squad of deadbeat henchmen. Moreover, there's still no sign of the "north" goon. If Easy is easy, Wester is west, and Souler is south, then who is north? And what are these losers going to do when they're outnumbered two-to-one by Cures who beat their asses on a daily basis already? One piece of speculation out there involves Miyuki going bad after being spurned by Aka Linkrun in favor of Setsuna.

I fully support the idea of Dark Miyuki.

To be honest, Fresh Pretty Cure needs more villains more than it does more Cures. The reason the original series worked so well for me was because there were only two Cures. They didn't start out as friends, and they didn't really like either other at first. Nevertheless, they had to depend on each other to get anything done. Neither could even transform without the other. With Fresh Precure getting a fourth Cure, the show is approaching Yes! Precure 5 levels. That is, more of a sentai show than "Ikaruga with magikal girls."

You have to drop at least two cup sizes to
become a Cure, Easy. There's a rule.

If the Cure team completely overpowers the already strapped bad guys, how does that change the dynamic of the show? Actually, I suppose that could work within Fresh Pretty Cure's slacker framework. Labyrinth already isn't exactly comprised of the most motivated crew of mahou shoujo villains I've seen. That's going to change if workaholic Miyuki becomes Dark Miyuki and starts smoking the shit out of Souler and Wester. They're going to hate life. And how.

The animation quality in Fresh Precure is so inconsistent.
Sometimes it looks like this…

Aside from the potential stigma from watching Pretty Cure, Fresh really is a pretty good show. Oh, it still is what it is, and I don't think potential viewers who are merely curious need watch every single episode. If precedent is any indicator, Fresh Precure should run at least 48 episodes, and possibly 96. That's a lot of fresh and a lot of cure for the average viewer. To that end, I've prepared a simple guide for the curious who don't want to commit to the full-length series.

…and sometimes it looks like this.

Through the first 20 episodes, I suggest watching episodes 01, 07, 10, 14, 15, 17, 19, and 20. Also watch episodes two and three if you care about how Miki and Buki end up as Cures, add episode six if you care about Love and her mother, but you can skip 10, 14, and 17 if you only care about the PEACH-HAN Love and Easy Setsuna friendship. 10 is good because it's funny and it resolves Buki's ferret phobia bit. 14 is good because it finally includes hand-to-hand combat between the Labyrinth goons and the Cures. And 17 is good because it's about teen pregnancy. (No, really.) And it has Wester sleeping in the park on the grass in the middle of the day like a bum. The bad guys this season are such slackers.