Cure Test.

I'm using MEncoder for the first time, and seeing how much bandwidth embedding my own videos will cost me. Ergo, this entry is more of a test than anything else. Nevertheless, I figure it's as good a time as any to ask if any of the post-Max Heart seasons of Pretty Cure have had any Cure White or Cure Black cameos. Y'all know where to find me.

I think I might be the last person on earth still watching Futari wa Precure. I readily admit that the show is generally pretty mediocre, but there are occasionally some brilliant moments.

Episode 37 features the school play. Not just any school play, mind you... motherfucking Romeo and Juliet. Naturally, Nagisa (Pretty Cure Black) plays Romeo while Honoka (Pretty Cure White) plays Juliet.

Nagisa as Romeo and Honoka as Juliet

Having cross-dressing magikal girl anime characters poorly recite Shakespeare (in Japanese) while badly butchering the balcony scene is curiously hysterical. It's such a pity they didn't attempt to perform the play in thickly accented English, though.

It's not nearly as good as the Cinderella episode of Cardcaptor Sakura, but for an otherwise crappy show, episode 37 is a rare gem.

Futari wa Precure

All you need to know about Futari wa Precure, also known as We are Pretty Cure, is that it's kinda like Ikaruga except with magikal girls.

Simultaneous White Thunder and Black Thunder attacks. Cool.

It is a children's show, and rather charming at times, but plagued by soulless marketing gimmicks and annoyingly "cute" sidekicks that I hate already. The transformation sequences are also really long, but I'm undecided as to whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Cure Black

Chances are I'm not going to continue watching this, but I do think it is a good concept, what with the Cure Black and Cure White characters complementing each other. The end credit sequence also SERIOUSLY ROCKS. I especially like the part when all the bad guys cakewalk though the set together.

The Bad Guys' Strut-o-rama

This would be a much better show if it had older characters, no stupid familiars or blatant marketing gimmicks, and a lot more magikal-girl-fu. I'm serious when I say it's a good concept. This could become a good show. The problem with it through the first two episodes is that it wavers too sharply from being excellent and entertaining to being trite and tiresome.

Cure White

If they cut out all of the stupid parts and just crammed each episode into fifteen-minute blocks of pure awesome, then Pretty Cure would be badass. Okay, maybe not badass—I mean, it is what it is, and it is a children's show aimed at little girls—but it would be pretty fun to watch, at least. Yeah.

As far as I can tell, "Futari wa Precure" means...

In other news, somewhat curiously, Momotato Daioh, Jascii, and I all seem to have independently chosen many of the same screenshots as each other to illustrate Futari wa Precure. Either it's just an odd coincidence or Pretty Cure has a lot more posing than I had realized. On a related note, is it just me or does it seem like there are a damn lot of anime blogs around nowadays? I kinda miss the old days when all I ever wrote about was cats getting stuck in funny places and crap like that. But I digress.

"We are Pretty Cure"

Oh, and the Pretty Cure plot? I dunno. Magikal girls... fighting creampuff bad guys and their fantastic, harmless evil... something like that. Well, unless it pulls a Narutaru on us, that is. Fuck, now that I think about it, that particular twist would be totally awesome.