Love gets excited when she talks, okay.

Between minutes 58 to 60 in the Pretty Cure All Stars DX movie, you'll find wall-to-wall mahou shoujo beatdowns. It also starts off with Love doing that thing she does where the longer she talks, the faster and louder she gets.

Nice of you to join the fight, Peach-han.

Cure Peach also does a rather simian run for no reason, but it looks cool. Actually, it's probably to keep her enormous hair from dominating the screen entirely.

Max Heart is here to eat takoyaki and kick ass.
And they're all out of takoyaki.

The Max Heart crew doesn't save anyone's ass during these two minutes. They already bailed out all the rest of the Cures earlier in the movie. Well, not the Fresh Cures; they were too busy being incapacitated to need saving.

Cure Rouge, Cure Aqua, and Cure Mint need to learn to spread out more.

I lied. Shiny Luminous totally bails out Cure Rouge, Cure Aqua, and Cure Mint from the Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Go Go! team.

A signature move of the original Cures.

You'll also find that signature wall-stick move of the original Cures with all the flips. I'm still pissed they eliminated and then retconned out Cure Black's superfluous flip after she sticks, just so you know.

Cure Aqua gets to attack without reciting extended incantations.

You'll also find a lot of beam spamming by the Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Go Go! team. At least they get to whip that shit out in real time during the movie.

Your flying attacks are unsynchronized, rookies. UNSAT. Try it again.

The Fresh Cures also finally get into the act after spending most of the movie imprisoned in the La Brea Tar Pits.

Never mind. Cure Black and Cure White have got this.

The Pretty Cure All Stars DX movie didn't do too much with the experienced Cures overshadowing the newer Cures, but it's there. There is one extended sequence when the Fresh Cures see all the other Cures in battle costumes for the first time. Appropriately, the rookie Cures are completely awestruck.

Airborne Cure, Airborne Cure, where have you been?

Taking me completely by surprise, the two most telegenic of all Cure attacks in the movie belong to my least favorite Cures. Easily taking the top spot is the high altitude synchronized drop the much maligned Splash Star Cures execute just to show off. I might have to reconsider the possibility that what I originally assumed to be blatant ripoffs of the original duo are, in fact, actually re-imagined imitators in the flattery-type vein. Too soon to be an homage, but perhaps embodying the same spirit. I might have to watch Splash Star after all.

That's not lemonade.

Probably the second-best looking attack is the one where Cure Lemonade Spider-Mans the dog shit out of the Big Bad. I didn't know she had it in her. And there you go. Two solid minutes of hard core wall-to-wall ass kickings in a 70-minute movie that's 90 percent ass kickings anyway.

Milky Rose is a one-shot wonder.

Oh, I forgot to add that Milky Rose's big contribution to this fight is also really showy. I'm not entirely sure what to make of Milky Rose. She's actually one of the annoying mascots just transformed into a human dekochin ojousama form. My initial impression is she must think she's better than the other familiars. Why wasn't she at that meeting with the rest of the mascots? Even Coco and Nuts were there. Too good for staff huddles, eh?

If you all know each other, why didn't your Cures ever team up before?

To be fair, being at that staff meeting would drive me insane too. ALL the Pretty Cure mascots in one place at one time yammering back and forth at each other? Uh, no thanks. I will take your free rainbow flashlight, though.

Cure Rouge gets loose.

So what about the other 68 minutes of the Pretty Cure All Stars DX movie? Not bad, but pity it couldn't have been longer. I guess you can't really have a kids movie run too long, but were little girls even the movie's real target audience? I'm thinking that's the demographic that went to the theaters, but most of the movie is heavy on the fight scenes, even for Precure.

The sky is falling, Cures. And, uh, you too.

I noticed similarities in the Pretty Cure All Stars DX movie to the climatic battles in My-Otome to tell you the truth, but All Stars DX outperforms My-Otome in mahou shoujo beat downs by a mile. These girls make the welkin ring.

Does this count as fan service? I know there's an armpit
fetish. How about the back of the knee?

Overall, Pretty Cure All Stars DX is Pretty Satisfying. It hits about all the notes you might reasonably expect, including making the Max Heart and Splash Star Cures more capable than the Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Go Go! sentai team and the almost ineffectual rookie Fresh trio. All Stars DX obviously takes place early in the Fresh timeline—before they could dance, even. If there's another All Stars movie (and I'm betting there will be, as long as Precure remains a cash cow), I wonder how the inclusion of Cure Passion will change up this dynamic?

Cure Bloom and Cure Egret discover new powers.

Futari wa Precure Slash Star is the redheaded stepchild of the Pretty Cure franchise. It "only" ran for one 49-episode season whereas the original and the Precure 5 series each had about 100 episodes. (It looks like Fresh Pretty Cure will join Splash Star after its current run; it is already due for replacement by Heartcatch Precure.) Because of its close similarities to the original series, Splash Star is often regarded as a ripoff.

Mai and Saki get along better than Honoka and Nagisa did at first.

However, after giving Splash Star a chance, I am prepared to suggest its similarities to the original series are more evolutionary than derivative. Obviously Toei realized it was giving Splash Star very similar elements to the original Futari wa Pretty Cure. While these parallels were likely motivated by conservative financial considerations, they aren't direct copies. For example, the Splash Star fighting styles are noticeably softer, with many more circular sweeps and flourishes than straight linear strikes. As a result, Splash Star might have some of the prettiest fights in the Pretty Cure franchise.

Mai has an observatory dome and telescope on her house.
I hope that doesn't violate local zoning codes.

Each season of Pretty Cure seems to have more beam spamming than the one before it. Yes! Precure 5 GoGo! is famous for it. But back when it was still okay for musclebound goons to punch 14-year-old girls in the face, Cure Black and Cure White in Futari wa Pretty Cure, the first and most openly violent series of the franchise, spent quite a lot of time trading blows with humanoid opponents. This is a far cry from the current series, Fresh Pretty Cure, which has foregone hand-to-hand combat almost entirely; the Labyrinth goons are almost always content to monsterize some random nearby object to do all their fighting for them.

Beam spamming is for losers, Kira.

Because of this progression, Splash Star occupies a nexus of sorts between the two styles, combining the two forms to mix flowers and sparkles with kicks in the gut and energy beams blasting down from the sky. It's a good combination, and had I watched Splash Star before, I would not have been surprised Cure Bloom and Cure Egret had the most telegenic attack of the first Pretty Cure All Stars DX movie.

I can see my house from here.

Admittedly, I've not seen enough Splash Star to conclusively determine whether or not the criticisms levied against the show are wholly unjustified or not. However, from my initial impressions, it seems very likely a lot of potential viewers simply dismissed the show out of hand (as I originally did) without giving it a chance. So far, these aren't ripoffs—they're the sincerest form of flattery, and they don't prevent me from declaring Futari wa Precure Splash Star the most underrated title in the Pretty Cure franchise.

I dropped Kiddy Girl-and at episode nine for trying to add a plot.

By convention, anime bloggers seem obligated to offer end-of-season summaries breaking down the finer points of the shows they watched and presumably covered (hah!) over each three-month block (or cour). So be it.

The short version is as follows: Kimi ni Todoke (12) > Cross Game (38) > Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (38) > Miracle Train [13] > Seitokai no Ichizon [12] > The Book of Bantorra (14) > Queen's Blade II [12] > Sunred II (37) > Fresh Pretty Cure (45), where the number in parentheses represents the last episode watched, and numbers in brackets indicate completion of a series and its total number of episodes. No OVAs or movies are included in these rankings.

I'm calling it: Yano is pure evil.

Kimi ni Todoke veers into melodramatic territory frequently and its reception has grown increasingly polarized. Depending on your stomach for such shows, it's either excellent or unwatchable—at least that's the way it seems when comparing various reactions to the series. I find it excellent. Also, those of you who know Mamiko Noto from interviews, behind-the-scenes specials, and commentary tracks will reasonably conclude both her Shimako-variety and DARK MAMIKO personas (more on that later) are purely products of acting. Evil Miyuki Sawashiro, on the other hand, I'm convinced is the real deal. I'll never look at Puchiko the same way again. Anyway, I'm glad Kimi ni Todoke is getting another cour. It has sympathetic leads and villains I don't hate.

This is as close as you'll get to seeing Aoba tearing her clothes off.

Cross Game and its Mitsuru Adachi storytelling remains as compelling as ever, although it's probably a comment on the state of today's anime trends that I find a simple heterosexual romance to be a refreshing departure from the usual feuds among turbo lesbians and loathsome harem comedy leads. However, if you're familiar with Adachi's staples, you may find Cross Game a little too familiar. E.g., there will be no great happiness for the characters (and Aoba and Ko aren't going to start tearing each other's clothes off anytime soon), but at least one moment of tragedy or despair is assured (as is appropriate for baseball). Despite the sports theme, Cross Game is best as a relationship drama and light comedy, and succeeds because it plays to these strengths.

"Whoa, look at the size of that cat!"

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is good shounen/mainstream fare without the odious shounen jive conventions one typically finds attached to shows aimed at such audiences. This anime variant, more faithful to the original manga than the first Fullmetal Alchemist, retains the interesting characters and periodic plot twists that made the first series so popular. Really, at this point, Brotherhood is at least as good as the first anime—if not better—and deserves more attention from the crowd that dismissed it early on as a simple rehash of something they had already seen.

There is no escape from the Miracle Train, sweetie.

Miracle Train turned out to be a lot less gay than I was expecting. In fact, homosexual overtones were almost entirely absent, despite the show's outward appearance. Instead, what Miracle Train really seems like is some manner of train gang rape porn. Basically every episode some girl gets on a train and is immediately surrounded by men who won't let her off until they've "solved her problems." Usually the girl offers token resistance, but eventually relents and actually enjoys "having her problems solved" in the end. It's a ridiculous concept, punctuated by copious amounts of train and train station trivia, a token loli, and a talking dog that sounds suspiciously like Athrun Zala wondering what in Hell he's supposed to do this time about the man in the mask. Still, I'm glad I watched the entire series, and the later episodes contained the right mix of seriousness and sentimentalism.

This is really a girl, isn't it? He has a ribbon.

Seitokai no Ichizon was all right even if it relied too much on reference humor. It had good comic timing, amusing characters, and never aspired to be much more than what it was.

"I want you to hit me as hard as you can."

The Book of Bantorra is worth watching just because it's different. I liked the way the first arc played out, although Ayako Kawasumi's departure from the show is sorely missed. Well, they did bring her back to narrate the clip show in episode 14. Besides that, Noloty deserves to be on the short list of dark-skinned anime characters, Mirepoc has ridiculous-yet-awesome hair, and the strongest character on the show is the woman who is really good at hucking rocks. How can you not like that shit?

Kayoko fan art is goggled.

Sunred II is basically just more of the same. I like parody, but the jokes are becoming a little one-note. At this point I'd rather they just make the entire thing a bachelor-chow cooking show with Kayoko and Vamp punctuated by occasional household tips.

The horns mean Tomoe is serious. Dead serious.

I realize this is fairly qualified praise, but Queen's Blade II is far and away superior to the first season. For one thing, there's a lot less peeing. But the real gem is discovering why Mamiko Noto has been playing Tomoe so seriously all this time. The return of DARK MAMIKO is a welcome surprise albeit one only familiar to those who realized it was her in Dai Mahou Touge and perhaps those who enjoyed the final scenes of her character in the Kara no Kyoukai movies. (Note: DARK MAMIKO is not to be confused with her Ana Coppola Black Custom variant.) But really, Queen's Blade II develops a plot AND character development which is enough to elevate this ridiculous show to at least non-ironic watchable levels, even if the vast majority of its cast—unusually professional Mamiko Noto aside—completely phoned in their roles. Tanaka Rie, for example, was terrible.

Lay off the meth, girls.

Fresh Pretty Cure is treading water and has been mostly lackluster since the end of the Cure Passion arc. Retconning Setsuna into a 14-year-old girl was not unexpected, but still inexcusable from a storytelling viewpoint. The addition of a fourth Cure diminished the importance of Cure Pine and Cure Berry and Cure Redundant. Wait, I mentioned her already. I maintain that Precure as a franchise works best with two Cures—no more, no less.

What about Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza?
Dropped at episode eight for being piss awful.

Was Autumn 2009 weaker than most seasons? I'd have to say so. Granted, I didn't watch Darker Than Black II or Railgun, both very highly regarded shows (although I suspect Railgun will be another ephemeral flash in the pan everyone disregards when the next shiny thing comes along), but aside from the refreshing Kimi ni Todoke and the briefly euphoric return of DARK MAMIKO in Queen's Blade II, I can't claim there will be much unique to Autumn 2009 alone that I will remember or recommend without reservation, alas.

Easy is here to kick ass and eat donuts.
And Kaoru-chan is all out of donuts.

Now, one second of animation during a next episode preview with no background or context is surely either a flashback or some sort of illusion, but getting Easy back for the final episodes of Fresh Pretty Cure would rule. Since Setsuna can bend space, she should also be able to bend time, and all she would have to do is go back 25 episodes to when she was 10 years older, two cup sizes bigger, and 100 times more nasty. That and remember where she stashed her old outfit.

I liked the manga version of this scene better, though.

Cross Game and Kimi ni Todoke went down to the wire as to which show would claim the top spot, but Cross Game pulled ahead for the win at the very last episode because it had a great ending and Kimi ni Todoke didn't have an ending at all.

Ume > Sawako.

To be fair, the Kimi ni Todoke manga is still running, so there wasn't much else the anime could do without making Kazehaya a vengeful bounty hunter years in the future after a sudden timeskip. On the other hand, Cross Game took a good manga ending and adapted it so well it's better than its source.

Damn, Chiaki, give the kid a break.

I already said why I like Nodame Cantabile: Finale so much.

Here is a screenshot of Ed instead of Winry
again since it is technically his show.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood remains as solid as or better than the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime. I'm still perplexed why so many viewers who were excited by the first anime are apparently completely uninterested in the current show. I guess maybe they outgrew it. Brotherhood continues during the Spring 2010 season.

The Book of Bantorra needed more Noloty.

I liked The Book of Bantorra mostly because it was so different. Imaginative and perplexing at nearly every turn, The Book of Bantorra kept me interested because I never knew what to expect from any episode. That, and I liked how the most powerful and dangerous librarian's primary weapon consisted of hucking very small rocks. I was also amused she spent a good portion of her spare time embroidering little bunny rabbits. Hamyuts was pretty well-rounded for a sadist.

I promise not to make any head jokes.

Durarara!! is a good show that I would enjoy more if I cared about any of the characters. They aren't badly written characters by any means; I just don't find them interesting for some reason. I don't even care about Celty—probably because she gets flustered so easily. It's like finding out your hot date is infected with moe. Yeah, you can get a shot to clear it right up, but sometimes the burning sensation just isn't worth it. I guess I kinda like the girl who smiles in every single one of her scenes and the perpetually angry dude who throws vending machines at people. DRRR!! also continues Spring 2010.

Cure Berry needed more funnels.

Fresh Pretty Cure really took a dive after the Cure Passion arc. The ending was completely lackluster. When you compare it to the ending of the original Futari wa Pretty Cure series or the ending of its Max Heart sequel, it's blatantly obvious the Precure franchise is playing it safe and taking no chances anymore. The ending of the original Futari wa Pretty Cure was a complete downer that probably didn't traumatize many children but doubtlessly left many of them sad. Too bad, kids; life is real. The ending of Max Heart was a multi-episode fist fight between Zakenna dudes that didn't fight fair and the outnumbered Cure Black and Cure White. (Shiny Luminous was on the bench with too many fouls at this point.) Then they basically had to fight Lilith from The End of Evangelion. It was awesome. The Fresh Pretty Cure finale, on the other hand, faced off four Cures against a bad guy Kirk and Spock would have outwitted without leaving the bridge. And they received battle costume upgrades in the form of angel wings for some reason. Except for Cure Gundam Berry. Just had to be different, didn't you, Miki?

Okay, there was some misinformation in Chu-Bra! as well.

I didn't expect much from Chu-Bra!! at all. This was my PSP experiment show. Results from the experiment were inconclusive in this case, but I believe it would have made a difference with a show where the video and audio mattered more regarding one's enjoyment of the series. Instead of the fan service bonanza and a lot of pandering, Chu-Bra!! instead turned out to be the low-brow anime equivalent of a +5 Informative Slashdot post. It wasn't especially ambitious, but Chu-Bra!! surprised me by not being crass. Honest. Many of the underwear scenes were drawn extremely simplistically to presumably minimize the amount of fan service in the show. In fact, I think there were fewer gratuitious T&A scenes than there were underwear lessons in the style of the Gunbuster science lessons. I kid you not.

Hirano Aya is perfect as Katja.

Seikon no Qwaser is basically porn that's not intended to titillate. It's anime one-upmanship. Episode one: Junior high kid sucks high school tits to boost his shounen fighting powers. By episode 11 the show moves on to twincest lesbian S&M rapists. I'm dead serious. And it's planned for 24 episodes. I, for one, am looking forward to another cour with a great Hirano Aya character and the only Kawasumi Ayako game in town.

I guess Hinagiku was all right since she had a yakuza posse.

Hanamaru Kindergarten was the least Gainaxy Gainax show I've ever seen. I would have liked it better if it had Gainax kicks, or if the lead characters weren't so despicable. I swear, Tsuchida could have learned a lot about ambition and guts from Love Hina's Urashima Keitaro. Yamamoto was supposed to be a Belldandy-type perfect woman, but she's dumb as all Hell.

Vamp and Kayoko should get married.

Astro Fighter Sunred is about as good as it ever was, I suppose, but 40+ episodes of essentially the same jokes over and over gets a little tedious. I'll keep watching it if ANBU keeps subbing it, but Sunred really should have been a 13-episode series. I'd still rather watch a Kayoko + Vamp cooking show about bachelor chow.

Cure Kero-chan.

Heartcatch Precure appears to be the most popular Pretty Cure series thus far, at least as far as mainstream acceptance goes. I'm really unimpressed by it, however, probably because Cure Blossom is a dojikko and her worst-Cure-ever shtick is not endearing at all. Needs more Dark Precure and Cure I-Know-It's-You-Hisakawa-Aya Moonlight. A mid-season replacement for Fresh Pretty Cure, look for Heartcatch to run at least another 40 episodes.

I bet Dark Precure's original designation was Cure Sunshine.
[Update: Oops, there's already a character called Cure Sunshine.]

Final Tally: Cross Game > Kimi ni Todoke > Nodame Cantabile: Finale > Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (50) > The Book of Bantorra > Durarara!! (12) > Fresh Pretty Cure > Chu-Bra!! [PSP] > Seikon no Qwaser (11) > Hanamaru Kindergarten > Sunred II (40) > Heartcatch Precure (8). Dropped Winter 2010: None.

Erika and Tsubomi before they learn their place.

It turns out the second Pretty Cure All Stars DX movie is really the first Heartcatch Precure movie in disguise. Whereas the first All Stars DX movie was basically a greatest hits album of fan-favorite Pretty Cure attacks and moves, All Stars DX2 sort of has a narrative as we watch the two least effective Cures of all time stumble their way through battles way beyond their abilities. I've accused Cure Blossom and Cure Marine of being the worst Cures in history before, but that has always been part of their personae; Heartcatch Precure itself accuses Cure Blossom of being the worst Cure ever. While this is generally true during Heartcatch episodes because Cure Blossom is a dojikko, capable of only fighting bad feelings (no, really), it's especially true in All Stars DX2 because Cure Blossom and Cure Marine are the rookies and somebody at Toei does take the whole Cure Senpai bit seriously.

Try not to laugh in their faces, Fresh Cures.

All Stars DX2 does allow the Heartcatch Cures to take the first stand and act as if they're going to solo the newly discovered enemy by themselves, but then the movie subjects them to the humiliation of being patronized by the Fresh Cures (who themselves spent most of the first All Stars movie incapacitated by sticky, sticky goo) before being promptly bailed out of trouble. The express train of shame doesn't stop there, however. The Fresh Cures end up saving the hapless Heartcatch duo twice during the course of the movie. Really, if you count Love keeping Tsubomi from getting pegged in the face by a plastic flashlight any other character in the Pretty Cure franchise could have easily dodged (including that walking mailbox thing), Fresh saves Heartcatch three times. By my count, one or both of the Heartcatch Cures is rescued no less than six times in the course of a 70-minute movie. No wonder the other Heartcatch characters with cameo appearances in the movie pretended not to know them. Oh yes, there are cameos. Everyone and her mother is in this movie.

Purses are so Freudian, Love.

If the first Pretty Cure All Star movie was the Home Run Derby (and it kinda was, really, with Cures just teeing off at will), DX2 is the actual game. There's an assortment of "All Star" bad guys from seasons past in DX2, most of which I'm pretty sure returned from beyond the grave. No David Bowie, though. Sorry. Take it up with the Ghost of Olivia Newton-John. No Zakenna butlers either. Man, those guys sure got shafted. They probably weren't even evil!

But I digress.

Although previously vanguished enemies return, it's obvious the Precure All Stars movies cannot be canonical. Besides the temporal anomalies and the characters playing fast-and-loose with their secret identities and those of the mascots, there's just no clear way to rationalize the various inconsistencies and contradictions among the various Precure generations. For example, Max Heart non-combatants conveniently pass out during Zakenna attacks. Conversely, the Fresh-verse populace suffers the kind of gruesome fates you might expect of civilians on the mahou shoujo battlefield; they simply just don't care. (I think Clovertown should probably be named after a different plant.) Even differences in character designs have to be handwaved away just so the successive generations can play ball.

After hanging around Erika and Tsubomi, Buki and Love got a lot less...aerodynamic.

In the case of Fresh Pretty Cure and Heartcatch Precure, it means the amount of time characters from both series are in the same frame simultaneously is limited, and the Fresh girls' famously pronounced bosoms are whisked away, leaving all the characters uniformly flat. [Setsuna: Ha! Now you know how I feel!] They also don't stand shoulder-to-shoulder much, since Miki would be about two feet taller than Erika, for example.

Poor Easy. First they took her powers, then they took her adulthood,
and then they took her bust. Now they've taken her nose.

Towards the end, this conglomeration of vastly disparate character designs gets mushed into a rightfully maligned CGI battle that doesn't fit with the rest of the movie at all, but probably heralds the future of Pretty Cure animation if I don't miss my guess.

It's the circus, Pretty Cure.

One thing All Stars DX2 did get right was addressing the disparity in the limitations each Cure generation faces. For example, Nagisa and Honoka are unable to transform into Cure Black and Cure White unless (1) they are together, and (2) they have Mepple and Mipple with them. On the other hand, girls from the Yes! crew can transform individually whenever the Hell they want. Although this liberates the Yes! girls quite a bit in terms of the restraints on their abilities, this freedom does introduce a number of hazards from which the traditional restrictions safeguard. Really, they're just asking for trouble in Nozomi's case. You know it's just a matter of time before she dozes off in class and transforms into Cure Dream in her sleep. Five will get you ten Nozomi eventually levels the entire school with a stray somnambulistic PRETTY CURE SHOOTING STAR one afternoon after eating a big lunch.

Nozomi? Dojikko basket case. Cure Dream? Full-time ass kicker.

So what else does All Stars DX2 do right? Well, the Splash Star Cures once again have the best looking moves of the movie, especially the part when they simultaneously Fastball Special the Heartcatch Cures into almost doing something useful. After the first All Stars movie and 26 episodes (and counting) of the series proper, I have newfound respect for Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star. This is easily the most underrated and overlooked generation of all the Precure series. I'm guilty of it too, but it really was overshadowed by the first generation and overlooked by Honoka & Nagisa loyalists. They'll probably always get the short end during future Precure projects, but they certainly make the most of the little screen time they do get.

Armpit service.

It's also nice how All Stars DX2 packs in essentially every single character that ever had a speaking role in any Pretty Cure series or movie. It didn't get everyone, or at least I didn't see everyone, but they damn near very well did. The entire movie is a "Where's Waldo?" exercise in identifying as many supporting Precure characters as you can. Still, I hope they don't attempt to do this much more. It really doesn't make sense to me to have supporting characters with superpowers of their own riding the pine, contributing nothing to the fight except some half-hearted Miracle Light waving. Cure Moonlight, Cure Sunshine, Cure Grandma, Wester, Souler, et al., I see you. Way to be only as useful as the six-year-old girl sitting in the eighth row of the theater. Thanks for nothing.

Yeah, there are spoilers in this picture.

I do hope there are more All Stars movies, although with the ever ballooning cast of Cures crowding the 70-minute-attention-span ceiling, maybe Toei will be better off making Pretty Cure Team-Up movies, wherein the (presumably) eventually competent Heartcatch Cures show next year's newbies the ropes. Hope Tsubomi keeps Love's phone number on speed-dial.

I don't know which explanation would be the
more appalling: That Cure Black and Cure White
missed, or that they fired a warning shot.

Oh, and to answer the titular question, the two hottest minutes of Pretty Cure All Stars DX2 are the combined sequences of all the times the Heartcatch Cures had their necks saved by other Cures. I knew Cure Blossom and Cure Marine were good for something.

Erika and Tsubomi spray on some clothes.

I figured out why I have low opinions of Cure Blossom and Cure Rhythm: No game faces. When a Cure goes through her transformation sequence, she gets a battle costume upgrade and some fancy charm points. But in most cases, the transformation doesn't just change a Cure's appearance; it also changes her personality, or at least her demeanor. This didn't happen with Cure Blossom in Heartcatch Precure! and it doesn't really happen with Cure Rhythm in Suite Pretty Cure now.

"Go ahead, make our day."

Contrast this with, for example, Cure Black and Cure White who announce with authority their readiness to whoop some ass, both during their transformations and while powering up their finishing attacks. Yukana going off about Pretty Cure's "beautiful souls" is basically the best smack talk in all of anime.

Cure White gets pissed.

Honoka is a sweet kid, but Cure White will boot you upside the head if you annoy her. Cure Rouge from the Yes! Precure 5 crew yammers on about her purity a little too much, which admittedly is not an especially effective threat, but her soliloquy does signal some serious beat downs on the way that would be out of character for Rin.

These are some pretty smug-looking veteran Cures.

Even a complete ditz like Nozomi knows the score. When she's transformed into Cure Dream, it's Game On. Hell, Cure Dream doesn't just have a game face, she has a freakin' War Face.

I recommend backing the Hell away from Cure Dream. She's psycho.

When Cure Dream announces a finishing move, you know someone is about to get fucked hard core:

[Puts her hands in front.]
"PRETTY CURE"
[Dramatic pause.]
"SHOOTING STAR!"
[Unleashes searing energy beam.]
[Obliterates target by ramming it face first.]

Cure Dream doesn't play.

"I get to transform into a GIRL!" [Turns hair blond.]

This kind of thing didn't happen so much in Heartcatch Precure! and doesn't occur often in Suite Precure either. I can't take Cure Sunshine as seriously because she is all smiles during her transformation sequence. I'd have my doubts about the whole crew were it not for Erika's willingness to sucker-punch people in the face while she's transformed as Cure Marine.

Kanade falls on her cake. Did I say cake? I meant ass.

However, Cure Rhythm is basically just Kanade in a white dress instead of an apron. Hell, I bet her battle costume even smells like cake.

Cure fire team in wedge formation.

Even Shiny Luminous has a game face. Shiny Freaking Luminous! Shiny Freaking-Thirteen-Year-Old-Girl-with-Zero-Offensive-Abilities-Not-Really-a-Cure Luminous. Good bluffer, though.

"Cure Muse, Cure Muse, how do I work this thing?" [Points berthier belltier at own face.]

13 episodes down and none of the singsong goons take the local Pretty Cure team seriously. Given that Cure Rhythm and Cure Melody keep getting bailed out by a free agent Cure, it's no wonder even the scrub bad guys feel confident screwing with these rookie Cures. Yeah, go ahead and try that weak shit on Cure Egret, Bassdrum. She'll jack you up.

Even Cure Pine had a game face. CURE PINE.

Maybe I'm just being impatient. It took Buki a while to get going too. But feel free to tear that apron off anytime, Kanade.

Here we go again.

If the first Pretty Cure All Stars Deluxe movie was the home run derby, and Pretty Cure All Stars DX2 the all star game, then Pretty Cure All Stars DX3 is the benches-clearing brawl. There are simply too many Cures (and Not Cures) for one movie. 21 by Nozomi's reckoning, which is surprisingly accurate, given that Nozomi only has 10 fingers. (Three Max Heart characters, two Splash Star characters, six Yes! characters, four Fresh characters, four Heartcatch characters, and two Suite characters. This total excludes Kaoru and Michiru (who appear, but get shafted from the movie once again, relegated to gawking from the peanut gallery with Bunbee), Cure Flower (who also has a cameo), and the Suite Precure characters Cure Muse, Cure Beat, and Cure [SPOILERS] who had not been introduced yet when the movie was released.

One of these is not like the others.

As a result of this massive cast list, All Stars DX3 is not as good as the previous two Pretty Cure All Stars movies. Most people seem to like the first movie the best. I'm not sure if I do or not, but I do believe DX2 had a better narrative. Despite only being 70 minutes in length like the two previous movies, DX3 seemed too long even though it split a lot of this time switching among four separate settings.

Get Cure Egret to show you how to stick a landing
before the next movie, Cure Rhythm.

Dividing the Cures up into teams was a good (and necessary) idea, but not entirely effective. Really, what Toei should have done—and what it needs to do if Toei intends to make more All Stars movies in the future—is select a small handful of characters for the movie and focus exclusively on them. Whether this means All Stars DX4 (Pretty Cure Team Up 1?) will feature only the Splash Star and Fresh Cures, for example, or possibly only feature the "leader" main character Cures, I can't say, but it would make for a better movie despite the risk of disappointing fans of the omitted Cures who may have to wait who-knows-how-long before they get their turn. The team-up idea is basically what DX3 does by dividing the characters into multiple camps, but by making time for all of them it really made time for none of them.

Guess what happens to people who don't get
out of Cure Dream's way. Go on. Guess.

Probably the greatest casualty of this megas crowded movie is, unlike the two previous installments, I am unable to identify the most telegenic attack. At least there is no clear winner. If pressed, I'd have to nominate either the scene where Cure Dream does that thing where two people exchange blows while leaping past each other and the winner refuses to turn around until the loser falls, or the one where she plows through a giant pile of grunt suits, with an honorable mention for the MARBLE SCREW MAX that Cure Black and Cure White execute while in midair. Speaking of which, I noticed the Cures that are able to fly conveniently forgot about this ability when it would have quickly resolved their predicaments. Eh, wouldn't be the first time.