Respect Sakura

Despite being such an animu fag, and devoting my terabytes of storage available to.. uh… perfectly legitimate backups of DVDs and as-of-yet unlicensed copies of anime, I haven’t really made many posts on here about favorite series or anything new that’s coming out. A large part of this has been due to the fact that there’s usually nothing but shit coming out anyways, but there are a few notable series here and there worth mentioning, and occasionally I’ll discover a series I’d already heard of, but never watched.

One such series is Pretty Cure. Otherwise known as Precure, Futari wa Precure, Purikyua, or if you’re really anal, ふたりはプリキュア. Pretty Cure is a wonderful series about two girls, Honoka and Nagisa who discover their forbidden love attend a local all-girl Junior High School, and generally live normal everyday lives until…. it occurs.

So, basically our two heroines are very much different, and before the fated day, they live very normal lives.

They attend the prestigious Verone Academy Girls’ Junior High School. As we can see, it’s an all-girl high school. :eng101:

Nagisa is a member of the Lacrosse team, whose notable achievements are sporting uniforms that misspell their beloved school’s name. :pseudo:

Honoka is a member of the science team, whose notable achievements are making Honoka dress in a lab coat, which increases her moe~moe~ potential even more. They are also highly efficient at creating large clouds of smoke and further contribute to global pollution levels. :science:

Here’s another shot of Honoka that really produces no purpose to this posting, other than to highlight how incredibly cute she is. Furthermore, it could be battery acid in that beaker, but if she offered that to me, I’d sure as hell drink it.

So essentially, Honoka and Nagisa are technically aware of each other’s existance, but because they have as much to do with each other as whales do with flying, they pretty much keep to themselves.

However, all of this changes on the fateful day that Nagisa decides to look out her window, and gets smacked upside the head by what appears to be a shooting star..

…in the form of a cellphone. However, at this exact same time..

…Honoka investigates the storage shed in her spacious backyard, and encounters..

…another mysterious cellphone. So anyways, back at Nagisa’s..

…her magical cellphone as awakened! This guy’s name is Mepple. He’s apparently the chosen hero of the Garden of Light. He’s after..

..his girlfriend, Mipple, the Princess of Hope-mepo. So, after much obnoxious begging and whining, it’s off to find her. However..

..they encounter their very first bad guy. He is called PISSARD.

Allow me to reiterate that. PISSARD.

But wait! It’s Honoka to the rescue! And what’s that with her?

It’s Mipple! The Princess of Hope!

Uhoh. PISSARD is attacking with his 80′S STYLE GLAM FASHION. However will they counter?

By holding hands :q: and screaming out in Engrish, that’s how! :eng101:

Oh shi-, it’s getting awfully fruity in here. :dominic:

Looks like PISSARD is about to be schooled, that’s what happening!

One overly elaborate and non-suggestive (damnit :argh:) transformation scene later, our heroines arrive!

Ohwai- the elaboration hasn’t finished yet. So anyways, what the christ just happened? Lets have Mepple explain it to us…

..and, that’s pretty much it. You’ll have to check out the first episode yourself for all kinds of asskickery. It’s 49 episodes long, and somewhat difficult to get your hands on now, because 4kids licensed this back in February, but apparently it’ll be airing on TV this month in the US somewhere. I don’t know where, personally, because I don’t live in the US :australia:, but rest assured, they probably molested the hell out of the translation anyways.

There’s also Pretty Cure: Max Heart, as well as two movies and a third offshoot series, which technically hasn’t been hit with the licensing hammer.. but you really should see the original series first. It’s a 49 episode behemoth, but well worth your time if you’re as into magical girl anime as I am (and if you’re not, what the hell are you doing at a website named Respect Sakura anyways?).

In any case, I’ll be sure to buy the DVDs if/when they show up, because this is a great series, and it’s been an awful long time since I’ve watched something so fun and entertaining. Also, it has Honoka. I don’t think I can say anymore about that last point (at least, without incriminating myself). So.. go check it out, and be sure to support the local releasing of it, even if the translation does suck.. because it really is worth it.

Oh, and by popular demand..

PISSARD!