Pretty Cure (プリキュア)? is the main term used in the series to describe a group of girls who can transform into legendary warriors. The term is also used in the main title for the each season, each with its own theme variation. In each season, there is a legend of warriors who will come to aid the world when it is in need, and stop an invasion of darkness. Thus, small mascot creatures from alternate worlds in need are often given the task of searching out chosen girls to take up the role of Pretty Cure.
Although the original concept of Pretty Cure was of two girls who could not transform or use any attacks without being together, this concept has faded and recent seasons are now more diverse in ways of plot, transformations and attacks, as well as gender diversity. Species that can become a Pretty Cure is also no longer limited to humans from other worlds, as humanoids, and even animals can become a Cure at any given circumstance.
The term "Pretty Cure" can refer to either one girl or the entire group, and this wiki has decided to use the shortened term "Cure" and "Cures", with an attached title for specific reference (e.g. "Fresh! Cures" for the Pretty Cure of the season Fresh Pretty Cure!).
With the exception of the two sequels and the All Stars movies, every season's story occurs in their own separate settings. However, in recent seasons it is implied that the known Cures live in the same world even outside of All Stars movies.
Futari wa Pretty Cure
Futari wa Pretty Cure (ふたりはプリキュア)? is the very first season of the series, and thus holds the original idea of Pretty Cure. The two main characters need to be together, hold hands, and have an understanding of each other in order to transform or attack. When their relationship is unbalanced, their fighting power slips, and they are unable to perform their attacks. Although this gives them a weakness, whenever their minds are in harmony and their friendship is strong, their power gets greater in turn.
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Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart
Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart (ふたりはプリキュア
This sequel introduces the concept of semi-official Cure characters who are able to gain Cure-like transformation and attack powers as well. This concept is later adopted by the character Milk in a subsequent season, Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!.
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Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star
Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star (ふたりはプリキュアスプラッシュスター Futari wa Purikyua Supurasshu Sutā)? is the first spin-off from the original season. While it still retains the main concept of Futari wa Pretty Cure, there are some notable changes. In this season, the creatures from the alternate world are called spirits, and the Cures get their powers from spiritual powers collected from the human world by these spirits. The concept of the season is based on the Japanese idiom "flower, bird, wind, moon" (花鳥風月 Kachōfūgetsu)?, which symbolizes the beauties of Nature, or the traditional themes of natural beauty in Japanese aesthetics.
Like the previous season, the girls have to be together in order to transform and perform their attacks. However, the Cures use the power of the spirits to fight, thus they are able to create shields and fly in the air, and their attacks are more of a purifying nature than just defeating the enemies. This trend of purifying enemies is to continue through all the subsequent seasons.
A new plot concept is that of a villain who has a change of heart mid-season and gains Cure-like powers. Later seasons such as Fresh Pretty Cure! and Suite Pretty Cure♪ adopted and expanded on this plot direction.
This season is unique in the sense that the girls acquire a second Cure identity later on in the story, while still retaining their first identity. Thus, they can freely transform between two different Cure forms. To transform, the girls need their Mix Communes and later their Crystal Communes.
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Yes! Pretty Cure 5
Yes! Pretty Cure 5 (Yes！プリキュア5)? is the first season to truly break away from many of the original Pretty Cure traditions, such as a pair of two Cures who must fight together. Starting from Yes! Pretty Cure 5, all the subsequent seasons belong to the Pretty Cure franchise mostly by name, as the plots and characters become more diverse and differ from the original concept of Pretty Cure.
The season's motif is butterflies. The Cures' powers are based on human characteristics and emotions, such as hope and intelligence.
In the movie, the concept of dark versions of Pretty Cure is first explored.
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Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Go Go!
Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! (Yes！プリキュア5 Go Go！)? is the sequel to the previous season. The five Cures regain their powers and a new member is added to the team. The season's motif is roses.
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Fresh Pretty Cure!
Fresh Pretty Cure! (フレッシュプリキュア！)? is the fourth original season of Pretty Cure and the sixth season overall. It is often recognized as the start of "modern Pretty Cure", due to the vast number of changes and new concepts introduced, such as CGI-animated ending themes, a villain becoming a Cure mid-season who is also not a human, and a power-up form gained towards the end of the season.
The season's themes are fruits, clovers, card suits, and dancing.
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Heartcatch Pretty Cure!
Heartcatch Pretty Cure! (ハートキャッチプリキュア！)? is the fifth original season of Pretty Cure and the seventh season overall. It is very popular for its unique character designs by Umakoshi Yoshihiko, and was successful in both TV ratings and merchandise sales.
The season's theme is flowers and their definitions in Hanakotoba (花言葉? lit. "flower language").
In this season, the concept of multiple Cures is introduced, where the existence of Cures other than the main heroines is a confirmed fact, since a Pretty Cure can be created by science.
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Suite Pretty Cure♪
Suite Pretty Cure♪ (スイートプリキュア♪)? is the sixth original season of Pretty Cure and the eighth season overall. The season's theme is music.
A new plot direction introduced in this season is the existence of a masked Cure of unknown identity, who does not pick sides and remains aloof and in the background until her true identity is revealed. This season is also unique as half the Cures in the season are characters who come from another world.
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Smile Pretty Cure!
Smile Pretty Cure! (スマイルプリキュア！)? is the seventh original season of Pretty Cure and the ninth season overall. The season's signature motif is fairytales, while the theme is happiness.
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Doki Doki! Pretty Cure
Doki Doki! Pretty Cure (ドキドキ！ プリキュア)? is the eighth original series of Pretty Cure and the tenth season overall. Its themes are emotions and selflessness, and the Cures' signature motif is poker card suits.
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Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!
Happiness Charge Pretty Cure! (ハピネスチャージプリキュア！)? is the ninth original series of Pretty Cure and the eleventh season overall. The season's motifs are mirrors, fashion, dancing, and form-changing, while its themes are love and happiness.
This season celebrates the franchise's 10th anniversary.
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Go! Princess Pretty Cure
Go! Princess Pretty Cure (Go！プリンセスプリキュア)? is the tenth original series of Pretty Cure and the twelfth season overall. The season's themes are princesses, personal goals and dreams. The main events take place in a boarding school, which is unique for the franchise.
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Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure!
Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! (魔法つかいプリキュア！)? is the eleventh original series of Pretty Cure and the thirteenth season overall. Its themes are sorcery, gemstones, and friendship.
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KiraKira☆Pretty Cure A La Mode
KiraKira☆Pretty Cure A La Mode (キラキラ☆プリキュアアラモード)? is the twelfth original series of Pretty Cure and the fourteenth season overall. Its themes are sweets, animals and creativity. The Cures in this season do not use physical combat aside from their magic and special abilities.
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HUGtto! Pretty Cure
HUGtto! Pretty Cure (
This season celebrates the franchise's 15th anniversary.
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Star☆Twinkle Pretty Cure
Star☆Twinkle Pretty Cure (スター☆トゥインクルプリキュア)? is the fourteenth original series of Pretty Cure and the sixteenth season overall. Its themes are space, astrology and imagination.
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Healin' Good♥Pretty Cure
Healin' Good♥Pretty Cure (ヒーリングっど♥プリキュア)? is the fifteenth original series of Pretty Cure and the seventeenth season overall. Its themes are health, nature, and animals.
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Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure
Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure (トロピカル〜ジュ！プリキュア)? is the sixteenth original series of Pretty Cure and the eighteenth season overall. Its themes are mermaids, cosmetics, and club activities, as well as motivation versus procrastination.
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Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure
Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure (デリシャスパーティ♡プリキュア)? is the seventeenth original series of Pretty Cure and the nineteenth season overall. Its main themes are food, gratitude, and sharing.
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Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure
Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure (ひろがるスカイ！プリキュア)? is the eighteenth original series of Pretty Cure and the twentieth season overall. The series' main theme is heroes. It is the first season to have a male Cure join the main team.
This season celebrates the franchise's 20th anniversary.
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Wonderful Pretty Cure!
Wonderful Pretty Cure! (わんだふるぷりきゅあ！)? is the nineteenth original series of Pretty Cure and the twenty-first season overall. The series' main motif is animals.
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Kimi to Idol Pretty Cure♪
Kimi to Idol Pretty Cure♪ (キミとアイドルプリキュア)? is the twentieth original series of Pretty Cure and the twenty-second season overall. Its main motif is idols.
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Meitantei Pretty Cure!
Meitantei Pretty Cure! (名探偵プリキュア！)? is the twenty-first original series of Pretty Cure and the twenty-third season overall. Its theme is solving mysteries.
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Dancing☆Star Pretty Cure
Dancing☆Star Pretty Cure (Dancing☆Starプリキュア)? is a special stage play that spawned from the franchise's twentieth anniversary. It is the first all-male Pretty Cure team in the franchise.
Pretty Cure All Stars
Pretty Cure All Stars (プリキュアオールスターズ Purikyua Ōru Sutāzu)? is a series of movie spin-offs in which all the characters from each season are placed together in the same universe. In this world, all the Cures are friends and fight alongside each other. In 2012, with movie Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage: Mirai no Tomodachi, a main Cure is born for the first time in the All Stars universe, and joins all the other Cures in battle. She appeared again in Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage 3: Eien no Tomodachi in order to aid the Cures. The movie-exclusive Cure is:
- Sakagami Ayumi (坂上 あゆみ)? / Cure Echo (キュアエコー Kyua Ekō)?
- A timid girl who loves Pretty Cure, she gained her own Cure status through the power of the 28 canon Cures in Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage: Mirai no Tomodachi.
Pretty Cure All Stars F would also introduce two more movie-exclusive Cures. They are:
- Preme (プリム)? / Cure Supreme (キュアシュプリーム)?, who is also the first villain Cure in the franchise, and
- Puca (プーカ)? / Cure Puca (キュアプーカ)?, who gained her powers through the 78 canon Cures.
Trivia
- Pretty Cure teams can have up to eight people, as stated by Hasegawa Ayumi in her Febri interview.
- A majority of lead Cures have pink in their outfits.
- Cure Black, Cure Summer, and Cure Sky are the only lead Cures so far not to have pink as their main color, as they all have pink as a subcolor instead.
- All main Pretty Cures are voiced by different voice actresses, resulting in there being 87 voice actresses for all 87 main Cures.
- The only Cures who share the same voice actress are Dark Dream and Cure Beauty (Nishimura Chinami), Dark Lemonade and Cure Ace (Kugimiya Rie), Past Cure Flora and Cure Macaron (Fujita Saki), Cure Lumière and Cure Soleil (Yasuno Kiyono), and Cure Puca and Cure Friendy (Tanezaki Atsumi).
- Mirage Pretty Cure share the same voice actresses with the Heartcatch! Cures, and the Bad End Pretty Cure with the Smile! Cures. Mainly because they are mirrored counterparts to the originals.
- Cure Unlovely has the same voice actress as Cure Lovely for the same reason.
- The Cures had usually transformed with the use of a phone-like device, but recent seasons have introduced perfume bottles, keys, pacts, bracelets, and/or rings.
- Suite Pretty Cure♪ started the trend of featuring one Cure with the character "kawa" ("river") in their surnames and was followed by all the seasons (excluding Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure!) that came after:
- Suite Pretty Cure♪: Kurokawa Ellen
- Smile Pretty Cure!: Midorikawa Nao
- Doki Doki! Pretty Cure: Hishikawa Rikka
- Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!: Hikawa Iona
- Go! Princess Pretty Cure: Amanogawa Kirara
- KiraKira☆Pretty Cure A La Mode: Arisugawa Himari
- In these last two cases, the character is pronounced as "gawa".
- This naming trend was eventually broken after the release of HUGtto! Pretty Cure.
- Each lead Cure has a catchphrase.
- Nagisa's are "Arienāi!!" (ありえなーい！！) and "Rakkī!" (ラッキー！).
- Saki's is "Zekkōchō nari!" (絶好調なり！).
- Nozomi's is "Kettei!" (決定！).
- Love's is "Shiawase getto dayo!" (しあわせゲットだよ！).
- Tsubomi's is "Watashi, kannin bukuro no o ga kiremashita!" (私、堪忍袋の緒が切れました！).
- Hibiki's is "Koko de kimenakya onna ga sutaru!" (ここで決めなきゃ女がすたる！).
- Miyuki's is "Urutora Happī!!" (ウルトラハッピー！！).
- Mana's is "Kyun Kyun!" (キュンキュン！).
- Megumi's is "Shiawase happīnesu!" (しあわせ ハッピーネス！).
- Haruka's are "Suteki sugiru!" (ステキすぎる！) and "______mankai dayo!" (______満開だよ！).
- Mirai's are "○○ tte īmashita?!" (○○っていいました？！) and "Wakuwaku mondā!" (ワクワクもんだぁ！).
- Ichika's are "Hoippu・Suteppu・Jānpu!" (ホイップ・ステップ・ジャーンプ！) and "Kiratto hirameita!" (キラっとひらめいた！).
- Hana's are "Furefure, ○○!" (フレフレ○○！) and "Mechokku!" (めちょっく！).
- Hikaru's is "Kira Yaba~☆" (キラやば～っ☆).
- Nodoka's are "Fuwā~" (ふわあ～) and "Ikiterutte kanji!" (生きてるってカンジ！).
- Manatsu's is "Toropikatteru~!" (トロピカってる～！).
- Yui's is "Derishasumairu~!" (デリシャスマイル～!) and "Hara pekotta~!" (はらペコった～！).
- Sora's is "Hīrō no deban desu!" (ヒーローの出番です！).
- Komugi's is "Wandafuru~!" (「わんだふるー！」).
- Uta's is "Kirakilala~♪" (キラッキランラン～♪).
- Anna's is "Hanamaru!" (はなまる！).
- In terms of theme colors, green, orange and white are the rarest, as there's only five, two and five of them respectively. Additionally, Parfait, Summer and Finale are unique cases with their theme colors given as "Rainbow", "White × Tropical Colors" and "Gold" respectively.
- However, in regards of theme colors, white is the rarest, as Cure White, Cure Egret, Cure Rhythm, and Cure Prism are the only white Cures so far. Cure Summer has white as part of her color, but she is mostly considered a rainbow Cure by Toei.
- Interestingly, when almost all yellow Cures (except for Cure Sunshine, Cure Étoile, and Cure Soleil) assume their finishing pose during their transformations, they all share the same sound effect, which is a distinct sparkly 'pop' noise.
- Happiness Charge Pretty Cure! is the first series to start the tradition of the Baton Pass, where the previous lead Cure meets with the succeeding Cure. In this case, Cure Lovely to Cure Flora.
- Its successor, Go! Princess Pretty Cure, is the first season to show the futures of the Cures, until Healin' Good♥Pretty Cure broke this trend.
- Shiny Luminous, Kiryuu Michiru, Kiryuu Kaoru and Milky Rose don't have the Cure prefix and status because up until Fresh!, the definition of a Cure was "normal Earth-born human girl". Fresh! was the first season with an official non-human Cure.
- Early seasons such as Futari wa, Max Heart, Splash☆Star and Fresh! gave the Cures blood types. Very interestingly, with the exception of Hikari, only human Cures were given blood types. Non-human Cures like Kaoru, Michiru and Setsuna had theirs unspecified.
- Hirogaru Sky! later revealed the Cures' blood types, and again the two characters who are not entirely human (Tsubasa and Ellee-chan) have no blood type.
- Of all Cures in the entire franchise, only ten are given a height. They are Cure Peach (159cm), Cure Berry (164cm), Cure Pine (155cm), Cure Blossom (156cm), Cure Lovely (155cm), Cure Flora (153cm), Cure Étoile (163cm), Cure Precious (155/165cm), Cure Spicy (160/167cm), and Cure Yum-Yum (150/160cm). However, there have been height charts for some seasons that have stacked up all characters, comparing their heights.
- Cure Custard is revealed in a production sheet to be shorter than 140cm.
- Becoming a Pretty Cure is described to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the characters, as seen in Kibou no Chikara ~Otona Pretty Cure '23~ where the Cures lost their transformation items until they successively regain their powers through miracles or specific circumstances.