Futari Wa Pretty Cure Max Heart
Futari Wa Precure, in 2004, marked the birth of both myself and the Precure franchise. It's one of the few seasons I've seen in full and it's a real delight. With the duo format, both girls have an especially meaningful relationship (check out the official figurine where they're seemingly getting married to each other) and an endearing contrast. They use little cardreading fliphones to turn into Precure warriors, fight off the dark forces, and save another utopian world from destruction. There's a lot of really good action blended with fun civilian storylines, mainly supported by the charming writing and how lovely this duo is. I really like the early 2000s vibes in this season, especially that art style with the big blocky shoes and the more muted colour palette. Then it had a sequel, Max Heart, which adds a third Precure girl and keeps the story going. There's even a pretty great English dub--it changes the names, but that's the only big difference. This season has a really badass opening song with shots of the girls laying in rubble and beating up on monsters, and a cute ending song where the entire cast of characters (including scary-looking villains) do a goofy dance together. Lovely stuff.
One of the charms of Cure Black and White as a duo is that they must be together and hold hands to use their magic. Their magical aesthetic is quite striking--their main attack, awesomely named "Marble Screw", is a huge killer laser beam made of black and white energy, while their transformations have them temporarily turning into grey blobby versions of themselves who look like liquid metal. It's so cool, and while I love the ultra colourful aesthetic Precure would soon adopt, there is something uniquely charming here.
These original designs are so good gosh. Nagisa is a sporty, passionate and energetic girl who is a star lacrosse player and a bit of a romantic. I love how they just treat her less hyperfeminine presentation as normal, and they don't ever imply she has to change; it's a little sad that the Precure season from 2004 did so much better in this regard than some of the stuff they're putting out up to twenty years later. The school uniform in this series (for an all-girls academy) is simple and realistic-looking, which I like. You'll notice few differences between the girls' civilian and Precure forms in these early seasons, which is a bit funny when they're meant to be secret identities who are fighting in public and become local celebrities, but it doesn't bother me in a show so lighthearted and magical. Maybe it's Miraculous Ladybug (shudders) logic: a sort of invisible magical veil of identity protection. Nagisa mainly just gets a cool sideswept bang as Cure Black. Her hairstyle was already perfect, but now it has a hint of magical girl flair. Of course, her outfit is brilliant. She's still the only Precure with a black outfit who isn't in the bad guys' ranks, which is sort of a shame because it looks great. Between Futari Wa and Max Heart, Nagisa's crop top is traded for a longer shirt and she gains gold accents and more frills. They managed to subtly improve on an already flawless design, which is the ideal situation for this sort of power-up. The pink accents are so cool, the shorts are great, and I love her wearing pretty normal-looking shoes under the cutesy leg warmers. The way her commune (the little pouch) is incorporated into the design is nice--it doesn't look out of place at all, but just like a charm she's wearing on her belt. Cure Black is perfection, and she's even more so when beside our next girl.
Honoka is the more reserved girl of the pair. She's very popular in school (she gets a lot of love letters from girls, iirc), intelligent, serene, and also loves science. In the intro, I love that shot of her pouring the chemicals :0 Her design is a wonderful contrast to Nagisa with the sleek darker hair, which grows out a little as Cure White into a little pineapple updo. There are some nice touches of personality in her design, with her slightly thicker eyebrows and larger forehead. Her costume as Cure White is sooo good again. That cupcake skirt!! The electric blue accents! Every line drawn tells you something about her. These designs have a simplicity (well, compared to some later Precure!) that just works exceptionally. By limiting their colour palettes to a smaller wheel, there's a cleanness and ethereality to the costume design, and they look practical for fighting in. I feel Cure White gets a more noticable upgrade than Black in Max Heart, mostly because the heart-shaped keyring is so cute and looks better than the admittedly awkward way the commune hung off her belt in Futari Wa.
Hikari Kujou is added in Max Heart, and she's a sort of passive, lost girl to offset the now watertight duo. I don't know a lot about her, since Max Heart is one of the few seasons I never got around to watching even a bit of for some reason, but I like the energy she gives off. She often looks kind of apathetic, and in her transformation she briefly forgets to pose at the end, before halfheartedly raising her arms. So real. In her civilian form, she looks sort of mousy and nervous despite the blinding blonde hair, and again we have an iconically large forehead which I think we need more of in magical girl media. When Hikari transforms, her sedate braid becomes huge fluffy pigtails, making for a larger contrast between forms. Shiny Luminous has one of my favourite Precure designs. While pink was already used for Cure Black, here it still works. The marzipan colour palette is so lovely--yellow and pink go beautifully together--and her extra level of frills and bows emphasises that she's the softest girl between the trio. Her weapon, a sort of tambourine-looking, very early 2000s toy which flips between a baton and a heart-shaped loop is one of my favourites too. If they had to add a girl to the NagiHono dynamic, I'm pleased it was Shiny Luminous.