'Flamethrower! FLAMETHROWER!!... But now I kinda like "rocket launcher" better ...' by Kara
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 at 7:16 AM

Pulling together panels I'm moderating, book stuff, show stuff, and new costume for RavenCon a week from Friday. And realising that not only is it gonna kick my arse ... it's gonna knock me out, steal my stuff, and leave me in a hotel bathtub with some ice and a note that says 'Call 911, you have no kidneys.'

So you all know that I'm a sad Pretty Cure fan and will be crying when it gets dubbed and (most likely) there won't be a proper sub available. Well, there are three series (besides some movies): the original, Pretty Cure Max Heart, and Pretty Cure Splash Star ... the last of which is screwing with my head.

Allow me to explain.

Splash Star is not in the original/Max Heart continuity. But if you've clicked the links, you'll see that the base character designs for the two main girls are almost exactly the same - except instead of Nagisa and Honoka, we have Saki and Mai. And instead of Cure Black and Cure White, we have Cure Bloom and Cure Egret. Their senpai is now Mai's brother, Mai's parents are home and available and actually love her, and Saki's parents own a bakery called Pan Paka-Pan. (I am not kidding.) In the episode that just came out, Mai went to help an old lady pick cabbages. The old lady looks exactly like Honoka's mother and lives in the same goddamn house.

And you're going 'What about alternate series/movies/etc? You like those.' Sure I do. But this is purposely going 'We are not the same show, we have nothing to do with the original, we are in a different universe and these aren't even supposed to be the same girls, so honestly, don't even think about it.' But it's still so close in every conceivable way that you keep expecting them to merge at some point. They didn't even change the character designs when they made the two new girls. If they're marketing to a new batch of five-year-olds, you'd think they'd bother. But they are the same girls with the same personalities. Who hang out with people who are much the same.

So I've decided that Nagisa and Honoka are being 'tuned.' They go to bed one night, and then the aliens come in and switch them over to another family arrangement and life and such. See? There we go. (You know what, just shut up. Only I would go nuts of the continuty of a mahou shoujo toy-marketing franchise.)

Also, don't do this.

If you have been, eat it all.