'I love a lot of things that I wouldn't do onstage.' by Kara
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 at 7:27 AM

Go to Screamer Radio 'n' download. A lot of networks (like Virgin Radio out of the UK) support it, and if you go under the Presets to Genre - Talk and Comedy, you'll find two old-time radio stations. I've been stuck on the comedy/westerns/features one for a couple weeks now. Father Knows Best arguably has an even more gratuitous opening sponsor message than Tetsujin 28 ... and a decade earlier, at that!

Speaking of gratuitous, there is yet another addition to my beloved Pretty Cure franchise -- and it is Yes! PreCure 5. Guys, I can't explain my PreCure love. I like magical girl shows fine (and yet I also love big robots ... when I find the true link between these genres, I will be a happy girl), but PreCure has always been a bit much.

Okay, a lot much.

My fave show of the genre so far has to be Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which strikes me more as gritty scifantasy in a frilly dress (what other magical girl item takes cartridges and speaks German?????). But for me to really enjoy a magical girl show, it has to have a weird twist like that. Like Kaitou Jeanne having to singlehandedly keep God from dying. I can't just watch cute girls in dresses be cute, or I go a bit silly.

So why the nine hells do I like PreCure???

It is the most toy-happy show in the world. In a given season, the girls have to collect X number of shiny rainbow-coloured objects in a shiny rainbow-coloured holder ... their henshin items are the now-popular plastic cell phones, and any weapons or upgrades have names that clearly came out of a marketing guy's mouth. (And don't start on me with PGSM and the Princess Harp, because Princess Sailormoon will fsck your shit up.)

The animation is painfully shiny, the character designs make Wedding Peach look inhibited -- although they're done by Toshie Kawamura, who also did character designs for Jingi (that hurts my head) -- and it's always got two or more little critters who end their sentences with their own names.

But I love it. And not in the 'Oh, I've had a long day, I need something brainless' way. I have dolls and keychains. Why. Why do I love this show? It is the last thing I should like.

(Don't send in your treatises on possible reasons I might like it.)

I am fully aware that the writing's not that hot, the animation and designs are too bright, the cheap episodes are noticeably crappy, and it's on its fourth series not because it's good and has legitimate story extension possibilities, but because the studio is filthy rich off toy sales from the first three. I'm also aware that America's gonna pump this franchise dry, and that any changes they make will probably not decrease its artistic value because it has none.

But ... I mean ... it's PreCure. And ... I mean ... it's just PreCure. It is.

I think I must be getting ill. Very, very, very ill.

If you have been, shut up.