HeartCatchFairouz AiTropical-Rouge!Marika Matsumoto
Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure the Movie: The Snow Princess and the Miraculous Ring! (2021)
Also known as: Eiga Tropical-Rouge! Precure: Yuki no Princess to Kiseki no Yubiwa!
Medium: TV, series
Year: 2021
Director: Junji Shimizu
Writer: Yoshimi Narita
Actor: Aimi Tanaka, Akeno Watanabe, Asami Seto, Aya Hisakawa, Ayaka Sawada, Fairouz Ai, Fumie Mizusawa, Honoka Inoue, Houko Kuwashima, Kokoro Kikuchi, Kyosuke Nitta, Marika Matsumoto, Motoko Kumai, Nana Mizuki, Naomi Sano, Nozomi Mikajiri, Rina Hidaka, Satoi Shibuya, Shinya Takahashi, Taeko Kawata, Tomori Kusunoki, Yui Ishikawa, Yumiri Hanamori, Yusuke Sasaki
Keywords: HeartCatch, Tropical-Rouge!, PreCure, anime, magical girl
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Format: 70 minutes
Url: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=24528
Website category: Anime 2021
Review date: 10 May 2023
tropical rouge precure
It's a crossover between the PreCures from Tropical-Rouge! (2021) and HeartCatch (2010). Unfortunately, my opinion of the two teams differs. Tropical-Rouge! and their non-adventures are a waste of space and a reason never to watch PreCure again. HeartCatch were the greatest. The idea of the HeartCatch PreCures being shoehorned into Tropical-Rouge! non-storytelling doesn't please me.
This didn't make me the ideal viewer. This film was made mostly for little girls who watch PreCure every week... and Tropical-Rouge! were the incumbents when it was released.
Is it good? No. It's in line with the Tropical-Rouge! approach to drama, which is to avoid it whenever possible. There's still a bit, mind you, since this is a feature film. A character is unveiled as the anatagonist at the half-hour mark... but you couldn't even really call her villainous. She unleashes some monsters (because PreCure films need battles) and then has a change of heart after someone sings a song.
Let's shrug and accept for now, though, that this film is weak beer. It wants to be slice-of-life. Its heart isn't in meaningful stories. How does it fare by its own standards?
Laura's the main character, not Manatsu. She's the only Tropical-Rouge! girl worth writing for. You could perhaps get Asuka to carry a film, at a pinch, but she's generic and pretty bland, whereas Laura's a preening egomaniac who wants to be queen and thinks she's better than everyone else. In her introductory scene here (not counting the token Yaraneeda fight), she's fishing for ways of attracting more fans and dismisses a perfectly respectable idea from Sanyo as being too lowly for her. Laura's the only character who comes out of this film looking good, having had development, characterisation and a respectable amount of depth. She does her job well, even when that's just "be the film's comedy butt monkey, e.g. in the snowball fight". I laughed at everyone's shock when Laura starts talking politely (because she understands court etiquette).
Some mildly interesting parallels are made between the two groups. Both have an interest in fashion, although Erika's a designer while Sango's just a salesman and consumer. (Did they always do that weird spray thing in their transformation sequences? I checked... yes, they did. Okay. Spray-on dresses. Don't worry, that's not what it sounds like.)
The groups also borrow each other's catchphrases. Everyone in unison does Tsubomi's arse punch (which again isn't what it sounds like) and Erika uses "tropical" as a verb (kill me now).
The film makes its cast look stupid.
1. Minori (the cleverest Tropical-Rouge! PreCure) is amazed that Tsubomi can identify a snowdrop when its flower hasn't opened yet. Er... Minori? It's a snowdrop. A three-year-old could identify a snowdrop. Besides, what other flowers were you expecting in a snow kingdom?
2. Minori's surprised that the old king and queen aren't at the new queen's coronation. This shouldn't be surprising, because it's traditional to crown a new monarch only when the old one's dead.
3. The new queen stops her guests from departing, magically chains them up and summons snow monsters to drain their energy. A blizzard engulfs the coronation arena. "The queen's acting strange," says Asuka. Yeah, we'd noticed.
4. Manatsu is canonically an idiot, of course, but here she's even more so. She uses "tropical" as a verb to apply to a mountain kingdom that's covered in snow. Uh. Then, later, she's shocked that snow is cold.
There's also a bit where the new queen laments a comet destroying her kingdom. Is she upset about the massive loss of life, or just about the disruption to her first coronation?
Was my HeartCatch itch scratched? Yes, briefly (their transformation sequences and Granny's cameo), but the film belongs to Tropical-Rouge!. We don't even get any of the HeartCatch theme songs (which are better). Ultimately, this is the movie of a slice-of-life series that doesn't really believe in stories that mean anything or go anywhere. The girls thus mostly just hang out and chat. Even when a baddie appears, that gets resolved by yet more chatting. (And a song.)
I won't say "travesty", but this film wouldn't measure up to HeartCatch's discarded toenail clippings. It uses its guest stars too blandly to feel as if it's earned the right to them. Nonetheless, though, it's still better than the Tropical-Rouge! TV series. Sometimes, it's funny. Laura's quite good. It's below average for a PreCure movie, but it's not the worst of them.