Hug tto! Precure

It's her first day at a new school, and the cheerful Hana Nono is ready to make a fresh start, dreaming of becoming mature and reliable—a far cry from her usual childish self. Although she makes a disastrous first impression, Hana soon befriends two of her classmates: the gentle and studious class representative Saaya Yakushiji, and a cool and mysterious girl Homare Kagayaki.

That night, a magical baby falls from the sky right onto Hana's balcony. She is immediately smitten with her and names her Hug-tan. Alongside Hug-tan is a snarky talking hamster, Hariham Harry, who mutters that Hana "isn't the one" before vanishing with the baby.

The next day, Hana believes the encounter to be a dream, until people all over the city begin collapsing and a giant monster appears, feeding on their energy. As Hana escapes, she spots Hug-tan and Harry under attack. Making a stand to protect them, she and Hug-tan suddenly both glow with energy and a heart-shaped gem forms.

With the crystal's power, Hana transforms into a hero called "Cure Yell" and defeats the monster. Surprised at Hana's power, Harry explains that he and Hug-tan came from a future frozen in time by the Criasu Corporation, the same organization that created the monster. Only the Future Crystals, manifestations of one's hopes and dreams, and the Precure they create have a chance at defeating Criasu and saving the future!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Nono, Hana Main

Hikisaka, Rie Japanese

Amour, Ruru Main

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Aisaki, Emiru Main

Tamura, Nao Japanese

Kagayaki, Homare Main

Ogura, Yui Japanese

Yakushiji, Saaya Main

Honizumi, Rina Japanese

Hug-tan Main

Tada, Konomi Japanese

Misumi, Nagisa ing

Honna, Youko Japanese

Haruno, Haruka ing

Shimamura, Yuu Japanese

Yukishiro, Honoka ing

Yukana Japanese

Hoshina, Hikaru ing

Naruse, Eimi Japanese

Umeda, Kazusa Producer

Naitou, Keisuke Producer

Tanaka, Takashi Producer

Yazaki, Fumi Producer

Reviews

Jan 27, 2019

MetaThPr4h

Recommended

First of all, I really have to say thank you to all the people who were talking nicely about Hugtto, without them I wouldn't have given a chance to a franchise that is now giving me endless hours of fun between all the entries. I hope this review helps other people to do the same.

As I did with the provisional version of this review while the series was airing, I want to tackle some points that people have against giving a chance to Hugtto, or this franchise in general:

- "This is a kids show": Locking yourself to demographics is such a waste, a good ... story is good be a seinen, a shoujo, or whatever it is. Precure in special also falls into a fantastic spot where it pleases fans of cute girls anime due to the lovable and funny character interactions the characters have, fans of actions series that want to see great fight scenes, and also to people who don't care as much for those thanks to the (completed!) story and nice drama and character development. Hugtto in special delivers with that touching some controversial themes that left me so satisfied with the execution. And as with all the entries I watched so far, it's not afraid at all to get dark whenever the story requires so, delivering hard hits that left me wondering if kids are really the main target audience.

- The mascot characters: I could understand it for some Precure entries, but that's definitely not the case for Hugtto. Hugtan is a well done baby character that is 100% adorableness 0% annoying crying, and Harry is far from being just a mascot, he's a fantastic character that adds so much to the cast and the story.

With that out of the way, let's talk about the series.

The story of Hugtto is focused on the Criasu Corporation, an evil company that tries to stop time and put an end to the future of the planet, Harry and Hugtan come from the future to avoid this with the help of the Precure. This anime is not afraid of going in the dark direction showing the danger of the villains while at the same time being honestly fun characters to watch, one roots for the protagonists but still enjoys the interactions with the bad side.

The big theme of this story that I adore and in my opinion had flawless execution is about moving forward and keep dreaming despite the fear for the future. The characters in this story have their traumas they can't deal with and/or fears for what might await for them as time es, this is especially visible for the villain side, who I found myself really emphatizing with after we got to know more and more about them. This theme hits close home for most people (myself included) and this anime can really give a push of motivation to any watcher who can relate to the characters and how they feel.

I only have good things to say about the villains and so I feel about the good side. The main characters of the series are fantastic, having likeable personalities and very solid development with honestly one of my favorite character arcs in anime included for one of them. Their interactions are lots of fun to watch and both comedy and drama moments coming from them are a blast to watch. The protagonist of the story, Hana, deserves a special mention after becoming one of my favorite characters, her cheerful and lovable personality only does but increase how hard it hurts the drama focused around her and how painful is to see her working so hard to make everyone happy when she herself is one of the characters struggling the hardest.

After this we get to the fights, Hugtto did a very nice job at keeping the story and development always going, with close to zero episodes feeling like filler, but that doesn't change the fact that the episodic action scenes are a staple of the franchise and this anime hasn't changed that, nor it needs to because they are awesome to watch. The animation is constantly great for them (and honestly the whole show looks nice, it feels so alive) and so much fun to watch, this also includes the mandatory transformation scene before the fights that are sooo good looking, Precure knows that they will be reutilized a lot so they go full power on them to make them look as great as possible, and I can say they deliver.

With that said, I will go for pretty much the only complaint I had for Hugtto: the fights sometimes felt unnecesary and out of place. This is a small issue but one that Hugtto in special suffered compared to the rest of the franchise I watched so far due to its big focus on character drama. Some episodes delivered really emotional moments to then make the monster of the week appear out of nowhere into transformation into fight (sometimes shorter than the transformation) to end the episode. I wish they had just kept going with what the plot was delivering instead of the mandatory fight, although sometimes they managed to make the fight add to the meaning of the episode so this wasn't always a bad thing at all.

As I already briefly mentioned for the fights, the art and animation quality are very nice and consistent, and I'm also impressed with the direction of this show which delivered fantastic execution of scenes, especially in dramatic moments where it provided great shots that added so much impact to them. The music comes from Yuki Hayashi (which you might know from other works like Boku no Hero Academia, Haikyuu or Death Parade), and as with those, he did such a great job in that department, giving us some very memorable songs.

I hope the points made in this review convince you to give Hugtto a try, I really don't want to see a franchise as fantastic as Precure stay this ignored here in the West as it currently is, and if my reviews of the series help changing that even if just a bit I will be so happy.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jan 27, 2019

ZettaiRyouiki

Mixed Feelings

[Spoiler Warning]

One year ago, smart PreCure fans were devastated. KiraKira had been terrible and hurt the franchise for all time. But there was hope left, for Hugtto was starting. Surely a more traditional season that brought back physical battles would be much better, right? ...Right?

Huh...

Story: Easily the worst part of this season. The story is awful beyond words. Now I'm not expecting any masterpiece from little girl anime created to sell toys, but at least some sort of consistency and logic and basic writing skills are expected. However series composer Tsubota blows her nose at things like proper writing and consistency. The series is choke ... full with Deus Ex Machina and too many things are solved just too easily, both small and big things. Besides that you have things like the personal storylines from the main cast. One girl solves her personal plot when she s right at the start of the show and other girl solves her storyline in the most ridiculous way possible simply because similar characters from seasons before had a similar resolution.

The themes of the series are parenthood, jobs, and doing anything, and oinly the first one was handled okay sadly. Jobs gets forgotten and the way the anime shows the last one is the most ridiculous scene from the entire franchise. The series also involves time travel and does a terrible mess with that since apparently having consistent time travel rules is really hard. Some individual episodes and scenes are good, but that's about the best we can give this show. It's better than KiraKira for all that helps, since at least this gets the basics right, but every other season is far better.

Art: Animation and art are usually on point thus good. However the fights are pretty boring and also often unrelated to the plot of the episode. It's not like Toei can't make good fights since the cameos get those, meaning they're holding down either because of budget reasons oir angry parents who complain about violence but not about bad writing. Maybe both. Either way these subpar fights certainly are not pleasing. Also the ending dances are getting really tiresome.

Sound: It's not bad. The song that resembles Corridors of Time plays every now and then and still feels jarring. The voice actors are fine, but hearing Yui Ogura not use her usual cute voice was real weird even if that shows she has range. And poor Yukari Tamura being in this bad season...

Character: Another big issue for the show. The main Cures feel split into two groups since the two that halfway barely interact with the original trio. The original trio also gets the shaft for story except for the pink one, who has the usual Pink Cure Bias the franchise adores. And then there freaking was Henri the worst character from the entire franchise. He exists solely for pushing the agenda from the series composer on gender roles and the like. The problem is the guy was written horribly and the way he's handled looks more ridiculous than anything else, making the whole issue not end serious. And yes, like you probably heard he transforms once. However it's really forced and the guy does nothing, meaning no matter whenever you like the idea or not this does not delived one bit and just fails. Just like the rest of the series.

Enjoyment: The show is probably alright if you pay zero attention to the plot. Otherwise any older season will serve you much better. Except KiraKira for obvious reasons.

Overall: Star Twinkle better improve, since we've got two messes consecutively. This mess has better moments and really bad ones, instead of just awful mediocrity, but it's very much a mess and thus better avoided. We really need a rival magical girl show to give Toei scares and get them back into actually putting effort.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 5, 2019

Luigithemetal64

Not Recommended

This is an insult to not only fans of the series, but also an insult to the series itself. Sure, Doki Doki is a season that made us mad, but this season feels like a modern take on that. While Hana is better than Mana, they brought back physical fights, and had cute moments, but those aren't enough to save it for a few reasons.

The parenting theme is OK something that will make kids learn the responsibilities of parenting and working, but the time travel theme is a gimmick that is bound to leave more questions than answers, creating plotholes. Hana is the only best ... character in Hugtto because she has more development as a character that she tries to be more mature than Saaya and Homare. I think Emiru and Ruru are OK, but they barely interact with Hana, Saaya, and Homare despite the duo having more episodes than the remaining three. The team felt like they are two separate teams. We don't have episodes like Homare improving her ice skating. It took Saaya up to 40 episodes for her to decide if she wants to become a doctor or an actor. Hugtan is an improvement over Ai from Doki Doki. She does grow and gets along with the main characters fine than Ai. The season also relies on crossover episodes where they brought back past Cures, which is fine and all, but it takes away the story. The villains aren't so great. George's plan doesn't make any sense like how he wanted to freeze time to keep people safe from harm, and never really explained what makes Hana so special, and how come he never helps Hana or do anything with or for her. Again, time travel, where better decisions could've been made or just don't have time travel and just use a different motif. The fights don't connect to the story but they attempted to utilize punches and kicks.

Henri is the most unlikable character in the season that I ever had the displeasure of knowing him. He wants to wear dresses because "limiting yourself is a waste". That's not true. It's like he is saying "It's OK to be a tsundere." His existence doesn't bring character development nor story development. The reason he is created is just an excuse to bring that stupid political message to a kids cartoon to the point where he became a Pretty Cure, which is what I think is the biggest shark jumping moment in Pretty Cure history. That is not what Pretty Cure is all about. Only females can be a Pretty Cure, and boy fans are OK with that all-females only rule. Tarte from Fresh is a much better male Cure than Henri will ever be. Henri literally does two moves to the monster which is tripping and stunning the monster as a temporary Cure. So even if you want boys to become a Pretty Cure, you will not like Henri at all.

There are also scenes where they show pregnant women, including adult Hana, are giving birth to a baby. Yes. I am not kidding. They actually showed you the women going to the labor stage, complete with them screaming the baby out with a red face that makes it look like a hentai anime disguised itself as a kid show. This is unacceptable and should not be shown in a kid show no matter what country the show is from. Even Smile did a better job than this. The best way to have scenes like that is to just show the mother holding the baby, and that's it.

I do hear the series is made to sell, and that it's not meant to be art. That is no excuse because that requires quality too like knowing what you're selling to kids and understanding your product, or else it will fail as a kids advertising or kids entertainment, just like Henri and this season. The music is OK but forgettable. The last positive thing I'm going to say is the visuals are, as usual, OK so you can get the idea of the environmental tone and characters, but even that nice little Hana from inside Hana's mouth from HuPC32 like Hime from Happiness Charge isn't going to make me watch it nor take back what I said about it.

Overall, like Doki Doki, I do not recommend this season to be watched by any Pretty Cure fan. We can only hope that Star Twinkle will do a lot better than Hugtto with Star Twinkle's art and space theme where they would not try to pander audiences. Stay away from Hugtto.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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