Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom

Episodes 1-3

Growing up hits us all at some point, although how it hits is unique to everyone. But what does it mean to be an adult after you were a teenage superhero? Does becoming an adult mean that you have to leave all of that behind? At first, that seems to be the case for the women who used to be the magical girls of Yes! Precure 5 – Nozomi and her teammates are now all grown up, trying to make the things they dreamed of as middle schoolers come true but coming up hard against an unforgiving reality. Nozomi's a teacher, but school principals aren't nearly as accommodating as she wishes they were, stymying her dreams of helping a student. Karen's a doctor, but she cares far more about her patients than the older supervising doctors do, earning her a reputation as a pain in the ass. Kurumi's a corporate secretary, but her time as Princes Coco and Natts' assistant didn't prepare her for good old-fashioned misogyny in the workplace. It's enough to make at least Nozomi long for the days when she had the (magical) power to make things right, but she and Rin note that at some point, their transformation items vanished. Time marches on, even when you wish it wouldn't.

All Precure series have their stated themes, and one of Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom is clearly “time.” Even if the shots of the town's iconic clocktower didn't clue you in, or the fact that the restaurant the ladies frequent is called “Time,” the idea of its relentless forward march and the desire to turn it back dominates at least Nozomi's thoughts. She doesn't say it outright, but we can see it in the fact that her room still has a corkboard full of pictures from her days as Cure Dream and in her deeply rooted feelings about how she wishes she could do something more for her students. Nozomi feels powerless compared to when she was fourteen; she still has the earnest desire to be a hero but seems to lack the means to become one again.

That's where the title of this series comes in; back in the day, Cure Dream's catchphrase had to do with the power of hope, and although that's a little tarnished by her adult life, it's still something she earnestly wants to believe in. That plus her Precure past is what motivates her to jump in when supernatural shadow-stealing monsters threaten two of her students, and those are what enable the time flower in the Cure Rose Garden to bloom, allowing her clock to turn back. Kurumi and Karen exhibit a similar desperate desire to save someone powerless to enable their own resets and transformations, implying that being a magical girl is a state of mind as much as it is anything – because they want, they can recapture their power.

There's a real sense that life has beaten all of the Yes! Precure 5 women down. Although Rin, Komachi, and Urara haven't gotten highlighted yet, the glimpses we have had of their adult lives show that “living the dream” isn't quite what they'd expected. Frankly, of the original cast, Syrup (technically from Yes! Precure 5 Go Go) seems to be doing the best; Natts is swamped with work and Coco's so busy we haven't even seen him yet. Even if this wasn't a commemorative twentieth-anniversary project, the timing feels pretty right for a story about recapturing what you loved and learning that you can still make positive changes, given the state of our world today. There are also some interesting links between this series and the concurrently airing Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure – that series also relies on time manipulation to enable the transformation of one of the Cures and Ageha's episode about feeling like she's failing a student aired at the same time as Nozomi's similar arc. Both series also depict the earnest desire to be a hero; Nozomi and Sora may not express it the same way, but the same drive links them in spirit.

In terms of how this relates to the original two series starring these characters, episode three nicely solved my debate about whether or not to mention the Milk/Kurumi thing by having Kurumi revert to her Milk form. While Kurumi and Karen were close enough in the original series, Karen and Komachi were much more of a set, so it's very interesting to see that be mixed up here, especially since both Nozomi and Rin and Saki and Mai (from Pretty Cure Splash Star) are still clearly good friends. That may have to do with the romantic subplots from the original as much as Karen's and Komachi's personalities; all three of the implied romances from the originals are shown in the ending theme's pairings of Nozomi/Coco, Komachi/Natts, and Urara/Syrup (yes, the guys can all take human form), which makes it stand out that Karen is shown with Milk, who you all now know is Kurumi. Having an official queer couple would be a very nice addition to the rest of the Precure romance canon, and now that Nozomi is grown up, a lot of the ick is taken out of her relationship with Coco, who was initially working as a teacher at her middle school.

Even if you haven't seen Yes! and Go Go (or Splash Star, for that matter), all you need to enjoy this is a love of magical girls. They aren't called “magical women,” after all, and while both Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom and Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure imply that “teen” is the default age for transformation, both also let us know that it's a state of mind more than anything. If life isn't going quite the way you dreamt of, there's still hope, and you still have the chance to change the world.

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Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.