A Look At Suite Precure episodes 1-4

Heartcatch is a tough act to follow for Suite, especially since the first episode of Suite premiered only one week after Heartcatch's fabulous ending. Even taking that into account, Suite Precure's opening episodes haven't impressed me.

Where Heartcatch's theme was flowers, Suite's is music. (Classical music, specifically.) While Heartcatch's first episode opened with Cure Moonlight being pummeled by Dark (no more parallels after this, I promise ^.^), Suite opens with a concert taking place in the magical kingdom of Major Land.

Each year a fairy (in this case, a white cat named Hummy) sings the Melody of Happiness to ensure that Major Land's inhabitants remain in a good mood. But oh no! Mephisto (heh, now we have two magical girl shows this season with Faust references), the king of eeeevil Minor Land, rewrites the Melody of Happiness into the Melody of Sorrow and has the fairy Siren (a black cat, natch) start singing the melody, which makes the people who hear it sad. Before Siren finishes, the queen of Major Land, Aphrodite, uses magic to remove the Melody's notes from their score and send them to the human world, where she expects the Pretty Cure to protect them from Mephisto's cronies- Siren and three singing goons who act as her sidekicks. Hummy goes to the human world to find Pretty Cure.

In the town of Kanon, we meet two girls- Hojo Hibiki, an athlete who loves sweets, and Minamino Kanade, who excels at academics and enjoys making sweets. (Her parents run a pâtisserie, and she wants to be a pâtissière someday.) They used to be best friends, but now they bicker whenever they meet.

They become Pretty Cure at the same time (Hibiki = Cure Melody, Kanade = Cure Rhythm) when Siren turns a record that holds sentimental value for them into a monster, but they fail to keep Siren from stealing a note because they're busy fighting with each other. They later resolve the misunderstanding that put a rift between them (which was...underwhelming for an explanation for best friends breaking up) and become friends again. In the third episode, they resolve the misunderstanding between Hibiki and her music teacher dad that caused her to hate music. In the fourth episode, Kanade decides to enter a baking contest and Siren tries to sabotage her friendship with Hibiki (and thus, their ability to "harmonize" and transform into Pretty Cure) by giving her a bad cake recipe and telling her that a true friend would like it. Of course, Hibiki tells Kanade that the cake isn't good and what she usually makes is better, and Kanade runs away angrily. Then they make up.

Writing out the plot made me more painfully cognizant of how stupid this season is. The story milks every tiresome misunderstanding it can involving Kanade and/or Hibiki, and it's getting old. I'll try more and see if it gets better.

There isn't any yuri- but since this is Precure, someone somewhere will probably fabricate yuri out of moments like Kanade yelling, "Hibiki is my most important customer!"

For seiyuu fans, we have Mitsuishi "Usagi" Kotono as Hummy, Toyoguchi "Sei" Megumi as Siren, Koshimizu Ami as Hibiki, and Orikasa Fumiko as Kanade.

Just in case I don't finish this season (it is planned for over 40 episodes), I'll give it a grade right now... C

Extra note: Speaking of currently airing magical girl shows, I'll review Madoka Magica (which I'm enjoying the heck out of; if you aren't watching it, you really should) after it wraps up.