With this second half of Go! Princess Pretty Cure, one thing becomes obvious: Haruka is a pillar of strength. While she didn’t necessarily demonstrate that concretely in the first half, we can now see that she was internalizing a lot of what she learned and is now ready to share it with the world, protecting the dreams of those she loves with her new knowledge and maturity. That’s important because she’s the pink (main) Cure and because it’s integral to the show’s themes of hope and dreams. Dreams aren’t static. They may change as we grow. That’s okay: it’s just our dreams growing with us, which Haruka understands before any of her friends. That’s not because her dream has changed; she still wants to be a princess. But her understanding of what “a princess” is has evolved over the first twenty-five episodes so that in the second half, she can move more fully into becoming one. This is best seen in the episode where Close traps Haruka inside a facsimile of her favorite picture book – it’s lovely but flat. When the false prince tries to tell Haruka that flowers are wonderful because they’re beautiful, she denies his statement. Flowers, Haruka rebuts, are beautiful because they grow. They overcome obstacles to rise above the cold, hard ground, and in blooming – and eventually dying – they show their determination, even in the face of eventual withering. That is what it means to be a princess.
Haruka, in this second half, fully embodies that ideal. Throughout these two cours, different people attempt to sabotage her dream, including an amnesiac Kanata. While a few of them succeed in the short term, Haruka always bounces back, shoving her way through the solid ground of their steadfast denial of her earnest desire to be a princess. It’s something Haruka has been dealing with since she was little, and Kanata’s denial of her dream is particularly hurtful since he was the one to encourage it when she was small. That makes it even more impressive that she holds fast to her wish. Similarly, Minami struggles with a denial of her wish, although in her case, it’s something she does to herself. When we first met her, Minami said that her dream was to work for her parents’ company alongside her older brother, but in this set of episodes, she becomes aware that that’s not necessarily what she wants to do. Instead, she’d like to be a marine biologist specializing in veterinary care for marine mammals, something foreshadowed when she introduces her friends to Tina, a wild dolphin she’s close to. But Minami is conflicted about her new dream, and a piece of her thinks that she shouldn’t have it – she’s supposed to work with her family. While she’s struggling, her powers as Cure Mermaid wane, and they don’t fully return until she admits that she wants to go down a different path. Like Haruka realizing that “princess” isn’t a literal wish, Minami comes to terms with what she wants to do, which defines her character arc, and in accepting it, she ultimately accepts herself.
Kirara’s struggle is a little different. From her first appearance, she wasn’t entirely sure that she could balance being a Cure, her modeling career, and school, and in episode forty-two, she begins to think that she has to make a change immediately. She’s not entirely comfortable with this, and there are serious consequences. In episode forty-three, she realizes that it’s not a binary choice. Kirara can do it all, just not at the same time – but she’s got a lot of life ahead of her. If Haruka is about pushing forward and Minami is about learning to know yourself, Kirara is about balance: you can have it all, but you must find a way to do it. All three girls could easily have given into the sort of despair that brainwashed Towa, or that took over Kuroro’s body, but they don’t. They keep fighting, finding their way forward, and if there’s a message to this latter half of the season, it’s that even when things get hard after you’re done crying, you just pick yourself up and try again.
Yui is an excellent example of this. Older Sailor Moon fans may remember jokes about Molly (Naru) being the official energy source for the Negaverse, and Yui is very much her successor on the surface. The poor girl is targeted at least four times, but rather than remain passively locked in her cage, Yui continually struggles against her oppressors. She keeps fighting until she saves herself in the final battle, proving that you don’t need to transform to be a superhero. Yui takes strength from watching her friends fight, and her determination and dream allow her to find the power she needs within herself. Haruka says that you can be a princess no matter who you are. Yui proves it.
All of this combines to make Go! Princess Pretty Cure one of the strongest, if not the strongest, seasons to be officially released in English. The characters, especially Haruka and Yui, show steady growth, and they don’t just exist within the show’s thematic elements; they embody them. The use of Sleeping Beauty imagery, with tangled thorny vines and villains who steal dreams while putting the dreamers to sleep, helps to demonstrate the heroines’ growth and turns the idea of the passive princess on its head. Many people overlook the fact that before her slumber, Sleeping Beauty was very active; she wouldn’t have found the spindle if she wasn’t out exploring. She’s punished for this in many early variants, but the Go! Princess girls don’t allow anyone to do that to them – Yui’s increasing strength amply demonstrates that. The story also allows for the bad times. When the final villain isn’t beaten but retreats and when Haruka cries after saying goodbye to Kanata, the story acknowledges that sometimes things are bad. We have to leave someone, we hit roadblocks, and we cry. But the important thing is this: even though bad things happen, you keep going. It’s okay to cry and feel despair. Pick yourself up back up afterward. Keep chasing your dream, and someday you’ll catch it.
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