Anime that Could Have Gotten the 4Kids treatment, but Didn’t!

After being inspired by some very enthusiastic PreCure fans, I recently started watching the first season of the anime Pretty Cure. I have to admit that I really like the series! It isn’t as deep or thought provoking as most of the other anime series I tend to watch, but it’s simplicity is very endearing and it reminds me so much of the first anime series I watched when I was much, much younger. It is a very energetic and action packed anime that is just so nostalgic of those early 2000’s anime series that were featured on Saturday morning TV in North America. In fact, this anime is so similar to other broadcast series, that it seems kind of strange that it wasn’t given the 4Kids treatment. Considering all the other anime series that were given this honor(?) like Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh, and Tokyo Mew Mew, Pretty Cure would have fit right in the line up perfectly.

4Kids

For anyone that didn’t grow up in North America, or for people that didn’t grow up in the late 90’s early 2000’s, 4Kids was a Saturday morning children’s TV programing that featured American cartoons and highly localized Japanese anime. By highly localized, I don’t just mean translated into English, but the names of the characters were often change to sound more Western, signs or anything written on screen was not just translated but also changed so it seemed more Western, and even the food the characters were eating were often referred to by the characters as something more North American-ish. This is were the meme of Brock from Pokemon referring to what was obviously an onigiri as a “doughnut” came from. 4Kids become so notorious for there over localization of anime series that now when someone says that an anime “Got the 4Kids Treatment” they usually mean that the anime was translated and changed with often hilarious results.

Pretty Cure

The story begins with two girls (Nagisa and Hokona) who happen to be in the same middle school class but don’t really talk to each other, who find two mobile flip phone like devices and are brought together by the cute creatures that live in the devices. A yellow creature called Mepple is the guardian of light and a pink creature called Mipple is the princess of hope. They escaped from the land of light just before it was invaded and destroyed by the bad guys. Most of the time Mepple and Mipple have to take the form of these phone like devices, because it’s tiring to be in the human world. With the help of Mepple and Mipple’s powers, Nagisa and Hokona can transform into the warriors of light and gain super strength, agility, and resistance to fight the monsters that the bad guys turn everyday objects into. While Nagisa and Hokona are fighting the villains of darkness, they are also trying to recover magic stones stolen by the bad guys. These stones are supposed to have the power to bring the destroyed land of light back to the way it was. If this doesn’t scream Saturday Morning Anime, I don’t know what does!

Like so many anime in the 4Kids TV programming, Pretty Cure features plucky and energetic middle school aged main characters that could only defeat the bad guys with the power of friendship. 4Kids anime loved the power of friendship! Like pokemon, there are cute little creatures with magical powers (Mepple and Mipple). Like in the anime Yu-gi-oh, Pretty Cure has some power filled battles in which the loser is “sent into the darkness”. And like in Tokyo Mew Mew, the main characters are heroes in their off time, but are also focused on some G rated romance while at school.