#PCD091

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 091

Film: Futari wa Precure Max Heart The Movie 2 - Friends of the Snow Laden Sky Date watched: 30 October 2018 Original release date: 10 December 2005 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/SCywSDw

Can you believe there’s actually not any group shots while they’re in Phoenix Form?

This movie is quite possibly my favorite movie in the entire Precure franchise. Where the first movie was good, this movie is excellent, and that’s not something I will be saying about every movie because there’s definitely some duds in this series. In the Max Heart movies, though, you can really tell they put a lot of time, money, energy, and effort to produce a polished product. This is most evident in the clarity and consistency of the art and the fluidity and dynamism of the animation. It’s not outstanding, not on par with the studios that subsist only on theatrical animation, but compared to the average episode, there’s a lot more to appreciate, so let’s dig in.

Right out of the gate we get a gorgeous shot of the moon, and some creatures flying past it: a flying squirrel with the voice of Goku carrying a diminutive old sage with the voice of Master Roshi (just kidding, he’s the voice of Kami), who is carrying an egg with the voice of nobody because eggs don’t talk. Right after promising not to drop the egg, Sage drops the egg and it gracefully descends into a snowy landscape as all the animals stop and watch.

The next day we find most of the main cast at a nearby ski resort! Akane and Hikari have set up shop inside the lodge; Shiho, Rina, and Fuji-P are snowboarding; Honoka and Kimata are skiing, and Nagisa.... is struggling, to put it nicely.

Her lack of skill does not go unnoticed and Honoka frequently rushes over to pull her out of snowbanks and back onto her feet, but despite the encouragement from her friend, Nagisa is still self-conscious about crashing on the bunny slope and not being able to really ski with everybody else, especially her crush. This plants the seed of a subtle tension between the two, but before anything can come of it, everybody goes back inside for a bit. While they were all out on the slopes, Hikari has found the egg and in her arms it hatched into a very plump bird! The girls all gather around and try to decide what it is and what to do with it. After agreeing that bringing her inside was a better idea than leaving her alone outside, and unable to figure out her species, they at least try to name her, and they settle on Hinata, which means “the sun’s warmth”, because she is also very warm. Then everybody goes back out to the slopes for another round, but this time Nagisa gets even more frustrated with herself, Honoka chastises her for giving up so easily, and lets slip that she could ski with Fuji-P..... who happens to be passing overhead on the ski lift as she says this. Embarrassed and frustrated, Nagisa snaps at Honoka and runs away. Honoka gives chase, but before they can settle things they see a Zakenna chasing Hikari. The girls rush to the scene and save her from being squashed by a tree, and then they all transform. The fight is excellently animated, making full use of the movie budget, but the choreography between the two girls is off. Cure Black blocks a punch on the ground as Cure White does a flying kick.... increasing the strain on Black. In frustration, Black deflects the giant fist back up and it accidentally strikes White. They both fall and the zakenna chases after Hinata, ignoring the warriors of light. Luminous freezes it with Heartiel Action, giving Black and White enough time to recover and destroy it with Marble Screw Max. Luminous remarks that the two seemed uncoordinated and they awkwardly walk it off.

Off to one side, the two villains who summoned the monster, Freezen (future voice of Coco from Yes 5) and Frozen (future voice of Girinma from the same) comment that they are the number one duo, and they’re not through yet. Off to the other side, Sage and Muta realize that Hinata is the egg they dropped.

Later that night Nagisa and Honoka are both clearly upset about their fight and want to apologize but struggle to face each other. Just as they come face to face, they hear Hinata’s cry and go running to discover that Sage and Muta have found Hikari and Hinata. Without explaining what’s going on, Sage drops some magic beans and a beanstalk sprouts, quickly taking everybody to the Garden of Clouds. (Yes they did just go full Jack and the Beanstalk) Nagisa and Honoka’s faces are priceless.

that’s worth the price of admission right there

Up in the Garden of Clouds, Muta and Sage drop a lot of exposition, thanking the girls for saving their Houou, and explaining the lifecycle of a houou. Hinata, the houou, reveals she can talk and is annoyed at Nagisa for trying to give her a stupid name, but because she’s Honoka’s friend Hinata will forgive her. Cue awkward glance between the two. They settle down to eat in celebration of the birth and return of the houou and are joined by more flying squirrels. During the meal Mepple sadly observes that Hinata will always be alone as there can only ever be one houou, but Sage counters that the houou has all of them and they have sworn to protect her as she is the source of all warmth and peace, that without her the world would be cold and bitter. After this obvious foreshadowing, Freezen and Frozen turn up again and ransack the Garden of Clouds, capturing Hinata in a pillar of ice. They declare that the houou is the greatest obstacle to their domination, and with it gone they can surpass the Dark King and freeze all the worlds. The girls won’t let that happen without a fight, naturally, so they transform and while they engage Freezen and Frozen, Luminous tries to take the pillar holding Hinata, but she can’t. This is another really great fight with some unique tension, like Black getting her arm frozen and White kicking her free of Freezen’s grip, which clearly causes Nagisa some pain. White asks if she’s okay and Black just kind of turns away from her partner. They summon the Sparkle Braces and hit the villains with Marble Screw Max Spark, but the villains prepare their own combo attack: Freezing Blizzard. They comment with disdain on the weakness of their opponents, because they’re the number one duo, and they become the first enemies to ever overpower Marble Screw Spark. Freezing Blizzard covers everything in ice, freezing all of the residents except Sage and Muta, and it creates a giant ice fortress that the villains flee into with Hinata. The trio of heroines quickly pursue them into the fortress, but Luminous gets separated. At her request, Black and White press on while Luminous is stuck fighting a Zakenna with only Sage and Muta for help.

Inside the fortress is an arena, and Freezen informs the duo that they must fight each other in order to advance. As he says that, Frozen pours ice into White’s heart, enhancing her negative feelings for Nagisa and silencing all voices but his own so that he can direct her to fight Cure Black. And let me tell you, evil Cure White is a scary sight indeed.

she will murder you

She lays the smackdown on Cure Black, who doesn’t want to fight her friend and screams at the unfairness of this. As White kicks Black out onto the roof, Black tries to appeal to her friend. It stirs Honoka’s memories but not enough to break the control. The villains comment that the one-sided fight is boring, so Freezen puts the spell on Black as well, and their fight is heartbreaking. It’s the culmination of the building antagonism between them throughout the film so far and it’s beautifully envisioned but also horrible to watch because of the emotional investment the audience has in their friendship.

As White has Black pinned, Honoka comes to her senses and starts crying over her partner as she calls out to Nagisa by name. Black looks up and there’s a question of whether she is awake or not, but she answers “White...” and then kicks her away. Their roles are now reversed, White won’t lay a finger on Black and stands up straight to silently plead with her. Black starts to flash back but charges straight at White and punches her off the cliff. However, right afterwards, Black catches White and calls out "Honoka!” She has broken the spell. They’re both relieved, but the moment doesn’t last because the ice crumbles beneath their weight and they go hurtling back down to the ground below, so the villains return to deal with the Houou.

Elsewhere, Luminous is still struggling with the Zakenna when Sage remembers he has more magic beans. As Freezen and Frozen arrive back at the room where Hinata is being kept, Luminous, Sage, and Muta arrive by beanstalk. Luminous once again exerts her strength to try and free Hinata, and this time she’s able to pull the entire ice pillar out of the ground and runs off with it.

I’m honestly impressed

On the ground level, Black and White wake up and finally have a moment to themselves. They make very tearful, very moving apologies to each other, for everything, in one of the movie’s most iconic scenes, and with their friendship rekindled, they start climbing back to the top.

By the time they reach the top, Luminous has fled to another ice tower with Freezen and Frozen in close pursuit, so to get there, Cure White breaks off a huge slab of ice and says they’ll have to snowboard across to get to their partner. Black boldly takes charge on this, overcoming her apprehensions and remembering a tip Fujimura gave her earlier, and she manages to steer and jump them right into the villains! She doesn’t quite stick the landing but hey, it’s only been a few minutes. They boldly take a stand against the ice villains.... and promptly get pounded into the ground. However, they stand back up, clearly exhausted, and place themselves between Freezen/Frozen and Luminous with Hinata. The villains taunt them, asking why they continue to fight when they have no energy, what they have to gain from being heroes protecting the world. They fire back that it’s not about being heroes, they just want to save their friends, and especially after the trials they’ve been through, they never want to feel the pain of losing a friend ever again. The villains retaliate by firing a Freezing Blizzard at them, which they can’t avoid, and they are frozen solid.

You’re as cold as ice! You’re willing to sacrifice our love!

With their greatest threat now out of the way, the villains advance towards Luminous, Hinata, Sage, and Muta. Hinata is weakened but moved by the strength of her friends, and she summons all her energy into a fireball that she fires at the frozen heroines. Suddenly Black and White break free of the ice and power up into new forms! These are their Phoenix Forms, seen at the top. They are able to fly around now, and they make short work of Freezen and Frozen before throwing them into each other face-first in a great fight. The brothers bicker with each other over who’s at fault for this and try to fire another Freezing Blizzard as the girls fire a Marble Screw Max Spark. The attacks converge but the icy duo can’t stop arguing with each other. Black and White accuse them of being fake partners who blame each other the moment things go badly, and lecture them on the lesson they’ve learned about true friendship. Then they blow the villains to kingdom come.

Black and White rush back over to where Luminous, Sage, and Muta are protecting Hinata, only to find them crying over Hinata, who has collapsed after giving Black and White all her power. Sage mourns that the Houou is gone and now there will never be any more warmth or peace, and if only they could have made it to see the Queen of Light after all this could have been avoided. This stirs a realization, and Luminous begins to channel her power into Hinata to save her precious friend. Hinata stirs, and everybody else joins Luminous: Black, White, Mipple, Mepple, Porun, Lulun, Sage, and Muta all contribute their power. Luminous transforms into her own Phoenix Form and sumons her Shiniel Baton, basically the Heartiel Baton in white, to imbue Hinata with the power of the Queen. As she does so, an image of the Queen appears behind her, and Sage is in awe that this girl is the Queen of Light.

Hinata transforms into a full-grown Houou and thaws the frozen wasteland, restoring warmth and peace to nature, and she even takes the heroines on a ride back home. After a very tearful goodbye from everybody, especially Porun (more on that later), they promise that even if they never get to see each other again, they’ll all always be friends, so with balance restored, Hinata flies away, back into the Garden of Clouds.

The next day, Nagisa and Honoka are tearing up the ski slopes together while everybody else looks on kind of dumbfounded. They ask when Nagisa got so good at snowboarding and she and Honoka just kind of share a glance before laughing it off and running away. On a nearby bank, Porun, Lulun, and Hikari all look at the sky and muse about their friend being out there somewhere in the clouds, and the credits begin to roll.

Where do I start with this movie? It introduces the central conflict early and slowly builds on it. Nagisa’s frustrations about not being a good snowboarder make sense, and she gets a bit defensive about it, especially when brought up in conjunction with her crush. Nagisa has always been sensitive to talking about him, so it fits her character. The villains, purposefully or not, take this chance to drive a wedge in between Nagisa and Honoka so they never get the chance to apologize to each other properly, even when they know they’re wrong. They subtly remind you of this throughout the entire first half of the film, with lots of awkward glances and other little cues, they’re out of sync during the Zakenna fight which results in them accidentally hurting each other, and it all comes to a head when Freezen and Frozen make them fight each other. That fight breaks my heart but it makes it so much more meaningful when they can finally sit down, say “I’m sorry”, and hug it out. They then get to show off their renewed bond and strength in the final battle with the icy duo, as well as flexing their desire to protect all their friends, Hikari and Hinata in particular. The dispute, the fight, and the resolution making them more powerful and closer than ever is, in my opinion, Precure at its absolute best. They don’t always have to come to blows but showing people that disagreements happen, even between friends, and if you swallow your pride and make amends you can pull through stronger than ever to overcome anything, that’s what it’s all about. Obviously this isn’t always applicable in real life but it’s a good foundation, and the way they visualize it in this movie with something as simple as a well-meaning statement when someone is in a bad mood, something neither party could really be faulted for, that’s something most people have experienced. Friendship takes work, and they also demonstrate the other side of this with the villains. Freezen and Frozen start the film taking advantage of the subtle strife between the girls, overpowering them at every turn. However once Nagisa and Honoka resolve their differences, they move as one and after a single attack, the villains start to squabble with each other. Their own partnership begins to crumble as they accuse each other of getting in the way and they can’t pull together an attack to save their lives (literally). Now it’s true that we don’t have as much investment in the villains of the movie relative to our heroines, because we’ve spent almost two years with the girls, but you get enough to understand them: all they do is brag about their bond and plot to freeze the world. This indicates there’s not much more to their partnership than what meets the eye, whereas the protagonists don’t really brag about their closeness, either in the show or the movie, it’s presented visually with how they behave around each other. They reflect on it sometimes but if anybody holds them to a lofty standard it’s their other friends commenting on how close Nagisa and Honoka are. They say pride comes before a fall and the villains demonstrate this.

Nagisa and Honoka aren’t the only friends in this movie, of course. A very big subplot that I didn’t really bring up in the summary is the bond between Hikari, Porun, and Hinata. Hinata hatched in Hikari’s arms, presumably because she’s the Queen’s life, and instantly took to her more than anybody else. While Hikari had to tend to the stand, Porun and Lulun played with Hinata and Porun especially found himself in a nurturing position for the tiny bird. He tried to help her fly, he encouraged her at every step, and both he and Hikari were beside themselves when she apparently died. I know I’ve written before about how Porun gets a lot better as a character over the course of a season and a half, well, this movie exemplifies that. When the day is saved and Hinata is all grown up, she has to go, and Porun cries that he doesn’t want to say goodbye, he wants to stay with Hinata forever. Nagisa starts to tell him not to be selfish and Porun responds that he knows. He cries, because he knows he has to let her go but he doesn’t want to and it’s hard. For a character that started out as a little brat, seeing him struggle with his selfish impulses at the moment he has to say goodbye to a friend forever is honestly really moving. Hikari sympathizes with him and Lulun offers her support as well. Hinata kindly tells him that they’ll always be friends, no matter how far apart they are, and sincerely thanks him and Hikari above the rest of the group. And indeed, while Hikari isn’t much of a fighter, she put in the bulk of the work in actually saving Hinata, and this is one of those times where I think they did a good job emphasizing Shiny Luminous’s unique strengths when they’re different from the Precures. Like in the first movie, they still separate her from the fighters, but this time she has her own purpose, her own path through the movie, and they don’t just knock her out until the climax of the film. This furthers the theory that the first movie wasn’t written with her in mind but I already discussed that in that review.

The art and animation are a step above the show, of course, because of the increased budget. This means the fights have a greater impact, and I like the early battle against the snowman zakenna in the snowy forest, that’s not a setting we’ve ever seen before and it presents unique obstacles. There’s more fluidity in the motions, and then you factor in the bit where Black and White are slightly at odds with each other, and it presents a great battle. But there’s other smaller moments too, like when Honoka is on the phone with her grandma the evening after the fight telling her everything is fine. While she does this she fidgets with the cord on the phone as a visual indication that she’s nervous and it’s little moments like this which I live for.

if you don’t remember corded phones, you’re too young to be reading my blog

The skiing scenes are also fun for the same reason as the action scenes.

I know I’ve commented in recent reviews that Shiho seems to be eclipsing Rina in characterization, and while neither of them are major players in this movie, Rina does get a particular moment of insight. After Shiho and Rina come back from the bath to see Nagisa slumped in her chair and no Honoka in sight, Rina instantly nails that she had a fight with Honoka, and offers her some advice. Rina remarks that if they’re true friends, they’ll apologize and pull through, but if they fall apart and let this ruin their relationship, they were fake friends.

also we see Rina with her hair down and that’s cute

It’s a small scene but it carries the entire film, as it’s now a journey for Nagisa and Honoka to make up with each other, and Nagisa repeats this mentality to Honoka after they make up, and to Frozen and Freezen during their final stand. I’ll have to look back at the series but I think this is the most importance Rina has ever had.

Here’s some thoughts on the voice cast. The guest stars (Kuaso Takeshi as Freezen and Hiyama Nobuyuki as Frozen) really ham up their roles and that’s glorious. Hiyama in particular is always a delight to hear, especially when he gets to use his upper range. I first remember hearing him as Viral in Gurren Lagann and since then he’s stuck out at me. Yukana gets to show off more of her range with evil Cure White, and her evil voice is terrifying coming out of Honoka. Masako Nozawa, as I mentioned, gets the dual roles as Yukishiro Sanae (a bit part if we’re being honest) and Muta, but as far as I can tell nobody else is double cast, which results in characters like Fuji-P, Kimata, and Akane only having a few lines each, although they offer mild justification by cutting away to them at key moments during the events in the Garden of Clouds so they can comment on things like the worsening weather, Nagisa and Honoka’s long absence, and..... actually that’s about it. It seems arguably not worth the cost of getting them onboard but maybe they recorded their lines during other sessions, I don’t know. It’s not like the boys are major players in the show either.

The soundtrack is good, if not especially memorable. There are a lot of themes and songs that are reused from the first movie. I do want to give a quick shoutout to "Pretty Cure Super Version”, the song accompanying Black and White’s resurrection. It feels regal, powerful, and inspiring and does an excellent job of bringing the audience back from the brink of defeat along with the girls. I don’t want to downplay the music of this film, but there’s some movies you watch and you’re humming the soundtrack for days afterwards. This is not one of those. The songs are nice in the moment and one or two may stick with you, and when I go back and listen to it again I’m like “Ahhhh yes this is a great song” but then I immediately forget how it went afterwards.

If you recall from MH1, there was an insert song as well as an ending theme, and there’s a third vocalized song on the soundtrack (besides the op and ed) called “Crystal”, but I went back to find it and it only plays in the background of a few scenes, it’s meant to be music actually playing in the ski lodge. Nice song, not much to say about it. The ending is a poppy, bubbly tune that doesn’t inspire much feeling. Very much just a song to get kids out of the theater.

As you can see it’s just a slideshow of stills across the two seasons, but two in particular stood out to me. First is the shot of the girls walking to work in their winter uniforms, because I’m pretty sure the girl walking by Shiho is a freshman player on the lacrosse team, which would imply it’s from a future episode of the show. (I thought it was Miu at first but it’s not, and now I’m stumped because I recognize her but I can’t identify her) Next is one I didn’t notice until writing this paragraph, and that’s the shot of Nagisa and Honoka in front of Akane’s cafe when they went to the highlands, the first time Baldez attacked them.

Compare to the TV version:

I’m not sure if they completely redrew all of these shots for the ending but they sure did some work on this one. Note that those two girls in the back feature very briefly in the film, commenting on how good Honoka and Fuji-P looked together and fueling Nagisa’s feelings of inadequacy.

Sorta speaking of the art, let’s take a moment to appreciate everybody’s winter clothes, but especially Honoka’s bun, because it’s cute as heck and also I have a thing for when animators draw characters with different hairstyles.

Last little point of note, the first film was strangely sponsored by a jewelry company. As far as I can tell, this movie has no such misplaced sponsorship.... except maybe a ski resort? They never name the place so it seems unlikely, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that it’s at least based on a real location. There seems to be an onsen on-site and that absolutely sounds like a relaxing way to spend an evening after a day on the ski slopes so it’s probably a real thing at one or more ski resorts in the country.

To wrap this up, I want to reiterate that everything about this film works extraordinarily well. They establish a central conflict early, reinforce it in subtle ways, and resolve it to create the climax. The villains are threatening and demonstrate their power well, countering the girls’ strongest attacks with little effort and almost winning at the halfway point. Incidentally, the basic plot of both movies so far is the same: the villain beats the girls because of internal strife, only for them to get their act together and have a Big Damn Heroes moment to defeat them in the climax with help from a new form. However, as I stated at the outset, I love this movie a lot more than the first one, because the conflict is between two characters we know have good intentions and not just from Nagisa getting annoyed because a frog was being an ass. The Precure movies range in quality from damn near perfect (this) to acceptable popcorn entertainment (Dream Stars, Go Princess movie) but I’m glad that they started off strong. Next time, we return to the series proper for Fuji-P’s birthday!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: Amazingly, 0 “Arienai”. I went back and checked a few times.

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Futari wa Precure Max Heart #FWPCMHMV2 #PCD091