Aaaaaand HapCha is complete!! :,) I didn't quite cry at the end of it, but I came very, very close a couple of times!!
Some thoughts from the last episodes: I feel a little bad for people who wanted Princess, Honey, or Fortune to have more screentime in the final fight, but the full team's fight against Red on the "Red Planet" (I feel like we should just say Mars) was soooooo cool!!! I think that this director is fond of having cool fights against the villain where all the Cures are beating them up while a catchy song of them singing plays, because that was one of the moments that I really liked at the end of Heartcatch, too. Additionally, I love the way that Megumi and Seiji's arc wrapped up. Their confrontation, as well as the one before it that included Princess, Honey, and Fortune was really cool--it showed just how great of a character Seiji is and how important he is to all of them, and I like that a male character was able to shine in that way instead of being relegated as an unimportant side character. If all of the seasons that had hamfisted male love interests treated them like how Seiji was treated by the narrative instead, I think that I would generally hate the Precure romantic subplots waaaaay less (I am looking directly at you, Fresh!!)
Some overall thoughts: I genuinely did not think that I would enjoy HapCha so much!!! I think that it's going to be among my top seasons (although it's currently not very hard to get into that club lol) even though I was worried throughout some parts about how they would handle Megumi's crush on Blue. Ultimately, I think it was handled extremely well, and I'm really impressed as I think that that's a tricky thing to do considering the touchy subject matter!! Additionally, the designs for both the Cures and some of the items in the season have really grown on me (I ordered the Prechan Mirror, each Cure's Precards, and the Honey Baton after all, lol)!!
The only thing that I can say genuinely disappointed me was the designs or attacks used by some of the international Cures, as I think they were (at least in some cases) culturally appropriative or racially insensitive, but at the very least, I think those instances were kept to a relatively small part of the season. I also wasn't a fan of the 5 or 6 episode stretch where they got the Innocent Forms, but that's a relatively minor nitpick. I'm honestly really interested to hear what people generally hated about the season, because the thing that I would think could be most easily criticized hasn't been mentioned when people bring up their distaste of the season. If anyone has anything they'd like to add about what they didn't like, please lmk, as I'm super curious!
I'll tell you exactly why I hate it, even though I really liked it up to a certain point. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't watched it—my thoughts are too long to fit into a simple reply. I'm not too well-versed on tumblr, so hopefully the "keep reading" thing will hide the spoilers for anyone who doesn't want to see.
Hime has, hands down, my favorite arc in the show. She starts as a coward, struggles with that and her inferiority complex for a while, slowly grows in confidence (both in herself and in the belief that she actually is worth being loved by her friends), and struggles with her guilt over releasing the baddies and her entire kingdom suffering for it.
She has a wonderful episode where she and the girls infiltrate her kingdom, despite not being ready to journey there, because they're supporting her in her endeavor to leave a gift for her mom on (I believe) Mother's Day. I might be wrong about the specifics but I do fondly recall the tactical espionage action™ episode.
And then, in episode 44. after they've finally beaten the decoy final boss and everything can start getting a resolution, Hime gets... literally like two jpgs showing her hugging her mom and then we cut immediately to "Oh no, Megumi is so sad"
The entire show had led up to what should have been a wonderful, emotional reunion scene with Hime and her parents, and it just got sidelined so Megumi could take center stage, which she continued to do for the rest of the season.
So yeah, it soured the whole experience for me. Which is a shame, because there was a lot to like about the season. It just so happens that one of the things I liked most about it got completely shafted.














