Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
Welcome to the character rankings, we begin with Keroro Gunso, but as this series is absolutely ridiculous in length the ranks will cover the first few characters with more added at a later date.
Sgt Keroro is incompetent at his job and ultimately fails at invading Earth, his plans all fail, yet is perfectly content with living in the Hinata house, reading manga, surfing the net and building Gunpla kits. His energy can relate to a lot of viewers.
Corporal Giroro is the serious one but has a strict code of honour, he falls for Natsumi after she decimated his traps. He's generally the one who reminds Keroro why they are here. His comically serious routine can be fun to watch.
Private Second Class Tamama is the wide eyed young subordinate, idolizing Keroro and generally going along with everything but has a hidden temper manifesting in a large mouth beam. I thought I'd hate this character but his wide eyed innocent persona grew on me.
Fuyuki Hinata is a young boy with a hobby of occult and unusual, he was first to accept Keroro and acts as audience surrogate but there's not much stand out in his character.
Natsumi Hinata more than makes up for Fuyuki's lack of personality, she takes no bull from any of the Keronians and already I can hear her dub voice and I've not even seen the dub. To be honest liking her depends on if you like the actress Cherami Leigh a.k.a typecast as the victim of the crazy shenanigans, very much love/hate.
Aki Hinata doesn't seem to mind the whole alien frog business as being a boy's manga editor she can draw off their strange culture, doesn't like furry animals based on some really off putting dialogue in episode one but I still like her for very different reasons; don't look at me like that, I'm in my 30s now and my waifus tend to be more mature and she's a biker.
Momoka Nishizawa is a rich girl with a one sided crush on Fuyuki, an old concept but mixes well with her split personality, the normal side is timid but her other side is borderline crazy tempered, situations involving her can be fun at first but don't have ever lasting appeal so her routine does get old.
Keroro 7.3/10
Giroro 8.8/10
Tamama 8.2/10
Fuyuki Hinata 6.3/10
Natsumi Hinata 6.7/10
Aki Hinata 8.2/10
Momoka Nishizawa 6.9/10
This post will continue at a later date
Were almost done, we are now on Hugtto the most recent season.
This team definitely comes out as one of the best and argubly most inspirational and here's why.
Hana is the poster child for the franchise itself, she carries much of the same traits most pink cures have but became internationally recognized for some of her most memorable quotes and she's even had to fight the weakness her character type has which is brave for a kids show and even braver for her to become the first precure mother, even actual childbirth.
Saaya's problem is that while she has a memorable look, they didn't really know what to do with her character and that only gets amplified by the strengths of the others.
Homare's story is basically rebuilding lost confidence, in essence she's a main character with a one episode story arc and while they do try, even throwing in some awkward romance it doesn't have ever lasting appeal.
Emiru is the ascended fangirl done right and for this season especially she's the perfect audience representative. She is what every precure fan wants to be and then became part of the best duo since maho girls and the original pair.
Ruru is my favourite precure of all time, the first inorganic precure and a former villain and the other half of a great partnership with Emiru, her story was the most compelling and most heartbreaking to watch.
Nono Hana - Cure Yell - 10/10
Yakushiji Saaya - Cure Ange - 6.0/10
Kagayaki Homare - Cure Etoile - 7.2/10
Aisaki Emiru - Cure Macherie - 9.3/10
Ruru Amour - Cure Amour - 9.8/10
Best Dressed Award - Macherie and Amour are beautiful.
Not far off now, were coming close to finishing our precure ranking with our next series KiraKira Precure
Reading the character sheets for this made me groan as this series is the laziest designed of the franchise in both characters and concept as the comparisons to Tokyo Mew Mew are unavoidable.
Ichika is happy and bouncy like a rabbit and already I've lost interest. This is the 12th Precure team you cannot get away with this type of character without bringing something new to the table and you failed to do that.
Himari at first seems forgettable but digging deeper I found something I never expected to find. Her personality is that she likes to talk proudly about her interests to people she trusts then become all nervous around strangers, these are traits similar to people with Autism, making her the only autistic magical girl in history.
Aoi has the wild rebel persona going for her but it comes off the back of being a rich girl bound by stuffy rules giving her an actual reason to act the way she does.
Yukari looks like she belongs in a different anime, her persona is that being labelled as perfect has made her want to seek out interesting things for entertainment, even if that makes her selfish, it's very complex character design that is welcomed in Precure but also makes her the odd one out among her peers.
Akira is the big sister type this time but being more masculine makes her standout so much more but I find that she only makes her persona work when played off Yukari making the Uranus, Neptune reference all the more apparent.
Ciel to be honest I don't like, it's not through lack of trying but she looks like a fanfic character designed by a My Little Pony fan and having to succeed Felice was always going to be a challenge. But what really hits it home is that she has Mary Sue traits as the plot is reliant on her to solve it.
Usami Ichika - Cure Whip - 5.0/10
Arisugawa Himari - Cure Custard - 8.0/10
Tategami Aoi - Cure Gelato - 8.6/10
Kotozume Yukari - Cure Macaron - 9.0/10
Kenjou Akira - Cure Chocolat - 7.9/10
Kirahoshi Ciel - Cure Parfait - 6.6/10
Best Dressed Award - At least the costumes are incredible but easily the best is Cure Chocolat
Moving on from princesses to witches and due to it being a return to it's roots I may have to tweak some elements.
Mirai and Riko have the honour of being the best Precure duo in the franchise only matched by one other duo and the original, but unlike the classic lovely angel trope that the franchise began with Mirai and Riko take a different approach.
Both girls mix well due more to their style in magic and personalities, Mirai being a performer and Riko being a technician, the extrovert Mirai to introvert Riko which relies less on tropes and utilizes more of the characters and this plays so well that you would believe they are real girls which is strange to talk about being an animation but real life girls don't follow the tropes that groups them into categories and that's impressive.
Hanami as the 3rd precure is nothing like Luminous in the original. Starting as an infant fairy and growing into a beautiful graceful Precure fairy through the parenting skills of the lead Maho girls is probably when the series really starts talking to their former older fans who by that point in the franchise are now young adults and while this acknowledgement doesn't return until Hugtto it really gives some emotional, mature weight that later sees it's two leads become an actual couple. That's how you make strong female characters.
Asahina Mirai - Cure Miracle - 9.5/10
Izayoi Riko - Cure Magical - 9.5/10
Hanami Kotoha - Cure Felice - 9.7/10
Best Dressed Award - Cure Felice, not only the best dressed but the most beautiful Precure in the whole franchise both in looks and personality.
Going into Princess Precure it may surprise you how invested they get into the whole princess theme and that could be good or bad depending on who you ask.
Haruka is the type of character you'd expect to play the wannabe princess and it works for her because unlike other characters of the same type in other franchises she displays noticeable faults and accepts the notion of dreams and despair being two sides of the same coin which really gives her character more dimensions.
Minami is essentially a prettier Cure Aqua, while her lonely rich girl works better here, she loses points by having less development than her expy.
Kirara is Princess Daisy, I can't really unsee it, she's Princess Daisy, sassy personality, athletic and same colour scheme but I like that personality and her higher taste in fashion adds more dimensions to her character.
Towa is a former villain which is an automatic high score and she gets extra for a dark transformation, the only character to do so, but she's exactly like Cure Passion.
Haruno Haruka - Cure Flora - 9.1/10
Kaido Minami - Cure Mermaid - 8.2/10
Amanogawa Kirara - Cure Twinkle - 9.3/10
Akagi Towa - Cure Scarlet - 8.9/10
Best Dressed Award - EVERYONE IS FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!
