Due to her father's remarriage, robust 16-year-old Himeno Awayuki moves into a large mansion with a beautiful garden—the quintessential dream house for any girl her age. However, much to Himeno's disappointment, her new stepfamily doesn't really seem to like her, as her stepmother often occupies herself with her father, her younger stepsister Mawata ignores her, and her other stepsister—the equally aged Mayune—tries to prank her at every opportunity.
But Himeno doesn't have time to dwell into thoughts of hopelessness—her new life has now become involved with a group of seven magical boys known as the Leafe Knights, after they ask her to become a magical princess who can borrow their powers! Although Himeno accepts their request and becomes the Prétear, she feels doubtful in her abilities to protect the world and its Leafe, the source of energy for all life. Will Himeno be able to find happiness among her new family and also save the Earth from the enemy, the Princess of Disaster?
Upon first looking at the title you may be thinking to yourself, is this some sort of story about someone about to cry? (Pre-tear) Hahahaha but no, in all seriousness this is actual a magical girl style anime with a more interesting concept.
Story: 8/10 Basically it follows our main heroine "Himeno" as she tries to stop the evil demons made from the "Princess of disaster." (main villain) But how she does this is pretty interesting, she basically has to merge with these beings called "The Leafe Knights" in order to temporally take control of their powers, and this is quite important as she will need different...elements against the right foe. It basically sticks to this the whole way through, all along giving the viewer some pretty nifty plot twists and surprises after the half way point. There is also a nice love story that takes place between Himeno and the main Leafe Knight, (even if it is pretty standard in anime. You know? The whole love--hate relationship) along with other mini plots to help prevent the story from keeping a sort of straight forwardness to the audience. In fact there are a handful of episodes that deal more with personal problems, and take a break from the overall story. The ending itself is by no means anything spectacular, but it does resolve all plot threads and questions, and should make you feel satisfied at the end. The action scenes I must say are a bit more on the shallow side and lack a certain flare and appeal, as some enemies were defeated in a matter of minutes once Himeno transforms, which might disappoint some viewers. This happens on most parts where they usually are involved with side plots, and make you feel like some of the actions scenes play second fiddle in some episodes. Though this is a magical girl style anime, it also has some pretty funny comedy scenes as well, but it’s never over the top and is mostly there to keep the audience into the anime. When they do gear up for battle and/or show more problematic scenes between the characters, the title quickly shifts into the appropriate mood, so you don’t have to worry about the characters acting comical at the wrong time, as it’s balanced with the seriousness.
Pretear does have some content that should be mentioned, for one there are some scenes that show Himeno and the Leafe Knights in a more nude look. It basically happens when they are about to merge with one another. Though they don’t draw any actual detail in the body, and are more just implied (ie Sailor Moon transformations).
Artwork: 7/10 Well being that this is a 2001 title, it will come as no surprise that it shows age. The character design that went into each is quite nice though, each article of clothing and facial expression is pretty decent to look at with a good scenes of detail and personality, however the backgrounds leave much to be desired, as most come off as a sort of bland watercolor style painting, this is especially true with the more natural environments, (such as the parks and forests) which aren’t the nicest to look at. Though some of the interior (such as Himeko’s house) is pretty detailed and well made with style.
Soundtrack: 8/10 The opening and closing themes are very pleasing to the ears, the first with a more mature magical girl style up beat theme, and the ending with a much more relaxed yet enthusiastic style. The background music is pretty forgettable though, it does play the right tunes at the right time depending on the situation. But you will most likely forget about it once you finished the series. The character voices are very well done (even in the dub version), and mix well with the character’s persona. An endearing soundtrack overall!
Characters: 7/10 Well to be quite frank they are very appealing and give off good vibes to the audience, but they lack real depth found on other magical girl series. As this is due to one problem, there are simply too many characters in the overall story that you really never get a chance to learn about any of them. In fact if I was to give number count of how many of them you get actual back story and/or knowledge of, I would say its around 5 or so. Which isn’t much considering there are around 14 characters in this. Still, they do spotlight the appropriate cast members whom of which are indeed important to the storyline.
Bottom Line: 7/10 All in all Pretear is an endearing tale that should satisfy its audience. Even though it lacks deep character depth found in other titles of this style, it makes up for it nicely with its mix baggage of genres (ie love, action, suspense, comedy). While I am not the biggest fan of magical girl titles, I certainly did have fun with this. And I think you will too!
From the first impressions I had about this series, it seemed like it’d be a simple magical girl anime about magic and something about fairy tales. It didn’t seem that it would go that deep and the art itself seems like it’d be a typical shoujo-slash-magical girl anime. I remember I came across the OP during my Internet travels and liking a lot because it’s by Yoko Ishida, one of the more well-known singers for anime.
The first episode introduced a lot of the elements to the series, more specifically, something exactly we’re going to get. There might have been attempts at being deeper while introducing...Himeno’s feelings from taking care of her drunk novelist dad to sudden immediate comfort and her needs being met. Not only that, there seemed to be some tension between the sisters, Mawata and Mayune, and Himeno because of her previous status in life. This is where Himeno meets the guys, or rather, the Leafe Knights.
Leafe is the life force that everyone and everything has and it has been disturbed because the Princess of Disaster’s seal has been destroyed by someone. The Leafe Knights are those who, well, protect those. The Pretear is someone who helps protect the Leafe and do things that the Knights could not (after merging with her). After they found Himeno, they start training her (or rather, she trains herself) to the power that she apparently had dormant.
The anime is exactly what it says on the tin although it does try to be a little deeper. The question that resides most in this anime seemed to be: What happens when the Leafe Knights are done with the Pretear and everything is done? But this question doesn’t come up till a little more than halfway through the series.
If anything, the focus is more on the slapstick and the family element Himeno and Mawata are suffering through. And even then the slapstick takes the focus away (even between the Leafe Knights and the kids versus Go) from the main plot elements. We don’t really know what’s going in anyone’s head until they actually tell us which defeats the purpose of the visual media.
The art, at times, is really bad and shows its age. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s going on until the characters tell us what just happened. It seemed that most of the budget went towards the transformation sequences (which is a cool idea in itself – the Knights becoming her power and changing various outfits and elements) and the battle scenes.
Musically, it’s also pretty nice although sometimes there’s a random insert song that one of the voice actors sang for it that’s a little distracting from what’s going on. Granted, it doesn’t seem that the production team had a lot of music to choose from (mostly the instrumentals of the opening and ending songs as well as musical box versions of it) but, in general, the music does fit with the tones nicely (although sometimes it comes in a little too early or a little too late at times).
But for the themes itself, it’s a little clumsy on what it wants to focus on. There’s the element of family, adjusting to new life, and then there’s the thought: what happens to the Pretear after she’s done being useful? In Takako’s case, she fell in love with one of the knights and he rejected her – she didn’t realize the other guy loved her until sixteen years later.
As for the family elements, as mentioned before, it’s very clumsy. Mawata’s story is more of coping with loss many years ago and dealing with new family members, Himeno’s deal is adjusting from poor to rich life (as well as not understanding why rich people do what they do), and Mayune’s way of dealing with someone like Himeno who’s suddenly thrust into her world.
You would think, based on the focus on Mawata’s background about her feelings, this story is about her and not Himeno. It’s understandable that people would think her quiet and demure would mean she’s perfectly emotionally equipped to deal with all sorts of things on her own. She does very much care about her family but she’s carrying a huge burden that she hasn’t been able to release for whatever reason.
With Mayune, her bullying is actually most of the slapstick. In the first episode, you’d think that maybe there’d be a focus about bullying within the family but it never goes beyond slapstick comedy. She doesn’t make it clear, other than Himeno’s previous status, on why she’s even bothering to do it in the first place. And then she makes a personality twist that she suddenly cares about Himeno? This would have been more believable had there been a serious focus on Mayune instead of just laughing at her attempts to thwart Himeno and seduce one of the Leafe Knights.
Himeno, though, doesn’t really focus too hard on anything. There’s a forced romance between her and the main Leafe Knight, again, halfway through the series and there didn’t seem to be any chemistry (although more synergy since she needs him to use his powers). She doesn’t really interact with her parents unless it’s forced or they’re at the dinner table. The step-mother isn’t cruel or anything but she always tries to help Himeno into becoming a proper young lady of her status. The anime tries really had to make us believe that there’s a sort of tension between her and the step-mother but there really isn’t. If anything, Himeno is reacting like how any teenager would. Was that the point?
Despite these problems, though, the anime does try hard to focus on the “What happens to the magical girl after she’s done being useful?” It’s an important conversation to have though – especially in a situation where the Knights have to bond with her in order to give her her powers. For Takako, there was love and, eventually, despair.
For Himeno, life goes back to normal although she’s still really close to them. Try as they might, they want the viewer to believe so hard that the couple could become a couple but it seems that she’s a little closer to her family than ever. We wouldn’t know what was going on until Himeno told the viewer.
For what this series is, it’s exactly what it says on the tin. The transformation sequences are really cool and actually interesting (not enough time to see all the outfits in a battle though) but everything else is pretty basic and normal. It’s good that Himeno is more focused on her family than falling in love and worried that much over rejection.
This series is a decent start into the magical girl series that won’t ask a lot of questions right away and instead tries to entertain the viewer with some slapstick comedy mostly, instead of focusing in too much with what’s going in the actual plot.
At first, this show seems like every other Shojo anime you might've seen. And, you're pretty much right. This show is horrible.
Story: 3/10 This plot is very generic and boring. I cannot believe that I sat at watched this. A girl named Himeno Awayuki moves into her new home, and stumbles into a guy named Hayate. Then she discovers she has powers, yada yada yada. There's obviously romance involved, duh, it's a shojo anime. The rest of the plot writes itself, pretty much. I haven't read the manga (I never plan to) so I have no clue how much has been changed.
Art: 6/10 The...art was probably one of the only half-way decent things about this show. It's not mediocre, but not amazing. So it's actually pretty standard. Though, it has some horrible art at times. That's one thing I can say about the art. The major battle scenes were animated the best, I think. But they usually are, arent they?
Sound: 5/10 The only songs I can really remember are the opening and ending songs, which weren't that great. So I can't really grade this aspect.
Character: 4/10 Besides the main heroine, I could stand all the characters. Though, like the plot, the characters were somewhat typical. There weren't many stand-out characters as most anime have, but if I had to choose one, it'd be Kei. He was the really gay one. He had a fucking doll of himself and used a picture of himself as his wallpaper. Come on!
Enjoyment: 3/10 This show didn't make me feel they way I usualy feel at the end of a series, satisfied. Though I hated the show, something seemed weird about the ending and I have no clue what. Anyway, the characters defenetly had something to do with the lack of enjoyment.
No matter whether you are a newbie when it comes to the magical girl genre, or a veteran, these are fifteen of the biggest must-see magical girl anime!
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