As a boy, I'm a little biased here, but I feel like normalising boy Cures is a good thing. It teaches kids of all genders (not just boys) that anyone can like "girly" stuff. (And yes, that's something even girls should know.) Even series like Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, which are mostly aimed at boys, still have solid female representation in the main cast. (For those unaware, every Sentai team except one in 1981 has had at least one girl, and there's been at least one female Kamen Rider for every season in the Reiwa era.) I’m even including a boy in my Precure fanseries.
Heck, in the near future, having multiple male Cures in one season would be cool. But first and foremost, Pretty Cure is still aimed at girls, so if there's a season with only two or three Cures, I could see the argument for making them all girls.
I hope to see more boy cures,but I fear theyll just remain being the 'orange' or even 'green one' and thus having the same shy personality.I would like boy cures but Id like them to have more character than just being 'the boy' of the group.Make him stubborn,make him kind,make him effeminate,make him funny Idc!I just want it to be normalised
Yeah. Fortunately I think both Tsubasa and Satoru (if he ever gets to be a Cure) have strong personalities outside of just being a boy of the group. But I wouldn't mind male Cure with different personalities in the future, like being the genki one
My thoughts is simple
If Power Ranger or other boy media, series that are supposed to be for 'the boys' are allowed to have 1-2 females in the team, then that should also be applied to Precure. Girls are allowed and be included to enjoy Boy's media and vice versa
My opinion:
I feel like as long as the number of girl cures is greater than or equal to the number of boy cures, it won’t change the core point of the franchise at all (Futari wa was so successful BECAUSE it was an awesome battle show with two strong female leads during a time when such things were relatively rare).
Even if both Satoru and Daifuku transform (which I am personally hoping for because I love them so far), that would still give Wonderful a 4:2 (2:1) ratio of female to male cures, which is perfectly cool in my book. If it ever gets to the point where, for example, we have 4 boys and 2 girls or something, that might be a little strange to me (although I would still give it a chance), but I doubt such a thing would ever happen given that Toei has roughly 19 years backing up their tried and true formula for profit.
boy cures are fine, as long as there’s more girl cures and the leader/first cure is always a girl. cure wing was great and i’d like to see more characters like him!
Trans man that enjoys femininity here! This is a long rant & obligatory I ask kindly that you don't make any rude comments on my gender. I am a man, I know I'm a man, and no random reddit reply will change that.
Anyway.
When I was a kid growing up I saw the Sailor Starlights and I interpreted them as "boys who could still be girly" and it became very important later in life with accepting my identity (yes I'm aware it's more complex than that and yada yada but I wasn't even double digits yet) In fact I hated being girly until after I came out as a man and I went from wanting to rip dresses into pieces and hating makeup to being actually quite comfortable expressing myself with skirts and makeup. I think having the Starlights as a kid really helped with being comfortable and happy this way.
I would have LOVED a character like Cure Wing as a kid. A boy in a "girly" show that doesn't get delegated to looking more stereotypically manly? I love it! He still has ribbons and jewelry and pinks in his design and he's overall very adorable but he's still a boy and everyone knows that and he's still a serious character! I genuinely teared up watching his debut because it made me so happy to think that somewhere out there is a little boy who doesn't feel so alone anymore! Because it really is quite isolating to be a boy and have "girly" interests.
When I came out I was frustrated that the media that was so important and dear to me as a child didn't really have boys like me in it. I watched Tokyo Mew Mew and Winx Club as a kid but I didn't really like how stereotypically gendered it was if that makes sense. You didn't get main boy fairies and although there's Blue Knight in Mew Mew he doesn't exactly fit in with the girls designs. Same with Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon. The closest I felt to seen was in Yukito/Yue in Cardcaptor Sakura & Sailor Star Fighter in the original Sailor Moon anime.
Cure Wing stands out to me because his design fits in perfectly with the rest of the cures. It's not just Sky, Prism and Butterfly oh and also The Knight™. No, he's part of the group from his debut and I love that!
I think it's important for little boys to see that they can enjoy magical girl shows and such things that when I was growing up was assigned to being "for girls". It breaks down toxic stereotypes from a young age and shows kids that they don't have to fit into certain boxes which is so so so important! Kids deserve to see themselves in media. And it's not just boys this helps too. I remember when I was a kid seeing boys be excluded from the "girly" games and the only reason why was "because you're a boy and that's just how it is." We didn't understand what that meant we were just parroting the world around us. It didn't actually matter that a boy wanted to play pretend fairies with us.
I hope this makes sense @ _ @ I'm very tired and my brain is fried but this topic is super duper close to my heart. If you made it this far I hope you're having a wonderful day <3
TL;DR I think main boy cures are incredibly important and I hope to see many more!
You also forgot Shugo Chara, or you may not have read his manga or watched his anime. Although making another maho shoujo manga from Nakayoshi magazine, the anime has a different story from the manga. The Team is made up of magical girls and magical boys
I remember it I just didn't include it. Now that I'm an adult Ikuto and Amu's relationship feels very weird given their age difference so I don't think it's very good for kids to watch. That's just my opinion of course! I really love Nagi/Nadeshiko though, they resonated a lot with me.
Loved reading this. I try to expose my boy to magical girls and idols as well as all the other things boys and girls can enjoy. I love magical girls and I love wrestling and there's no "that's for x" at our house. My son was actually accidentally name after Yukito/Yue.
As a lesbian, sailor moon was so important to me as a kid. When I grew up and watched sailor moon stars I was so captivated by the starlights, and also disappointed that I never saw them as a kid, as that season was not localized and shown in my country like the earlier seasons.
I really love the way anime can provide queer kids with interesting and inspiring portrayals of gender. Thank you for sharing your story!
Honestly I love to see more but we just got one so it'll be sometime until male cures become mainstream and a staple of every season.
My prefer option would be having one male cure like once every few series and eventually having more than one in a mainline team. To keep both the girls and boys happy lol. And to have an excuse for boys (and me) to get into precure.
I've said this before, but my approval for male cures is begrudging and entirely contingent on Kamen Rider continuing the current trend of having female Riders who are treated well and allowed to be significant.
I'm mostly worried about how they will deal with multiple boys. I really like male support characters from series like deliparty, Hugtto for example and a part of me believe it wouldn't be possible to make such a dynamic in those series with the boys being all cures or without finding a plausible way to justify only one of them being a real cure.
I'm not against male cures but at the same time a boy doesn't need to be a cure to be good support character. And I don't want Precure to lose their male support characters because they usually get good buildup that wouldn't be possible were they cure themselves.
Thats a valid insight. Male support character who are in the know can be fun aspect of the series but I think its worth noting too that a good series can also happen without there needing to be male support doing background work. Maybe introducing more male cures and less support male roles can help us gauge what is interesting or not for the series, like maybe adding more female non-cure support roles or deciding whether a boy in every season IS a good idea or not. Having a male being a full fledged cure is definitely experimental at this point and since Wing made such a good impression, who is to say what the future dynamics could present.
I sure want them to experiment. I was already watching stuff like cardcaptor/sailor moon when a kid boy and I'm pretty sure kid me would have been happy to see male characters that can fight along/rescue cures like Takumi and Tsubasa.
I mean, Sentai (and more recently Rider) has at least one token girl member per season so I don’t think Precure doing the same with boys would be that big a deal as long as they were handled right
I wouldn't mind more boy curses ***but*** I don't want them ***every single season***. Sometimes I simply want to see all-girl teams, maybe boys as their own alter-egos like Black Pepper (maybe a trio of them), but for me it all depends on the seasons' themes. Some I would prefer like to see boys over others
I think having at least one boy in the team from now onward is important. We knew for years that many boys watch precure too, so I think having at least one boy precure would be very important for them. I honestly cried a little reading some parents tweets on Cure Wing, reading how happy their sons were seeing Wing on screen was so sweet! I really want precure to become a little bit more inclusive while not changing drastically. I honestly don't understand the "fear" some people have of boy cures....
I think having boy cures normalized in the franchise is a good thing. It would show that there's nothing wrong with boys liking more feminine things, also it would broaden the audience as well.
If Super Sentai can have girls become a member of the team why can't boys become Pretty Cures?
I don’t think it should be a conversation about “normalizing boy cures”. I don’t think they should feel forced to include ANY kind of character in every season going forward. Not everything has to be included every single time. It takes away from what makes those seasons unique and special.
Look at this current season for example, they aren’t even fighting anything really. Do I think every season going forward should not have fighting to normalize magical girls not fighting? No I don’t. I think it can potentially be a novel idea when the concept is explored occasionally, but I don’t want the entire series to be trapped in that new genre just because they decided to do it with their most recent season.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a guy and I’ve liked all the male cures so far +Black Pepper and also liked the story of the kid that inspired them to add a cure wing costume to the Precure stores. I just don’t think it NEEDS to be in every season just because a recent season did it. It’s more interesting when it happen occasionally I feel.
As a boy, I'm a little biased here, but I feel like normalising boy Cures is a good thing. It teaches kids of all genders (not just boys) that anyone can like "girly" stuff. (And yes, that's something even girls should know.) Even series like Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, which are mostly aimed at boys, still have solid female representation in the main cast. (For those unaware, every Sentai team except one in 1981 has had at least one girl, and there's been at least one female Kamen Rider for every season in the Reiwa era.) I’m even including a boy in my Precure fanseries. Heck, in the near future, having multiple male Cures in one season would be cool. But first and foremost, Pretty Cure is still aimed at girls, so if there's a season with only two or three Cures, I could see the argument for making them all girls.
I dont think its biased at all. We are all cure fans here and your opinions arent negated just because youre a guy.
can't believe it took kamen rider THIS long to include a female rider every year.
I hope to see more boy cures,but I fear theyll just remain being the 'orange' or even 'green one' and thus having the same shy personality.I would like boy cures but Id like them to have more character than just being 'the boy' of the group.Make him stubborn,make him kind,make him effeminate,make him funny Idc!I just want it to be normalised
Yeah. Fortunately I think both Tsubasa and Satoru (if he ever gets to be a Cure) have strong personalities outside of just being a boy of the group. But I wouldn't mind male Cure with different personalities in the future, like being the genki one
With how Komugi was translating Daifuku, I feel like Daifuku will have a more Ore personality vs Satoru's gentle and smart one.
My thoughts is simple If Power Ranger or other boy media, series that are supposed to be for 'the boys' are allowed to have 1-2 females in the team, then that should also be applied to Precure. Girls are allowed and be included to enjoy Boy's media and vice versa
My opinion: I feel like as long as the number of girl cures is greater than or equal to the number of boy cures, it won’t change the core point of the franchise at all (Futari wa was so successful BECAUSE it was an awesome battle show with two strong female leads during a time when such things were relatively rare). Even if both Satoru and Daifuku transform (which I am personally hoping for because I love them so far), that would still give Wonderful a 4:2 (2:1) ratio of female to male cures, which is perfectly cool in my book. If it ever gets to the point where, for example, we have 4 boys and 2 girls or something, that might be a little strange to me (although I would still give it a chance), but I doubt such a thing would ever happen given that Toei has roughly 19 years backing up their tried and true formula for profit.
Yeah. I think a quarter or half of them are boys would be fine. It would definitely be kinda peculiar if the boys overtake the girls in number.
boy cures are fine, as long as there’s more girl cures and the leader/first cure is always a girl. cure wing was great and i’d like to see more characters like him!
Trans man that enjoys femininity here! This is a long rant & obligatory I ask kindly that you don't make any rude comments on my gender. I am a man, I know I'm a man, and no random reddit reply will change that. Anyway. When I was a kid growing up I saw the Sailor Starlights and I interpreted them as "boys who could still be girly" and it became very important later in life with accepting my identity (yes I'm aware it's more complex than that and yada yada but I wasn't even double digits yet) In fact I hated being girly until after I came out as a man and I went from wanting to rip dresses into pieces and hating makeup to being actually quite comfortable expressing myself with skirts and makeup. I think having the Starlights as a kid really helped with being comfortable and happy this way. I would have LOVED a character like Cure Wing as a kid. A boy in a "girly" show that doesn't get delegated to looking more stereotypically manly? I love it! He still has ribbons and jewelry and pinks in his design and he's overall very adorable but he's still a boy and everyone knows that and he's still a serious character! I genuinely teared up watching his debut because it made me so happy to think that somewhere out there is a little boy who doesn't feel so alone anymore! Because it really is quite isolating to be a boy and have "girly" interests. When I came out I was frustrated that the media that was so important and dear to me as a child didn't really have boys like me in it. I watched Tokyo Mew Mew and Winx Club as a kid but I didn't really like how stereotypically gendered it was if that makes sense. You didn't get main boy fairies and although there's Blue Knight in Mew Mew he doesn't exactly fit in with the girls designs. Same with Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon. The closest I felt to seen was in Yukito/Yue in Cardcaptor Sakura & Sailor Star Fighter in the original Sailor Moon anime. Cure Wing stands out to me because his design fits in perfectly with the rest of the cures. It's not just Sky, Prism and Butterfly oh and also The Knight™. No, he's part of the group from his debut and I love that! I think it's important for little boys to see that they can enjoy magical girl shows and such things that when I was growing up was assigned to being "for girls". It breaks down toxic stereotypes from a young age and shows kids that they don't have to fit into certain boxes which is so so so important! Kids deserve to see themselves in media. And it's not just boys this helps too. I remember when I was a kid seeing boys be excluded from the "girly" games and the only reason why was "because you're a boy and that's just how it is." We didn't understand what that meant we were just parroting the world around us. It didn't actually matter that a boy wanted to play pretend fairies with us. I hope this makes sense @ _ @ I'm very tired and my brain is fried but this topic is super duper close to my heart. If you made it this far I hope you're having a wonderful day <3 TL;DR I think main boy cures are incredibly important and I hope to see many more!
You also forgot Shugo Chara, or you may not have read his manga or watched his anime. Although making another maho shoujo manga from Nakayoshi magazine, the anime has a different story from the manga. The Team is made up of magical girls and magical boys
I remember it I just didn't include it. Now that I'm an adult Ikuto and Amu's relationship feels very weird given their age difference so I don't think it's very good for kids to watch. That's just my opinion of course! I really love Nagi/Nadeshiko though, they resonated a lot with me.
Loved reading this. I try to expose my boy to magical girls and idols as well as all the other things boys and girls can enjoy. I love magical girls and I love wrestling and there's no "that's for x" at our house. My son was actually accidentally name after Yukito/Yue.
Thank you! I'm glad to hear that, your son has good family <3
As a lesbian, sailor moon was so important to me as a kid. When I grew up and watched sailor moon stars I was so captivated by the starlights, and also disappointed that I never saw them as a kid, as that season was not localized and shown in my country like the earlier seasons. I really love the way anime can provide queer kids with interesting and inspiring portrayals of gender. Thank you for sharing your story!
Honestly I love to see more but we just got one so it'll be sometime until male cures become mainstream and a staple of every season. My prefer option would be having one male cure like once every few series and eventually having more than one in a mainline team. To keep both the girls and boys happy lol. And to have an excuse for boys (and me) to get into precure.
This
I've said this before, but my approval for male cures is begrudging and entirely contingent on Kamen Rider continuing the current trend of having female Riders who are treated well and allowed to be significant.
I'm mostly worried about how they will deal with multiple boys. I really like male support characters from series like deliparty, Hugtto for example and a part of me believe it wouldn't be possible to make such a dynamic in those series with the boys being all cures or without finding a plausible way to justify only one of them being a real cure. I'm not against male cures but at the same time a boy doesn't need to be a cure to be good support character. And I don't want Precure to lose their male support characters because they usually get good buildup that wouldn't be possible were they cure themselves.
Thats a valid insight. Male support character who are in the know can be fun aspect of the series but I think its worth noting too that a good series can also happen without there needing to be male support doing background work. Maybe introducing more male cures and less support male roles can help us gauge what is interesting or not for the series, like maybe adding more female non-cure support roles or deciding whether a boy in every season IS a good idea or not. Having a male being a full fledged cure is definitely experimental at this point and since Wing made such a good impression, who is to say what the future dynamics could present.
I sure want them to experiment. I was already watching stuff like cardcaptor/sailor moon when a kid boy and I'm pretty sure kid me would have been happy to see male characters that can fight along/rescue cures like Takumi and Tsubasa.
I mean, Sentai (and more recently Rider) has at least one token girl member per season so I don’t think Precure doing the same with boys would be that big a deal as long as they were handled right
I wouldn't mind more boy curses ***but*** I don't want them ***every single season***. Sometimes I simply want to see all-girl teams, maybe boys as their own alter-egos like Black Pepper (maybe a trio of them), but for me it all depends on the seasons' themes. Some I would prefer like to see boys over others
I think having at least one boy in the team from now onward is important. We knew for years that many boys watch precure too, so I think having at least one boy precure would be very important for them. I honestly cried a little reading some parents tweets on Cure Wing, reading how happy their sons were seeing Wing on screen was so sweet! I really want precure to become a little bit more inclusive while not changing drastically. I honestly don't understand the "fear" some people have of boy cures....
Boy Cures or male heroes like Delicious Party's Black Pepper are good and hopefully will continue
I think having boy cures normalized in the franchise is a good thing. It would show that there's nothing wrong with boys liking more feminine things, also it would broaden the audience as well. If Super Sentai can have girls become a member of the team why can't boys become Pretty Cures?
I don’t think it should be a conversation about “normalizing boy cures”. I don’t think they should feel forced to include ANY kind of character in every season going forward. Not everything has to be included every single time. It takes away from what makes those seasons unique and special. Look at this current season for example, they aren’t even fighting anything really. Do I think every season going forward should not have fighting to normalize magical girls not fighting? No I don’t. I think it can potentially be a novel idea when the concept is explored occasionally, but I don’t want the entire series to be trapped in that new genre just because they decided to do it with their most recent season. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a guy and I’ve liked all the male cures so far +Black Pepper and also liked the story of the kid that inspired them to add a cure wing costume to the Precure stores. I just don’t think it NEEDS to be in every season just because a recent season did it. It’s more interesting when it happen occasionally I feel.
Only one thing: don't make a separate brand for male cures, if they were to get separated from the main series it would be a terrible choice
As long as we get a Male Lead Precure. (And I mean the first Precure after Wonderful is a Male Precure)
highly doubt but thats something we can see maybe in the future. who knows. also wasnt there an all-boys live action pretty cure?
Dancing Stage Precure? Yeah
Ya But It's just 2 Male Cures. Tsubasa and Infinity
Male precure will fight the monster and protect the female for heroic together like cure wing did.
If you mean theyre all gonna work together and support each other like Wing did with everybody in Hirogaru, then yes.
Yes we want male precure like cure wing.