 YMMV •
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- Broken Base: Though common with many Precure series, some fans weren't thrilled over episode 24 which, despite the climatic fight between the girls, the Quirky Mini Boss Squad and the Big Bad Pierrot, set everything back to Status Quo, making them regather energy and Decors again and 48 which used the endings to Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star, HeartCatch Pretty Cure! and Pretty Cure All Stars DX 3
- The increased Moe elements are seen as either new and refreshing or as desperate and creepy otaku pandering.
- The character designs. Some love them, others find them gaudy and trying too hard.
- Good grief, the revelation of the Glitter Force dub. So far, despite the only big information released being that it's being made by Saban Brands, that at least 8 episodes are being cut, it's coming to Netflix, and that it'll arrive in 2016, many fans have already declared it They Changed It, Now It Sucks, declaring that it will instantly fail. It has also revived the Dubbing versus Subbing arguments, claiming that Saban should be "better" than this to alter things for younger kids. There are some who are cautiously optimistic because it's not someone like 4Kids doing the dubbing and there are some who are much more optimistic because, hey, it's a magical girl anime in America!
- The main argument over the alterations is the idea that, because the series was altered in such a major way, it will prevent Pretty Cure as a franchise to get a foothold in America. This is despite the franchise's first attempt, Futari wa Pretty Cure, failed because it only aired in Canada and it aired in such erratic times, it was doomed to fail.
- With the release of the official trailer, things are still broken, but are a little more optimistic: when viewers realized that Laura Bailey was the voice of Miyuki/Emily, people took it as a sign things would be a little better. Even more so, a few have taken the trailer to mean that Saban is doing this as their own version of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, what with the heavier focus on friendship (this coming out just as the series is going on an unknown-length-of-time hiatus is another factor) and others point out that the Saban of today is much different that the Saban of yesterday, pointing towards the dub of Digimon Xros Wars. There are still many close minded viewers, though, who are claiming it is doomed to fail, declaring that they aren't watching it and hoping Crunchyroll decides to pick it up and sub it.
- With the series fully out, the consensus is that it's a very solid show, even with the alterations involved. Many fans praise the voice acting done to Kelsey/Akane, April/Nao and Chloe/Reika (it also helps that these three also happen to be voiced by other voice acting veterans) but have problems with Emily/Miyuki, Lily/Yayoi and Candy with the problems being Emily's voice being too scratchy, Lily sounding too old and Candy being "annoying". There are also those who find the talking during the Transformation Sequence equally annoying, but this is something Saban's had problems with since they revived Power Rangers with unnecessary talking. Universally, many agree that the dance sequences that isn't "Yay! Yay! Yay!" and "Mankai*Smile" look quite amateurish and creepy, though this is unknown if this is because the models used were made from scratch or the animator just wasn't talented.
On the other hand, the same cannot be said with the Latin American Spanish dub, who was dubbed in Miami, FL by the same studio who dubbed the already controversial dubs of both The Fairly OddParents and South Park, to the grade any discussion about the topic in some popular anime sites was banned.
- And the Fandom Rejoiced: The general reaction just keeps getting more and more positive. The fact that there is a Cure in orange and another Cure in green certaintly helps.
- Complete Monster: Joker is a surprisingly vile villain in an otherwise light and comical show. He's The Dragon to Pierrot, but since Pierrot needs to be revived to do anything for most of the show, Joker is the primary villain. His goal is to bring the world to a Bad End, an eternal state of despair. He revels in breaking people's hopes and dreams. His first major act is to kidnap Candy for something he thinks she has, and shortly afterwards he thrashes the Pretty Cure and takes their despair energy for Pierrot's revival. In the past, he manipulated Wolfrun, Akaoni, and Majorina's rejection in the picture books to become his Bad End Generals. Later, he sends them to die in a stalling tactic. Throughout the series, Joker tries to find the Miracle Jewel, which is said to grant wishes. When it turns out to be Candy, he tries to kill her, revealing that he just wants to destroy it to deprive them of hope. Then he sends the world into a state of despair, turning it into a wasteland. Even as he's dying, he's laughing at the prospect of Pierrot's revival destroying the world.
- Contested Sequel: Due to its episodic, goofy nature (to the point that it feels more like a spoof of the genre), childish writing (with both the Myth Arc and character growth being non-existent), though subverted as it was allegedly very financially successful (though mostly only with otakus).
- Turns out, the reason for no plot is Shōji Yonemura, the lead writer of Kamen Rider Kabuto (which suffers from the same plot problems), also wrote for this show and wanted it to be "simple".
- Die for Our Ship: Wolfrun is so popular that any die-hard Precure yuri fan would love to kill him. He's quite possibly the biggest threat in Precure history, in the eyes of Precure yuri fandom that is.
- Ensemble Darkhorse: It's been a few episodes, but the villain Wolfrun has gained a surprising amount of popularity, almost to Draco in Leather Pants level. One day after the first episode of Smile Pretty Cure, Japanese art site, pixiv displays about 5 pages of fan art of him, a lot of it even pairing him with Miyuki. If you are a long-time Precure Yuri Fan, you would wish that he never existed in the first place.
- Joker isn't immune from this either, particularly at Tumblr.
- After episode 23, Majorina in her more powerful AND sexy form, is also getting this treatment, with quite a handful of Pixiv fanarts just hours after the episode aired.
- Ikuyo Hoshizora probably has more fanart on pixiv than any other Precure mother in the entire franchise.
- The Bad End Precures received fan art on Pixiv a week before their debut episode even aired.
- Pop is also loved for generally being much more tolerable and mature than Candy.
- Evil Is Sexy:
- Majorina in her Beautiful All Along form; many of the older female fans felt the same way towards Joker. Also, the Bad End Pretty Cures, if you're into that sort of thing.
- From The Movie, we have Possessed!Momotaro and Possessed!Cinderella; It's just something about the former's bishonen appearance and the latter's darker clothes that sells it.
- Wolfrun manages to have fangirls even outside the Furry Fandom.
- Fan Preferred Pairing: If pixiv art is any indication, Miyuki and Wolfrun.
- Fridge Brilliance:
- 2012 is the year of the 20th anniversary of Sailor Moon, something Toei probably acknowledged while developing Smile's main cast. Hence why Miyuki, Nao and Reika are so similar to Usagi, Makoto and Ami, and Akane's last name is spelled the same as Rei's.
- Miyuki suffers an immense string of bad luck... On episode 13.
- Fridge Horror: Episode 14 had Miyuki and Yayoi lost in an unfamiliar city accepting candy from strangers and going with them to god-knows-where. Isn't this something we don't want kids doing?
- Same episode, the Cures lead the building sized Akanbe up and down the streets to tire it out. Seems reasonable, except we saw quite a bit of people sitting in the streets in despair thanks to the Bad End Energy being drained.
- Funny Aneurysm Moment: Episode 9 is an April Fools' Plot where Yayoi lies to Miyuki about becoming a New Transfer Student somewhere else. This lie soon spreads to her entire classroom since Yayoi unable to say "April Fools!". Eventually they hold a "going away" party, and Yayoi is given the chance to admit this lie. However, she can't bring herself to do so because she imagined that it would go From Bad to Worse where everybody would abandon her for being a liar and that "They'll be really mad... They'll all hate her" and "nobody will talk to her anymore". The very next year, a show called Kotoura-san premiered with a Downer Beginning that made this nightmare a reality for its titular heroine in a much more dramatic sense. To top off the awkwardness, this doubles as an Actor Allusion—both Yayoi and Haruka Kotoura were played by Hisako Kanemoto.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The lyrics to the first ending has the words doki doki Precure. Guess what's the name of the next series?
- Miyuki is pretty determined to make everyone Ultra Happy. Two years later…
- An early mistranslation caused some fanon about Akane being a ballerina. Then Sherbet Ballet came on the scene...
- Idiot Plot: Episode 14. Ever hear of cellphones, girls?
- Internet Backdraft: The massive rumors about a Saban Brands show being created called "Gangnam Girls". After they found out that the plot was extremely similar to Smile's, the fandom assumed Saban might have gotten the rights to Smile and got up in arms because 1) they changed the title, when Smile Pretty Cure is already an English title name and 2) giving a Korean name to describe a Japanese anime is a little on the offensive side.
- It's been found that Saban couldn't trademark "Gangnam Girls" and they may be changing the title to "Glitter Force". Which is somewhat better. But, now that it's all but official, there's another backdraft kicking up: is it real? Is it fake? Is it Saban trying to cater to younger audiences (from their perspective)? Should Saban be ashamed either way for "butchering" anime long after the practice had "fallen out".
- Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Nao Midorikawa. Mostly with Reika and Akane. Which leads to...
- Ship-to-Ship Combat: Nao/Akane vs. Nao/Reika. Or...
- One True Threesome: Appropriately enough, their hair colors (red, blue and green) are the primary colors for screens.
- Memetic Hair: All five Precures do count, but the best examples are Cure March with her fluffy pigtails and Cure Peace with her banana hair.
- Memetic Molester: Joker, it only took his voice and a couple of facial expressions in his debut episode for him to reach this status.
- Memetic Mutation: As of the first episode, a shot of Yayoi drawing from the opening is slowly gaining momentum.
- A certain shot of Reika peering from behind a door from episode three is also achieving this status. For example…
- A screenshot of Cure Peace in despair mode from episode 22 spread like wildfire shortly after the episode's preview.
- The 8:40 mark, where a Nao/Reika moment usually takes place, is also getting some attention.
- Cure March feeling up her poofy twintails with an accompanying "squish squish" sound has become a minor meme — there's even a specific tag for it on Pixiv.
- Yayoi is the subject of two more memes: the "Passing-Through Superhero" meme, involving her being a Tokusatsu fangirl based on her canon superhero otaku tendencies, and the Kise siblings meme, which involves her being paired with Ryouta Kise due to them sharing last names and hair colors.
- The fandom tends to portray Reika as a Yandere after the shot of her watching the girls from behind a door reached Memetic Mutation levels. Nao/Akane shippers from Pixiv playfully use this trope on her. Minor classmate Hiroko Kanemoto also gets this treatment combined with Stalker with a Crush.
- POOF POOF GLITTER BOOTS!
- The bizarre shot of Miyuki's face from below in episode 13 after she finds out about her bad fortune is also worthy of mention.
- Moe: The fandom is starting to think of Yayoi as this, if the amount of fanart she got on Pixiv after the first website update is anything to go by.
- The show as a whole emphasizes Moe and Kawaisa elements more than other seasons of the franchise.
- Mood Whiplash: In a complete coincidence, in the 13th episode ending, a news flash appeared about a bus accident in Japan which costed 7 lives and 38 injured men. All while the screen shows the Precures happily dancing and the aesop of the episode is 'bad luck will go away if you smile'. Errr... yikes?
- Moral Event Horizon: While he doesn't actually cross it by virtue of being Brainwashed and Crazy, Straw Nihilist Jerkass Wolfrun at the very least proves himself to be a Not-So-Harmless Villain in episode 40 when he tries to kill Miyuki as part of a vendetta against Akane and everything she cares about. Smashing the precious charm her friends made for her earlier in the episode was at worst a slightly extreme example of Kick the Dog even for him, but this is the first time a Cure has ever found herself in mortal peril.
- Two episodes later, Majorina subverts it when she tries to kill Nao's siblings. That charm that Wolfrun smashed could be replaced, but those two kids couldn't. Turns out, Joker was responsible, seeing that she was under his control and brainwashed, rinsed and dried.
- Narm: Many fans felt that Joker's expressions and fake crying after his Psycho Rangers' defeat was actually kinda funny...then it morphed into deranged laughter and it wasn't so funny anymore…
- Narm Charm: The characters are almost self-aware that they are supposed to be larger-than-life characters in a fairytale, leading to this trope. Especially Miyuki.
- The Producer Thinks of Everything: A minor example, in the first ending's Cure Peace variation where she face plants, her face is red afterwards. This is the only time this happens.
- The Scrappy: Candy is disliked for her annoying nature, plots being kicked off because she acts like a moron, and generally being useless. It doesn't help that she's also somewhat of a Spotlight-Stealing Squad (a good chunk of episode plots can be described as "babysitting Candy"). Her older and more mature brother, Pop, is not only more liked than her, but fans express disappointment that he's not the main fairy and is a minor character who only shows up every now and then.
- Periphery Demographic: Adult males. Then again, given that there was a "marketing" paper that listed the "main target" as 4-to-12-year old girls and 16-to-35-year old men, this is an arguable subversion.)
- Shipping: Judging from Pixiv, Miyuki and Wolfrun.
- Special Effect Failure: The final episode of Glitter Force Season One includes a new 3D CGI dance sequence. It looks incredibly amateurish and the models do not emote at all, so the characters have a soulless stare and Creepy Smile.
- Tastes Like Diabetes: Glitter Peace's catchphrase in the dub. "Puppies and kittens, the power of love!" BLARGH.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A lot of fans feel that the whole "fairy tales" theme was never really used to its full potential.
- Woolseyism: The dub's version of Miyuki/Emily's "Kiai! Kiai! Kiai!" chant when charging up Happy Shower is her chanting "We've got spirit!" a lot like a cheerleader. Coupled with her saying beforehand that she almost made as a member of a pep squad once, it would be good way of pumping up energy.