#mahopre2

[pochqmqri]

When I first saw the character designs revealed for MahoPre2, I initially thought that they (excluding Mirai) didn't change from the actual designs used for the grown-up characters at the end of the first MahoPre, so I thought they were just placeholder images.

Now that I look at it closer, there are some slight differences, notably Haa-chan is wearing a different top. From this, there are a few things we can take away.

The first is that, since the grown-up designs of Mirai and Riko closely resemble the designs they had in the epilogue, it seems MahoPre2 will take place around the same time as it, or shortly after. The epilogue takes place around five years after the final battle, meaning the girls are around 19. To add to this, Mirai's VA, Rie Takahashi, mentioned that Mirai is "now a college student" in the sequel, as she was in the epilogue.

The second is that, based on how similar the character designs are to the first MahoPre, it seems that MahoPre's character designer, Emiko Miyamoto, is returning for the sequel, unlike what OtonaPre did when Toshie Kawamura didn't return to design the grown-up versions of the cast, and another unrelated designer did instead. The last major thing Miyamoto worked on was for Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, where she was the character designer for that adaptation, and then a few small roles such as doing key animation in the recent PreCure All Stars F and GeGeGe no Kitaro films. As such, it seems she's not too busy to work on MahoPre2; hopefully other staff members such as series director Masato Mitsuka and head writer Isao Murayama are able to return!

On a side note, I remembered that in MahoPre, whenever Mirai and Riko transformed into Pretty Cure, they would noticeably "age-up," i.e. get taller. So, with the expectation that the adult Mirai and Riko will transform into Pretty Cure again, I don't expect any real change in design if they can just reuse those.

In hindsight, I find it really funny how in OtonaPre, Toei created new adult civilian designs for the cast, but made them de-age when they transformed into Pretty Cure again, while for MahoPre2, it seems that the reason they chose to do an adult sequel to this season, was because they technically already had adult designs for both the girls' civilian and Pretty Cure forms...and the adult civilian forms don't actually look that much different from their original 14-year old selves, besides being taller.

In the final episode of MahoPre, Mirai and Riko are also made to de-age just before they become Pretty Cure. I really hope they don't do that for MahoPre2, but I'm expecting the same thing like with that OtonaPre did. I just don't like the message it sends in terms of adulthood.

[leafonground]

we now know more about the new stage show coming out next year AND the doki sequel book than we do about mahopre 2 at this point. if we didnt just get confirmation that its timeslot will be the same as the uh. timeslot it was announced to have over a year ago. id probably be of the mind that mahopre2 is a shadow on the wall of a cave

[pochqmqri]

Update on "Mahotsukai Pretty Cure! 2"/the adult MahoPre sequel

It has been over a year since Toei announced they were planning an adult sequel to Mahoutsukai Pretty Cure!, the 13th PreCure season that aired from 2016-2017, yet no real information on it has been released since. All we know is that it will air "in 2024" on the late-night ANiMAZiNG!!! program block.

Despite this, two recent bits of indirect information seem to paint a specific timeframe of when the anime will actually air.

To start off, we now know the full 2024 schedule for ANiMAZiNG!!!, with the Summer program recently announced:

The Strongest Tank's Labyrinth Raids — Jan 7 - Mar 24 (Winter 2024)

Tonari no Yokai-san — Apr 7 - TBA (Spring 2024)

Iwa-Kakeru! Climbing Girls — Jul 6 - TBA (Summer 2024) (Rerun, originally aired Fall 2020)

The Healer Who was Banished From His Party is Actually the Strongest — Starts Oct (Fall 2024)

This means that MahoPre2 will not be airing this year, which makes it odd that it still has a tentative 2024 release date, right? Not exactly.

According to Toei Animation's recent financial report, for the fiscal year ending on March 2024, they still list MahoPre2 as in production for "2024." More specifically, they list it as coming out at some point after the second quarter of the 2024 fiscal year.

In Japan, for government bureaucracies and corporations, a fiscal year lasts from April to March of the following year. For example, the 2023 fiscal year just ended this past March, hence the recent financial report. The 2024 financial year will last from April 2024 to March 2025.

The second quarter of FY2024 ends in September of this year, meaning MahoPre2 will air at some point from October onwards. (Note that Dragon Ball DAIMA, another animated project under Toei, is also listed in the same category, and was announced with a set release date of Fall 2024.)

Given that we know the entire ANiMAZiNG!!! schedule for this year has been filled, it seems very likely that MahoPre2 will air starting in January 2025; that is, the Winter 2025 season. If it airs for just 12-13 episodes like OtonaPre did, that would still put it within the range of FY2024, ending just at the March 2025 deadline.

What seems likely then is that, if it's to be believed that the MahoPre girls will appear in the upcoming WonPre film coming this September, it will act as a bit of promotion for the upcoming MahoPre2 sequel coming out early next year. It makes sense as to why Toei has been quiet on the anime, as the main promotion cycle isn't meant to start until sometime this Summer.

[pochqmqri]

It is now May and we still haven't heard anything about the adult Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! sequel that is supposed to air sometime this year. Nothing official or direct has been said about it since the initial announcement over a year ago, but despite that, there have been some bits of information we can piece together about it.

To start off, let's look at the initial announcement back in March 2023. To celebrate the Pretty Cure franchise's 20th anniversary, Toei Animation announced that they would be producing two sequel PreCure anime for adult audiences.

The first one was Kibou no Chikara ~Otona PreCure '23~/Power of Hope ~PreCure Full Bloom~, which was a sequel to the first five PreCure seasons, but primarily Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! It aired on NHK-E in Fall 2023 for 12 episodes, and was streamed internationally on Crunchyroll.

The second one was tentatively titled "Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! 2," obviously a sequel to the 13th season of the same name. It was said to air sometime in 2024 on the late night ANiMAZiNG!!!! block. And that's all we ever heard about it since.

ANiMAZiNG!!!!

Let's look at what ANiMAZiNG!!!! actually is. It's an anime programming block from 2:00-2:30AM on Sundays created by the Asahi Broadcasting Corporation with TV Asahi; these networks are the ones responsible for airing PreCure in Japan every Sunday at 8:30AM, so it's familiar territory. ANiMAZiNG!!!! started in October 2020.

Notable anime that aired on this block include: Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious, The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!, SK8 the Infinity, Iwa-Kakeru! Sport Climbing Girls, I Shall Survive Using Potions!, and Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement.

A 2:00AM slot for PreCure is quite interesting, as even OtonaPre aired on NHK-E as late as Saturday 6:30PM. Despite this, the anime that airs on this block usually isn't too "adult," i.e violent or sexual, so I don't expect MahoPre2 to be anything of the sort. Similarly, the recent Tokyo Mew Mew New aired around midnight, and it wasn't out of the ordinary in terms of content.

With the exception of the Jahy anime, the anime that airs on this block usually does for just one cour, i.e. it has about 11-12 episodes and takes up one seasonal anime slot. We can assume that MahoPre will also have 12 episodes, not just because of this, but also because that was the same amount OtonaPre had. Relatedly, since MahoPre2 is airing on a different network than OtonaPre did, I also think that MahoPre2, when it gets an official title, is probably not going to be under the "Otona" label. OtonaPre aired on NHK-E, the "E" standing for education, and thus was heavily tied in to topics such as climate change and SDGs, of which I don't see MahoPre2 focusing on as much given it will air on a different network that doesn't have such an educational slant (see the other anime that usually airs on ANiMAZiNG!!!!).

At this point in time, the Winter 2024 anime season has long since concluded, and the Spring 2024 season is currently ongoing. So, we know what anime has aired/is airing on ANiMAZiNG!!!! this year so far, but we also have information on a few anime that will air later in the year too, so let's paint a schedule:

The Strongest Tank's Labyrinth Raids — Jan 7 - Mar 24 (Winter 2024)

Tonari no Yokai-san — Apr 7 - TBA (Spring 2024)

??? (Summer 2024)

The Healer Who was Banished From His Party is Actually the Strongest — Starts Oct (Fall 2024)

All of the seasonal slots for ANiMAZiNG!!! this year, except for Summer, have been filled up, and none of them include MahoPre2. On the official site, the poster for the upcoming Summer season is just a blank "Coming Soon." I find it surprising in the case of the Fall slot, because I was expecting MahoPre2 to air there, as OtonaPre also aired in the Fall last year. Based on this information and lack thereof so far, one can assume that MahoPre2 will be airing in the Summer, but doesn't that seem a little strange?

The Summer anime season usually starts in July, and that's two months away now, so why have we gotten basically no official information on the anime yet, not even a proper title or a few visuals? Despite the fact that OtonaPre aired in October last year, we got a peek at the first visual about a week after the initial announcement in March, followed by a moderately paced reel of information throughout the year. Looking at the other non-PreCure anime on ANiMAZiNG!!!!, Strongest Tank was officially announced back in October 2023 (three months prior to airing), Yokai-san was officially announced back in November 2023 (five months prior to airing), [insert overtly long isekai title] was announced earlier this year in January (9 months prior to airing), so MahoPre2 definitely stands out in its lack of information at this late of a stage. Even so, I can't think of any other anime that would be taking the Summer slot at this point in time. There's also the possibility that Yokai-san runs for a second cour, but usually anime that airs on ANiMAZiNG!!! only run for one season, and Yokai-san's original manga concluded with 4 volumes and one side story, which is generally enough content to fit one cour.

So, what can we expect in the coming weeks/months? The first thing is, like most PreCure anime, a logo/title drop in the Japanese trademark office. Just a day before the initial announcement of OtonaPre, the logo was recorded in the office, so it's likely that whenever the MahoPre2 title drops, an official reveal will follow shortly.

What Rie Takahashi said

Another bit of information comes from Rie Takahashi, the voice actress for MahoPre's Mirai /Cure Miracle, on her radio show with fellow voice actress and friend, Reina Ueda (who coincidentally voices Mayu/Cure Lillian in the current Wonderful Pretty Cure!). For the episode uploaded on February 19 earlier this year, she talks a bit about MahoPre2, how it's airing sometime in 2024, and that they're excited for it, that this year is going to be a great one, no new information really, but it's probably the most recent information we've gotten from an official source, albeit a reconfirmation of what we already know.

Somewhat relatedly, the Kamikita twins, who draw the seasonal PreCure manga adaptations every year, posted a tweet earlier this year in January asking if there was anymore news on MahoPre2, which seems to indicate that, even to them at that point, they weren't briefed on anything behind the scenes.

Speculation: The "Wonderful PreCure!" movie

For the sections labeled speculation, I ask that you please do not take anything I write here as pure fact.

While browsing the Japanese side of Twitter, I came across a few opinions of PreCure fans on why Toei is being hush on MahoPre2. One idea is linked to the WonPre movie coming out later in September. In the film's initial trailer, there's a line said towards the end:

さらに素敵なお友達の出番です!っていいました？！ "Sara ni sutekina otomodachi no deban desu! tte iimashita?!" "Did you just say, 'It's time for even more wonderful friends'?!"

What's the significance of the Japanese characters I highlighted in bold? In the context of PreCure, they are the catchphrases of Sora from last year's HiroPre, and Mirai from MahoPre. The 出番, deban, comes from Sora's catchphrase, ヒーローの出番です!, Hero no deban desu!, or officially translated as "It's hero time!" The ってい���ました？！, tte iimashita?!, or "Did you just say [x]?!" is a quoting particle frequently used by Mirai. Tumblr only allows one video upload per post, so I'll have to link to a separate post I made with the video comparison.

With this in mind, a fair amount of fans believe that the WonPre film will be another crossover one, like the HealPre and TroPre ones were, only this time, that team will be crossing over with the HiroPre and MahoPre teams. It's likely that MahoPre is added in to promote the upcoming sequel, which could be airing around the time the film hits theaters. For that reason, it's probable that Toei wants to combine the marketing for both MahoPre2 and the WonPre film, neither of which has started yet.

Speculation: MahoPre2 Delayed?

The idea of MahoPre2 being delayed isn't really based on any evidence, but pure speculation. Some fans believe that internal politics at Toei have made them shelve the sequel for the time being. Sailor Moon fans are familiar with how Sailor Moon Eternal and Sailor Moon Cosmos were mishandled and delayed multiple times.

Ojamajo Doremi, PreCure's older sister franchise, is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary with a potential animation plan adapting the sequel light novels with the girls grown up. Funnily enough, that's similar to the concept of MahoPre2, so maybe Toei somewhere down the line turned MahoPre2 into Doremi1620? Hahaha...

Another common theory is that MahoPre2 will actually air in early 2025. That sounds a bit weird, doesn't it? They explicitly said 2024, even Rie Takahashi said so, right? Technically, that wouldn't be a lie, if Toei was looking at Fiscal Year 2024, which in Japan, lasts from April 2024 to March 2025 for governments and corporations. That would give MahoPre2 time to air in the Winter 2025 season, and thus the promotion hasn't started yet because it's still too early.

So, with that all said, there are at least two time periods I believe MahoPre2 could air in, the Summer 2024 season, or the Winter 2025 season. As of now, we can only wait for more information, but I do not have reason to believe that Toei cancelled this project.

[pochqmqri]

With how OtonaPre ended up being mid and had several questionable choices, I know that there are some, myself included, who are worried about how the MahoPre adult sequel will turn out. Even so, I remain cautiously optimistic, as this was always the one out of the two I was the most excited for.

Going back to the initial announcement for both OtonaPre and the MahoPre sequel, it's interesting to note that they only tentatively call it Mahou Tsukai PreCure! 2. They don't outright call it something like Otona Mahou Tsukai PreCure!, so maybe it's not really tied to the OtonaPre brand.

This would be a welcome change because one of the main problems with OtonaPre was that they tried to juggle a main cast of 8, arguably 10, or even 13, in just 12 episodes. This meant that several characters got shafted in development, notably Rin, Komachi, and Mai. In a MahoPre sequel, we'd only really need focus on Mirai, Riko, Haa-chan, and Mofurun, and maybe a few of the other side characters. Realistically I don't see what other seasons they could try and jam into MahoPre2, like not GoPriPre or KiraPre. MahoPre has such a distinctive style to it with all the witchcraft stuff.

Another thing to note from that initial announcement is that MahoPre2 will be airing on the late-night Animazing!!! block owned by TV Asahi and ABC TV, on Sundays 2:00-2:30 AM. This is quite the unusual choice because even OtonaPre, which aired on NHK-E, aired as late as Saturday 6:30PM. Similarly, Tokyo Mew Mew New aired around midnight when it broadcasted. I don't know what this really means in terms of "adult content" though, because even TMMN was mostly restrained in that regard. OtonaPre aired on a night/afternoon timeslot, but it also aired in the same block that had stuff like Spongebob, so they couldn't get too "adult," the most being stuff like alcohol consumption and climate change.

From this article back in March, Producer Takashi Washio notes that when NHK-E ("E" standing for education) was chosen to air OtonaPre on, he was asked if they could focus on topics related to SDGs, sustainable development goals. This is why OtonaPre has a large focus on climate change and sustainability, despite it feeling a bit out of place. I appreciate the focus on such topics, but I felt like it was taking up too much space in OtonaPre when combined with the topics of adulthood struggles and usual PreCure stuff, especially for just 12 episodes. I also think that the aforementioned Tokyo Mew Mew New, which aired last year and earlier this year, was much better at conveying these topics.

There's not much we know about MahoPre2, but I think I can say for certain that it won't have much of heavy environmental theme to it, and more so focus on expanding the lore of the Witch World. I expect the sequel to have 12-13 episodes like OtonaPre did, so not trying to jam several themes into such a limited scope will be good.

Another thing, that's a bit small is that, personally, I wasn't a fan of the art direction, notably the character designs, of OtonaPre. Toei outsourced the anime primarily to Studio DEEN, so most of the staff, character designer, series director, animation directors, art director, etc. were assigned to people who didn't seem to be that familiar with the series and the final product sort of reflected that. It's understandable why Toei outsourced most of the production, as this year, they also had to focus on the usual yearly PreCure, One Piece, the Sailor Moon Cosmos films, etc., and I expect more of the same next year for MahoPre2.

But I think that, at least in terms of character designer, we might get Emiko Miyamoto, who was the CD for the original MahoPre, back. The reason why Toshie Kawamura, who was the CD for Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!, didn't come back for OtonaPre, seems to be that she's currently not accepting new work due to her poor health, as stated in her Twitter bio. This makes sense, as Kawamura recently did the character designs for the all-male Dancing Star PreCure, which, as a live-action stage play, had less commitments for her to deal with compared to OtonaPre. In contrast, from what I could gather, Miyamoto appears to be in good health, and she hasn't really done much work since Dragon Quest: Adventure of Dai, which ended last year. She did do some small animation work for the recent PreCure All Stars F film, but that's pretty much it. I think there will be time for her to return next year for MahoPre2, along with other staff like head writer Isao Murayama and series director Masato Mitsuka.

Ideally, I would hope that MahoPre2 has the women transform into adult Pretty Cure, unlike what OtonaPre did, but there's really nothing right now that I can predict, other than that it seemingly not being apart of the OtonaPre brand may raise some hope.

So yeah, these are the reasons why I'm holding out hope that MahoPre2 will still be good. Hopefully they don't do what they did in OtonaPre and have Mirai and Riko be paired off with random faceless men, and instead with each other. They have to make it gayer, with maintext, not subtext, like how they kissed in the manga.

[pochqmqri]

It has now been a full year since Toei initially announced they were doing adult sequels to Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure!

Now that Otona Pretty Cure has come and gone, I wonder when we are getting more news on "Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! 2" as it is tentatively titled. The home release for OtonaPre comes out in Japan on April 24, so maybe they're waiting until then to show any visuals. We should definitely have a logo pop up in the Japanese trademark office soon though.

Here's something interesting though. As mentioned in the initial announcement, "MahoPre2" is set to air on the late night programming block, "ANIMAZiNG!!!!" This block airs on Sundays from 2:00-2:30 AM.

Other notable anime that have aired on this block include: Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious, The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!, SK8 the Infinity, Iwa-Kakeru! Sport Climbing Girls, I Shall Survive Using Potions!, and Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement.

As the block only lasts 30 minutes, usually only one anime airs on it per season. Since we already have confirmation that a completely different anime will be airing in the block during the upcoming Spring 2024 season, and if we assume that "MahoPre2" will still be airing this year (and on the block), this leaves either Summer or Fall 2024 for it to be slotted in. I personally think it's Fall 2024 to match what OtonaPre did last year.