Suite Pretty Cure

"Let the harmony of your heart echo!"

The eighth entry in the Pretty Cure franchise.

In the musical world of Major Land, peace is protected by the "Legendary Score" and the Melody of Happiness contained within. On the annual performance of the Melody of Happiness, the Score is stolen by the jealous king of Minor Land, Mephisto, who turns it into a Melody of Sorrow. To stop Mephisto from sucking the happiness from Major Land right then and there, the queen of Major Land, Aphirodite, scatters the Notes of the Score and sends them to Earth. She then instructs Hummy, the Songstress chosen to sing the Melody of Happiness that year, to go to Earth and retrieve the Notes before Mephisto can.

Meanwhile, middle school sophomores and former childhood friends Hibiki Houjou and Kanade Minamino are recovering from yet another fight with each other when they encounter Siren, a former Songstress of Major Land who has defected to Mephisto's side. Siren attempts to take the G-Clefs within their hearts for the Melody of Sorrow, but accidentally triggers an amazing potential, causing the girls to transform into Major World's champions, Pretty Cure.

As Cure Melody and Cure Rhythm respectively, it's now up to Hibiki and Kanade to work with Hummy and gather the Notes of the Legendary Score. However, it's not so simple: the Pretty Cure power is fuelled by The Power of Friendship, and the two former-friends have many, many issues that they need to work out first.

The Pretty Cure Power Trio is later completed with the arrival of Cure Beat, Siren after undergoing a Heel Face Turn and being stuck in human form as Ellen Kurokawa. They also have an Aloof Ally called Cure Muse, a mysterious masked fighter who helps out Pretty Cure but claims no affiliation with them until revealing herself as Ako Shirabe, the daughter of Aphrodite and Mephisto.

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Tropes used in Suite Pretty Cure include:

• Absurdly Youthful Mother: Kanade's mom. Seriously.
• Badass Family: In a musical sense. Hibiki's dad is completely immune to the Melody of Sorrow because he believes music should make people happy. Her mother goes a step beyond this and can actually counteract it with her violin.
  • Also the royal family of Major Land. One's a Precure, one was a major villain, one essentially gives the Cures their powers, and the last one...
• By the Power of Greyskull: "Let's Play! Pretty Cure Modulation!!"
• Clock Tower: There's one located in the center of Kanon Town, which is used by Siren and Trio the Minor as their Home Base.
• Closed Door Rapport: When Kanade and Hibiki discuss Hibiki's past that caused her to stop playing piano.
• Dancing Theme: They did it again.
• The Dark Side: The "Noise of Evil". Benefits include the ability to create Monsters Of The Week, a Hive Mind-esque ability to communicate with Mephisto, and a inflated sense of hamminess. Downsides include physical pain when you hear "happy" music, glowing red eyes and an all-round increase in self-absorbed jerkassness.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: With all the talk of "true friends" and "we're breaking up", episode 8 seems more like a love triangle than it does a tale of someone getting between two friends.
• Dual-Wielding
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: "Cat Paw Mania" from #2, "Wasabi Cupcakes" from #6 and "My Best Friends are Sweets" from #8.
• Everything's Better with Princesses: Guess what Ako turns out to be?
• Evil Is Petty: To be sure, Mephisto wants to take over Majorland, but rather than actually rule it or anything, he just kind of seems invested in making everyone sad all the time.
• Evolving Credits: After Cure Beat joins, the opening theme is also remixed to have more of a beat.
  • The opening and second ending adds Cure Muse in episode 38. For the latter, Hummy had been dancing in her place until then, and is relocated in the final product.
• Expy: Hibiki in civilian form looks like a longer-haired, blue-eyed Nagisa, while as Cure Melody she is pretty much the offspring of Papillon Rose and Amulet Heart. A good portion of the fandom also noticed Cure Rhythm's similarity to Nadja Applefield.
  • Interestingly, Hibiki in civilian form also seems to bear resemblance to Asuka due to her hairstyle, she just doesn't have Asuka's trademark hairclips.
• Face Heel Turn: The Noise of Evil does this to whoever is wearing the strange headphones. This includes Seiren and even Mephisto.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Kanade is the girly one of the duo and likes to bake sweets which Hibiki likes to eat. Kanade also demonstrates her good cooking skills in making the curry in Episode 9.
• Figure It Out Yourself: The teaching method Mr. Houjou uses (even on his own EIGHT YEAR OLD daughter!).
• Food Porn: Anything anyone from the Pastry Club (Kanade in particular) bakes might very well leave your mouth watering. Heck, a Japanese fan tried making the black spider cake from episode 4 in real life, and it came out pretty accurate.
• For Halloween I Am Going as Myself: Siren/Ellen's costume is a black cat Catgirl. Not that she didn't already give up her true identity in class...
  • Also, Ako is dressed as a princess in a yellow dress.
• Gotta Catch Em All
• Halloween Episode
• Hand Blast: Pretty Cure Passionato Harmony
• Heel Face Turn: Ellen finally gets a permanent one in episode 21, going from Type II Anti-Villain to Type I Anti-Hero in that episode before finally becoming a straight heroine in episode 23.
  • Bassdrum and Baritone pull one in episode 42 but eventually get brainwashed by Noise by the end of the episode. They pull another one in episode 43 where it's revealed that they, along with Falsetto, were good all along and were all turned evil by Mephisto when HE was controlled by Noise.
    • All three finally come around in the finale.
• Hostage for Macguffin: In episode 44, Aphrodite is held hostage in exchange for the Cure Modules.
• I Choose to Stay: Ellen, Ako, and possibly Hummy in the finale.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: [some sort of onomatopoeia] "Episode Name" ~nya!
• I Was Just Passing Through: Cure Muse helps Melody and Rhythm, but claims no affiliation with them until episode 35/36.
• Lampshade Hanging: Siren comments on how easily Kanade and Hibiki make up in Episode 2.
• Like Mother Like Daughter: In Episode 42. Ako rolls her eyes, smiles and then says the same line that Aphrodite says earlier in the episode.
• Magic Skirt: In episode 2, the girls were hanged upside-down from the tree, yet their Precure and school uniform's skirts stayed as if they were standing on the ground.
• Meaningful Name / Theme Naming: The first character in Hibiki and Kanade's surnames are the characters for North and South respectively, while Waon and Seika's have the characters for, respectively, West and East, which led to many fans guessing that they would become Cures later on (see Lying Creator above).
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Taken to Lensman Arms Race levels. Melody and Rhythm gain three upgrades over the course of ten episodes: the Belltiers, Belltier Seperation, and Belltier Crossrod. Then five episodes later Cure Beat joins, essentially acting as a fourth upgrade by joining in with their previous attacks.
  • Trio the Minor get a villainous Mid-Season Upgrade in episode 26.
  • Also subverted when the girls obtain the Healing Chest. Melody tries to use the Crescendo Tone's offered power-up but fails miserably at first because she can't handle it.
  • And then a fourth Cure, to no one's surprise, is added, and Mephisto gets an "upgrade", followed by Falsetto once he's defeated. Lensman Arms Race indeed.
• Name's the Same: Megumi Toyoguchi played another character called Siren/Seiren in The Last Story.
  • And Hibiki/Cure Melody isn't the first Toei character to have said name, have music-related powers, and can Dual Wield, too...
• Not So Harmless: Trio the Minor. After several episodes of standing in the background and acting as Siren's wacky sidekicks, the three are revealed to have gathered a good deal of notes on their own, whereas Siren has yet to gather even one. In episode 11, Bassdrum takes Siren's leadership position after Mephisto demotes her and immediately stages a trap that came much closer to defeating the Cures than any of Siren's plans ever had. Later in the series after their Mid-Season Upgrade they also succeed in suckering the Cures and stealing all of their notes save for the one they got from that episode's Negatone.
  • • Then it turns out any one of them can become the next King of Minor Land should Noise deem it so.
  • Mephisto seemed like a rather silly villain until he cruelly brainwashes Siren on the brink of her Heel Face Turn. He's still a doofus in most of his appearances afterwards, though. Then episode 34 happens.
• Not What It Looks Like: In episode 15, when Hibiki and Kanade discover Ouji passed out... on top of Siren. Naturally, Kanade flips the hell out.
• Odd Couple
• Off-Model: In episode 4, Seika, who normally is a bright blonde, unexplainedly has her hair turn darker.
  • Siren is consistently Off-Model when viewed from a distance of 10ft or greater.
  • Episode 29 is made entirely by this. Really, even people who doesn't notice when the art animation gets worse will notice that the animation of said episode is BAD.
• One-Woman Wail: The Melody of Happiness/Sorrow.
• "On the Next Episode of..." Catchphrase: "Let the harmony of your heart echo!"
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Trio the Minor's disguises.
• Pink Means Feminine: The initial flyer for the series went out of its way to point out that both mains wore pink in their Cure outfits, putting "girls' favourite color on full display".
• Poor Communication Kills: Two at the same time in episode 6 -- while Hibiki's trying to stand up for Kanade's brother Souta on what he was doing, both she and Kanade ignore Hummy who has found a Note and is trying to tell them about it.
• Power of Rock: Cure Beat's guitar.
• Pun-Based Title: Suite means "a group of related pieces of music or movements played in sequence." It sounds like sweet, and as it happens, Kanade is in her school's pastry club and her family owns a pastry shop.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Hummy, the Fairy Tones, the notes from the Legendary Score...
• Rose-Haired Girl: Hibiki as Cure Melody.
• Ship Tease: Episode 38 is absolutely loaded with Souta/Ako ship tease, although there's been small hints here and there beforehand.
• Sixth Ranger: Cure Muse (maybe). After episodes 35 and 36? Definitely.
  • Siren finally comes around in episode 21 and becomes Cure Beat.
• Shout-Out: Siren's feathery neon-colored outfit in episode 5 is one to the Brazilian carnival. Maybe done on purpose, since the Brazilian carnival was being celebrated in the week the episode aired. The "butterfly-like ribbon" on her chest is also a Mythology Gag to Yes! Pretty Cure 5.
  • Episode 30 has one to Satarakura Jr.'s game show dimension from episode 26 of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger.
    • And speaking of Gokaiger, when Hibiki dressed up as a pirate in episode 37, one too many Captain Marvelous jokes were made around the fandom.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Hibiki, or rather, Cure Melody. The show is decently balanced normally, but come battle time, Hibiki kills more baddies, gets the Upgrade Artifacts earlier, does all the Rousing Speeches and generally has everything revolve around her. Unsurprising, givng she's an expy of Nagisa and Saki, both known for being this as well.
• Stealth Pun: Hummy and Siren, the fairies that can sing the Melody of Happiness (or Sorrow), are cats. Typically, caterwauling is defined as particularly awful singing. Doubles as an Incredibly Lame Pun.
• Theme Naming: Musical Theme Naming is all over the place, combined with Location Theme Naming for Hibiki, Kanade, Waon and Seika.
• Theme Music Power-Up: In episode 27. Bonus points for being a Theme Tune Cameo.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Hibiki and Kanade usually said this before their Transformation Sequence, to the point of Catch Phrase status.
• Transformation Trinket: The Cure Modules.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl
• Too Soon: Because of the 9.0 earthquake/tsunami, a scene in episode 6, in which the Negatone traps Souta in cake mix, the cake mix had the glittering effect added to make it looks less like the fluid.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Backed up in episode 19 where Siren and the gang watch a video of the Cures transforming.
• Unflinching Walk: Cure Rhythm's Precure Music Rondo attack.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Hibiki and Kanade are a mild type two, which is one of the defining differences between them and NagiHono and SakiMai. Hummy and Siren are type one, with Hummy as the oblivious annoyer.
• Watch Where You're Going: Hibiki and Kanade have managed to crash into each other twice. Once in the beginning of episode 2, which sends them both into a tree, and then again in the beginning of episode 5, smacking their faces together.
• Wonder Twin Powers
• Zettai Ryouiki: Hibiki as Cure Melody and Kanade both have Grade B. Ellen also pulls this off, with stockings in both her "civilian" outfits and with thigh-high boots as Cure Beat.