Dokidoki! Precure Movie: Mana Kekkon!!? Mirai ni Tsunagu Kibou no Dress

DokiDoki! Precure Movie: Mana Kekkon!!? Mirai ni Tsunagu Kibou no Dress is unfortunately a very underwhelming movie by Precure standards, with a disjointed plot that feels haphazardly placed together with elements that don't seem to fit or connect. The movie is about overcoming memories of the past and moving on from painful times and dealing with the deceased; however, the method with which they choose to execute this is on shaky foundation, to say the least. Many of the twists wind up feeling silly and nonsensical in a bad way, often making no sense in the context of the movie. The movie seems to be attemptingto send messages about how people are wasteful and throw out whatever they don't need, but the point is moot: by having this executed by the villains, the audience will by default side with the heroes of the film and likely not pay attention. There are other themes here, like loss mentioned later, as well as moving on, which work to moderate success. There is also a small amount of backstory for Alice and Rikka if you wish they were expanded upon. Unfortunately, both of them (as well as Makoto and Madoka) take incredibly small roles in the movie. As well, Madoka only appears very briefly near the end of the film with no explanation or context as to why she was there at all. As an example, two characters are killed off and later returned as main characters in the movie. However, no explanation at all was even given by the characters; the twists simply appeared to come out of nowhere and only happen for the sake of happening. Despite the movie being allegedly about Mana's grandmother's wedding dress, it actually plays a very small role in the movie and is, ironically enough, useless in the following scenes. It only reappears briefly twice towards the end, but they seem more like trivial details than essential parts of the plot. Many motivations and explanations are completely left in the dark with no context, and motivations and backstories are skipped over completely in some cases. One thing about Mana in this movie is that she is quite openly the "main character" in this: while this is understandable typically, her name being in the movie title, it crosses the line today: about 25 minutes of the movie are dedicated solely to her scenes with the other girls getting relatively short appearances. This could be forgiven if Mana was in character, though she sadly is not: she acts much different than she does in the series and her defining happiness and traits to "never give up" have mysteriously vanished. The movie makes an attempt to use CGI, but it is typically not noticeable. However, the movie's true villain is the true problem; they aren't revealed until very late in the movie and have no context (as expanded on above) and are killed off in about a minute after the fight begins. I wouldn't really recommend this unless you are a completionist or a fan of Dokidoki Precure, as there is unfortunately nothing special here. 4/10.

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