Pretty Cure All Stars DX3: Deliver the Future! The Rainbow-Coloured Flower That Connects the World is the third feature-length instalment of the Pretty Cure All Stars series.
The director for this one was Takashi Otsuka, and the writer was Isao Murayama. As ever, it was produced by Toei Animation and was originally released on March 19th 2011. This was during the time that Suite PreCure♪ airing. Since it was near the beginning of its run, the only Suite Cures that appear in this film are Cure Melody and Cure Rhythm. Cure Moonlight and Cure Sunshine of HeartCatch also make their All Stars debut here.
Series featured: Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart, Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star, Yes! PreCure 5 GoGo!, Fresh Pretty Cure!, HeartCatch PreCure! & Suite PreCure♪
The story begins with Hibiki, Kanade and Hummy arriving at a shopping mall where a fashion show is being put on. Hummy decides to invade the stage, and Hibiki follows.
Naturally, the people in the fashion show are Tsubomi, Erika and Itsuki – three of the Cures from HeartCatch.
A meeting between two lead Cures
As per tradition, Hibiki’s first encounter with a fellow Cure is with Tsubomi – her immediate predecessor. All the other Cures so far are also present and accounted for, and they quickly figure out that Hibiki and Kanade are also Cures.
Then loads of fairies (including the mascots) descend upon the place from nowhere, and the various worlds from the non-serial films have all been mashed together.
This film also brings back the villains from those non-serial films, and we actually get an explanation as to the origin of Fusion and Bottom from the first two All Stars films.
All right, I’ll give you the names of these villains, but you’ll have to match them up to the correct character yourself: Dark Witch, Frozen, Freezen, Sirloin, Shadow, Mushiban, Toymajin & Baron Salamander
So it turns out there is a bigger bad called Black Hole – a fusion of the evil energies left behind after the defeat of Dark Zone, Dark Fall, Nightmare, Eternal, Labyrinth and the Desert Apostles.
Black Hole was the one that created Fusion and Bottom, and then brought the film villains back to life. His goal is the Prism Flower – the very thing that connects the many different worlds together.
The Pretty Cure All Stars
There’s a mass transformation of Cures, which actually uses the same background music throughout as opposed to specific themes. It is also the first time the group introduces themselves as ‘Pretty Cure All Stars’. They almost immediately get separated into three groups, ending up in combinations of the different worlds seen in the films.
What follows is the Cures showing some uncharacteristic incompetence. I guess Melody and Rhythm have the excuse of being rookies, and the whole ‘I can’t do anything without the other’ thing really only adds to their ship…
The other Cures, on the other hand… well, with the exception of the third group, the other Cures become almost useless – I imagine its to throw some drama in, but considering they’re going up foes that they have defeated before (admittedly, their normal groups have been split up, but still…) you’d think they’d have less trouble.
When they finally get their act together, things are a heck of a lot better. It’s also funny to see how much more confident Tsubomi is in herself compared to the previous All Stars film.
Oh, and the use of the main theme tunes crops up again in this one – admittedly it’s during what is effectively a special move showcase, but it definitely enhances those scenes.
One poor villain has to be subject to the fairies, and in this case it is Shadow. Again, time that could probably be better spent on the Cures, but Hummy’s presence makes things so much better.
It is after those scenes we get a glimpse of Black Hole himself – and he’s no small foe. You thought Bottom from All Stars DX2 was imposing? Black Hole makes him look tiny.
Black Hole, and a small planet called Earth…
Remember how I mentioned that Black Hole’s goal is the Prism Flower? Yeah, well that plays an important role in the climax and the Cures are faced with a tough choice. I won’t go spoiling the ending of the film here, though I will say that one of the main series actually ends in a very similar manner…
Overall, I’d say that All Stars DX3 is an improvement on the second one, though the first film is my favourite – less Cures means less transformations and special attacks, which means more time for action.
All Stars DX3 does have some pretty great moments as well, and its neat seeing stuff that would’ve never appeared outside of the film continuities again. I’ll have to admit here that I haven’t actually seen all the PreCure films, which means that I wasn’t familiar with all the villains here. Still, I knew most of them, so that counts for something, right?
Since it brings back stuff from previous films, we get to see Toymajin’s board game from the Fresh Pretty Cure! film – that’s probably my favourite part of the whole mixed worlds things, and the group of Cures that are playing it don’t show the same levels of incompetence as the others.
I’m kind of disappointed that Frozen and Freezen didn’t get to use their powers to turn the Cures against each other like they did to Cure Black and Cure White in the second Max Heart film, but what can you do?
Also, this is the last feature-length Pretty Cure All Stars film to bear ‘DX’ in the title. After I’ve taken a look at another short, I’ll be looking at the ‘New Stage‘ series of Pretty Cure All Stars. There’ll be a familiar foe, as well as a new face.
Rory Muses 