Thoughts on Maho Girls PreCure! The Movie: Miraculous Transformation! Cure Mofurun!

I have no idea why Toei didn’t choose to maintain an element of surprise by leaving those last two words out of the title… oh well.
Regardless, I shall be sharing my thoughts on Maho Girls PreCure!‘s film, as well as the short that was shown before it.
Maho Girls PreCure! The Movie: Miraculous Transformation! Cure Mofurun! was released in Japanese cinemas on October 29th 2016, and had a Blu-ray and DVD release on March 1st 2017.
The director for this film was Tanaka Yuuta, whilst the animation director was Ueno Ken. There was also a short film called Cure Miracle and Mofurun’s Magic Lesson!, which I shall also be briefly sharing my thoughts on.
If you intend on watching the film, then I definitely recommend you do so before reading the rest of this post, as I will be mentioning some spoilers.

Cure Miracle and Mofurun

Let’s start with the CGI short film Cure Miracle and Mofurun’s Magic Lesson!, which pretty much just features Cure Miracle and Mofurun playing around with magic. There’s not too much I have to say about this – just that it’s a cute short. Honestly, overall I just feel indifferent about it. That’s not the case for Miraculous Transformation! Cure Mofurun!, though.

It should go without saying that the mascot of Maho Girls PreCure! is the one who gets the focus in Maho Girls PreCure! The Movie: Miraculous Transformation! Cure Mofurun!. However, before I get to that, let’s take a look at some other characters who appear in the film.

Kotoha plays with a Flare Dragon

Part of the film takes place during a festival in the Magic World, which means we get to see the girls let loose and have fun at the beginning of the film. One moment I quite enjoyed was seeing Kotoha play with a Flare Dragon. I do quite like dragons, and it was great to see that the Flare Dragon’s appearance wasn’t only for a single scene.

The villain for this film is Dark Matter

Making the Kirby comparisons even more apt, the villain of this film is called Dark Matter. As far as movie villains go, I actually quite like Dark Matter. He manages to do something that none of the enemies from the main series achieved, and as such it feels that he is actually something of a threat. I like Dark Matter’s design, as well. He’s not the only black bear to appear, though.

Kumata

During the course of the film, Mofurun meets another bear called Kumata. Kumata possesses magic powers, but those powers tend to scare away anyone he gets close to. Mofurun being Mofurun, however, befriends him.
Kumata’s a pretty all right character. He’s the type that is misunderstood, though I can’t help but think that maybe he should’ve tried talking to those he wanted to help, instead of scaring them witless by showing up out of nowhere and casting magic without a word…

All right, now let’s talk about the main event.

Cure Mofurun

My fear was that Cure Mofurun would only have a brief appearance, like Cure Echoes from Pretty Cure All Stars. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Clearly Mofurun had been taking notes from Miracle, Magical and Felice during previous encounters, because she shows impressive fighting skills.
I also really love the final battle, in which Cure Mofurun fights alongside Cure Miracle, Cure Magical and Cure Felice. There’s a moment where Cure Felice arrives on the battlefield, and I thought that the film was going to skip how she got there. That turned out not to be the case, which pleased me.
One thing that I really liked about the final battle was that Cure Mofurun used different Styles alongside Cure Miracle and Cure Magical. Sapphire may be my favourite Style, but the use of the Topaz Style in particular was really quite impressive.

All in all, if you enjoyed Maho Girls PreCure!, then I’m almost certain you’ll enjoy this film as well – because it is just more Maho Girls PreCure!. From the fun of the Magic World festival all the way to the epic final battle, I really enjoyed every minute of this film.
The only thing I would dock points for is that there was no element of surprise concerning Cure Mofurun. I definitely feel that there could have been more of an impact with a lack of knowledge.
Despite that, Cure Mofurun is certainly a worthy Cure, and I certainly wouldn’t mind if Toei decide to bring her back for future things like Dream Stars.