Yae-Kana Festival Celebrates 2 ‘Anison’ Singers, Pretty Cure 20th Anniversary

By Mishio Suzuki / Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Specialist

12:00 JST, July 12, 2024

In May, I organized a new event called Yae-Kana Matsuri (Yae-Kana festival) to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pretty Cure with singing and dancing. The event’s name, Yae-Kana, is a portmanteau of the names of two anison (anime song) singers, combining “Yae” from Yuka Uchiyae and “Kana” from Kanako Miyamoto. Uchiyae is known for singing the theme song of “Futari wa PreCure Splash Star” (“Pretty Cure Splash Star”) in 2006, while Miyamoto sang the theme song of “Hagutto! PreCure” (“Hug! Pretty Cure”) in 2018.

The Pretty Cure TV anime series started in 2004 with the tagline, “Girls want to be wild, too.” There have been many celebrations of the franchise recently, since its 20th series was aired last year, with this year marking its 20th anniversary. Last year in particular had many anniversary events, such as a related exhibition touring across the country and a Pretty Cure concert given at Yokohama Arena.

Since my field of expertise is tokusatsu superhero action TV shows and films, I’m something of an outsider where anime is concerned. Yet, as one of the so-called Nichi-Asa folks — people who watch the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai tokusatsu TV shows on Sunday mornings — I have been fascinated by the Pretty Cure anime for the last 20 or so years, since it is broadcast on the same network immediately before the tokusatsu TV shows on Sunday mornings.

The target audience for Pretty Cure is young girls. However, it shows the characters’ muscle movements in battle scenes, and the heroines sometimes get covered in grime when they fight against enemies, so the series looks like an all-girl version of the Super Sentai tokusatsu shows. The Pretty Cure series often uses the same singers and composers as tokusatsu films and TV dramas, too, so tokusastsu fans have a certain affinity for it.

Therefore, I decided to join in with the 20th anniversary celebrations for Pretty Cure and interviewed Takashi Washio of Toei Animation Co. for the May issue of Chuokoron magazine. Washio is a producer for the series and is often referred to as “the father of Pretty Cure” by fans. Actually, I organized the Yae-Kana festival in cooperation with the two singers to promote the sales of the magazine amid the ongoing publishing industry slump. Thanks to their great efforts, all 80 copies of the magazine we brought to the venue that day sold out immediately.

Organizing the event included a bit of calculated ambition, but it was genuinely fun to spend time listening to their songs and talks. I am not exaggerating when I say that the Pretty Cure songs they sang on the stage gave me hope. They also sang songs not heard in Pretty Cure, such as “Shiawase no Yokan” (Token of happiness) from the TV anime “Ienakiko Remy” (“Sans Famille”). It was great to listen to the two performing a duet version of a song originally sung by Uchiyae alone. When she sang “Yumeumu Land,” which commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Yomiuriland amusement park, I joined Miyamoto in dancing to the song, even though dancing is not my thing at all.

Uchiyae and Miyamoto talked about their hilarious memories from early Pretty Cure concerts. I also laughed hard when they were quizzing each other. All in all, the event was like a vitamin pill to give us energy and raise our spirits. I am sure that the audience, many of whom bought the magazine at the event, brought that energy back home with them. Yae-Kana festival started from a strange turn of events, but I would definitely like to hold this fun event again in the future.