Each season of the greater Pretty Cure franchise typically brings something new to the table. That all begins with Pretty Cure Splash Star. The second team of Cures may have looked awfully similar to the first, but this latter half of their story cements them as not only very much their own team and people. It also marks the first time the franchise has played with its own formula: giving Saki and Mai each a complete second transformation. This is superficially similar to what will later happen in Go! Princess Precure and Witchy Precure!, both seasons where the Cures get multiple outfits, with Go Princess offering enhanced powers and Witchy giving new ones. In both cases, the girls are still known by the same names – Cure Magical is still Cure Magical whether she's in diamond, topaz, ruby, or sapphire form. That's not the case for Saki and Mai – not only do their names change with their new transformations into Cure Bright and Cure Windy, but they also draw their powers from entirely new places, the more specific moon and wind instead of the broader earth and sky.

Symbolically, this is particularly interesting, since it suggests a refining of their powers. Saki's Cure Bright takes a single source that compliments her Cure Bloom powers: the “bright” refers to the light that allows the flowers to bloom. (Yes, it would have made more sense for her to get those powers from the sun, but we can forgive that for the pioneering nature of the dual transformation.) Similarly, Mai's Cure Windy complements Cure Egret in that the wind (air currents) can guide a bird's flight. In another season, two new characters would have taken up the mantles of Cures Bright and Windy; giving those powers to the current Cures is an interesting decision not often seen in the magical girl genre. The closest I can think of is the way the Sailor Guardians become “Super Sailor Moon” and “Eternal Sailor Moon,” with new powers with each new incarnation, although for most of the Sailor Guardians, the transformations remain essentially the same.

Still, the influence of Sailor Moon can be seen in Splash Star, particularly in the finisher attacks Saki and Mai unleash and the way they incant their transformations. In all three cases, I found myself mentally filling in lines from Sailor Moon to end their phrases, always mildly surprised when “splash” instead of “attack” was said or when there was no “make-up!” at the end of the transformation spell. We can also see the beginning of the influence super sentai shows will have on the seasons following Splash Star. Yes 5 and Go Go introduce the first official large team. The seeds of a larger team are seeded in the final two episodes, but equally noteworthy are the gestures the Cures use when activating their new spinning rings, which mimic super sentai rangers'.

All of this aside, the most rewarding aspect of Splash Star continues to be Saki and Mai's friendship. Although the new ending theme cools down the emphasis on hand-holding, Saki's comment in the final episode that she feels stronger holding Mai's hand tells us how much they matter to each other. The Dark Fall villains have figured out that separating them is a key to potentially winning, and Ms. Shitataare kidnaps Mai in episode twenty-eight in an attempt to do just that. While touch may be integral to their actual transformation, it's unnecessary for the girls to feel close to each other and therefore stronger. When Michiru and Kaoru disappear from everyone's memories after sacrificing themselves, Saki and Mai can keep going because they both remember them, and the goal of being able to see their friends again allows them to maintain hope. They believe in each other, and that translates to them being able to believe in themselves; they're a team, but not codependent. This eventually becomes a source of strength to Michiru and Kaoru as well, empowering them to choose between their light and dark sides and to make their own future.

To a degree, one of the new villains, Kintoleski, appreciates that about the Cures. Unlike Ms. Shitataare, he doesn't appear keen to separate them, and he may even see himself as training the Cures (and the girls, as two separate entities) to be better fighters. Since he's a bad guy, he naturally espouses toxic ideals about winning, but he also genuinely cares about their health and even participates in an art lesson at one point. He can't fully escape Akudaikan and Goyan's influence, but he's still a villain bending the mold, although he can't break it like Michiru and Kaoru. Again, this may be something Yes 5 expands on in the character of Bunbee, although that's by no means certain; we could say the same thing of the role of Saki's cat Korone as a potential predecessor to Komugi in Wonderful Precure!.

PreCure Splash Star corrects the mistakes made in Max Heart. The focus on Saki and Mai as people as well as Cures and how both of those aspects combine to make them who they are is excellent, and if Moop and Foop are right up there with Polun and Lulun for being annoying, well, the extra transformations they enable makes up for it at least a little. By giving both girls two transformations, Splash Star tells viewers that they have more power than they think, because there's nothing wrong with embodying multiple interests, abilities, or wishes at once. Saki can love baking and softball; Mai can be an artist and a fighter. Birds and wind coexist without canceling each other out. When we add in the more traditional magical girl trajectory of Michiru and Kaoru, who get the self-sacrifice often embodied by magical girls like Sailor Moon and Nurse Angel Ririka, Splash Star manages to be a combination of both old and new aspects of the genre. Futari wa Pretty Cure may be where the franchise started, but this is where it starts to hit its stride.