Kara Dennison
August 3, 2021 
Tropical-Rouge! PreCure, this year’s installment in Toei’s long-running magical girl series, is about to cross over with one of its predecessors. The HeartCatch girls are making an appearance in the current team’s upcoming film, bringing a decade-long gap. But, as fans know, this is hardly the first time the streams have crossed in the franchise!
There are crossovers aplenty in the PreCure world, but here are some of the most iconic — some major, some subtle, all pretty and powerful!
The Intros of Happiness Charge
For the first few weeks of Happiness Charge PreCure, the opening didn’t start with the incumbent Cures. Rather, we heard from pink Cures past — from Doki Doki‘s Cure Heart (seen above) all the way back to the OG Cure Black, Nagisa. The guest intros celebrated the franchise’s tenth anniversary.
It was an appropriate anniversary title, too. In Happiness Charge, every nation of the world had at least one Cure of their own. In other words, the show was a weekly celebration of multiple teams with multiple themes… just like the show itself!
HUGtto! meets Futari for 15th Anniversary
Short of the abovementioned Happiness Charge PreCure intros, the teams never actually crossed over within the TV series. It was a given they’d cross paths annually in a film (more on that shortly), but the small screen kept things pretty separated. That is, at least, until the 15th anniversary during HUGtto! PreCure‘s run.
The series, with themes like dream jobs and parenthood, was the first to welcome a previous team during the series proper. And, of course, that had to be the original two! Nagisa and Honoka — a.k.a. Cure Black and Cure White — stumble into the world of the series briefly. They return for more on the big screen that year, closing out the anniversary by bringing the show (so far) full circle.
The very first All Stars film
With PreCure currently holding a world record for the sheer number of magical girls onscreen at once, it’s difficult to fit all of them equally into a movie. To that end, recent crossover films pull in closer, showcasing only the last handful of series. But for a little while, we had the glory that was PreCure All Stars DX.
Seeing the girls cross paths for the first time, and fight alongside each other for the first time, was super exciting. (Little did we know, 12 years later, it would become commonplace.) In this first crossover film, they teamed up against Fusion: a being formed from the many monsters of the week each team defeated. Together, and with the audience cheering them on, they saved the day.
The Tropical-Rouge! PreCure movie drops in Japan on October 23.
