Kira Kira Pretty Cure A La Mode is out on Crunchyroll in several regions and while there are many reasons to watch it, I want to focus on one particular reason.

This is Yukari and Akira, two of the main characters.

Let's begin.

When character designs first leaked in late 2016 people quickly likened them to Haruka and Michiru from Sailor Moon.

This grew further when people noticed that AkiYuka were literally replicating a pose from official art of HaruMichi.

People were now curious. Were we were about to get an explicitly canon lesbian couple in PreCure?

One that reflects the most famous lesbian couple in anime?

At the same time, the manga for the previous PreCure series gave us a big gay kiss.

This only made us more hopeful.

So the anime begins. Akira and Yukari have a few flirtatious lines here and there but are, for the most part, kept apart.

Ichika, the lead character, crushes on Akira but it's before she learns she's a girl and that goes down a bit from there.

But people are patient.

AkiYuka begin to interact a bit more and then episode 10 happens.

An entire episode devoted to the two, ending on the two of them dropping honorifics for each other and even going on a date.

In that same episode, Akira and Yukari helps an old woman who dropped something.

When Akira is resting up afterwards, the old woman tells Yukari that "her boyfriend is quite the keeper", mistaking Akira for a boy.

Yukari replies that she agrees.

But this is anime, we know at this point that something as blatant like that might still mean they're just baiting us.

So we reach episode 15, where Ichika sends off Akira and Yukari on a date (again), because Akira's little sister wants to prepare a surprise for her in secret.

Then in episode 18 there's a bit where they talk about potential catastrophes, including "your lover will leave you."

The depiction for this is Yukari leaving Akira. The show explicitly uses the term koibito (lover) for this moment.

At this point, AkiYuka gays were ablaze.

At this time, the crossover movie Precure Dream Stars had released.

Akira and Yukari are in that movie and Yukari ends up incredibly jealous when Akira flirts up other girls.

She even pretends not to know her in order to get Akira in trouble for trying to pick up girls.

Some plot happens, AkiYuka takes a backseat for a bit.

And then episode 25 happens.

This episode, right in the middle of the series, was the big moment we had waited for.

The set-up reveals what the series has hinted out for a bit.

Yukari loves Akira, but is annoyed with how Akira doesn't seem to recognize as much and lets herself be distracted with other girls even when they're together.

A strange foreign prince arrives and wants to take Yukari as his bride. It's quite obvious that she's not interested, but rather than reject the prince's offer she uses it to make Akira act.

Resulting in a contest for Yukari's love.

And so the game begins. Yukari is playing along, waiting for Akira to realize why she's doing it. Akira seems to find it a waste of time, not picking up Yukari's hints at all.

Akira tells Yukari off for playing around, which leads to us seeing Yukari in a moment of weakness.

This is when Akira realizes that Yukari isn't just doing this for fun. But now she's hurt her.

Akira tells Ciel that the reason she can't profess that she loves Yukari is fear that such a confession might break her.

Ciel assures her, that when it comes to love, being direct is important.

For reference, Ciel specifically refers to romantic love in Japanese.

Akira and Yukari go to meet the prince for the final contest and Akira decides to be direct.

Yukari begins breaking down, Akira tells her to open up to her instead of hiding, that she can be safe with her.

Sadly, the two get interrupted by the villains. Akira transforms and is... stabbed through the chest by dark spikes, hung up above Yukari, who can't transform at the moment, to see.

Akira yells to the villain to not touch Yukari, repeating it and adding that she'll protect her.

All while she's hanging mid-air, pierced through by spikes.

The villain then inquires her on why she'd keep fighting and suffer just for the sake of Yukari.

Are you ready for it?

Are you sure?

Akira says that the reason she's doing this is because she loves Yukari.

It's a very direct statement, echoing Ciel's talk about why (romantic) love must be said directly.

Fansub + CR official subs here.

She declares that she does not need any other reason than her love for Yukari to fight for her safety, breaking free from the spikes and falling into Yukari's arms.

So, uh, yeah.

That's pretty amazing.

No subtext needed, they directly spelled it out.

Then the two sit there together.

Oh, and I guess they transform, learn a new team-up attack that's physically impossible to do and the prince happily leaves Yukari to be married to Akira one day.

Amazing episode.

BUT WAIT WE'RE NOT DONE.

Episode 25 solved Akira's issue of being too afraid to confess her love to Yukari.

But episode 29 is about Yukari's issue, her self-loathing.

I won't get into too much of it, because I don't wanna spoil the whole show, but we see development for the two here.

I believe the scientific term for this is "there's no heterosexual explanation for this."

They also break character, referring to each other by their real names despite being in cure forms, for the first time.

I'm not going to get into how the series ends, but I will confirm that even in the future, AkiYuka are together.

In fact, I can prove it.

This is Akira and Yukari after a timeskip, as adults, still being a couple. It's the final chapter of the Kira Kira manga.

We will look more at the manga in a bit, but I wanted to start by showing this just to make it clear that they are together even after the story ends.

The entire Kira Kira cast actually reunites as adults for the Precure Super Stars movie.

They get transformed into kids for the rest of it, but it still takes place after the same timeskip as mentioned before.

Toei didn't shy away from AkiYuka in marketing either. All of this is official stuff from when the series was still fresh.

Even the kigurumi actresses playing the characters got to portray them flirting and being loveydovey, even kissing at one point.

And then there's their character duet.

In this song, Akira once again proclaims her love for Yukari and they sing about burning for each other and *longing to get married*.

Yeah. Uh. Wow.

This song was performed by kigurumi actresses as well.

Also, I have never been able to confirm this myself but I was told that during the 2017 Sweet Decoration live stage performance they told the audience they'd all be invited to their marriage.

Okay, so...

Let's talk about the manga.

The official Precure manga is written and illustrated by the Kamikita twins.

And they learned about AkiYuka and ran with it.

They never missed an opportunity to draw the two together, including giving them a chapter where the big climax involves Yukari snuggling Akira back to life after being turned into a chocolate sculpture by a dominatrix who loves salt... Yeah, I didn't make that up.

They also did something the anime didn't. When Ichika gets her crush on Akira, it doesn't get lessened when she learns Akira is a girl - and Yukari tells her off because Akira is hers.

She tells her the only girl allowed to be closer than her to Akira is Akira's sister.

Additionally, all of these are official illustrations made by the Kamikita twins.

The third was even a pre-order bonus bromide for the manga, the fourth was drawn for kiss day.

They also drew AkiYuka with puppies/kittens and with ... engagement rings?

Yeah, this second one was actually based on a photo the actresses took, but the actresses did not have those rings.

This led to the big one.

This is Akira and Yukari's "Fairty Tale Wedding" illustration from June 2018.

This was sold in a large framed format at the PreCure store in Tokyo Station.

So yeah, that's the AkiYuka story. A lesbian couple that didn't just use explicit text to canonize itself, but made a point about the importance of being direct about love - essentially calling out queerbaiting as a result.

But let's take a step back and refer to the very first thing in this thread.

Akira and Yukari were compared to Haruka and Michiru from Sailor Moon.

This was obviously something Toei intended, but there's a greater point to be made here.

Unlike AkiYuka, HaruMichi never actually had an "I love you" moment. While they flirted and had sexual innuendos aplenty, they were written explicitly to avoid direct confirmation.

It was only years after Sailor Moon ended that they were referred to as lovers.

Even now that we've had a modern Sailor Moon anime reboot this has not changed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue that HaruMichi aren't lesbians. They are, of course.

But the avoidance of confirming things within the text is still a fact.

But with AkiYuka, a couple clearly designed from the start to be compared to HaruMichi, Toei didn't just allow for the text to canonize the two as lovers but directly commented on how to present such characters as well.

And I think that's beautiful.

It is one of the animated best couples in recent years and it's from one of Japan's biggest kids shows.

And that's one very good reason to watch Kira Kira Pretty Cure A La Mode.

Correction.

I said this was in the Super Stars movie, it's actually in the prelude to the Futari x Hugtto movie. https://twitter.com/FeoUltima/status/1298067335476060162

Episode 36 to be precise.

Since this thread keeps getting shared, here's a bit more detail on the Mahoutsukai Precure manga kiss.

The set-up for the kiss is typical contrivance, but the execution is explicitly romantic. https://twitter.com/FeoUltima/status/1294580819667935232