What I saw: The entire anime series (not read the manga)
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I started this series a long time ago; about 2008 - 2009 and I loved it, but the dubs ran out. This year I have revisited this series in its entirety. Again, I loved it, but there's one glaring issue with the series: The romance between Chocola and Pierre.
(Disclaimer: I don't ship bash so if anybody reads this, please understand I am critiquing the way in which it was written with an acknowledgement that it could have worked.)
My issue with Chocola and Pierre is that it is an unbelievably abusive relationship from the start. I understand that by the end of the series, we find out that Pierre has two hearts - a noir heart which was (presumably) implanted by somebody else like Vanilla's, and his own heart - but we don't know this until very close to the finale and long before that point, Chocola was still "falling in love" with him.
If we - and Chocola - were shown he had two hearts battling against one another long before that point, then that would have been much better... but as it stands, it reads like Chocola falling for an abuser with absolutely zero evidence that he is otherwise good beyond the Noir heart.
With the long history of people (mainly women) getting trapped in abusive relationships (be is physical or mental or both), this is a very bad take on a romance. Giving people that are a) are manipulative, b) cruel, c) severs your ties with your friends and family, and - most importantly - d) trying to kill you, the benefit of the doubt like this is dangerous and never leads to a happy ending. It's not something which should be represented positively in media, especially media which is targeting young viewers.
Like I said, this could have worked. If Chocola was shown he has two hearts long before then and she (against everybody's advice) tries to help his natural heart win the battle by befriending him (and accidentally falls for him) - this would have been a far more solid romance story.
Also I'm disappointed there was never any pay off for Woo's crush on Chocola. Both Woo and Soul had crushes, but Woo carved that gift for her and I thought it was going somewhere - but no. The plotline was just forgotten about? For some reason? I hear he married Vanilla in the manga so obviously this would have been saved if he was falling for Vanilla the whole time and she never knew.
One of her self-image issues was, after all, not being popular in the Magical World like Chocola was. I bet it would have been nice for her to find out that she had a secret admirer the whole time. Sure, the series states that they don't like to hide their feelings and its not part of their culture, but it could have been explained away with him not wanting to distract her during her exam.
Also I took note of Vanilla's orange heart for Chocola - I'm going to assume she's a member of the rainbow. I honestly think a Chocola x Vanilla ending would have been better than the one we got. Clearly in terms of story telling, Chocola x Pierre is better if it was written better, but not the version we ended up with.
Other issues:
1. Anti-LGBT+ with how the hearts work (with the exception of Vanilla's orange heart for Chocola which is representative of a crush or infatuation). The series is adamant on a boys-only showing and does not show that girls can fall for Chocola or Vanilla (in a romantic sense) at any point. In fact, the episode with the tiara states that the tiara is defective because it is too powerful (as it effects both men and women).
2. When Robin was being very... pedo-like with Woo was uncomfortable, even if Robin was only trying to get Woo to make him food.
3. I'd like to have seen a redemption-like scene with the members, the main girl in particular. I thought it was building up to that with an episode near the start which shows the main girl being not all that bad, but there wasn't even a scene at the end of the series of them being friends and hanging out or something simple like smiling and waving at each other - would have been nice.
4. Waffle was annoying and not needed. We could have cut her out entirely. Perhaps her debut episode would have been okay, but they just... kept her as if she was entertaining at all (she's not).
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Conclusion: I enjoyed the series for the most part - but the most part is the first 3/4ths of the series. I'm glad I re-watched it as it gave closure and was still entertaining, but this is a series one must take on with a grain of salt. There's probably some great fix-it-fics out there for it, though.
I'm giving it 8/10 stars but it only just scraped an 8. This is because I prefer it over Shugo Chara, a show I watched around about the same time (and also didn't finish, but that was because the final series was like 5 minutes of episode and 20 minutes of live-action toddler fodder) and both of those are at the very bottom of my 8/10 list. If I revisit Shugo Chara and decide that a 7/10 is more suited, I'd have to reconsider my top 7s and bottom 8s.
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I started this series a long time ago; about 2008 - 2009 and I loved it, but the dubs ran out. This year I have revisited this series in its entirety. Again, I loved it, but there's one glaring issue with the series: The romance between Chocola and Pierre.
(Disclaimer: I don't ship bash so if anybody reads this, please understand I am critiquing the way in which it was written with an acknowledgement that it could have worked.)
My issue with Chocola and Pierre is that it is an unbelievably abusive relationship from the start. I understand that by the end of the series, we find out that Pierre has two hearts - a noir heart which was (presumably) implanted by somebody else like Vanilla's, and his own heart - but we don't know this until very close to the finale and long before that point, Chocola was still "falling in love" with him.
If we - and Chocola - were shown he had two hearts battling against one another long before that point, then that would have been much better... but as it stands, it reads like Chocola falling for an abuser with absolutely zero evidence that he is otherwise good beyond the Noir heart.
With the long history of people (mainly women) getting trapped in abusive relationships (be is physical or mental or both), this is a very bad take on a romance. Giving people that are a) are manipulative, b) cruel, c) severs your ties with your friends and family, and - most importantly - d) trying to kill you, the benefit of the doubt like this is dangerous and never leads to a happy ending. It's not something which should be represented positively in media, especially media which is targeting young viewers.
Like I said, this could have worked. If Chocola was shown he has two hearts long before then and she (against everybody's advice) tries to help his natural heart win the battle by befriending him (and accidentally falls for him) - this would have been a far more solid romance story.
Also I'm disappointed there was never any pay off for Woo's crush on Chocola. Both Woo and Soul had crushes, but Woo carved that gift for her and I thought it was going somewhere - but no. The plotline was just forgotten about? For some reason? I hear he married Vanilla in the manga so obviously this would have been saved if he was falling for Vanilla the whole time and she never knew.
One of her self-image issues was, after all, not being popular in the Magical World like Chocola was. I bet it would have been nice for her to find out that she had a secret admirer the whole time. Sure, the series states that they don't like to hide their feelings and its not part of their culture, but it could have been explained away with him not wanting to distract her during her exam.
Also I took note of Vanilla's orange heart for Chocola - I'm going to assume she's a member of the rainbow. I honestly think a Chocola x Vanilla ending would have been better than the one we got. Clearly in terms of story telling, Chocola x Pierre is better if it was written better, but not the version we ended up with.
Other issues:
1. Anti-LGBT+ with how the hearts work (with the exception of Vanilla's orange heart for Chocola which is representative of a crush or infatuation). The series is adamant on a boys-only showing and does not show that girls can fall for Chocola or Vanilla (in a romantic sense) at any point. In fact, the episode with the tiara states that the tiara is defective because it is too powerful (as it effects both men and women).
2. When Robin was being very... pedo-like with Woo was uncomfortable, even if Robin was only trying to get Woo to make him food.
3. I'd like to have seen a redemption-like scene with the members, the main girl in particular. I thought it was building up to that with an episode near the start which shows the main girl being not all that bad, but there wasn't even a scene at the end of the series of them being friends and hanging out or something simple like smiling and waving at each other - would have been nice.
4. Waffle was annoying and not needed. We could have cut her out entirely. Perhaps her debut episode would have been okay, but they just... kept her as if she was entertaining at all (she's not).
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Conclusion: I enjoyed the series for the most part - but the most part is the first 3/4ths of the series. I'm glad I re-watched it as it gave closure and was still entertaining, but this is a series one must take on with a grain of salt. There's probably some great fix-it-fics out there for it, though.
I'm giving it 8/10 stars but it only just scraped an 8. This is because I prefer it over Shugo Chara, a show I watched around about the same time (and also didn't finish, but that was because the final series was like 5 minutes of episode and 20 minutes of live-action toddler fodder) and both of those are at the very bottom of my 8/10 list. If I revisit Shugo Chara and decide that a 7/10 is more suited, I'd have to reconsider my top 7s and bottom 8s.
