Pretty Cure Wiki

Minazuki Karen
水無月かれん Minazuki Karen

Main information

Season

Yes! Pretty Cure 5
Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!

Debut

(Cure Aqua)Yes! Pretty Cure 5
– Episode 01 (Karen) – Episode 06 (Cure Aqua)

Age

15 (YPC5)
16 (YPC5GG)

Relatives

(father)Minazuki Minako (mother) Minazuki Taro (father)

Role

Pretty Cure

Alter Ego

Cure Aqua

Theme

Intelligence

Theme Colour

Blue

Power

Water

Henshin
Phrase

Pretty Cure Metamorphose!

Henshin
Item

(YPC5GG)Pinky Catch (YPC5) CureMo (YPC5GG)

Weapon

(YPC5GG)Aqua Ribbon (YPC5) Tornado Fleuret (YPC5GG)

Voice Actor

Maeda Ai
Rachele Paolelli (Italian)
Luli Bitri (Albanian)
Myeong-Seon Lee (Korean)

Rachele Paolelli (Italian)Luli Bitri (Albanian)Myeong-Seon Lee (Korean)

Image Song

Heavenly Blue
Surely It’ll Be Alright

Appearances

• Yes! Pretty Cure 5
• Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!
• Yes! Pretty Cure 5: Kagami no Kuni no Miracle Daibouken!
• Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!: Okashi no Kuni no Happy Birthday!
• Pretty Cure All Stars: GoGo Dream Live
• Pretty Cure All Stars DX: Minna Tomodachi – Kiseki no Zen’in Daishuugou!
• Pretty Cure All Stars DX 2: Kibou no Hikari – Rainbow Jewel o Mamore!
• Pretty Cure All Stars DX 3: Mirai ni Todoke! Sekai wo Tsunagu☆Niji-Iro no Hana
• Pretty Cure All Stars DX: 3D Theatre
• Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage: Mirai no Tomodachi
• Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage 2: Kokoro no Tomodachi
• Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage 3: Eien no Tomodachi
• Pretty Cure All Stars: Haru no Carnival♪
• Pretty Cure All Stars: Minna de Utau♪ Kiseki no Mahou!
• HuPC36 (cameo), HuPC37
• HUGtto! Pretty Cure♡Futari wa Pretty Cure: All Stars Memories
• Healin’ Good♥Pretty Cure: Yume no Machi de Kyun! tto GoGo! Daihenshin!!
• Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Manga (Kamikita Futago)
• Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! Manga (Kamikita Futago)
• Live on Stage shows

Minazuki Karen (水無月かれん, Minazuki Karen?) is one of the five main Cures in Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!. She is a third-year student at L’École des Cinq Lumières, and is in the same class as Komachi and is also the student council president.

Her alter ego is Cure Aqua (キュアアクア, Cure Aqua?) and she is known as the Pretty Cure of Intelligence.

Bio

Appearance

Karen has dark blue eyes with thick eyebrows. Her matching colored hair is worn loose with some strands over the left shoulder and her bangs brushed to the left. In GoGo! her casual outfit is a bluish-gray top and skirt with a bow on the back, and navy heels.

In Yes! Pretty Cure 5: Kagami no Kuni no Miracle Daibouken!, Karen wore a light purple jacket with fluffy trim over a dark teal outfit with light grey boots.

As Cure Aqua, her eyes and hair turn bright blue, with her hair growing out into a straightened ponytail held with a blue butterfly adorned by a red gem. She also gains blue butterfly earrings. Her outfit is styled like Cure Mint’s, a white mini-dress with blue lining and bow around the waist and pale yellow straps circling the off-shoulder sleeves. These are trim with pale blue ruffles to match the secondary skirt layer, and on the chest is a butterfly, but this one is pale yellow. She also gains dark blue shorts and blue boots with a butterfly, and gloves to match her dress with a light blue butterfly on the hand, her Pinky Catch worn on the wrist.

As Super Cure Aqua, the ruffles on her sleeves and boots grow longer while her skirt gains an extra layer. She has large blue butterfly wings.

In GoGo!, her earrings and shorts remain the same, while her hair butterfly loses it’s gem in favor of a magenta flower. Her gloves and boots change in style, along with her chest butterfly, which connects to her CureMo. Her dress loses it’s outer layer in favor of a pastel blue vest lined in blue, accenting the new straps of her full sleeves. The ruffles have become pale chiffon.

As Super Cure Aqua, her outfit is similar to Shining Dream’s. She has pale pink roses on her chest and her hair ornament and small gold wings and has more color.

Personality

Karen is strongly admired for being calm and stoic, a mature young woman who has come to cover up her insecurities and feelings of loneliness. She dearly misses her parents as they are usually away, but out of obligation and feeling that everything rests on her shoulders she refuses to let it get to her, she has come to think she needs to do everything by herself. She was originally very enthusiastic about being class representative prior to meeting Komachi, but by the time it began wearing her down she was forced to keep going to be there for her. Because of her position, Karen is able to memorize all the names and faces of all the Cinq Lumières students, and also easily takes responsibility when something happens to the school, as seen in the second episode where she wants Nozomi to explain what happened to the library the other day.

While usually calm in temperament, when pushed enough she can sometimes get to a point where she ends up saying hurtful or offensive things to other people, shown in episode 23, where she called Komachi naïve and indecisive, even though she wasn’t involved in the issue that upset her.

In episode 5 and 6, Karen acted as though her time with the Pretty Cure had been a made up story. But with their company, she had a lot of fun. When she meets Coco, she was quite stunned and scared after they were attacked. She wanted to help her friends after they got hurt, but when the blue butterfly disappeared, she was shocked and held a lot of grief and depression. But encouraged by Nozomi and stunned by her hopes and friendship, she was happy and dealt with it the best she could. Finally, she became a Pretty Cure at the end of Episode 6 and the more she spends time with her teammates, the more she has fun with them. In episode 29, Jii-ya was happy to see her making jokes, glad to see she’s began to open up.

Relationships

• Akimoto Komachi: Karen’s best friend, along with fellow student council member or library aid. In episode 28, it was explained that the two met when they were in their first year of middle school and were performing a class project, which Karen, who was simply class representative back then, was about to give up on. Komachi, however, inspired her to keep trying and the two succeeded, becoming best friends afterwards. They remain inseparable and often lean on each other to cheer the other up.
• Milk: Karen has a close, loving and protective relationship with her. Milk admires Karen for her mature and graceful nature. Karen’s relationship with her is similar to those between Nozomi and Coco, Komachi and Nuts, and Urara and Syrup.
• Natsuki Rin: At first Rin wanted nothing to do with Karen, and the feeling was mutual. Their personalities, along with colors and elements were seen to be as different as night and day, and due to this they often bickered. However, after growing to understand each other and realize they share things in common as well, they grew closer.

Etymology

Minazuki (水無月, Minazuki?): 水無月 is the ancient Japanese term for June, a rainy month in Asia. Mi (水, Mi?) also translates to “water”, obviously referring to her water-based powers as Cure Aqua.

Karen (かれん, Karen?): can be both a Japanese and English name. The most common and likely intended Japanese meaning is “lovely” (可憐), while there are many other ways to be written in kanji. As an English name, the origin of Greek is “pure”.

Cure Aqua: This name indicates her power over water, as “aqua” is Latin for “water”. Aqua is also a color which lies exactly between blue and green.

History

Before the Series

As a child, Karen always missed her parents when they were away, even though she pretended not to. This worries her Butler, Sakamoto.

In episode 28, it reveals how Karen and Komachi began their friendship. When she was older and was in school, she was a Class Representative, full of enthusiasm starting it. One day, she got a call from a factory that her class was going to had to cancel the tour because one of the machines broke down. She and the Class were disappointed about it until the quiet Komachi then rose up and encouraged Karen that they still can’t give up until the end and volunteers to help Karen find another factory to do the project. Through many rejections, they finally make a reservation, did the brochures and completed it. That is the story on how she became friends with Akimoto Komachi. Possibly sometime when elected as Student President, she became more focused on her position and more responsible, therefore losing her enthusiasm, but some was brought back when becoming a Pretty Cure. Because of her job and having to do it alone, it causes her to believe that she has to do everything to do it right and nothing else.

Yes! Pretty Cure 5

One day after school, Karen was in the school library with Komachi when they were interrupted by Yumehara Nozomi. Nozomi insisted that someone had entered the library without either of them noticing, which was clearly impossible. A few minutes after she wandered off to look for her imaginary friend, Karen and Komachi heard strange noises. Investigating, they found damage to the floor and shelves in one part of the library, with no obvious origin. Stranger still, the damage mysteriously repaired itself when they left briefly.YPC501 From this point on, Karen and Komachi tried to talk to Nozomi in order to find out what had happened, as the junior was most likely involved.

During these investigations, Karen realized that Nozomi and her best friend, Natsuki Rin, had become friends with the new student Kasugano Urara, even though they had nothing in common. Komachi became involved as well after the three girls told them some ridiculous story about “Pretty Cure”.YPC504 Despite her best efforts, the four invited themselves over to Karen’s house to try to convince her of their story. However, in the middle of an unconvincing explanation involving Coco, a living fluffy animal, the girls were suddenly attacked by Bunbee, who stole another strange creature and turned Karen’s gazebo into a monster. Karen ran and hid, but it became clear that the others did not stand a chance unless she was able to transform herself. A blue butterfly flew out and landed on her wrist, but immediately disappeared, leaving Karen to watch helplessly as Bunbee escaped with the Pinky he had captured. Karen admitted that Nozomi and the others had been telling the truth, but said she could not help them.YPC505

Nozomi, however, was incredibly stubborn and annoying about it, and just would not get the message, even getting Jii-ya to tell her things for some reason. Frustrated, Karen stormed off, but Nozomi followed and told Karen that what they had in common was their love for their parents. Karen was shocked by the idea that Nozomi actually understood her, and agreed that, Pretty Cure aside, they could be friends. Then Bunbee attacked again and turned the Pinky from before into a Kowaina. Things went badly once more, but Karen was determined to help the others and declared as much. The blue butterfly returned, this time giving Karen the ability to transform, and under her direction, the girls saved the Pinky and defeated Bunbee.YPC506

Once gathered, the five Cures were able to rescue Coco’s friend, Nuts, from the Dream Collet. Nuts raised the question of who was the leader of Pretty Cure, and while Nozomi suggested Karen, Karen hastily turned down the position and nominated Nozomi herself, a suggestion immediately supported by the others. After Nuts started living in a small storehouse that Karen was certain was too small for the purpose, YPC507 Karen brought a housewarming gift; a small pot of blue Chinese bellflowers from her greenhouse. This, however, led into conflict with Rin, who was also bringing in a pot of bright red tulips. Eventually, by being forced to fight Arachnea together, they learned to get along, or at least get along better.YPC508

Karen, the serious student council president, almost immediately began to get in the way of the more free-spirited Nozomi’s ideas. First, she shot down Nozomi’s plan to advertise Natts’s accessories by bringing them to school, pointing out that this was against school rulesYPC510. Not much later, understandably unimpressed by Nozomi’s poor grades and study habits, she tried to force the Pretty Cure leader to study but eventually relented in favor of setting more gradual goals.YPC511 There were apparently no hard feelings, however, as Nozomi and the others were more than willing to help Karen solve the various student organizations’ budget problems when the chairwoman refused to give them any more money.YPC514

As Cure Aqua, meanwhile, Karen made a habit of rescuing Masuko Mika when she was in danger.YPC509 Mika, meanwhile, interviewed Karen for the Cinq Lumieres News, with unflattering results.YPC518

When a new creature from Palmier Kingdom, Milk, comes into the picture, Nozomi accidentally destroyed the butterfly decoration the others had been working on, and Karen joined Rin in lambasting her about her carelessness and calling Komachi wishy-washy over her attempt to not take sides. She immediately tried to take back her words, but they continued to bother Komachi until the following afternoon when Karen’s attempt at an apology was interrupted by an attack by an insane powered-up Girinma. Cure Aqua and Cure Mint were defeated almost immediately, then caught by Kawarino. Cure Aqua was forced into a nightmare in which an illusion of herself as Karen lectured her about her tendency to remain distant from others, resulting in her lacking close friends and, ultimately, being alone. Cure Aqua was thus easily placed under the control of a Mask of Despair.YPC523 The controlled Cure Aqua completely ignored Nozomi’s attempts to remove the mask and helped to restrain her after she transformed into Cure Dream. Along with the other Cures, Cure Aqua was eventually restored to her normal self by Cure Dream’s efforts at reaching out to them.YPC524

Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!

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Cure Aqua

“The blue spring of intelligence, Cure Aqua!”
知性の青き泉、キュアアクア！
Chisei no aoki izumi, Kyua Akua!

Cure Aqua (キュアアクア, Cure Aqua?) is the Pretty Cure alter ego of Karen. In order to transform, she needs the Pinky Catch in the first season. She controls the power of water.

In the next season, she needs the CureMo to transform. Her main attack is Sapphire Arrow.

Super Cure Aqua

Super Cure Aqua (スーパーキュアアクア, Super Cure Aqua?) is the upgrade Cure Aqua receives in Yes! Pretty Cure 5: Kagami no Kuni no Miracle Daibouken! Thanks to the Miracle Lights. Her powers are greatly increased. She can now fly because of her butterfly wings. Her dress has an extra row of frills on her sleeves and dress. Her arm warmers are now longer and her boots are wilder.

Cure Rainbow Aqua

Cure Rainbow Aqua (キュアレインボーアクア, Cure Rainbow Aqua?) is an upgrade

Cure Aqua gains in Pretty Cure All Stars DX 2: Kibou no Hikari – Rainbow Jewel o Mamore!. Together with the others’ upgrades, the group of seventeen girls forms the group Cure Rainbow. This upgraded outfit vaguely resembles that of Shining Dream from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!: Okashi no Kuni no Happy Birthday!, except with the color blue instead of pink and a pair of small golden wings instead of grand white ones.

Transformations

Pretty Cure Metamorphose – “Pretty Cure metamorphose!” is the official transformation phrase Karen uses to transform into Cure Aqua in Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!

In Yes! Pretty Cure 5, Karen’s Pinky Catch opens and she shouts, “Pretty Cure…” She makes a circular motion with her arm and shouts, “…metamorphose!” Her body then gets covered in a blue glow. Her top and brooch appear first, followed by her arm warmers, skirt, and shoes. Her hair gets styled, her Pinky Catch closes and Cure Aqua recites her introductory speech.

In Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!, Karen’s CureMo opens and she presses the buttons while saying, “Pretty Cure metamorphose!” The CureMo’s screen glows and her body gets surrounded in blue light. A blue tunnel then appears with light showing at the end. Karen appears with her body glowing blue and surrounded by streams of water. She becomes encased in a globe of water and when it bursts, Karen is fully clothed. Cure Aqua then flies down, opens her eyes and recites her introductory speech.

Attacks

Songs

Karen’s voice actor Maeda Ai, has participated in several image songs for the character she voices. Many of them include duets with Sanpei Yuko, who voices Yumehara Nozomi, Takeuchi Junko, who voices Natsuki Rin, Ise Mariya, who voices Kasugano Urara, Nagano Ai, who voices Akimoto Komachi, and later, Sendai Eri, who voices Milk/Mimino Kurumi.

Group Songs

Trivia

• In the Pretty Cure All Stars Suite Flower Card Collection, Karen is represented by the iris, which symbolizes love and sympathy in the Language of Flowers.
• Karen appeared as Cure Aqua to give the 10th Anniversary Congratulatory Message at the beginning of episode 7 in Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!.
• Cure Aqua is so far the only Cure with a Latin name.
• Coincidentally, Karen & Komachi’s voice actresses share the name Ai.
• She is the only known Cure who did not receive a new name in the English adaptions.

Gallery

References