I finally sat down and watched the first episode. Yes, it took me whole week (i have a schedule, you know).
My general impression is that the producers words rang true and this was a very un-PreCure episode... and i actually found that to be a good thing.
To be honest, the last few years of PreCure had tried a bit too hard to stuck with "PreCure Formula" and it was starting to feel stale. Hell, HappinessCharge (yes, it is one word) was a HeartCatch PreCure rip-off half of the time. But seriously, as much as this episode deviated from the usual PreCure template, it actually reminded me a lot of the first episodes of some of the older shows like YPC5 and Fresh since those shows really tried to reinvent themselves as PreCure seasons while still sticking to the basics, and it that sense GoPuri was quite successful since it did it´s basically creating its own status quo using the PreCure formula as a base but not as a guide.
I was also really impressed about the animation, i could ramble infinitely about the animation issues i had with HappinessCharge and this episode was a huge improvement over the usual style of that show. I still have a few nitpicks, it is obvious that the animators of GoPuri were cutting corners as much as they could (basically, the animation quality drops every time a scene is not a close up), but the more than made up with the episode Battle. Seriously, we haven´t had such a dynamic camera work since Suite.
So overall, it was a pretty good start for the series, in terms of first episodes of PreCure it is definetily one of the best, though that bar is not a particularly high one (PreCure first episodes tend to be pretty basic, and they are usually part of longer introduction arcs). If i had to rank it, i would say that it was better than HaCha´s first and as good as DokiDoki´s, if not a little better in it execution (i am only comparing with those two since those shows were made by the same producer).
Toku Prime said:
I really like the two MotW designs so far. All I can really compare it to is a season and a half of Sailor Moon so maybe they're typical for PreCure, but for someone who's more used to rubber suit monsters these make a nice change.
PreCure MOTW designs vary from season to season, they usually come up with a "Monster template" for each series and they rarely stray too far from that. I have only seen one so far but these Zetsuborgs look alright to me, though i still like the Selfishes (the ones from DokiDoki) a little better. If you are curious, i recommend you to check out some of the MOTW designs from Suite, that season had some awesome designs.
PD: Looking forward to episode two, mostly ´cause i love Mermaid´s design.