Pretear is great but does have flaws

I decided to change my MAL rating for Pretear to a 9.  

I had given it a 10 partly because it was almost a rule in my head that anything that makes me Cry is a automatic 10 unless some major problem counteracts it.  But then I decided Fuuka doesn't get a 10 simply for some gratuitous Fanservice in the first two and a half episodes.

I think it's important people understand the difference between what personally moves them the most and what's actually the best at even following their own subjective standards of quality.  And my thing about an automatic 10 for making me cry was a failure to practice what I preach on that, (especially since not everything I give a 10 makes my cry).  Robotics;Notes I definitely feel still deserves it's 10/10, Umineko will stay as is till I can give it a rewatch.

Now lowering something to a 9 is not that big a change, even though I give high scores more generously then most I do take the words MAL puts next to those scores seriously, stuff I truly don't like simply tends to not get rated at all since I rarely complete them.  Make no mistake even my 8s are things I'll defend to the death agaisnt anyone saying they're bad, and even the 7s and 6s I'd say are worth watching if I was asked about them.  When I give something a 9 it means it should be essential viewing at least for it's genre.

Pretear is an adaptation of a Manga, and like the prior Shoujo Magical Girl Warrior Manga that Junichi Satou was heavily involved in adapting to Animation some significant changes were made, even though I haven't read it I know a bit about the changes from looking into it.  I'm sure the Manga works well enough as a Manga but in terms of why Pretear moves me so much it's very heavily tied to the Anime's changes, the story told with Mawata is the Heart of it.

But the thing is those changes make the Snow White references, which includes the show's full title, come off way more random, when the Step Mother is no longer even kind of an antagonist the analogy just doesn't hold up anymore not even as a subversion of anything.  Now it wouldn't be the only Anime that has been given a 10/10 by someone who can't justify why it's named what it is, however the show still throwing the wake up kiss in at the very end feels like it's there only to justify the title.  Honestly in the Anime version a Cinderella analogy makes more sense.  Fortunately the word Pretear itself isn't a Snow White reference as far as I can tell and that's generally what we shorten it to.

This is also a perfect example of a single cour show that could have been so much better as two cour, as is there wasn't time to give each Knight a spotlight episode and since only two really matter to the main plot the rest kind of come off as just there.  Maybe a full 26 episodes would be difficult to justify, perhaps it should have been one of those rare 22 episode shows.

That's it really, I don't let my nitpicks about the Dub effect the score since that's Localization not the original product, and I love a lot about the Dub, Luci Christian is always fantastic and Mireille proves why she's the best Ojousama.  But the performance that really blows me away is Mandy Clark as Mawata, I was shocked to learn she hasn't been in a lot of Anime Dubs, her performance here may be the most underrated and unappreciated in all of Anime Dubbing.