Development of Tropica Shine Pretty Cure!

This is a page dedicated to highlighting all of the changes that Tropica Shine Pretty Cure! has gone through in the five or so years it's been in planning. This page will be in first person from the creator, Shirabe Tsudzuri.

Introduction
As Tropica Shine is by far my oldest series, it's only natural that it has gone through numerous changes throughout the years. I still have some old drawings and sketches, as well as a few pieces of writing to reference when divulging this information, and I thought it might be interesting to see what this series could have been.

Motif Changes

 * Early work that I found suggested that I initially planned to have seasons as a motif. Clearly this wasn't meant to be, considering the series' setting places the cast in a pretty much unending summer and there are six cures and only four seasons. Not really sure what I was going for here.

Cures

 * Before I really knew what I was doing, all of the cures had western-sounding given names. Haruki was originally named Summer, Tomoko's name was Taylor, Hinata was called Sasha, Natsumi had the name Corina/Carina, Rika was initially named Lucy and Ayame was named Isis. I don't recall that I even gave them surnames when I first came up with them.
 * Haruki's surname changed from Arai to Aikawa somewhere along the way.
 * Tomoko was named both Tomo and Umiko for a short period of time, but both were discarded and replaced with her current name.
 * Natsumi's surname went through a small change, going from Hanae to Hatake. I changed this simply because I though Hatake sounded better in tandem with her given name.
 * Ayame was actually a recent addition to the story. Though she existed throughout the development, the decision to make her such a prominent character (and a cure) was a choice made within the past two years.


 * Natsumi was originally going to be 16 years old, but I felt that might disconnect her too much from the rest of the group and not add to her character, so I aged her down a year.
 * Likewise, Rika was going to be the oldest in the group, at 17 years old. I aged her down mainly for the same reason as I aged down Natsumi, with the added reasoning that I wanted Natsumi to be the oldest, and I didn't want Hinata to be the youngest.


 * The main cast's appearances (specifically their hair colors/styles) changed a bit as well. Haruki was going to have light pink hair in civilian form, Tomoko was going to have dark blue hair in civilian form and light blue hair in cure form, Hinata was going to be blonde in both civilian and cure form, Natsumi was going to have plain black hair in civilian form, and Rika had dark green hair at one point and brown at another in civilian form. Like I previously stated, Ayame was never a cure, so she had the same hair and eye color as Tomoko.
 * The teams cure aliases also changed.
 * Cure Breeze was Cure Skyburst. Changed because I wanted a simpler name.
 * Cure Wave was Cure Brume when first designed, and Cure Foam for a bit until being changed to what it is currently. Changed to more clearly represent her powers.
 * Cure Solar was the only one who didn't change.
 * Cure Heat was Cure Warmth. Changed because "Heat" is infinitely easier to say in Japanese than "Warmth."
 * Cure Palm was Cure Oak. Changed because "Palm" fits the series' tropical theme a lot better
 * I had planned for a sequel, and it would introduce two new cures; a brown cure named Cure Mimosa, and a black cure named Cure Manta. These were scrapped along with the idea of a sequel.

Mascots and Allies

 * Each of the cures were going to have their own mascot partner. Haruki would have been partnered with Kaki, while Tomoko would have been partnered with Akebi. The other fairies were named Musa (Hinata's partner), Mandarine (Natsumi's partner), Kiwi (Rika's partner) and Acai (Ayame's partner).

Villains

 * Apparently I didn't get to far with villains because the only ones I can find any evidence of are early versions of Gehenna and Ginash.
 * Ginash used to be named "Illusion." I felt it was very cliched so I gave her a more unique name.
 * Gehenna's name was actually Subzero. At some point I guess they broke off and became two separate characters.
 * The monster of the week for the series were called Hakyoku.

Supporting Cast

 * Minato was originally going to be a girl, and be named Mina/Rina. I felt that Haruki would play off an older brother a lot better than an older sister, so "she" was rewritten to be male.
 * She would have also discovered the cures identities much earlier on, and was actually planned to be the first person turned into a Kulo'he.

Crossovers

 * I wrote a crossover between Tropica Shine and another one of my series called ✿Full Bloom! Pretty Cure. It never really got to far and I abandoned it completely.