Taniguchi Seiko

Taniguchi Seiko (谷口聖子)^? (Sophie in the Canadian English dub) is a minor character from Futari wa Pretty Cure and Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart. She is a student at Verone Academy in the same Sakura class as Nagisa and Honoka, from the second to third-year.

Bio

Appearance

She has brownish-black neck-length hair that leaves her ears exposed, with a pink clover-shaped hairpin on the left side of her head. Her eyes are the same color as her hair.

In the episode preview for the eighteenth episode of the original season, as well as her early cameo appearance in the first episode, Seiko was shown with a slightly more bluer shade of color for her hair and eyes.

Personality

Seiko is a shy and sentimental girl, made apparent when she had a crush on Kiriya, and was unable to properly tell him how she felt in person, writing down her feelings in a letter that she struggled to give to him.^FwPC18

After the episode in which she has a major role, Seiko becomes a bit less shy, participating in events such as the interscholastic choir competition, as a pianist,^FwPC45 and leading the class on their trip to Kyoto in their third-year.^FwPCMH35

History

Futari wa Pretty Cure

According to a seating chart made for the season, Seiko sits directly behind Rina, and two seats behind Nagisa.^{^[1]} As such, whenever a scene takes place in the Sakura classroom, she usually appears as a cameo. Such episodes include the first, third, and thirtieth episodes of Futari wa Pretty Cure, and the first, twentieth, twenty-second, and thirty-eight episodes of Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart.

Her first and only major role is in the eighteenth episode of the first season. She is introduced as a classmate of the girls who has a crush on Kiriya, the recent transfer student. Rina, Shiho, and Nagisa offer their assistance in helping her confess. However, Seiko notes that she hasn't ever talked to Kiriya before. The girls wave this off as no big deal, instead singing her praises, such as calling her cute, and Nagisa noting Seiko's grades are better than her own. Honoka then walks by, and the girls ask her to give Seiko advice on how to confess. Honoka agrees that it's important to convey your feelings to the other person and that it's wonderful Seiko has a special someone, though she doesn't know who it is. The girls express their support for Seiko, with Nagisa adding that she'll be there even if things don't work out, but is quickly stopped mid-sentence by Shiho and Rina so as to not inflict bad luck. Later that day, after school, Kiriya is approached by Seiko, who introduces herself and hands him a love letter. Not understanding her intentions, he brushes it off and walks away without taking the letter.

The next day, Shiho and Rina wait outside the school's boys' division gate with Seiko to help her give Kiriya the letter again, telling him it took her a lot of courage to write out her feelings. Rina mentions in passing to Seiko that Honoka is supporting her, which Kiriya overhears, taking it as Honoka not caring for his own feelings by helping this girl out. He angrily takes the letter from Seiko and tells the girls to go away, ripping the letter up in front of them. This greatly hurts Seiko's feelings, who cries in the girls' shoe locker room as Rina and Shiho comfort her. Honoka walks in, noticing this, and goes to the boys' side of the school to chew Kiriya out.

Once the midterms and battle are over, Kiriya has a change of heart, and goes to Seiko to apologize to her, saying that he couldn't accept her letter. While Seiko was sad, she was finally able to put her feelings to rest and even thanked him, surprising him. Just then, Nagisa arrives, bringing Seiko a flyer for all-you-can-eat chocolate parfaits at "Cafe au motti," claiming that their "youth has only just begun," dragging her along so the two can "drown their sorrows out," Seiko for her love life and Nagisa for her midterm exam.

Her next significant appearance is in the thirty-ninth episode of the same season, where she is part of the group of girls in the Sakura class who plan on creating a gift for Ms. Yoshimi's wedding. When the girls decide on creating a patchwork quilt, Seiko and Yui are in charge of conducting the research on how to make one, by checking out quilt-making books from the library. In the fourty-fifth episode, it's revealed that Seiko is musically talented, knowing how to play the piano. She is chosen as the pianist for the Sakura class choir group sent to represent Verone at the interscholastic choir competition. When Chiaki, the conductor and arranger, tells the class she's changing the song at the last minute, a slightly disappointed Seiko notes that she has just gotten confident on playing the arrangement of the piano accompaniment Chiaki had just ditched. Despite this, when Chiaki hands Seiko the arrangement for the new song, she notes that it doesn't look hard to play and masters it immediately. She performs the arrangement as the rest of the girls sing at the competition a few days later.

Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart

Seiko appears a few times in semi-significant appearances in the sequel season. In the tenth episode, she participates in the class field trip to the cake factory. In the thirty-fifth episode, she participates in another field trip, this time to Kyoto. This is her only spoken role in the sequel season, where she appears to act as a student representative for the class, detailing their itinerary and rules for the day. In the thirty-seventh episode of the season, she participates in the class play on "Ushiwakamaru and Benkei," wearing what appears to be a dark green kimono. She appears in the final episode, graduating with the rest of the class and appearing in the group photo.

Relationships

Kiriya: Seiko had a crush on him at one point, and struggled to express her feelings to him. She was finally able to do so, but he did not feel the same way. Despite this, she was able to move on.

Trivia

In the original Japanese, she shares her voice actress with the One-Inch Boy from the Smile Pretty Cure film and Sky Land's Queen from Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure.
In the Canadian English dub, she shares her voice actress with Lilian in just the fourtieth episode.
In the third episode of the first season, there is a coloring error where Seiko has blonde hair during her cameo appearance. This means that during the season, she is depicted with three different hair colors.
She appears in the first ending theme to Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart, during the scene where Verone's students and teachers are dancing.