Shirabe Ako

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Shirabe Ako 調辺アコ Shirabe Ako
File:Akomuse.jpg
Description
Season	Suite Pretty Cure♪
Age	9-10
Gender	Female
Eye Color	Orange (Ako) Magenta (Cure Muse and Masked Cure)
Hair Color	Orange (Ako) Bright Orange (True Form)
Home Place	Kanon Town (currently) Major Land (originally)
Relatives	Shirabe Otokichi (Grandfather), Mephisto (Father), Aphrodite (Mother)
First Appearance	SPC06 (Ako) SPC11 (Cure Muse)
Alter Ego	Cure Muse Crescendo Cure Muse
Theme Color	Black (Masked Form) Yellow (True Form) Pink (sub for Mask Form)
Japanese Voice Actor	Ōkubo Rumi

Shirabe Ako (調辺アコ, Shirabe Ako^?) is one of the main Cures of Suite Pretty Cure♪. She is the Princess of Major Land, but has come to the human world to escape the Major Land/Minor Land war at home. She is 9 years old and is in 3rd grade elementary school, a student of the Public Kanon Elementary School and Minamino Souta's classmate. In order to save her father Mephisto, whose heart had been tainted with evil, she disguised herself as the Masked Cure. She finally took off her mask in Episode 35 to try to win back her father's gentle heart, and fights alongside Cures Melody, Rhythm and Beat at last. Ako may be the youngest Cure in the group, but she is the most mature.

Ako's alter ego is Cure Muse (キュアミューズ, Kyua Myūzu^?). She uses the purple Fairy Tone Dodory to transform.

History

Appearances as Ako

Ako first appears walking with Kanade's brother Minamino Souta to school.^SPC06She runs into Hojo Hibiki and Minamino Kanade arguing and tells them to get out of her way. She seems to be disrespectful of her elders and has no respect for them and seems to be somewhat mature for her age. She also tells Hibiki and Kanade later that she likes singing but is not very good at it. In a later episode she and Souta see Hummy and Siren together and tell Hibiki and Kanade about it.^SPC20

Appearances as the Masked Cure

Cure Muse was first shown as the Masked Cure in the show's first opening sequence. She makes her first appearance when she saves Kanade and Hibiki from a Negatone made by Bassdrum at a fake music contest near the clock tower.^SPC11 Hibiki and Kanade immediately began speculating about her identity. Some suspects were Nishijima Waon and Higashiyama Seika. Also Bassdrum calls out to Cure Muse and refers to her as "Siren!" leading to the speculation that Cure Muse may actually be Siren.^SPC12 However, this is soon proven false, as she saves the Cures from Siren herself.^SPC13 She both saves the Cures and helps them on several other occasions but starts to worry that the others are getting too powerful when they acquire the Healing Chest. Cure Muse doesn't really talk when she was disguised as the Masked Cure, however, Dodory talks for her.

Saving Mephisto's Heart and Joining the Team

Ako explains that she became a Cure on the very day Mephisto stole the legendary score. She hid her identity and became the masked Cure because she really didn't want to fight against her father. After Hibiki said that they were fighting to save Mephisto, she revealed herself but still could not quite bring herself to fight her father. Melody, Rhythm and Beat start fighting him for her, but are hopelessly outmatched, so Ako steps in as Muse and begs her father to stop. This does not work, as Mephisto is too well controlled by the noise of evil. Finally, Muse gathers up her courage and punches Mephisto which knocks him back to his senses and returns him to normal.

Appearance

Ako has short orange hair with two loose curled strands and matching orange eyes worn behind square-shaped glasses. Her attire consists of soft pink shirt with long sleeves beneath a denim, short-style jumper with hot pink buttons going down the center. She also wore a necklace and short, hot pink socks with white and blue shoes. During summer she switches her top for a short-sleeved variant.

As the Masked form of Cure Muse she appears to be much older and taller than she really is and wears a costume consisting of a black jumpsuit with a furry collar attacked to a black and pink cape held with her Cure Module. Along with black thigh-length boots and gloves. On her head is a black and pink mask with a heart in the center. She has magenta eyes in this form.

In her true form of Cure Muse, Ako appears to be her real age. Her brighter hair grows longer and curls inward, splitting in the center to form two seperate parts. Her bangs remain short, while her forelocks spread. Worn in her hair are two long yellow ribbons and a pink gem heart on a white curled head piece. Her earrings are pink and yellow. Her cute outfits consists of a pale yellow top with yellow and gold trim with a bright yellow shawl worn over the shoulders lined with a ruffled trim. Her bow rests beneath it with her Cure Module in the center. At her waist are two tutu layers of material, over her puffy yellow pumpkin skirt lined with ruffled trim. Two long yellow ribbons hang from the back of her skirt, and she gains yellow and white boots with gold sole and bows with a pink gem hearts.

As Crescendo Cure Muse, her hair becomes lighter. The top part of her outfit turns almost white while the trim turns light yellow. Her skirt lengthens and the back of it gains an additional golden feather-like skirt. There are also gold wings on her back.

Personality

When she first appeared, she was cold and disrespectful to her elders (Hibiki and Kanade) and very mature for her age. But behind all that coldness, she is a sweet, loving and caring girl and sometimes likes to have a little fun and loves singing.

She loves her parents, but hates it when fight and wishes them to stop and took the choice of doing it herself. She loves her father very dearly and even transformed into a Pretty Cure for him. But, when he does awkward and gushy things she tends to get flustered.

There are hints that she might like Souta as he is her only friend before she became friends with the Pretty Cures. She is often shown with him.

Cure Muse

"Playing the Goddess' tune, Cure Muse!"
爪弾くは女神の調べ、キュアミューズ
Tsumabiku wa megami no shirabe, Kyua Myūzu!

Cure Muse (キュアミューズ, Kyua Myūzu^?) is the alter Pretty Cure ego of Ako. She transforms using her Cure Module, along with Fairy Tone Dodory. Her true form was first revealed in Episode 35, and her official transformation occurred during Episode 36.

Cure Muse does not have a special purification weapon, using her Cure Module to attack instead. With the help of Shiry, she can perform Shining Circle and Sparkling Shower.

She can also create a rainbow-colored piano clapping her hands together and spreading the keys out. When she plays on this piano, the keys shoot out to surround her target within a barrier. She uses this to trap enemies and also to protect friends and civilians.

Crescendo Cure Muse

File:Muse img04.jpg

Crescendo Cure Muse

Crescendo Cure Muse is the upgraded form that Cure Muse attains in Episode 47. The Crescendo Tone is required for this transformation upgrade; in the TV series, as the Crescendo Tone was sealed up by Noise, the eight Fairy Tones Dory to Dodory combined to become the Crescendo Tone to allow the Cures to transform. In this form, the Cures can perform Suite Session Ensemble Crescendo Finale.

Relationships

Minamino Souta - They are best friends in elementary school. Ako's feelings for him remain to those of friends, though he has a crush on her (which Ako doesn't seem to notice at all). However, in episode 37 Ako can be seen blushing when Souta stared at her wearing her princess costume. Of course, this could be from embarrassment.

Hojo Hibiki, Minamino Kanade, and Kurokawa Ellen - Pretty Cure partners. Ako is seen as the "little sister" of the group, being the youngest of all four of them. When Ellen was good and discovers she was the Princess of Major land, she bows and respect to her as a loyal subject.

Etymology

Shirabe (調辺, Shirabe^?) has two meanings. Shira (調, Shira^?) means "tone", which fits with Suite Pretty Cure♪ theme. And Be (辺, Be^?) means "side" or "area". Together this word sounds similar to the word "shirabe" (調べ), which means "playing music"¹.

Ako (アコ, Ako^?) normally means "My child" (亜子), but it also can be read as "child of heritage" or even "child of mystery". Furthermore, Ako's name is written in katakana like words of foreign origins; so it can be assumed that her name is part of the word Accordion (「アコ」ーディオン)².

"Cure Muse" came from the name of Greek goddesses of the inspiration of literature, science, and the arts

Songs

Ako's voice actor, Ōkubo Rumi, has participated in several image songs for the character she voices. Many of them include duets with Ami Koshimizu, who voices Hojo Hibiki, Fumiko Orikasa, who voices Minamino Kanade, and Toyoguchi Megumi, who voices Siren/Kurokawa Ellen.

Singles

Overture~Overture of Friendship~

Duets

ONE~Kokoro wo hitotsu ni~ (Along with Ami Koshimizu, Fumiko Orikasa, and Toyoguchi Megumi)
Yume no tobira (Door of Dreams) (Along with Ami Koshimizu, Fumiko Orikasa, Toyoguchi Megumi)

Trivia

Ironically, while Ako is the youngest Suite Pretty Cure, she has been active the longest.
Ako is the youngest main character in the franchise thus far. She is also the smallest Cure. Her age is not stated in the show but is revealed in an interview and printed on some of her character collectible cards.
Cure Muse has the least amount of focus and speaking lines in the All Stars movies compared to the rest of the Pretty Cure. Currently she has only spoken in Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage: Mirai no Tomodachi.
Cure Muse, when masked, looks older than she really is, which is probably why Hibiki, Kanade and Ellen did not suspect Ako to be Cure Muse at first. In one episode, it was shown that Ako knows how to walk on stilts, hinting to her Cure identity.
Ako Shirabe's design and namesake is a tribute to the character Ako Ōzora (大空アコ, Ōzora Ako^?) from Toei's other series Kaidan Restaurant.
Cure Muse follows the pseudo-tradition of yellow Cures having a puffier outfit than their teammates.
Before her role call, as she strums the chords the motion is nearly identical to how Cure Rhythm strums the chords.
Ako is the third Pretty Cure to wear glasses, but not in her Cure form.
As Cure Muse, she is the first Cure that has had a total form change during the course of the season not counting upgrades.
Cure Muse is the second main character whose motives are unknown in their first appearance.
Cure Muse strikes a pose before introducing herself similar to Cure Blossom and Marine.
Ako is the fifth Pretty Cure with the elderly person in the family.
Cure Muse is the first Pretty Cure to have long orange hair.
Cure Muse has the first drastic eye color change, going from orange to magenta, as well as having a drastic length of hair like Cure Sunshine. Coincidentally, they both have yellow as their theme color.
Ako is the first Pretty Cure to be of royal descent (although Shiny Luminous is technically a queen, she is not an official Pretty Cure), followed by Cure Ace, Cure Princess and Cure Scarlet.
Ako and Yuri have a few similarities.
- They both fought alone as a Cure by themselves until they joined the other Cures.
- They both have fathers that were turned evil.
Ako is the only Suite Pretty Cure Cure to not wear their Cure colors in their civilian identity.
As the masked Cure Muse, she never spoke a word until her identity's revelation. Instead, she let Dodori talk with others.
- The reason for this is most likely because Ako knew that if she said anything, the sound of her voice would make it obvious how old she really was, both to the other Cures and to the members of Minor Land.
Her two attacks require her to blow into her Cure Module. This is the sixth attack to involve playing an instrument.
Cure Muse's is the only Cure so far to wear long sleeves in her Cure form, compared to all the other previous Cures. Even though the Kiryuu sisters also have long-sleeved uniforms while assisting the Splash Star Cures, they technically aren't official Cures.
Cure Muse was the second Pretty Cure who is already a Cure before appearing in the series. The first being Cure Moonlight, and succeeded by Cure Sword, Cure Ace, Cure Princess, Cure Honey and Cure Fortune.
Ako is the only member in her team who does not have a catchphrase.
Ako appeared as Cure Muse to give the 10th anniversary congratulatory speech at the beginning of episode 33 of Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!
Cure Muse is currently the only yellow-themed Cure who is the fourth member of her team. The other yellow Cures were the third member of their teams.
Ako is the third Cure to have her given name in Katakana, preceded by Love and Ellen, and later followed by Mana, Towa and Riko.
Ako is the only Cure so far to have one character song.