Otou used the old trick: start with the sequel (the concept was hashed out here mostly in connection with Nanoha As). I started with Max Heart, but it was merely a result of the DTO debacle. I did great on the original without Shiny Luminous before Crunchyroll's perfidy.

Interestingly, he seems completely at peace with the balance of the girl life and the fighting (in the original, perhaps Heartcatch is balanced differently), and the fixed format of the episode with girl issues in front, opponent of the week defeated at the back, which I found somewhat too formulaic (the phrase is aimed at something else, but there's evidence):

And there’s the interesting subtext of the Cures being trapped in their unstoppable fate, worn out and unable to live their normal girl lives doing whatever it is girls do around that age, which in the Pretty Cure world is somehow not “horrifically abuse your peers.”

BTW, you know where the trapped-in-fighting was done best? Figure 17, no contest.