Happiness Charge Precure Episode 16

Impression
Here I was wanting to make sure I get this episode covered before I head off to Toronto for Anime North in a few hours, but then I watch this and I go “Oh right, it’s the reporter episode…”.
As most of us more or less expected, the whole reporter searching for precure’s true idenities concept turned out to be extremely annoying, but luckily for us- that was only a problem in the first half. The second half was much better because we were able to learn about Miyo’s character, which I found connected with the audience incredibly well. So lets start with the dreadful first part to get it out of the way.
In the beginning, it did not take long for me to become irritated with Miyo’s character. There were a lot of things that ticked me off such as how she was getting in the students’ faces grilling them about whether they were Precures, and then as soon as she became suspicious of our Happiness Charge trio, she was stalking them like a shadow, all around school, during classes and even waltz into Megumi’s home! It wasn’t fun to watch because the girls were not happy about it. In fact, they dreaded the idea of having their identities be revealed to the public. It was a great moment when Megumi decided to try and throw Miyo off her trail by countering with interviewing Miyo herself (thanks to her Reporter Precure Card skill set). Once she did so, I wasn’t as annoyed anymore, instead Miyo grew on me.
In the past Miyo was attacked by a terribad, and she was saved by a Precure Warrior. Ever since, she looked up to the Precures and even dreamed of becoming one herself. Touched that Miyo too wanted to become a Precure, Megumi revealed herself as Cure Lovely and took her to Blue to see if she could become on. At first I was like, “OMG, ARE THEY GOING TO MAKE HER A PRECURE?” but alas, no, they did not… Yet despite that, we were given something even better and this is where the connection came into play. While the crystal did not respond to Miyo (to be honest, I initially thought Blue gave her a dummy) we learned that it is because she is already a source of hope in another way. As someone who keeps tracks of what’s going on around the world with the Precure’s fight against Phantom Empire, Miyo provided hope by sharing knowledge of the Precures and realized that the work she does is valuable in it’s own way and children appreciate it. I absolutely loved how they drew the audience in, (in this case, the target audience is children) by encouraging them to continue cheering for the Precures because when they do, they support them with their feelings that make them all more powerful to defeat whoever they are up against.
Admist the usual message, I was especially intrigued with new developments and a revelation that is quite a game-changer.
As we learned today, Miyo is an exceptional journalist. She is intelligent, does all her research and she knows just about everything (with the exception of their identities) the Precures. (And you have to hand it to her for catching onto the fact the trio are always fighting at their school, so the probability of the Precures being students there is extremely likely, in this case 100%) So when a smart person like Miyo ends up getting trapped in the mirror and fueling the terribad, which became stronger and more formidable than an average one. That is why the girls realized, “Crap, this one is tough! The only way to counter it is to use new techniques”. I have to laugh though because the Phantom Empire lost out on a valuable person to have trapped in a mirror because Namakeruda is a slacker. The other thing we learned is that if the victim still feeling down, the girls will not recieve their reward (precure cards) until the said victim is happy again.
It was super sweet to see that Miyo had made the crystal that did not give her Precure powers into a necklace and will wear it everywhere she goes now. It serves as a reminder that she is already doing an important job by keeping everyone up to date and giving them hope.
Next week General Oresky is back  (YAYYY!!! How could you not love him?) and it looks like Seiji will have his turn the spotlight- and oh my god, my shipping senses are tingling! It looks like it could be Hime’s time to start developing a crush on Seiji(actually I already had my suspicions very early on in the show ahahaha… I can’t help myself) given to how the preview looks- but I am all in for a twist (but I am pretty damn sure it’s Seiji).
Heads up Captain Earth and La Corda d’Oro – Blue Sky will most likely be delayed this week, I will probably only get around to both of them late Sunday or Monday.