To be totally honest, I actually don’t know what to think about this episode. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying it was bad or mediocre- it was good and fun to watch, but it was an interesting one that’s for sure. There were a lot of moments where the animation style reminded me of different animes, but I was happy to see that since it shows us they will continue to experiment and try out new things. It was also slightly dark and freaky at times- for a kids show.
The battle against Close essentially the first major battle, and as result he was defeated and perished from existence. Dyspear granted him one last chance to destroy the Precures, and threw them all into the Cage of Dyspear where his power will increase immensely. There were various levels of him being consumed by the despair the first being a macho and then later evolved further into Crow/Raven (whichever one) and looked pretty over-powered (but nah, the girls were fine) and was finally started to get into the Precure heads. He also succeeded he first time, interfering with their attempt to channel their dreams to Kanata. But, once Yui stepped in, there was no stopping them.
And this is why I give major props to Yui today. Holy smokes, she is one courageous girl! After being caught in the crossfire and dragged into the Cage of Despair, separated from the Precures, she was handling it pretty darn well. She also readily took on the duty to pass on Kanata’s message to the girls, which was important because they need to know about it in order to channel their dreams to Kanata so he can send them off. Then to top things off, just when Haruka/Cure Flora was losing hope, Yui sweeps in, covers for her and revitalizes her spirit! (Pffth, who needs to become a Precure when they can power-up the Precure with their dreams! ALL HAIL THE POWER OF DREAMS!) Yui essentially became the the Support who buffs up the party! Tanking the hits to protect her carry! (Okay that’s a bit of an exaggeration), BUT YOU GO GIRL!
I don’t know whether or not Close will ever make a return, but right now it sure doesn’t look like it. I wonder just how many villains are we going to see in this series. If they were to follow the pattern of every ten episodes or so to initiate a major battle, then it would make sense of how Shut and Lock would probably play a major role between now till around the thirtieth episode, and then the Dark Princess we have seen in the OP will probably have a stronger role then. Of course this simply mere speculation, so I could be way off the mark. Is it strange that I want to see more villains? I am really enjoying their roles in this series. I love how they are constantly challenging the Precures, and making it difficult to defeat them.
Actually speaking of the difficultly, I was quite surprised by how naive Kirara was towards Dyspear. She getting ahead of herself, being naive thinking all they have to do is beat Dyspear right now and their done! I couldn’t help but think, ‘Girl you just struggled in your last night, what makes you think you’d be able to defeat her now?’. Of course what she had attacked was merely an illusion of Dyspear, but what makes more frightening is how Dyspear doesn’t even need to be present in order to cast them into another dimension.
Next week it looks like the girls will be able to have a breather after such a fight. With Close out of the picture, it’s Shut time to hit the spotlight.
FYI, you mixed up Close and Shut. You can tell it was Close in the latest episode because he turned into a giant Crow(…se)!!
…Ok I’ll let myself out
*SCREAMS IN AGONY* WHY DO I KEEP MIXING THEM UP *HEADESKS x9000* The curse of the Name Error persists!
OTL|||| Thank you for pointing it out. I have made the correction.
Place your bets people, what are the odds I am going to mix them up now the other way around.Not to pick on you or anything, but now that you’ve dealt with that one error you’ve created a different one. Your last line says “With Close out of the picture, it’s Close time to hit the spotlight.”
Ah! Missed that one!
I don’t consider it picking, I appreciate it when people point out any typos I may miss.
First of all as promised I already posted the link to your review in Live Journal. Second, actually the killed one is Close and the next one is Shut. Well to me it is not that hard to recognize them if you watch it more than once imo.
My Opinion About Happiness Charge
– Sorry late to reply your comment
– I also realize that Iona become less annoying and more friendly after episode 22
– I mean, all of time she was kinda a little trigger happy to blame Hime……
– While she has own share of fault of her big sister disappearing
– I also kinda face palmed (Imaginary one) for Iona mistake
– Especially in episode 8, when her fortune telling almost cause the team to be defeated imo
– Actually I also agree that HaCha is a good series, but…….
– I think people at MAL didin’t with us agree because of the low score
I think that’s all for reply to your comment last week. Next I think I will comment about your review
Opinion About Your Review
– First of all good review as usual
– I knew it you gonna like this episode since I saw it before subbed or raw
– Anyway, congratulations Seiji, since your successor is proven worthy to get baton pass from you
– If Yui is becoming PreCure in future, I think we will not surprised
– About the villain I think in the future Dyspear may revive Close
– And the Black Princess probably join as Cure Scarlet
– I mean in the future probably Dyspear will need strong commander, since her right hand is against her, even if the commander itself is proven worthless to her
– Even so, I hope Dyspear don’t forget to power up Close
– Or Cure Scarlet could be Yui or……..
– Totally new person like Ace back in Doki Doki
– If so, I hope that she was less brat than her and more willing to interact with the princesses
I think that’s all from me and sorry for wall of text
I have sent you an email back about taking over the posting since there are rules in the community established around it that you should be aware of.
Please refer to email to get back to me ASAP.
I’m hoping the Dark Princess won’t join the party, that would take away the fun and I really didn’t like how Cure Scarlet joined so late into the game (it didn’t help that I found her character annoying :\ )
Looks like your hobby is mixing up name,ehXD. Anyway, I think you refer to Cure Ace, and for my impression about her
My Impression of Cure Ace
– Apparent, this is the one that Cause Doki Doki to be ruined for some people
– I also agree with them
– Let us list all of her sins, shall we?
– First she takes Mana transformation brooch
– Second, she said Makoto song suck
– Third, she told Rikka to defeat one amnesia enemy. Ira
– Maybe she will be less annoying if she was not have the appearance of the child, but…
– Some certain spoiler is making her look hypocrite, especially about when Marie Ange encourage Makoto.(Hint: The spoiler is have some connection with Marie Ange)
– Anyway, I’m kinda interested to see the development of this series
That’s all from me and sorry once again for posting so quickly in Live Journal
It’s the Name Error Curse that carries over from Happiness Charge. For weeks I kept on misspelling Iona’s name. Anyone who had followed my coverage of HCP are probably not surprised to see me mixing up the two names.
It’s no problem, we’re all good 🙂
I’m curious Eva, have you watched Heartcatch Precure? Because Cure Moonlight joined the team in that series even later than Cure Ace joined the Cures in DokiDoki, however people almost universally adore Moonlight even more than they actively dislike Ace. I believe one of the most important distinctions, and what will make or break a late-arrival-Cure, whether they’re a rescue from the villains or a hidden hero or just gained their powers late or whatever, is how well the show integrated them into the plot and foreshadowed their joining beforehand. Ace rubs most of us the wrong way because she literally came out of nowhere: she had never once appeared in the series, and when we found out who her civilian form was it was a person who ALSO had never once appeared in the series. She had the markings of a mid-season Deus-ex-Machina: “Crud, Regina’s going to kill them and there’s no way to give them a new powerup right now, how do we keep the main characters alive?” “I know! Let’s write in a new Precure who saves them!” “… But we don’t have any characters who could possibly be a Precure.” “Doesn’t matter, just make a new one. People love new Precures!”
Moonlight, in the other hand, had been a part of Heartcatch since episode 1, and remained closely entwined with the plot, and her ongoing despair and loss of her powers seemed clearly set up for her to be motivated at one point to take up arms again and rejoin everyone (and it was awesomely badass).
So… um… what I’m trying to say with all that is that the Dark Princess could join the team here, and it could work, but how they make use of her prior to that is crucial to MAKING it work.
I have watched Heartcatch Precure, it’s one of my favorites to date but it’s been a while so I only recall to the latest similarity I can think of. I absolutely agree, it’s all about the execution. Foreshadowing helps immensely and I know a lot more people would prefer to look back for the Easter eggs rather than the out of the blue here’s a new team-mate! Yeah Ace was just a brat right from the get go, and it certainly didn’t help that she was younger than them UGH and acting all arrogant and crap. I couldn’t care less about her having “more experience”. She’s one of the reasons why I didn’t enjoy Doki Doki Precure.
Yui’s a bad-ass (despite not having physical combat or special powers) to the point that give encouragement to Flora who is already about to give up but nope. My fellow comrade from another Pretty Cure community page said that she’s reminds of a female Seiji although these two helpers already met their respective leaders in different times – Seiji has been with Lovely ever since kids while Yui has just met Flora upon entering the Noble Gakuen, which is true though. Her meeting with Kanata seems very interesting to the fact that she’s Haru-Haru’s friend yet I’d like to see them meet in person (again) in the coming episodes. The part when Puff and Aroma spoke in front of Yui sounds very funny, but it turns that she’s gonna help the sibling mascots via the power of dreams… By contacting Kanata in the Lesson Pad.
Come to think that Yui’s also the one who saved Flora from certain death in which proved that she’s faced between her own conscience and caring for just a superheroine like Haru-Haru! I’m really admired, happy and inspired about Yui’s bravery and courage in her own way in spite of just being a normal, ordinary gal from Earth who’s caught on the crossfire without any notice; then how she did the channeling with Kanata to send out the Crystal Princess Rods in a nick of time against Super Close (that’s a damn upgrade name). And oh, turning into a crows seems legit about his pun! Close’s upgrade for is me a combination of the ones from Regina and Mirage (the wings) with touches of Noise (the crow form). With these 2 intense episodes, I now officially added Yui to my cosplans for this year to an intense level (of course, time to get a new job in order to do her spring school uniform, wig etc). I’m not too surprise about the rods were actually part of the Hope Kingdom’s heirloom, but nevertheless let’s just wait for that. Man, the rods are pretty awesome and the first group finisher that is Trinity Lumiere was, as always, full of elegance! >_<
Now speaking of the black princess, her name is Twilight and she'll be appeared a week after the donuts battle ep. My body's ready to witness that and I think she's gonna put Flora to a tougher test since she's connecting much to Dyspear. Hmm, if ever happens that'd be a possibility that Twilight might be Scarlet and be the third Cure formerly a bad guy after Passion and Beat. That's just my guess though I also put Yui into this, but nah ain't think she would be do so. RIP Close (for now), you'll be missed for good unless revived just before this season ends.
Heheheh Yui officially has her own fanclub XD It was so cool to see her be so courageous. = v = You go girl!
Oh so her name is Twilight, nice. I’m surprised to hear she is going to appear so soon, but I’m really excited for it! 😀 BRING ON OUR TWILIGHT PRINCESS!
Yeah! And oh, I was laughed about Close stating about Flora’s name. He’s one hell of a heavy rocker.
Is it just me, or did Cure Blossom look a little sad when Close was defeated (permanently?).
I dunno, maybe I just feel a little sorry for the guy. Man, he worked so hard, and it was a little fun watching his reaction upon losing.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. We’ll miss you Close. TT v TT
Yeah I thought she looked sad too. 🙁 Close was a likeable villain because of the effort he put into it XD (if that makes any sense LOL)
This is a wonderful review as always- I read them every week but I usually don’t comment because all I have to say has already been said. Anyways I absolutely adored this episode. One of the reasons was Yui’s bravery but also the fact that the precures were consistently being put to the test and having to find other ways around the situation. Honestly, as much as Yui is probably going to be the next ‘Precure helper’, I hope she is something more yhan that. I think being the princess villian would be too obvious but entirely possible… What I’m hoping for is that Yui will be taken by one of the three musketeers (or something) without the precures knowledge, so they find out Yui is missing and have no idea where she is. It would be even better if Yui had a fight with Haruka or something before she got taken. Anyways, so after she’s taken and the precures have no clue where she is, she is brainwashed or something else and becomes the dark princess ‘Twilight’. Again since the precure do not know this is Yui they assume it’s a new enemy, and later on it is revealed to them that it was Yui the whole time… Now, that would be a great twist! And if they had that twist then I would probably not find the villian thing as cliche as it usually is. Unfortunately, this will probably not happen, but it’s still an idea.