For those who loved Twilight as a villain, you could say it was a bittersweet day for us. Twilight is no more and Princess Towa is back with her memories and saved- at the cost of her brother Kanata sacrificing himself in order to prevent Dyspear from following them back into their the girls’ origin world.
Considering the circumstances and the stage we are at now, I would say what had happened during the battle and the outcome was fair enough. Dyspear’s buff up was powerful, at the cost of the power progressing to consume her. She outright said she was ready to cast Twilight/Towa aside because she failed her tasks and was no longer a useful tool. It took many special attacks and holding out on Trinity Explosion simply to buy enough time for Kanata to be able to play the violin (upon his own choosing) in hopes of unlocking Towa’s heart and memories. The reason why he did so in the first place was thanks to Haruka’s thoughts on how there is still hope to get her memories back, regardless of lacking twelve keys. Haruka’s hope was based on how Twilight/Towa inspired her to pick up the violin, her sound was so beautiful, it convinced her that was one of her ways of subconsciously channeling out her true emotions. And when you think about it, it’s true. Dyspear wiped out every little bit of her identity, but her heart couldn’t be fully erased. Her love for the violin persisted even in her new form, and that itself was the key to freeing her dreams from Dyspear’s clutches.
So what happened to little!Towa was Dyspear sensed her insecurity and exploited it. At first Towa didn’t trust Dyspear because she was scary, but Dyspear managed to persuade her by claiming she can help make her dream come true. Towa who was frustrated at her progress and was losing hope in herself to become the Grand Princess then decided she would take up the offer and went to Dyspear side. As result of being the people’s hope the kingdom fell into despair which provided Dyspear the fuel she needed to become stronger. That was supposed to be it, but then Dyspear thought it would be fun to make use of her in another way and that is how the Dark Princess Twilight was born.
With Kanata having sacrificed himself in order to protect his sister and the precure, I am hoping with all my might that they will make him into the next big bad. Actually when I think about it, I am surprised I hadn’t thought of the possibility sooner, and truthfully, I love the possibility and it would certainly fill in the opening that Twilight had left us with her awesomeness. Also, I have the mighty need for dark!Kanata. I am a total sucker to these things when a love counterpart or friend gets brainwashed/possessed into the dark-side. Certainly it is not the most original idea, but I always consider it to be the most fun and angst.
I also sense a possibility of foreshadowing with Kanata making his promise with Haruka and believing she will be able to save him if his dream and memories get locked away. Of course this could either indicate he will be simply locked away (but that wouldn’t be any fun!) or Dyspear chooses to make use of him like she did with Towa.
Now if Dyspear chooses to use Kanata, I wonder what kind of touch ups she would do to make sure the same mistake does not happen again. Erasing the memories, heart and dreams weren’t enough, so what else could she do to make it more difficult for the Precures? Twilight already had a very strong personality, but as soon as the Precure started getting the better of her, she started losing confidence in herself as well as her emotions.
Next week! It looks like Towa will be experiencing post-trauma stress disorder. I love that they are doing this because gosh, it would be weird if she didn’t. In order to overcome her trauma and guilt from what she had done as Twilight, appears she will be debuting as Cure Scarlet next week. The only thing is… *cringe* the Cure Scarlet design… I will wait until I get a better picture of it next week, but I can’t say the preview it is leaving me with a good impression- at all.
Eva, this episode is great and have some surprises.
Cure Flora surprised me again as the warrior of hope and dreams, Prince Kanata sure must feel lucky that he found the right girl to be a precure. 🙂
At that part, when Queen Dyspear told the whole truth to the team of why she took Towa and what happens next for her failures, I said “You monster” and I growled. But in the end, I’m so glad to see that Cure Flora and her friends saved the corrupted Princess of Hope Kingdom. I really like Flora fighting and talking beautifully with Twilight (for a brief of time) and Kanata playing the violin to awaken Towa’s memories and dreams.
Still… I thought Kanata would escape with them, but he acted very brave and right to stay behind and destroy that gate to prevent hope of being destroyed. Let’s see in the next episodes what happened with him or what that terrible queen did to him. And you do have a point, Eva, Queen Dyspear must’ve realized that erasing Towa’s memories and dreams wasn’t enough, so she’ll probably learn form this mistake and try something even worse after this episode. Can’t wait to see next episode to come! Towa is going to have some struggle with her dark actions as a Twilight but I believe she’ll get over it! If Setsuna and Ellen could make it through, Towa will as well! And yet, she’s going to have new wonderful friends! 😀
Thanks for this post, we were waiting for this episode for so long. 🙂
PS: So sorry for the first incomplete comment, I pressed some wrong buttons and send it! But this here is the complete and fixed comment for this episode! And thanks again!
Having Dyspear learn her mistake/loopholes in her magic offers an opportunity to make her an even greater threat. I loved how they didn’t make her appear not as powerful because somethings the head villains can be written off like that. By forcing the Precure to retreat immediately emphasized how dangerous she is. Whatever she chooses to do next with Kanata could possibly show us the Towa brainwash strategy required no effort required to be done. It would be very exciting to see just how truly powerful Dyspear is, and what other cards she has up her sleeve to make her an even greater threat than she already was. It would also be awesome to see them continue the pattern they have been doing this season, where the villains learn from their mistakes and look for new, innovative ways to counter the Precures and their power ups!
I do look forward to Towa struggling, I want to see it- but we will have to see how far they are willing to go with that. Post-Traumatic stress is a step in the right direction, but it’s a matter of how their will utilize that. It would be great if they can have a somewhat realistic healing progression because this show is aimed for children, and it would be good for them to see a Precure overcome this struggle and come out stronger by the end of it.
And no problem 🙂 You made it an easy fix!
I agree with you, Eva. We shall see how it goes for Towa.
And reading your reply reminds me of Joker, a cunning and terrible villain from Smile Precure. And yet, he was watching carefully the precure’s weak points and learned every mistake he did. He almost won the Bad End and almost defeated the legendary warriors in some episodes. When I watched that season, he proved to be worse and more dangerous than I’ve imagined. Perhaps the Queen Dyspear will act in the similar way to Joker’s actions.
And I’m glad that I could fix the comment properly, Eva. Thanks! 🙂
So, how will this play out? I kind of hope it will go more along the lines of Setsuna than Ellen (which is odd to say, because I like Suite better than I like Fresh, but…). Siren/Ellen’s redemption ahd clearly been modeled to mirror Eas/Setsuna’s, however in my opinion, Setsuna was developed far better. Both with the amount of time she’d spent masquerading as a friend to the heroes beforehand and growing to truly care for them (not an issue in this case), and in how much her actions while she was evil continued to affect her afterwards, in terms of guilt and long-term trauma. Frankly, Ellen got over her guilt rather quickly, and it never resurfaced even on occasions when it would have made sense for it to do so: like when the girls went to meet the queen who Siren had personally betrayed, or when they learned who Ako really was. It’s not that I wanted her to be gloomy all the time, but I just felt that she truly and completely got over it all too quick, and that her depth of character suffered as a result.
I hope Towa is handled better than that. I dont’ want her to be traumatized all the time or anything like that, but what happened to her is also not something that should be brushed off with merely an episode or two and an aesop. It should have permanent effects on her personality.
Agree, it should definitely have permanent effects on her personality. That’s why as I mentioned in the comment above: It would be great if they can have a somewhat realistic healing progression because this show is aimed for children, and it would be good for them to see a Precure overcome this struggle and come out stronger by the end of it.
I agree, being the youngest Pretty Cure leader has some fresh yet toooooooooooooooooooo amazing moves and fantastic styles at her own pace, the same goes with Mermaid and Twinkle. And gosh, more HaruTa moments in this episode but that damn Dyspear ruined the momentum… Again, ugh! ;_; So I’m STILL shipping for ’em and I don’t really care if Kanata was already brainwashed. >_<
Anyways, the fight between the Princess Cures, particularly Flora, and Towa aka "Princess Wars 2" is too damn epic and I already enlisted in my top yet brutal-ish Pretty Cure fights I've ever watched. And it looks like my kokoro was once again gone doki doki and kyun kyun whenever I hear some words of encouragement and hope coming from our flawless Cure leader on Towa about dreams and hope still exist, which is very true. That first meeting… That first meeting between the two has yet to be the best moment which at first the violin tune Towa was playing can lock one's heart, but it turned out to be the lost melody of hope. The terrible flashback on Towa's bad fate really angered into my nerves when Dyspear told the truth to Haru-Haru and co on how the heck the poor li'l princess of the Hope Kingdom took and got brainwashed by her in which the root of all of those messes was her dream of becoming a Grand Princess, and I said (forgive me if I'm going to use my native language), "Hayop ka, Dyspear!" and I've been using too much ughs and dammits while I watching and hearing every single time the wicked witch had said. Then I felt sorry for Kanata that he was his fault, but Flora shook her head and she's gonna give some more to save Towa.
OUR SHIP STILL SAILS ON!!!!!!!! Now i have the mighty need for dark!kanata and a super angst fight where only the chosen grand princess can save him because I am addicted to that tv-trope. I seriously can’t get enough of it. It’s that classic things in magical girls
romance, and I freaking love it to death. I shouldn’t get my hopes up though… My biased shipper heart is on the wheel!What I’m looking forward for Scarlet is her henshin, her standard Elegant form, her weapon (Scarlet Violin) and her maiden fight. After more than 2 months and it looks like I was right… Towa IS REALLY Scarlet, damn!
Speaking of Kanata if brainwashed then that’s the time for Flora and Scarlet to face him, maybe before the season finale I guess.
Wow! That’s one good possibility and a good guess too, Keiko. That would be great to watch Flora and Scarlet fighting together to save the corrupted or brainwashed prince of Hope Kingdom. 🙂
Yeah that’s what I have in mind, more towards the finale semi-final boss battle. And considering we are almost half way through the series, it makes the most sense as well.
:O Her weapon will be her violin?! Now that’s pretty awesome!
Oh yeah, the upcoming GPPC movie has been announced and it’s also gonna be the first split-part movie in the Cure Series franchise!
Entitled Go! Go! Gouka Sanbon Date!! (Splendid Triple Feature), the movie will be divided into three:
*Pumpkin Ōkoku no Takaramono (Treasure in the Pumpkin Kingdom) – a cel-style anime in which the Cures set off to rescue a kidnapped princess.
*Pretty Cure to Lefy no Wonder Night! (The Pretty Cures and Lefy’s Wonder Night) – a full-CG anime. In this story, the kingdom of night lost its daytime, and the Cures will fight alongside the Night Princess Lefy to take back the daytime.
*Cure Flora to Itazura Kagami (Cure Flora and the Vain Mirror) – the franchise’s first short story without dialogues. It will feature super-deformed characters (similar to the one of Show by Rock!! and SD Gundam). Flora (as a CG character) will interact with a playful spirit that dwells within a mirror.
The child stage actress Hinata Uegaki will be the guest seiyuu in the movie’s second part as Lefy and she’ll be sang within it in her voice acting debut.
I don’t really get what’s so awful about the Cure Scarlet design. Everyone on Tumblr has been complaining about it too and I gotta be honest, after reading the complaints on tumblr for the past week (since the designs leaked out a week or so before the episode came out), it gets a bit annoying….
Honestly, compared to the poor designs in Doki Doki and Happiness Charge outfits that ruined the culture feel of the international cures with those dang black vests and corsets, Scarlet’s design is not bad to me. I rather they try to make the design different (even if a bit odd) then use the same old stick over and over. But then again, I adore Shut as a character and his design might be over the top for a lot of people, which goes to show
Not to mention, “Black Princess” that design is horrid! She dress went from a nice detailed dress to a darker,duller version of it and WTF happened to her hair!? The mask is all bug eyed (which is no surprise because Towa’s voice actress was the voice for a bug monster in one of the Japanese Power Ranger series) and it just…YICK! I get wanting to look evil, but even Dyspear can succeed (And shoot regular Twilight was awesome enough) at being evil looking, without going all Power Ranger Monster rip off!
Back to Scarlet, her outfit is based on a Chinese Hanfu (kinda like a Chinese version of a kimono) and the Chinese legend of the phoenix so that’s why she has the sleeves, belt thing and the bird feathers and her element is fire so it kinda makes sense, especially when Cure Flora’s design is based on the princess story Thumbelina and Cure Mermaid’s design is based on the Little Mermaid. Both tales derived from Europe thus makes sense for their design to be based on European style dresses. The only one that doesn’t make sense is Cure Twinkle’s dress. I love Twinkle’s outfit, don’t get me wrong but her concept is based on a Chinese story so one would think her dress would be more Asian like, just like Scarlet’s. It would have been kinda cool having two European based cures and two Asian based cures.
Quite frankly I think it’s refreshing because we get to have a cure outfit not completely based on European culture. Pretty Cure doesn’t have to mean frilly lolita all the time. For me, if they had done an all European design it wouldn’t be that special and she would either too much like Cure Ace or Cure Passion. The only issue I have with it is the large skirt she has in elegant mode (You can see the official designs on the Toei Animation website) because it ruins the cultural feel of the outfit. It’s one of those big poofy skirts…
But that’s just me. As for how it all went down, I sorta had wished they had waited a few more episodes before saving her. I think they rushed just like with Close’s death. It wasn’t even built up too well…A̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶I̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶t̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶S̶h̶u̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶T̶o̶w̶a̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶.̶ ̶O̶n̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶’̶s̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶e̶r̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶”̶O̶h̶.̶.̶.̶.̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶e̶d̶.̶.̶.̶”̶.̶G̶u̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶f̶a̶n̶f̶i̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶.̶ ̶ Well we’ll just have to see what happens!
“But then again, I adore Shut as a character and his design might be over the top for a lot of people, which goes to show” I mean to finish that part with out “how I am.” As in I tend to like anything that’s real different from the norm even if it goes a little crazy. Sorry I tend to add sentences when editing and sometimes I leave off a sentence I added to fix something else. My mind has just been all over the place as of lately… -.-;;;;
I can’t say for sure whether or not I truly dislike Scarlet’s design, but the first impression of it in the preview looked to me a bit sloppy in some aspects. I did recognize the chinese characteristics, and I love they are using that as the base to finally switch things up (like you said: refreshing). I am going to wait and see until next week to find out if it’s just a bad animation frame in the preview that’s throwing most people (including myself) off (which is often the case since sometimes the final pose of the transformation isn’t always prettily done). But the one thing I am not a huge fan of is of course her huge hair, that’s the one thing that is bugging me. Love the gradient, but not how chunky they make it to be- which they clearly love doing since 90% of the precure always appears to have massive hair.
Bleh that’s too bad she ended up having a poofy skirt for her elegent mode D: Like Cure Mermaid, you don’t NEED a poofy skirt to be a princess, it’s too bad they couldn’t have been more creative with the designs. There are PLENTY of skirt options that could have made it work.
Yeah the black princess’s design was a disaster, they definitely could have spiced it up. It was so bland compared to her original dress. D: Didn’t make it exciting at all.
Agree, I was expecting it to drag out at least two episodes, so it is a shame how rushed it was- but surprisingly it didn’t both me as much as I initially thought it was going to be. I can only hope they had a legitimate reason for this “rush” to avoid wasting episode numbers they need in the future to focus on the plot. If they spend the rest of it with sunshines rainbows and friendship- not that I am saying they can’t, but filler episodes- then it would prove to have been a waste.
I’m surprised that you didn’t mention how hilarious Shut was in this episode. lol
Well, the battle wasn’t as intense as I expected but I have to say that the script writer was pretty good at this. I’m one of those who really love Twilight as a villain. But after hearing that Dyspear saw her as a useless tool and even outright told Twilight to sacrifice her life. I suddenly feel that she shouldn’t be in that side anymore. So, I did feel that this was a good development for her. With a really rude attitude like that, Dyspear is definitely the last boss of this season.
By the way, this is Scarlet full body.
http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/precure/character/curescarlett.php
LMAO Shut freaking out in front of Dyspear was indeed hilarious!
Scarlet definitely looks better in the character design sheet as oppose to the preview shot. I know how concept art and animation can differ in quality, so hopefully it will look even better once we actually see her running around in it!
Ahh! Gosh noo, Kanata!! ; – ;
Although I am super worried, I do wonder… What will Dark Kanata look like??
I honestly cant deal with a dark Kanata. It already broke my heart when it happened to Senji I don’t think my heart could handle it…