WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!?!?!?! HOLY SMOKES, THAT GOT DARK REAL FAST.
Honestly I wasn’t sure what to make out of this episode. While I understood it’s intentions, I still felt like there was something missing. The conflict between Aki and Juanna just wasn’t doing it for me. I couldn’t find it in me to care about it that much. And because of that, it didn’t take me long to realize what was keeping me engaged with the episode was the radical change of the art-style.
Up until this point, Huggto Precure has been more or less filled with fluff, vibrant colors and rainbows. But then this episode comes along, and the art-style just sets a whole different tone. Most noticeably they played a lot with the use of shadows, over-exposure, and there were moments of symbolism where Lulu who was standing in the light, stepped into the darkness that was closing in to her, and from the darkness into the light again. Both moments were followed by a certain course of action based on the step she took. The first one was stealing Homare’s Pre-Heart, the second time was the opposite, when she returned the stolen item, and saved Hana’s life from Pupple’s attack.
That alone flipped the series on its head. I don’t think any of us expected this show to make such a dark turn this early on. You want scary villains? Well Pupple is the one for you. She is not here to mess around, and she is not about to let someone interfere with her plans, let alone help the Precures without a harsh punishment. She is straight up nasty. She virtually killed Lulu. The way her body collapsed was pretty horrific. If I were still a little kid, that would have scared the crap out of me to the point I would have started bawling. But this attack more or less confirmed Lulu is at least to some extent a robot, or at least perhaps better described to have been transformed into a cyborg.
And now Pupple is taking Lulu back with her to reprogram her and more or less do what she did with Charaleet. This woman looks for the weaklings and then abuses them. It actually makes me wonder just how powerful she actually in this organization. It also makes me curious as to what is her relationship with George, the mysterious man who could be described as a bard with his ambiguous words he shares with Hana. I don’t know what is going to become of Lulu, but yikes, next week’s title is pretty ominous, “The Noise of Sadness, Farewell Lulu”. You’d think they would probably save her, and she will be able to eventually become a precure as well, but eek… maybe not?
Other than that, it is hard to ignore the fact Homare is definitely developing feelings for Harry. Lulu commenting about her heart-rate seemed to sink in what was happening to her, and when she realized that, Homare became incredibly flustered. I wonder what will become of her feelings. Poor girl might be in store for some heartbreak in the future.
FUN FACT: The rhododendron flowers’ carries a meaning to beware and exercise caution.
Y’know what would’ve made that last scene better?
If right after Lulu pushes Yell out the way and gets blasted, right before she “shuts off,” she croaks out something along the lines of “Why did I do that…?” Because I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s kinda been her catchphrase lately. Ever since her little investigation started, she’s been repeatedly doing thing that she herself admits would otherwise never do and doesn’t understand why. She could’ve said that she did these things on a whim, but she didn’t. She could’ve said it was all to keep her cover, but she didn’t. Hell, she could’ve assumed she was just malfunctioning and should probably head back to Crias for examination, SHE NEVER ONCE CONSIDERS IT.
Frankly, I’m just waiting for the moment this all comes to a head and she going nuts over the faults in her programming and… I don’t know, tries to kill herself because she’s concluded herself to be “beyond repair”? Granted, probably too dark for Precure to have an on-screen attempted suicide, but I”m anticipating this pay-off all the same.
yes there is limit to how dark precure season can be
Oh I absolutely agree! I am surprised they didn’t do that, but we did see her mouth something, so I wonder what she was going to say since I doubt she was questioning herself in the moment.
It only took a few failures for Charleet to be thrown on the chopping block, but that witch gets to keep getting extra chances? And now this… Someone had better beat her face in for this! The standard purify/redemption approach Precure often takes with its mini-bosses is too good for her.
Favouritism perhaps? I don’t know, but she seems to have connections to prevent her failures from being a liability. Not to mention she was allowed to slack off for a period of time. That’s why I am wondering about how much power she has in the organization. For her to be able to do the things she want to do, she is appears to at least have higher authority than Lulu and Charleet.
She’s only a second/third villain to appear and attack Cures. Later villains are stronger. I wonder if Purple’s such a strong b*tch, then what are other villains like? Even worse?
Well to some extent she is certainly setting the bar. If anyone else who follows her is “weaker” than her, that’s not going to look very good. It will be very interesting to see how much darker they can be, and how far is the series willing to explore that darkness.
well the what importand is that they wont go too dark since there has to be limit in precure
Harry x homare