This week’s episode was so beautiful, and yet at the same time, so frustrating to watch. I kept on waiting and waiting, and waiting, but damn it all, they stubbornly REFUSED to give us any details about Hana’s future, and her future relationship with George. (As for Hugtan, I mean it’s obvious at this point, the intro before the episode and the preview more or less confirmed it, Hana is definitely Hugtan’s mother.)
However as much as it pains me, to some extent I can imagine why they chose not to. After-all, the golden rule of time traveling: One cannot carelessly reveal details of the future, or else there may be repercussions. This was probably the unspoken rule they decided to follow, especially since we now know that both George and Dr. Traum (in particular) already exist in the present timeline, which means, the future Harry spoke of is not as far off as the girls think.
Luckily for us, it seems all of that and more will be the focus in next week’s finale, and for the sake of all of our sanity, they better give us at least HALF AN EPISODE (or more) of the girls in the future! I desperately want to know what is Hana’s and George’s relationship is, especially now that we actually saw what appeared to be a more youthful version of himself in the present timeline. With that in mind, it begs the question: How large is the age-gap between them anyways?!? (Not that I really care once she’s an adult…. Unless the guy is immortal. I mean Dr. Traum described him as an “Observer” soooo…. maybe he is? They never really explained much about him, so I hope we will get some answers about that next week.)
The beginning of the episode was absolutely solid, and is hands down my favourite part. That was when they discussed the theme of the series, how life isn’t sunshine and rainbows. We won’t always be happy, there will be time where we will struggle, and lose we lose our way, but despite whatever hardships or ordeals we face, as long as we don’t give up (especially on ourselves), we will still be able to find happiness in the future.
It was also the epic, because even though Hana didn’t get a new form like most heroines do (and I doubt we will see it next week since the fight is over), she was still a badass (did you see the way she OBLITERATED George’s book?), and we got to see everyone in town become precures instead, and united, they were able to defeat George’s berserk state, which was pretty awesome when you take into consideration the meaning how everyone is capable of becoming a precure.
However despite the cool set up, the second phase (mid-episode) of boss fight itself was terribly underwhelming. The reason for that was because I felt they were going in circles, repeating more or less same points they had already mentioned in the beginning. It was a clash of two different ideals, where neither one of them refused to budge for quite some time.
This problem with repetition could have possibly been avoided had they allowed George to explain why his time has stopped, and more about why he so desperately wanted an eternal world with Hana (besides the fact the future hurts her and Humanity drives itself into ruins). And where much of my disappointment lies. Usually in these final fights, we get an answer behind the final boss’ motives. But instead we were only given more cryptic conversations that didn’t do anything to reveal anything, but continued to hint that Hana and George will or at least had a special bond in the future. In fact, I was genuinely surprised that Hana never actually asked him why time had stopped for him. It’s such an important question, yet it was never asked. The only question she did ask was why was he afraid of the future, but he didn’t answer, instead responded with, “it seems you and I are not destined to understand each other.” which is another curious statement to make, and makes me wonder more about the circumstances of their fate.
Was it the most memorable boss fight I have seen in a precure series?
No, not even close, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad one!
Once the fight was over was when I felt more emotionally invested again. Although, I have to admit, while I did feel a bit awkward watching Hana take George’s hand and hug him, I still enjoyed the final scene between them. It was so sweet and made me emotional (especially when he cried). It also made me think how despite the fact Hana has been incredibly oblivious to love, somewhere deep in her heart, she seems to understand they are connected in a special way. (And there is no doubt the dream they shared re-enforced such feelings). That’s why she points out his contradiction, how even though he doesn’t believe in the future, he always tells her, “until next time”. And it is also this scene we got to see the softest and calmest we have seen George seen since he had given her his handkerchief, which she ironically returned today.
And this is why I really hope with the time jump, we will get the chance to get a better understanding of the depth of George’s feelings and where it stems from, and clarify what kind of relationship he has with Hana. In fact, this now my biggest concern going into the finale, because I know it’s going to drive me bonkers if they leave us hanging with a bloody open-ending!
Next week is the final episode. It’s incredible how not long ago I didn’t think I was going to make it, yet here I am, we can see the finish line. Hopefully they will treat us with the answers and backstory we really want to see.
Now when I have time later on, I’m going to go back and look for every single George-Hana moments from episode 8.
But in short summary, Hugtto:
1. suffered from lack of characterization
2. poor timing and pacing with extensive filler episodes that should have been used on the original trio instead
3. Emiru (she could have easily been replaced by Hana, Saya, or Homare but she and Lulu in the end feel too distant)
4. executives’ weird obsession with keeping 5 precures a frequently as possible and staying away from the #3 or #4
5. poor execution and terribly weak background story of villains excluding George
6. villains never felt like a serious threat.
It is indeed hard to meet Go Princess Precure’s bar…. I haven’t been able to connect with any of the characters after Go!Pri series and Saya and Homare can’t connect with the audience AT ALL as their screen time were robbed, and Dyspear was an excellent villain, th sense of urgency legit and real.
Honestly this season’s issues feel like a version of issues of Vrains and Arc-V married together but toned down to not make the result a complete catastrophe.
Yup that’s exactly how I feel! I don’t want to keep drawing comparisons, but I’m glad I’m not the only who couldn’t help but notice how many problems they share, so much so it was a deja vu. I’m going to be elaborating a lot more about it in the final post next week, but everything you got listed is pretty much on the list. It’s a real shame too, I don’t know how the finale is going to do it, but this is feeling like another untapped potential that could have played out better had they been more efficient with the time and not juggle with so many ideas all at once.
I think I’ll lower my expectations in the future for any anniversary shows….It’s nice to celebrate the strength and history of franchises, but if the show’s going to be special, either keep the homages in a movie, limit their influence on the incumbent plot, make an original specialty, or just downright forget about doing memory trips down the lane.
There’s always new fans brought by new series, not brought by original series.
Now hold on there people that are trolling this episode and or saying negatives, or how pointless it isand “BOO’s” to it. I thought this episode was pretty good it by far it has my approval standing up there next to Hugtto episodes 36 and 37. Since I barely watched much the series of this season excluding clips that I liked and watched youtube I must say credit is due for this episode.
I especially loved the fight scenes with George and Hana/Cure yell along with the entire town of Hagukumi City the citizens along with the ex- employees from Criasu Corporation sadly excluding harry, Listol and Bishin becoming pretty cures temporarily. What really made tears in my eyes was how they were included group attack ‘Tomorrow With Everyone!’ which really lived more to its name in this episode then it did when it first was shown in episode 39.
If you ask me Tomorrow with Everyone in episode 48 was the shown at its true fullest and lived up to it’s name and title. Wouldn’t many agree with me?
Also out of all of the boss villains and sub villains/subordinates that were shown. George Kurai was the least aggressive when it came to fighting he relied on his book to restrain the cures and dominate the future and to do all of his operations with it. He never really fought the cures as his evil predecessors did when they PHYSICALLY stepped in. The same can be said at least for the ex-employees of George/Dark Tomorrow Company if you exclude Daigain, Listol and Bishin they mostly had to fight the cures as Oshimaida’s then with their human forms. Plus George’s intension despite being a selfish one for his own benefit in many ways was somewhat different compared to past pretty cure villains goals.
George’s intensions were at least in his POV are good ones for happiness of others despite them being twisted and delusional. Most of the evil Pretty predecessors before him either wanted to cover the universe in darkness, having everyone be in despair or lose hope, include all negatives or cover earth in doom or destroy it. Compared with that George’s was way different. Something nice for a change in evil scheming if you ask me.
Also the ex-employees of Dark tomorrow company they show the most reformations when they got purified and help the most to pay back the cures at the end of the episode along with making better friendships and bonding after they saw the errors of their ways. I say this for most of them. The only other villains that can maybe rank up to them are in my POV their Fresh pretty cure predecessors of Eas, Westar and Souler and Siren from Suite pretty cure when it comes to helping the cures after they got betrayed/used ect by their leader. This my opinion so there might be many that might not agree but out of all the reformed villains that help the cures in the past series, the Dark tomorrow company ex-employees stood out the most at moving on from their evil ways next to fallowing I said above.
Yup that’s exactly how I feel! I don’t want to keep drawing comparisons to the two shows, but they share a lot of similar problems. I’m going to be elaborating a lot more about in the final post next week.
eva from the poster you showed few weeks back of star twinkle precure during one of you hugtto precure is cure milkey colur is blue or is it teal which is mix of blue and green?
This episode made me cry 2 times lol XD
I was wondering about George and Hana backstory, but I’m sure we will se that in ep 49.
Hugtto does have problems, but it was a way better season than Mahou and Kirakira. Still not topping GoPrincess, but still a memorable season.