Healin’ Good Precure Episode 40

PSA: My Saturday entries are going to come out late this week because we just had a nasty snowstorm that caused a lot of damage. I already lost power two times, the first time was for the whole day, and the second time was while I was writing up this entry- I’m really lucky I didn’t lose my progress and that it came back on shortly after. So as long as I have power, I’ll get SK8 the Infinity Ep 2 entry out later today (Sunday), and Heartcatch Precure will be released on Monday/Tuesday, varying on which day I have time to do it. Thanks for understanding!

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Oh goodie, this episode sure made up for last week’s lackluster showing! It was very satisfying to see Guaiwaru successfully pull off a ploy he had crafted all on his own for an exchange. He cleverly lured the girls into their territory where they (initially) didn’t know how to get out. He then had them “defeat” the King on his behalf, absorbed multiple Mega Parts fragments, and thanks to that he was finally able to 1 V 5 the girls. It is an understatement to say he desperately needed that tremendous power boost because boy his fights have been sorely disappointing up until now.

But as expected, nobody cares for Guaiwaru being the new King. Shindoine was particularly ticked off when Daruizen confirmed her fears that the Pathogerm King’s presence had disappeared. Though it was pretty funny how she roasted Guaiwaru for his new gaudy new outfit and refused to give him her support. She refuses to believe that her beloved King was defeated, so she has gone off to search for him. (And that will surely give her some loyalty points.)

Daruizen on the other-hand, as expected couldn’t care less about this new development. He was never loyal to the original King to begin with, so he doesn’t care who has the title does so as long as he has the freedom to do what he wants. He certainly was quick to take advantage of those liberties the moment Guaiwaru left to the Human World. It was quite fun to see him show a more mischievous and I dare say, playful side of him. While he could have easily gone all out as he had done against the girls before, instead he chose to actively try provoking Nodoka into fighting him, and he did that by interfering with their attempts of creating a portal to escape through. He was totally toying around with them.

But curiously, after he succeeded preventing Nodoka from getting out with her friends by attacking the portal, he didn’t do it the second time when it re-opened, and he tried to catch her instead. It was interesting to see him look at his hand afterwards, so much so I wished we had been able to see his face too so I could have better idea what’s going through his mind right now!

Needless to say, it won’t be long before Daruizen is hot on her heels. The preview for next week shows us he will be continuing his game of being a nuisance. His “playful” chase will likely prove to be a headache for Nodoka as she tries to heal the town because boy, their got a lot of work cut out for them. And Daruizen won’t be the only one they will have to deal with, but Guaiwaru too since he is excited to test out his new powers. Perhaps this might be the cue for the much needed back-up of the veterans Healing Animals.

Either way, the girls got their work cut out for them. At least 1/3 of the town has been undermined, and there’s lot of monsters to deal with. It appears Guaiwaru has chosen to prioritized corrupting the elements rather than taking advantage of producing Giga-Pathogerms, which we all know have proven to be more powerful. However we have also yet to see whether there will be any consequences of absorbing as many fragments as he did, so it could be he is just trying to focus on getting as much damage done as quickly as he can. After-all, the more time the corruption is left untouched, the more difficult it is for the precures to purify it.

But now that we have finally gotten to see Guaiwaru shine in this manner, man I really would like to see Shindoine have the opportunity to do the same. I have said it before, but it is frustrating to see how much they have undermined her character. After seeing what Guaiwaru is capable of when he puts his mind to it, if they were to make Shindoine sacrifice herself for the sake of helping the King complete his revival…. I don’t know. Honestly, while it is something I have long suspected might happen, I’m not sure how I would feel about the whole thing. Anyhow, it might not happen, so she might still have the opportunity to do something more. And who knows, maybe she will decide to absorb a bunch of fragments too.

And of course we definitely need to touch on Hinata. She had a rough time this week with having to face the consequences of one of her greatest flaws. My heart ached for her when she had her breakdown, but thanks to Nyatoran’s and her friends support, she was able to overcome it. And much to my surprise, while Chiyu and Nodoka who were taken out of the fight early on, it was Hinata held up much better than expected. She had some sweet recovery moves and thanks to her determination and desperate attacks, her failure actually led to their breakthrough of getting out of there.

And finally, before I wrap things up: I am so glad they showed us that the true King will be showing himself in some form or another in next week’s episode. If anything, I suspect it will probably mark as the cliffhanger. Given his curious form, I am left with the impression they might have managed to weaken him to some extent, such as perhaps tampering with the completion of his presumably new physical body. We will have to wait until next week, or maybe even the week after before we know for sure!