This week we witness Takumi receiving a confession from a girl named Tomoe. Hilariously both the confession and later the (polite) rejection was watched by the gang. While everyone else was swooning about the whole thing, it seemed to have just flown right over Yui’s head, which comes as no surprise.
Unfortunately for Takumi, because everyone witnessed the entire thing, it completely derailed his plans of confronting Mari, who instead dived straight into the subject of romance! I burst out laughing with how he wanted to know all the details about Takumi’s feelings for Yui, which really put in a panic mode since he’s so flustered about it. We did see though that when Mari had mentioned Yui witnessed the confession, there was a part of Takumi had that had hope that maybe Yui had shown signs of jealousy or uncertainty. Unfortunately for him, when it comes to his feelings, she is as dense as a rock about it.
But thanks to finally having the opportunity to talk with Mari, Takumi now knows that he isn’t a bad person. With that concern addressed, now it just leaves him to trying to sort out how he wants to go about using the Delicioustone. He knows he needs to be responsible with it, but at the same time, he wants to help Yui with her mission as a Precure, while at the same time protecting her when she needs it. And chances are, that’s probably why the Delicioustone chose him in the first place, because he’s meant to be involved in this battle.
I definitely felt like we saw why that is today when Narcistoru has proven to be a tough opponent. For the second time, the team found themselves in a pickle where unexpected back-up bailed them out of a bad situation. Going forward, Takumi’s role of watching their backs will likely prove to be instrumental as Narcistoru has quickly recognized that Mari is unable to fight, so that makes him an easy target to pick on. This will force the girls to have to be mindful of him and give him cover. Though now that I think about it, I have to laugh a bit that he went in to protect Yui, but he might find himself having to protecting Mari more so than Yui, hahahaha!
While we didn’t get to learn a whole lot more about Takumi’s new powers, the one thing we did get out of it was that those who possess the Delicioustone seem to become a ‘Food Fighter’. And what made this detail even more interesting was that Mari had recognized the outfit that was worn by a person named Cinnamon. This leads me to believe that perhaps Cinnamon may in fact Takumi’s father, which would further explain why Mari felt like he had met Takumi before.
In the end, Takumi has decided to keep his identity a secret from the others for the time being. I thought it was super cute that he decided to call himself Black Pepper (since he really loves pepper on his food). Actually a part of me wonders if one of the reasons why he decided to keep it a secret is because he’s just too shy and embarrassed about everyone seeing him in that outfit hahaha, after-all he did express some reservations about it, but I digress. (He’s so cute!)
Overall, this was a fun episode! However I honestly wasn’t a fan how the first eight minutes (minus the opening) was dedicated to just serving as a non-stop product placement of the Sweet Crystal Candy. Obviously they tried to tie it in together with Takumi’s feelings for Yui and Tomoe’s confession to him with the whole explanation of it ‘invoking the feeling of one’s first love’. They even had the Bundoru Gang have a moment themselves, though I did crack up when Narcistoru called Secretoru out on her BS about being a ‘poison tester’ for it. Like we get it, the candy is yummy, it reminds one of their first love, you don’t need to shove it in our faces for the entire first half of the episode, just move along now, lets get back to the plot now shall we?
Next time, it looks like were are entering the ‘slow-phase’ again, which means not too much will probably be going on. I do wonder if we will be seeing the gang constantly check in on Amane’s condition every week going forward until she’s finally back in the picture. I suppose if they end up doing that, it’s for the sake of making sure the audience doesn’t forget about her.
