I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I thought last week’s episode was bad, but this week really frustrated me. Frankly, the execution felt like hot-mess. It came off as rushed, sloppy, and sometimes just plain lazy really. It didn’t help how they shoe-horned in, “Hey kids, time for a field trip 20 years into the past!” Um, excuse me– when was it ever made known to us that Kome-Kome was capable of time travel? Was it ever specifically mentioned? Did I forget or miss it? I recall they’ve mentioned she had special powers, though it seems it was left ambiguous on purpose to do whatever the hell the writer wants it seems. And when they brought up how it would be nice to know what happened 20 years ago, nobody ever, said: HEY DID YOU KNOW KOME-KOME CAN TIME TRAVEL, until the very start of this episode. Hell, I’m surprised that she even knows how to do it!
And to make matters worse, how conveniently they got together with their friends and relatives because Takumi’s mom was like “OH YOU’RE GINGER FRIENDS” I just—you know what, I’m not even going to get started on that, but the whole set up of “Ginger’s Farewell Party” with their family and friends felt so pointless, when the only two characters that mattered this episode were Ginger and Yone. But even then, we barely got any interaction between Yui and her grandmother. And then on top of that, there was the whole explanation as to why they could only go back to this time instead of preventing the Recipebon from being stolen with how they can’t do anything to change the past– but hey, it’s fine to interact with friends and family who just welcomed them in with open arms since they will forget everything anyways when they return! Well isn’t that convenient!
The next thing that actually annoyed me, was how lazily they introduced Ginger. They just threw him in with him looking over at Mari like “Oh it’s you.” And then proceeded to go on to say while he had heard the evidence showed that he did it was irrefutable, he too thinks Cinnamon had been framed for the theft of the Recipe-Bon. The problem however, was that all it did was confirm our suspicions of ‘okay he’s been framed’, but didn’t actually do anything to move it forward beyond that. Because he wasn’t present, nor could he tell us any of the details of the said evidence– which, could have really made this scene a lot more interesting if he had.
Anyways, so it turned out that Ginger’s big secret was setting up a Hoka-Hoka hearts accumulator in town, which is basically safety-net of a sort to protect the world from the danger in the future. They didn’t really elaborate any further than that apart from the fact it’s CooKingdom Technlogy that usually isn’t able to be used in this world. Nevertheless it was something Ginger did because he felt needed to be done, so he sought to make it happen. To ensure that nobody finds out about it, they all intended to erase it from their memories to keep it hidden. However to make it work, Kome-Kome’s predecessor ended up sacrificing herself, and when she did that’s how the Kome-Kome we know was born. But because they rushed it, I didn’t feel sad or anything for the original Kome-Kome’s sacrifice. It just kinda happened. At best, it served it’s purpose of how she died, and that Kome-Kome was born imeaditely after her death.
In other news, turns out that the only one who can fix Mari’s Delicioustone is in fact Cinnamon. But considering he’s out at seas at the moment, that might prove to be difficult unless he were to return home sooner. Otherwise this may end up being something Takumi could figure out how to do on his own. We also learned that his Delioustone possesses healing properties, which is how Mari was able to identify his connection with Cinnamon in the first place. We didn’t actually see their conversation take place beyond that though. I can only hope that Takumi’s role as Black Pepper will be outed sooner than later… I was hoping next week, but ugh… Doesn’t look like it.
As for how Takumi was handled this week. I wasn’t expecting much to begin with. It only makes sense that he got his butt kicked while fighting Secretoru’s monster on his own– not to mention, it was his first time doing so too. (But god, I wished he had the opportunity to do this much earlier on!) The only “benefit” of getting him injured as much as he did this week was that the fact his Delioustone possesses the capability to heal him made Mari realize that Black Pepper is connected to Cinnamon.
And finally, Yui and her grandmother. I don’t know about you, but man… even after this episode. I feel like the writers have been doing her dirty. Ugh. This “closure” she got to have with her grandmother, feels like it’s something that should have been nurtured more from the very beginning. It just… I don’t even know anymore honestly. I keep on waiting for her to be properly fleshed out, and– we still haven’t gotten it, and we’re 38 episodes into this! Is she ever going to finally get her chance to shine? It just feels like she’s been kicked to the curb from the very start of the series. Is this all she is going to get? I hope not, but there’s not much time left.
In the end, while we were given some answers we were looking for, the way they went about it was so poorly done, that whatever emotional impacted they wanted to have amounted to nothing. I thought this episode was a mess, and frankly I am becoming awfully pessimistic about how Delicious Party Precure is going to end…
I completely agree with you, we are 38 episodes in and I still don’t understand the conflict properly. it’s seem ridiculous that Ginger Mari and the other guy are do preoccupied with finding cinnamon to arrest him and or finding who framed him instead of you know actually retrieving the book, and there us no explanation at what will happen to the world without the recipipis I expected ginger to elaborate more instead he jumped into protecting the world with his technology even though we don’t know how the absence of recipipis and book could affect the world other than steal peoples smiles.
Kome kome ‘s sacrifice felt flat to me.
Takumi needs to reveal himself already and the only thing I am going to give credit is that Yone was teaching all these proverbs to Yui so she can remain useful abd jeep inspiring the new generation after she is gone. other than that I am disappointed with how underdeveloped our pink is its like the writers hate her fir some reason.
The writers don’t want to put any effort to the series maybe because all the resources are focused in the next one?
but all we are left is mediocrity
Sounds a bit redundant to repeat it but the hack back then along with potential newcomers at the staff departure would have an effect on the way things go out for now. That, and the usual number one enemy for anime production: limited deadline.
Besides, I would rather a bit more before we say it’s getting worse or doing a curve ball and pick itself up back.