Kibou no Chikara: Otona Precure Ep 4 – 7

I’m finally back from my trip! I was actually been travelling across Japan for the past 3 weeks, and throughout my journey I actually came across Precure’s 20th Anniversary shop in Yokohama! I didn’t buy anything but I did take some a pictures haha because it was nice to see. Though I did almost buy Haruka from Go Princess Precure, because she has always been my favourite precure, the keychains were very cute! Anyhow, for the sake of time efficiency, I made this into a quadruple entry, so let’s get started!

Episode 4

Wow… I don’t know about you but I found this was all over the place and just came off as a mess. It’s too bad because the episode started off okay with focusing on how Mai has different values than those around her. While Saki is already engaged, her coworker already going on maternity leave, she feels like the odd one. On top of that, her boyfriend wants to breakup with her, and she finds herself not feeling too sad about it– mainly because for a while now, she hasn’t been able to see see him as a potential marriage partner, and on top of that, she isn’t really interested in getting married yet either. For Mai, she’s far more invested in her career, and wants to stick with it for longer, and it’s fine for her to do that.

Surprisingly there was no transformation from these two this episode, nor did they defeat the shadows, but man the sloppy and careless consideration for the scene made me facepalm. I mean seriously: What was the point of having Kurumi call Nozomi to come and help her save Saki and Mai, only for them to be riding Syrup and making a quick getaway? I mean, this was just so stupid on so many levels because I don’t know what Kurumi’s schedule is like, but calling Nozomi while she’s at work–and having her tag along for this sort of thing was just so thoughtless on so many levels. And lo and behold, she ends up returning late and getting into trouble, and how does she react? “Ehe!” Unacceptable! Nozomi is not a kid nor a student anymore, she’s a teacher– so she sure as heck shouldn’t have that sort of attitude for returning late to class that she’s supposed to be instructing! I don’t know why the writers thought they absolutely needed Nozomi there, because they didn’t do her any favours in doing so!

In other news, amidst the talks of one’s love life, we did learn that Nozomi is in fact still in contact with Coco. They’ve continued to exchange letters, but they haven’t seen each other since it seems. Nozomi claims doesn’t want to meet him face to face again until she has become a fully-fledged teacher, but eh… We’ll have to see.

Episode 5

[SIGH] I hate that I’m starting again with a rant, but sheesh, I don’t know what’s going on with these past two episodes, but they’ve just come off as a mess. I haven’t been able to enjoy them at all. This episode in particular felt so rushed, to the point it actually felt as though this whole incident happened too soon. But of course unless this is going to get a second cour, it’s said to only have twelve episodes (which is quite frankly a whole other concern when you have this many characters you’re trying to focus on), so probably had to happen now, but that might just be me though… And don’t get me started on the Dark Light Night stream– that went on for far too long. It felt like a total waste of time and I didn’t find it particularly funny either, so it definitely wasn’t click with me, but it seems they are supposed to serve the purpose. Right now, they seems to know awfully a lot about shadows.

We did get some more details on the severity of the situation, as not only their world is being affected, but Palmier Kingdom is also facing an environmental crisis, with deforestation, droughts causing the rivers to dry up and deplete the water sources. But these things are clearly not Bell’s doing, but rather consequences of the inhabitants actions and climate change- an effect possibly overlapping from the other world.

On the other-hand, we did get more information on the enemy Bell. She appears to be preying on the ‘selfish’ humans who are not thinking about the consequences their present actions have for everyone’s futures, which would help tie together the environmental crisis of the lack of cohesive effort to prevent the crisis from escalating– which would explain why Bell keeps on saying there’s no hope for the future.

As more the more interesting bits, we did get some interesting details about the ominous looking flowers. Their appearance had always struck me as odd to the point I wondered ‘why black?’ So when Natts revealed that they are in fact Sinister Flowers, that caught my attention, especially since they bloom each time someone becomes a Precure again. Could that mean the fact the girls are turning into their younger-selves to become Precures again is actually a bad thing? Well that would certainly be an interesting twist, but we need more information on it because it’s still largely a mystery as to why they are said to be ‘Sinister’ in the first place.

That said, it was really great to see Natts again, he is looking mighty fineeeee! But I’m not gonna lie, I was really sad that we didn’t get to see anything between Natts and Komachi, like seriously?! NOTHING?! AFTER ALL THIS TIME?! NOTHING?!?!?!? OH COME ON!!!!! In fact it was Komachi who was literally kicked to the curb this episode, and I can’t tell you how frustrating that is! I get that the focus was meant to be on Nozomi and Coco, but it still irritates me that the bond between Natts and Komachi is being completely ignored. These two were very close in Season 1, and Natts played a big part in helping Komachi grow as a writer, so I was really sad to see them shafted in the second season, and yet again here we are seeing that pan out yet again in this episode… I was hoping that they’d actually give us some interactions between them… Don’t do them dirty dang it! I really hope whenever Komachi’s episode comes around, we’ll finally get that… I’m not about to hold my breath though…. [SIGH]

As for Coco and Nozomi, well I don’t have too much to say because one I didn’t care for Coco too much and two I was relatively indifferent to it. I never hated the ship, but I didn’t love it either. The problem was that they went with a weird set up to begin with– making him a freaking teacher of all things! I always felt like they could’ve set it up a bit differently to make it less awkward, which is probably why I gravitated more towards Natts and Komachi’s ship more, but I digress. As the girls say, Coco and Nozomi are said to be soulmates, but Coco being a fairy and a king is what makes this whole long distance relationship so complicated— to the point they haven’t seen each other in FOUR FREAKING YEARS! Kinda shocking that neither seen each other for that long so it’s no wonder Nozomi was in tears!!!!

Episode 6

This time the spotlight was on Rin. She’s having a tough time at her job, especially when she’s being told she should go to the sales department when her dream is to be a jewellery designer. Oof, talk about a slap in the face of one’s efforts. She hasn’t had any success lately with the design competition, so that’s why it’s been recommended she switch department, but still… That feels so bad man. I’d hate to be in that position.

So it’s no surprise really that when a new shadow appeared Rin chose to put her work first. And I mean, really, I don’t blame her for it. She was running late, she had a deadline she needed to make. So instead of reporting it, she didn’t say anything at all, but naturally she felt guilty about it and it ended up affected her focus during her presentation. And if that wasn’t bad enough, in the end, her design didn’t get accepted, yet again. Talk about a bad day.

It was nice to see Karen be able to help Rin this episode by allowing her to talk about how she’s feeling, especially since the two used to constantly bicker between each other due to conflicting tastes/approaches. It’s something she couldn’t really talk about with Nozomi, especially since she felt guilty about not reporting it the moment she saw it.

They briefly touched on the Time Flowers, and Coco and Natts are naturally concerned about it, but Nozomi says nothing bad happened so it’s fine–but I beg to differ. Girl, it’s bit reckless to not take into careful consideration why those flowers are said to be sinister… I get Nozomi is really happy and excited to become a Precure again, but she’s falling back into her old bad habits, and failing to consider how the potential consequences could affect them all. While the notion that she has more energy than she previously had before becoming a Precure once more sounds great and all, that could also be ringing some alarm bells. This is the Time Flower after all. What happens if it involves regressing one’s age into becoming young again? Either way, there’s certainly a reason for it, and that alone is enough to warrant caution.

As expected, things are complicated between Coco and Nozomi because of being split between two worlds and their respective dreams. Coco feels like the future of their relationship ended soon as Nozomi reached her dream to become a teache. And while it hurts to hear, he isn’t wrong. Coco is the King of his Kingdom, he cannot leave his position, and Nozomi has finally reached her dream of becoming a teacher. Unless one of the two were to give their dream up, it would be difficult to be together apart from being in a long distance relationship. Though I do have one thing to say: Coco, seriously dude? Watching over her from a distance but never saying hello? Come on man, while that’s just plain rude it’s also makes him look like a creep, even when he’s not trying to be… Come on Coco, you can do better than that!

Once again I felt like the Dark Night Light Stream took far too much time too my liking, but at the very least it did serve the purpose this episode of showing the location Rin had visited earlier that day when a Shadow had emerged. As mentioned earlier, they know awfully a lot about Shadows, so it does make you wonder how and why they’ve come to know about them so fast. I feel like I’m supposed to recognize them though, and it’s bugging me that I don’t.

Episode 7

FINALLY A GOOD EPISODE! Compared to the past three episodes, this was was definitely the one I’ve enjoyed the most! It certainly helped that Urara is one of my favourite characters in Yes! Go Precure, and I also ship her and Syrup, so seeing the two spend time together again scored a lot of points in my book haha!

It’s been sad to see our sunshine Urara down in the dumps because she’s been struggling with building her role for the angel has been sad to watch. Thankfully Syrup’s timing for his visit couldn’t have been better because he’s the one who brought that smile back to her face, reminding her that she’s precious and while she may feel like she is ordinary in the world of extraordinary, to him, her voice and songs will always be special to him. Heck, he even picked up an instrument to play her song to the flowers because he had heard it’d be good for them. The bit of time off Urara had was the much needed break from what has been a tiring and endless effort of trying to piece together her role as the angel for the play she’s preparing for. She was finally able to kick back and relax, and together she and Syrup even made a new song together, something that was really just for the two of them, not something they did to share with the world. It’s just ended up being that way when the streamers of Light and Night showed up and asked if they could broadcast it. It was disheartening to see comments go on about how boring it was, or snide comments how she used to be a singer and the sorts. But hate comments are always going to be hateful, and what we have to appreciate are the warm ones.

As for Coco, since Natts had told him to stay in the Human World for a bit longer to figure out his future with Nozomi, he needed to find a place to live. It was pretty funny how as soon as Kurumi realized the place Bumbee had showed Coco was next door to Nozomi, she signed the contract immediately. In fact, seeing Kurumi playing as the wing-woman right now is a huge contrast to how she treated the very idea of their relationship back in the first series, because goodness she was petty as hell. But now, she’s even urging Coco to propose to Nozomi already and ask her to be his Queen.

Now that Coco is sticking around for a bit, they are definitely trying to give him and Nozomi as much time together to really sort out their feelings as well as figure out what will become of their relationship going forward. They obviously still love each other, but the problem is that they are literally from two very different worlds and have their own dreams they wish to pursue. Unless one’s dream were to change, (which is also entirely possible), in order to be together, someone is going to have to give up their dream. Coco did try to have a talk with Nozomi this week– which revealed he HASN’T BEEN REPLYING TO HER LETTERS (OH MY GOD MAN, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?) but as expected he was interrupted with the whole Shadow crisis at hand with Urara and Syrup, so it’s been postponed until further notice. I suspect it will continue to be this way until probably episode 10. Until then, we are seeing the two spend more time together so we’ll see how they fare.

Next week we’ll see the two accompanying Komachi while she does detective work in attempt to uncover the reason why Bell is attacking this town. But gosh dang it, of course Natts decides to go back to the Kingdom right before Komachi’s episode…. Well I suppose this is where the two share yet another common trait: Each of them are investigating on their home turf for more clues. Perhaps Natts will discover something and return by the end if not the following episode, because unless Saki and Mai were to transform as well (though I have my doubts since they both seem very comfortable life wise), Komachi is the last one of the Yes! Precure team to transform, and something might happen as result of that.