[SIGH] I have so many problems with this episode, which made it frankly frustrating to watch. God, where do I even begin? Ugh, I think the worst culprit of the episode was the sheer idiocy of Nozomi keeping on saying she’s fine after she freaking collapsed while she was still in her precure form. And then Rin, who also felt the side-effect and witnessed her fall, DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO MENTION OR RAISE THE CONCERN OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OTHERS! EXCUSE ME, HELLO!?!?!?! Coco and Natts having been telling everyone that there’s a risk with these flowers and yet here they are, blatantly ignoring that SOMETHING IS CLEARLY WRONG!!!!! ARGGGGGGG!!!!!!!! Come on man, surely they are smarter than this!
Well now that they pushed it to this point, now that Saki and Mai have turned into Precures again, all eight flowers are blooming. And lo and behold, what happens to Nozomi’s flower? It’s starting to wilt and then she collapses right there in the restaurant! Well that’s certainly not good, especially if it turns out it’s tied to one’s life span. However it does beg the question: Why are they seemingly being punished for transforming back into Precures? This does make me wonder if it’s because of the source they are turning to which causes them to transform into their younger selves, but then again, what are they supposed to do? Reject the power the spawns upon them? How else were the shadows going to be dealt with? I really hope the writers got a good explanation for this…
Unfortunately that wasn’t the only problem I had with the writing this episode. Next was the way they went about Saki’s problem. Holy shit that was so aggravating to watch. Her constant assumptions and unwillingness to communicate what she wants to do. She kept on going on about how ‘she’s not a kid anymore’ and she needs to be ‘responsible’ but yet here she was acting like a god damn child, and– it just made it feel like they shoehorned this conflict on her. It also really annoyed me how they completely glossed over her relationship with her fiance’s– like, we see her talking to her parents about it, but only AFTER that we learn she finally had that talk with her fiance. I feel like we should have seen that seen actually pan out, not as a freaking flashback. And OF COURSE her fiance was okay with her desires to study abroad, as he should with supporting her dreams! It’s just… this whole conflict was so poorly executed it drove me nuts. I get it was building up to Saki talking sense to her that it’s okay and yadiyadiya, but I just wished they went about this a better way.
And then we have Dark Night Light! First important disclaimer: I never finished watching Splash Star (thanks Williukea for letting me know which series they were from)! And man… I’m incredibly disappointed with the way they treated their characters. Talk about an utterly pointless cameo. They did nothing helpful and just showed up to be a part of the smack down, and then repeat what we already knew: The Clock Tower is where Bell resides. Komachi even said earlier in the episode that she wanted to investigate it once more to confirm her suspicions (and yet everyone doubted her), so their presence and confirmation quite literally served no purpose to gain whatsoever. Also on top of that, they made a plothole by “recording the shadow” to share on stream (unless they are using some tech from their world, I don’t know) when it had already been established that they cannot be seen with technology. [HEADESKS] What were the writers thinking? They should’ve just left it with the Dark Night Light stream and have them show up later if they aren’t going to do anything to actually help the story progress further.
It’s an understatement to say this was a sorely disappointing episode this week. I hope the next one will be better, but man the story has gotten quite messy at this point. In the preview Coco is telling everyone they absolutely cannot turn into Precures, but considering Bell is pretty pissed off right now, I suspect we’re going to start seeing her ramp it up forcing them to weigh their choices of whether to heed Coco’s and Natt’s warning, or for the sake of the town, put their lives on the line.
Notice: Ep 10 entry will be released as a double-post with Ep 11. However I may consider just saving the two and make a triple post with the finale. I’ll see how next week’s episode goes though.
Update: I decided I will be triple posting Ep 10, 11 and 12 for the finale.
Understandable, there really isn’t much to talk about with this series other than how it’s become half hearted nostalgia bait.
Yeah it’s really unfortunate. I wish they had put a bit more thought and love into this series. It’s as you said, half-hearted nostalgia bait.