chocosea

[chocosea]

Fresh Novel Summary Chapter 4

Chapter Title: Toward Each of Our Dreams!

The next day, Love and Setsuna are heading to school again. Setsuna got permission to be a student during the duration of her visit.

The Cures and Kentarou are keeping the secret that Maphisto was born from Manami's sorrow. Even Manami herself doesn't know this. They think that's fine, since any harm was done by Maphisto, and they don't think that Manami needs to shoulder that. Love thinks over what Maphisto said about how making one person happy will bring another despair, and that sorrow will always exist in this world. Setsuna asks if she believes it. Love says no. She knows that there will be a day when everyone can get their happiness. Setsuna adds: in a world without war or poverty. Love agrees, and says she believes it. She then laughs and says she sounds like Inori. Setsuna laughs and nods, saying that it won't just be this world, but also Labyrinth and all parallel worlds too.

At school, Manami is there. She makes a formal apology to all of her students for her long absence. She confirms that she is no longer engaged. The students are confused at first, but then the female students cheer her on, calming the atmosphere. Manami thanks them all from the bottom of her heart, glad that she became a teacher. Watching Manami smile through her tears as the class encourages her, Love thinks that being a teacher is nice.

After school, Manami and Love have another counseling session. Manami praises Love for bringing up her test scores a smidge. She also apologizes for making it harder for Love to study with all of the Precure stuff she had to do. Love tells her not to apologize and says that it all turned out great, since Manami got her happiness. Love grins and says that she was all nervous during Manami's announcement because she thought she might tell everyone she was engaged again right after dissolving her other one. Manami says of course she couldn't say something like that while everyone was consoling her for her heartbreak.

Though the couples rings that Kentarou presented Manami with yesterday already looked like a promise to marry to anyone watching, he had formally asked her to marry him after that. Manami thought it was already a given, and she didn't know if it was because of his serious personality or if he was just having an airhead moment, but she really liked that part of him.

Manami then remembers that Love isn't a friend but her student, and turns red with embarrassment for going on about her love life. Love thinks to herself that the airhead is Manami. She's come to love Manami even more and wants her to be happy.

Love tells her that she's found her dream — she wants to be a teacher. Manami says that she'll make a great one. But she has to work hard for the upcoming exams. Love agrees.

Love leaves the room all cheery, and fails to notice Daisuke waiting his turn for his career counseling. Daisuke dry laughs to himself that she's never aware of him. Inside the classroom, Manami asks if he's decided on what high school he wants to go to. He confidently says that he's decided on Yotsuba High.

Miki and Inori are walking along a bank with their collars turned up. It's almost Christmas Eve. They talk about how quickly time has passed; it's been a year now since they fought Labyrinth. Though they had eventually gotten their parents' permission before heading out to Labyrinth, Miki learned after the fact that Remi had been the final holdout. When Miki had returned after the fight, Remi neglected her customer and dashed over to hug her in tears. Miki thought to herself that she really must have made her mom lonely. So she had refused the Paris modeling offer from her dad, but…

Miki and Inori haven't talked about the modeling offer since their argument. Miki realizes that she hasn't apologized to Inori properly and stops walking and looks at Inori. Inori meets her eyes. Miki then realizes that Inori had actually stopped before she had and had looked at her first. Just from their eyes meeting, Miki understands that Inori had been thinking the same thing she had.

Just then, Inori suddenly starts to speak. She says that since she wants to be a veterinarian in the future, she's taking the entrance exam of a high school that is associated with a university that has a veterinary department. But the competition is really fierce. Miki says that she's sure it'll be easy for Inori. Inori laughs and then says that even if she gets in, she'll have to be in education for 6 years, which will cost a lot of money. Miki asks how much. The figure Inori cites is way more than Miki even imagined. Inori says that it costs so much that she had actually given up on becoming a veterinarian before. She didn't think she could make her parents pay that much.

Miki is shocked; this is the first time she's heard anything about this. Inori says that at that time it was Love who cheered her on. She sits down on the bank, and Miki joins her. She says that while she was tutoring Love, Love suddenly asked her if she was still thinking of becoming a vet. Inori had told her what she had just told Miki, and Love just said, "Hmm, that's a lot…" But then she went and researched a bunch of scholarship opportunities for Inori, to the point of neglecting her own studies.

Inori had thanked her, and Love said that Inori just had to make sure she passed the exams first. Inori shot back that she didn't want to hear that from Love. Love joked that Inori was being mean, and they laughed. That night, Inori told her parents her true feelings, and together they decided on her path towards becoming a veterinarian.

So, Inori had thought that this time it was her turn to cheer on Miki, and she had gotten presumptuous about it. She apologizes. Miki immediately says no, she's the one who should be sorry. She's now crying and can't stop. She loudly apologizes for saying something as cruel as that Inori could never understand her feelings, bawling like a kid. Inori has never seen Miki cry like this before. And before she knows it, she's crying too.

After some time of crying, Miki regains her determination and says that she'll tell her mom her true feelings. Inori wipes her tears and says that she knows it'll go well — she believes it! Miki says she's got this; she'll definitely get her mom on the same page as her. She wipes her tears away, grinning wide, and says, "I'm perfect!"

That night, Miki tells Remi about the Paris offer… Only to find out that she already heard from her dad and assumed Miki was going. Miki asks her if it's really okay, since that means Remi will be alone, but Remi says cheerfully that she's already talked to Katsuhiko about it and when Miki leaves, her brother Kazuki will come to live with Remi instead. Miki makes a strained smile, a bit annoyed that Remi decided all of this without speaking to her at all. But she knows that this is the type of person her mom is. Remi probably predicted that Miki would worry about her and say no to the Paris offer, so she set this up in the background. She had been in the palm of her mother's hand the whole time. Miki thinks again about how formidable her mother's love is.

Miki teases her mom and says that if Kazuki is going to live here, she might as well remarry Katsuhiko. Remi flatly says that isn't going to happen.

Time passes. Inori got into her first choice. The time for Miki to depart for Paris has come. At the airport, Inori, Setsuna, Remi, Kazuki are there to see her off… Love is nowhere to be found. The high school she wants to get into is announcing who they've accepted that day.

At the school, Love can't bring herself to look and tries to ask Kaoru to go look at the postings for her, but he says it's something she has to see with her own eyes, holding up a donut to frame her in the hole. She asks Tarte next, but he refuses. Just then, a voice calls out to her. It's Daisuke. Love is confused why he's there, and he tells her that he took the exam too, commenting that she really doesn't listen to him. He acts a bit shy. Love asks if he passed, and he says he did, barely. Love congratulates him and asks him if he saw if she passed. He mimicks her response to his confession at the end of ep 50 and says that he won't tell her. Then he wonders to himself how he even knows her exam number. He pushes her forward to see her own result. Love gathers her resolve, thinking that she did everything she was supposed to, then says out loud that if Daisuke passed then surely she did too. Daisuke is offended, and Love laughs.

At the airport, Miki, Inori, and Setsuna are wondering where the heck Love's text is. She was supposed to tell them if she passed or not, but it's been radio silent. Miki has to board soon, so she gives up on waiting. She hugs Inori and Setsuna goodbye.

Around that time, a car drives up next to the airport. The moment it parks, a pigtailed girl jumps out of it. The car has KAORU'S Doughnut Cafe written on it.

Remi wanted to wait until Miki was gone to cry, but she can't hold back her tears as she hugs Miki tightly. She tells her to be sure to call often, to which Miki says that she's already told her that. Remi starts going on about how even text is okay, since calling internationally is expensive, and… Sensing that her mom is rambling, Miki pulls out of the embrace and says she has to go. She looks to Kazuki and tells him to take care of their mom. He says he will. Miki waves to everyone and heads to the check-in counter. She thinks about how a text from Love never arrived, and how she had wanted to see Love one more time.

Just then, a voice calls her name. The voice sounds just like Love, which surprises her so much she stops and whips around. There's Love, standing there and breathing heavily. Inori and Setsuna are also surprised. Inori asks why she's here, and Setsuna says that the distance between the place where the results were posted and the airport is so far that she shouldn't have been able to make it. Kaoru appears next to Love, with Tarte on his shoulder, and says that he ramped it up a notch. He used to be a F1 racer in his past. Inori is surprised, "But the speed limit is…" Tarte immediately jumps in and says it's just a joke; they never broke any laws.

Just then, an airport staff member comes over to politely tell Kaoru that he can't have any pets in the send-off area. Kaoru says there's no problem, since this isn't his pet but his brother. The staff person is confused. Tarte verbally agrees. Inori and the others immediately grab him for speaking. The staff member yells that the animal spoke. Inori tries to keep up appearances and says that they must've heard wrong and laughs awkwardly.

In the midst of all the fuss, Love saw Miki off with a smile. "Take care, Miki!" "You bet! Though, isn't there something you should say to me before that?" At Miki's words, the others quieted down, turning to look at Love. Love smiled wide and flashed a thumbs up. "I got my admission!"

The End

Personal commentary:

I don't. agree that Manami shouldn't know? what? if this is some weird ability of hers then she should be able to grapple with this and the truth and work on not harming other people. Maphisto is the embodiment of her lashing out at others in her mind so that's legitimately something she has to work on??? She can't just use Kentarou as her emotional support crutch. I mean, she can, but it's not satisfying because it feels like it's not her own true arc.

Why is she immediately getting married to Kentarou. I saw this coming but it feels kind of dumb, like being married is the ultimate happiness for a woman so this is the only way she can avoid feeling pathetic. I would prefer they date for a year or two while she works on her negative thought cycles and he gets better at communication. I just think the book is jumping the gun on this.

Not Love also becoming a teacher. What is it with Toei and slotting all their early Genki girls into becoming teachers. Doremi, Nozomi, and now Love? Come on guys. The You Must Enter a Woman's Profession gender curse is rearing its ugly head so hard right now. Why isn't Love becoming a professional dancer? It's still coded feminine. Is Fresh not about dancing? None of them are going to dance as their future career? Nonsensical. The more i think about this the more I'm shocked that they didn't include dancing at all in this novel when it's Fresh's primary distinguishing characteristic.

No berry or passionfruit juice. Guess we'll never get confirmation on what type of berry Miki is (most likely blueberry, but you know.)

Is vet school that expensive that having two (2) parents who actually became veterinarians wouldn't be able to afford it for their kid? That seems weird to me.

Satisfying end to the Miki/Inori arc. Liked that Inori helping Love study wasn't entirely one-sided.

Anyway, 4/5. Did not make me want to bash my head against the wall. One star deducted for forgetting about dance. And also for the lukewarm resolution of Manami's stuff.

[chocosea]

Fresh Novel Summary Chapter 3

Chapter Title: Deliver Their Feelings! Loving True Heart!

Shortly before Love and the others came rushing to the hospital, Manami had arrived at the hospital in the ambulance. Though she regained consciousness, they had her stay overnight just in case. Lying in the hospital bed, Manami reviews her memories and finally begins to confront the fact that something is going on inside of her. A voice separate from her own suddenly appears in her head. He tells her that he's Maphisto, and that he is also her. So he understands everything that she is thinking. Manami tries to protest, but she knows immediately that it is true. He tells her that he knows she's been wondering why she has to be the only one to suffer. That for every happy person there is, there's person in misery. That a world in which everyone is happy is nothing more than a fantasy. As he speaks, she comes to recognize his voice as her own. He asks if she wants to be happy. She says yes. He says he knows an easy way to make that happen. She asks him to tell her. The two merge entirely, and she continues to ask and answer the questions herself. She asks herself what she needs to do. She answers that she just needs to make other people suffer.

The lights go out in the hospital for the night. In the dim hallway, two figures patrol, holding their own lights. It's Westar and Soular, with the fake names of Hayato Nishi and Shun Minami. (These last names mean "West" and "South" respectively.) "Hayato" is dressed up as a doctor. He grumbles about Eas working them to the bone. He still calls Setsuna Eas to this day. Soular says he has it easier since he's acting as a doctor; why does Soular have to be a nurse? Westar says that it's because it'd be unnatural for two doctors to go patrolling together. Soular points out that only nurses make rounds, so it's unnatural to even have a single doctor.

Westar is grumble-wondering about why Eas even needs them for this when she has teleportation. Soular says that it seems quite taxing for her to use, especially multiple times a day. Westar says, "Oh, really?", unaware that Setsuna has already spammed it multiple times that day to catch Kentarou. The two sneak quietly into Manami's room to check on her, but find her bed empty.

Meanwhile, in room 305, Animal Yoshida is all wrapped up in bandages since he fractured a bone, but is otherwise all right. He sighs, realizing that he basically did the same thing he did a year ago when he tried to steal Tarte for TV ratings. He felt bad about breaking up a family then and vowed not to do so again, and yet…

He had been filming a wild animal in the forest when that soba man had been turned into a Fushiawase. By chance, he saw the Precure, and with them, the talking animal Azukina, handing the Precure the Clover Box. A talking animal would be a bigger scoop than a ferret with no belly button, so he became determined to capture Azukina. He had staked out the donut cafe for several days after hearing that she had a habit of appearing there. He feels ashamed of giving in to temptation like that.

Just then, Animal Yoshida notices a woman standing in the corner of his room. She looks like she's also a patient. He tries to tell her that she got her room wrong, but she begins to speak in a man's voice, introducing herself as Maphisto. They do the speaking ritual; Yoshida says the forbidden words and is wrapped in bandages, transformed into a Fushiawase.

"Hayato" and "Shun" run towards the screams they hear and find a nurse being attacked by the Fushiawase. They yell, "Switch over!" and drop their disguises. Westar takes on the Fushiawase while Soular gets the nurse out of the hospital.

Meanwhile, a different nurse at the nursing station is wondering if she's cut out to be a nurse. She made another mistake today and was scolded harshly by her supervisors. It had been her dream to be a nurse since she was a child, but she didn't realize it would be this hard. Suddenly, she realizes that there's a woman standing in front of the station. The woman looks as if she can't move, as if she's in a sleep paralysis.

Soular drops the nurse off and runs back into the hospital. As he passes the nursing station, he sees a nurse with her back to him. He tells her to run from the hospital. She begins to slowly turn her head towards him — "FUSHIAWASE! GET WELL SOON!" Before his eyes, she completes her transformation into a fang-bearing Fushiawase. Soular grits his teeth and mutters in frustration that he was too late.

Maphisto is turning more and more people into Fushiawase, increasing his dark power with every one. Now, he can turn anyone with the slightest bit of dissatisfaction into a Fushiawase: people who are just tired, hungry, or even frustrated from simply watching a soccer game.

Meanwhile, Westar and Soular finish evacuating everyone who isn't a Fushiawase. Soular thinks to himself that they've handled this poorly; seeing it himself is really different from hearing about the situation from Setsuna. Westar yells for Soular to watch out. Soular looks behind him, only to see the incoming attack from the fanged nurse Fushiawase. He thinks he's done for when suddenly Cure Passion comes in with a Precure Kick. Behind her, Peach, Pine, and Berry come running in, calling Westar and Soular's names.

The other three Precure are surprised to see Westar and Soular, and they piece together that this is what Setsuna meant when she said she had taken countermeasures. Westar greets them and then squares up against the Fushiawase zombies coming down the hall, all shouting "FUSHIAWASE! MAAAANY ZOOOMBIES!"

Westar says that they've evacuated everyone and there are only Fushiawase left. Peach asks about Manami, but he says they don't know where she is. The Precure turns to the hordes of Fushiawase and purify them one by one with their Fresh moves. Since these Fushiawase are smaller, they don't require team moves to purify.

Meanwhile, Manami is standing on the edge of the roof of the hospital. Maphisto is laughing to himself about how powerful he has become now that he's absorbed the despair of everyone here. He says that all that's left to do is to be reborn. The people outside of the hospital notice Manami standing there and think she's about to leap to her death; some scream. Kentarou sees her and immediately rushes into the hospital.

Peach purifies Animal Yoshida, and the purification also fixes his bone fracture. Peach smiles and says that it's a little bonus. More Fushiawase appear, and Berry expresses her annoyance. Kentarou reaches them. Pine tries to guard him, telling him that it's dangerous, but he says that Manami is on the roof and is about to jump off. Peach surveys the area; there's a bunch of Fushiawase blocking the elevator. Westar and Soular exchange glances and immediately throw themselves into the hordes of Fushiawase. Back-to-back, they summon an energy barrier. The barrier advances and pushes the Fushiawase to the side, creating a path to the elevator. The book likens this to Moses parting the Red Sea.

Westar and Soular tell the others to go on ahead. Peach, Berry, Pine, Passion, and Kentarou run to the elevator.

Peach presses the button for the elevator. Just in time, since the elevator door opens — only to show it filled with Fushiawase. The team runs for the stairs instead. After climbing four floors, Kentarou's pace is slowing down. Pine runs back to him and lends him a hand, even as he tells them to leave him be and focus on protecting Manami. Just then, Passion, who's at the back of their group, stops in her tracks. Pine notices and asks her what's wrong. Passion tells them to go on ahead without her. Peach and Berry stop and turn to look at her. Passion says that Westar and Soular won't be able to purify that many Fushiawase on their own, so she's heading back down. She'll catch up with them as soon as she can.

The roof has many sheets drying on a clothes line. Manami is standing on the edge of the raised roof, facing out. Maphisto has been integrating himself with Manami and is almost to his ultimate form. Peach, Berry, Pine, and Kentarou, who Pine assisted, see her. Kentarou calls out, "Manami!"; Maphisto turns towards them and orders him to stay back. Peach reflexively yells to be careful. One step backwards and Manami will tumble a long way to the ground. Maphisto tells them that if he moves just a little bit, he can end Manami's life. The team freezes, obeying his order.

But Kentarou takes a step forward and says that he won't be deceived by his bluff. The Precure are surprised, not sure what to make of this. Manami stares at them with possessed, red burning eyes, and Maphisto repeats, "Bluff, you say…?" Kentarou says that he saw the moment Maphisto was born, so he knows that Maphisto is a part of Manami. Therefore, if Manami dies, Maphisto will too. Manami smiles evilly and Maphisto's voice asks if he wants to test this idea. The Precure jolt forward, sure that Maphisto is actually going to make Manami jump, but at that moment Kentarou tells her to look at what he has in his hand — the same type of dolphin keychain Manami has. He says that since Manami couldn't throw away the keychain she got with her fiance, he went and bought the same one. Peach finally puts together the deeper meaning to why he has the same keychain as Manami.

Kentarou laughs awkwardly and says that this means that Manami's now matching with him. But Manami just laughs at him. Maphisto says that this is foolish, as he's already fully taken over her body. Kentarou tells him to shut up, he's talking to Manami. Kentarou holds the keychain up high and says that it's okay if she doesn't throw away the keychain — come back, Manami! The red eyes disappear for a second and Manami's voice comes out, saying Kentarou's name. The Precure smile, knowing that his love reached Manami.

However, the eyes come back and Maphisto laughs and says that it's too late; now he's going to progress to his final form. Dark mist explodes from Manami and transforms into a giant monster with a large mouth. The monster declares its name as Maphisto. Manami loses consciousness and slowly falls backwards. Peach dashes forward and grabs her arm before she falls completely off the roof.

Manami is hanging by her arm. Peach vows to herself that she won't let go and pulls up with all her strength. Berry and Pine come and assist. The giant Maphisto sets its eyes on Kentarou and begins shooting bullets made of mist at him. One hits him directly and sends him flying. Maphisto is angry with Kentarou for making part of Manami's consciousness come back, and he swears he will pay him back for getting in his way. Maphisto opens his giant mouth, and sucks Kentarou inside like a black hole. The Precure witness this happening as they finish rescuing Manami. They lay her on the ground and then stand and face Maphisto, telling Kentarou to hold tight; they're coming to save him.

Meanwhile, on the first floor, Westar and Soular get the Fushiawase to chase them in two separate streams before meeting up at the lobby, where Passion is waiting. She thanks them for rounding them up, and then, pouring all of her power into her harp, purifies them with a Happiness Hurricane Fresh. She tells the purified people to escape outside when suddenly the whole building shakes due to the fierce battle on the roof. The people break out of their daze and evacuate. Passion watches them all to make sure they get out safely and then speaks aloud as if Love were there, saying that she finished turning people back to themselves. Her words are halting, the exhaustion catching up to her. She collapses, but Westar and Soular catch her.

On the roof, the three Precure dodge Maphisto's blows and launch themselves into the air to perform a Precure Combination Kick. Despite all their hits, the giant Maphisto takes no damage. Maphisto gloats that it won't work on him and opens his mouth to suck them all in. The Precure barely dodge his attack.

Kaoru has just about arrived at the hospital, but the police have blocked off the area and are directing cars to turn around. Kaoru joke asks if everyone forgot something. He parks when the police try to direct him away. They tell him that this place is off limits so he has to make a U-turn. Kaoru sticks his head out of the window and asks them if there's something going on. The rude police officer brushes away his question and tells him to hurry up and leave. Kaoru flashes a badge of some sort. The police officer immediately bows and then begins to politely describe the situation. Tarte (pretending to be a normal ferret) wonders again who the heck Kaoru really is.

Meanwhile, the people who evacuated the hospital are watching the Precures' battle from a hill nearby, along with others in the area, including Daisuke and Miyuki. Now apprised of the situation, Kaoru makes it to the hill. The team gets out and Tarte uses binoculars to view the fight between the Precure and Maphisto, and then realizes that Passion is missing.

The three Precure launch their Fresh moves as a direct it, but it still has no effect. Berry tells Love they need to use the Clover Box, but Pine says they can't because they don't have Setsuna. They're all so flustered that they forget to refer to each other with their Cure names. (This continues for the rest of the fight.)

Just then, they hear a "I'm here…!" from behind them. It's Passion, held up by Westar and Soular; she's totally exhausted. She reports that she purified all of the Fushiawase in the hospital, and Maphisto is the only one left. Peach asks if she's okay, and Passion smiles with another, "Who do you think I am?" Peach perks up and starts the Clover Box move. Passion, Pine, and Berry's leaves are all added successfully, but when Berry throws it to Peach, Maphisto suddenly opens his giant mouth and tries to suck Passion in. Westar and Soular fire an energy beam at Maphisto, saving Passion.

"Setsuna!" Peach, Berry, and Pine run over to Passion. Berry says she can't believe their Grand Finale was interrupted; Pine says that attacking in the middle of a move is so unfair! Watching Soular and Westar try to fight Maphisto, Peach thinks seriously to herself about how they can possibly win and save Kentarou. Then she remembers what Kentarou said before: when Maphisto was born, Manami lost her consciousness. This matches up with when Manami had collapsed in her kitchen; at the same time, Berry and Pine were fighting Maphisto. She explains this to the team, and Pine asks if that means that Maphisto will disappear if Manami regains consciousness. How can they do that…? "Kentarou!" says Berry.

Westar and Soular try to fire off multiple energy beams from the left and right, but Maphisto sucks them all in and unleashes a barrage of dark mist projectiles. Soular is hit by one of them and goes flying. The damage he sustains is too great for him to stand up again. Westar dodges two projectiles but fails to dodge the third, and ends up right in front of Maphisto's line of sight. Maphisto tries to swallow him, but Passion teleports in, grabs Westar, and then teleports away, right next to where Manami is lying. Westar is frustrated and apologizes to Setsuna for always having to be saved by her, but she says she doesn't know what he's going on about after all this time she's been relying on him. He brightens up at hearing that.

Setsuna wonders how they can defeat Maphisto. She thinks back to the conversation the other three were having and decides that there's only one thing to do. She tells Westar that she needs to jump into the world of Manami's memories to find the key to defeating Maphisto. Westar asks if she can do that. She takes out Akarun and asks it if it can. Akarun says that there's nothing they can't do, but she can only be in there for three minutes. If she stays there for more than three minutes, she can't come back and Manami's life will be in danger. Passion says she understands. Westar grabs onto her, telling her not to go; it's too dangerous.

Peach, Berry, and Pine continue to launch attacks against Maphisto but are blown away. Passion steels her resolve and she calls out to them, telling them to hold him off for just 3 more minutes. Peach says they've got it. Though none of the other three heard Passion and Westar's conversation, they're ready to trust that Setsuna has come up with a plan. Berry says that they're counting on her, and Pine says that they'll hold him off. Setsuna asks Akarun to take her into the world of Manami's memories.

There are all sorts of of memories floating around as balls of light. Happy memories glowing orange, sad memories blue, memories of anger in red and tranquil memories in green… all kinds of colors, as if they were neon. Letting her body be swept by the stream, Setsuna dives into a recent memory in pale yellow. It's a memory of waking up on a stretcher in an ambulance and answering the responder's questions. Setsuna drifts further in. The next memory Setsuna dives ito is light purple, of opening the door to Love visiting. The memory after is red, and it's of meeting Kentarou at the cafe. Thinking that the memories with Kentarou will give the key to waking up Manami, Setsuna takes a deep dive into this one, but it's just the memory of the incident Daisuke already reported to them. Setsuna exits and continues looking for other Kentarou memories.

Other memories go by: her fiance breaking up with her at the ocean, talking with Love about her future career plans. Remembering that Kentarou is a childhood friend, Setsuna goes deeper, farther back in time. Akarun appears and tells her to hurry since she doesn't have much time left. Setsuna speeds up. A memory of Manami's first day as a teacher, then her as a high schooler saying she wanted to become a teacher at her career counseling, then of her as a middle schooler trying to give a male student chocolate for Valentine's Day, then of walking her dog Coco as an elementary schooler. Setsuna goes back further. Akarun frantically leaps in front of Setsuna and says that it's dangerous and she needs to go back. Setsuna says she's almost there.

They were friends since kindergarten. Setsuna dives further and further, until she reaches the depths of the stream of time; there, she sees a memory glowing faintly, but conspicuously, pink. Setsuna knows it has to be this one and dives into it.

Kindergartener Manami is playing with a boy in the sand pit. She says his name — it's Kentarou! Then she says, "You know, when I grow up, I'm going to be your—"

Akarun shouts TIME'S UP—!

On the hospital's roof, the other three Cures launch a Triple Precure Punch. Soular and Westar are also back in action. But even with their help, the team can't inflict any damage on Maphisto. Maphisto hurls a shockwave at them with all of his strength.

Tarte's group is watching from the hill. Azukina, Tarte, and Chiffon yell as they watch part of the roof crumble, the Precure being tossed around like rags. Azukina says she can't watch anymore and covers her face with her paws. Tarte says that this is bad. Kaoru goes to his truck and starts setting up his donut cafe, making a joke about how you don't want donuts to taste bad, they should taste good.

Peach, Berry, Pine, Westar, and Soular are lying on the roof, having taken too much damage. Maphisto tells them to give up. But the Precure use all of their strength to stagger to their feet.

Pine says that she won't give up. They'll win — she believes in it! Berry says that she won't give up, since that'd mean she wouldn't be perfect! Peach says she won't give up, not until she gets everyone's happiness!

Maphisto laughs at Peach's catchphrase again and says that for every happiness there is an equal misfortune. Thus, they're bringing people despair with their own happiness.

Berry immediately tells Love not to be deceived by Maphisto's words. Pine chimes and and says that it has to be a lie. Love looks Maphisto straight on and declares that if that's true, she'll just bring happiness to those other people. Maphisto says that that's stupid, since that would make other people sad, and Love says that then she'll bring happiness to those people next.

A red light jumps out of Manami and takes form as Cure Passion. She's breathing heavily and falls to her knees. The team runs over to her, asking if she's okay. With her remaining strength, Passion gives Love a pink glowing ball of light. Peach asks what this is; Passion says that it's a memory Manami has forgotten. Passion tells her through heavy breaths to take this to Kentarou.

Maphisto tells them to die and fires his biggest shockwave yet. Tarte says he can't watch this anymore. Forgetting to act like a ferret, he stands on his two feet and calls out to the people watching the Precure. He tells them to please give the Precure their power. Azukina joins him in this call. The people that aren't from Clover Town Street are confused about this talking animal. Daisuke gets annoyed and says that that doesn't matter, and turns to the hospital roof. He takes a deep breath and begins to say, "You can do it, Pre—" but there's an even louder voice, "YOU CAN DO IT, PRECURE—!"

It's Animal Yoshida. Tarte and Azukina exchange glances and smile. A white heart appears from the left side of Animal Yoshida's chest. Daisuke and Miyuki shout their cheers and white hearts appear from them as well. The other people the Precure have saved before individually join in. However, those who escaped from the hospital and the other people from the neighborhood look uneasy. Kaoru starts handing out donuts to them.

Suddenly, there's a huge explosion from the hospital roof. Seeing that, the people turn away, saying that it's weird to have donuts in this situation. But a particularly hungry office lady (one of the people mentioned before in the hospital) takes a bite of a donut and then exclaims how delicious it is. Seeing her smile, others start eating their donuts. The donuts are delicious, and as they say that, white hearts pop into view. Tarte's eyes sparkle and he praises Kaoru for his maneuver. His sunglasses shining, Kaoru laughs and says that no matter how tired or upset you are, you feel cozy when you eat delicious donuts. That's how happiness works. As he says that, eating a donut himself, a white heart pops into view from his left chest.

Tarte and Azukina rally the people again, telling them to send their hearts of happiness to the Precure to power them up. Following Azukina's cues, everyone shouts "YOU CAN DO IT, PRECURE———!" The mark on Chiffon's forehead shines a dazzling light, sending the hearts to the Precure fighting on the roof that lies half in destruction.

On the roof, the four Precure are lying on the ground, having been hit by Maphisto's greatest shockwave. Soular and Westar had managed to throw up a barrier in time and are hiding in the shadow of some debris. Westar wants to help Setsuna, but his body won't move. Both him and Soular are at their limits.

Maphisto gets ready to finish them off when the sky suddenly glows bright, like it's midday. He looks up to see the night sky blocked out by a bunch of white hearts. The hearts combine into one and shine their light on the Precure. The Cures awaken, feeling their power restored. Their Pickruns fly out and in a circle, transforming into Shiroruns (white Pickrun). Each Shirorun is sucked into the clover on each Cure's chest, turning the four leaves into five. The fifth leaf is one representing everyone's hearts. The Cures transform into Cure Angels.

Maphisto laughs at them and says they still can't beat him. He fires another shockwave at them, but they fly out of the way. The light also restored Soular and Westar's powers, and they get ready to jump into the fray.

Angel Passion tells Angel Peach that they can't defeat Maphisto unless they heal Manami's sorrow, which only Kentarou can do. Peach says she's got it, ball of light still in her hand. Peach holds it out and flies directly at Maphisto. From point blank range, she casts Loving True Heart and fires the ball of light directly into Maphisto's left chest. The ball spills out a dazzling pink light that envelops Maphisto. Maphisto lets out an anguished roar.

The other Cures and Soular watch with hope in their eyes. Westar declares their victory. The people on the hill break out into cheers. Angel Peach begins to comment that Manami will be able to return to normal, but she's cut off by Maphisto cackling.

Maphisto remains unscathed. The ball of light loses its shine and drops with a thud. The other 3 Cures all express how shocked they are, using variations of their catchphrases. Everyone on the hill is shocked as well. Angel Peach lands and picks up the ball, lamenting with her own version of her catchphrase, "She was supposed to get her happiness…"

Maphisto appears behind Peach and opens his mouth to swallow her. Everyone yells for Peach to watch out, but she stands there motionless, glaring. She disappears into his jaws. Berry and Pine scream about how she was just eaten, but Passion noticed the look in Peach's eyes and tells them she got swallowed on purpose so she can deliver Manami's feelings directly to Kentarou.

Inside, all is dark, without physicality, no way to tell up from down. Almost like it's own pocket universe or another dimension. Peach drifts and searches for Kentarou. Every now and then there's a faraway sound of impacts that causes the space to shake. She knows that must be her teammates fighting Maphisto outside. The sounds remind her that it's not another dimension, she's inside Maphisto.

Peach continues searching and eventually comes across Kentarou, who is unconscious. Peach tries to fly towards him but is caught by a bunch of black mist. It engulfs her, stopping her from moving. She feels powerless as it nearly covers her face. But then another sound of impact rings out from afar, and the space shakes again. Peach remembers that she isn't alone; her team is fighting outside. The flame of hope lights again in her heart, and she gathers all her strength to shout to her friends to give her their strength.

Maphisto fires his shockwaves in every direction and throws off the Cures and Soular and Westar. The hospital roof lies in ruins. The Cures lie in the rubble, completely still. Maphisto checks that none of them are breathing before going over to Manami, who lies magically unharmed in all of the destruction. He says that he has already seen through their plan to revive Manami and thus erase him. So he's decided to absorb her entirely. At that moment, Passion's finger twitches. She, along with the rest of the team, aren't dead yet. She looks at Manami in a haze, eyes unfocused. She tries to get up. Berry does too, but they're all truly at their limit now.

Just then, Pine says she heard something. As she says that, she's unsure if she really did. But the voice comes again — it's Love's voice, asking for them to lend her their power. The three of them realize that she's still fighting inside. Then a miracle: their power returns once again. The three Cures stand up again, in Angel form, determined to keep going. Westar and Soular follow suit.

The sight of this gives Maphisto a twinge of fear for the first time. As if to refute it, he opens his jaws wide and tries to suck Manami in. At that moment, white hearts appear in front of their chests: the five on the rooftop and Angel Peach as well, in the middle of the dark mist. Peach calls out their cue, and all 6 of them cast Precure Loving True Heart Fresh.

The five white hearts from the team on the roof crash into Maphisto. Inside, Peach's heart frees her from the mist. The hearts combine inside into one giant one, wrapping around the memory Peach is holding. The whole team shouts, "GOOOOOO!" as the memory, now having regained its shine, flies off and hits Kentarou.

That day at the playground: "You know, when I grow up, I'm going to be your wife!" Little Manami says, all full of smiles. "Yeah! I'm definitely, definitely, deeeefinitely going to…"

"Make you happy!" the last words come out of Kentarou's mouth amid all the haze.

A tear trickles down Manami's face. She begins to slowly open her eyes. Her consciousness has returned! Streams of dazzling light pour out of Maphisto, purifying him. He yells in confusion, then realizes that this light is the light of happiness. He curses it, promising that he'll be back as long as despair exists in this world. He disappears in a final scream.

The people on the hill erupt in celebration. Kaoru gears up to give everyone free donuts. Daisuke says, "Way to go, Love!" He makes a resolve to give it his all as well.

On the wrecked roof, Angel Peach appears, bracing Kentarou on her shoulder. The other Cures rush over to her. Manami says Kentarou's name, and everyone turns to look at her. Kentarou walks over to her. She says that she's remembered the promise they made as children. Bashfully, she comments that Kentarou has always remembered this for her. Kentarou laughs awkwardly and says that it's kind of creepy to carry a kindergarten promise with you even into adulthood, huh. Manami says she doesn't think that at all. She takes out her dolphin keychain and says that it was good that she never threw it away, after all. Kentarou says well, he still thinks she should throw that out. Manami asks why, when she remembers what Kentarou desperately called out to her. She chuckles; didn't he go out of his way to buy a matching one? He says yes, but the one she has was still from her ex-fiance. He asks her if she can take this instead.

What he brings out is a ring case. Inside are couple rings. She lets out a gasp, then slowly looks up at him. They stare at each other in silence. Eventually, Kentarou can't take it anymore and lets out an "Um…" Manami says that this is like the Bluebird of Happiness. Kentarou is confused, so she explains: She had closed her heart off after losing happiness once, but there wasn't only one kind of happiness. There was happiness much closer than she had realized, waiting for her all this time. She takes a ring from him, smiling shyly, and thanks him for teaching her that.

Watching this, Westar shouts that this is so bittersweet. The Cures, having detransformed, burst into laughter. They all congratulate Manami and Kentarou with their catchphrases: "Perfect, Kentarou!" "You really did your best!" "The two of you have a great future ahead of you! I believe it!" And Love grins from ear to ear — "You got your happiness!"

End of chapter 3

Notes:

Bluebird of Happiness is something Japanese media likes to reference. Comes from a Belgian play.

Personal Commentary:

THIS CHAPTER WAS SO LONG the next one is going to be so tiny

It's fun to see the Peach/Berry/Pine moves with their corresponding beginning chants be used as a hospital. After all, these chants, "Nasty things, Nasty things, fly away!", are a reference a chant you say to little kids when they get hurt in Japanese: 痛いの痛いの飛んでいけ "Pain, pain, fly away!" So seeing it in a hospital setting is almost like they're the doctors sending out their pain-relieving medicine.

Me when Kentarou held up his own dolphin keychain:

The ex-fiance better have thrown his away if he wants to get out of this forced polycule

You know I'm kinda surprised that Peach needed any help at all in getting Manami up when she was dangling on the roof like. these girls regularly punch through boulders and you're telling me that they can't lift a single person easily, even if it's against the weight of gravity? lol

Not into the solution to Manami's sadness boiling down to "childhood promises are the ultimate happiness". Like... 5 year olds don't know what they want. That's a good thing. They haven't experienced the world yet. This is the most unsatisfying part of this novel, the rest I enjoyed.

Setsuna is hauling ass. Nearly thought she was just going to keel over multiple times. (I mean, she kind of did, but every time it was like... no... I stand up again!!) Doing the most out here.

Did they need to say their catchphrases like 4 times in different ways? A bit overkill. But having them end the chapter was nice.

Overall, this novel is solid. Good job Fresh.

[chocosea]

Fresh Novel Summary Chapter 2

Chapter Title: Maphisto Operates in the Shadows

Maphisto appears before a man who just got romantically rejected and makes him into a Fushiawase. This Fushiawase is soba themed because he works at a soba restaurant, and its soba arms make people fall unconscious. The Precure lead the Fushiawase to a less populated area and try to use their healing moves all at once, but it doesn't work. They're stuck on the defense until Tarte, Chiffon, and Azukina appear, with Azukina carrying the Clover Box. It turns out that they were in the middle of fixing the shrine since it was old and got messed up in a storm, so she had just been keeping the box with her. (In the previous chapter, Tarte was thinking about how he felt bad for coming straight to the shrine instead of visiting Azukina and wanted to visit her on his way back. Looks like he should've gone straight to her and saved himself some shock.) Azukina was miffed he didn't come see her immediately and told him that she couldn't be away from him anymore and thus came with them. The Precure use the Clover Box and finish off the Fushiawase.

They detransform and check on the soba man, asking him if he met Maphisto. He recounts what happened and then remembers that he got rejected, and starts bawling. Inori tries to calm him down by reassuring him that he'll find a new love soon, but when he says, "Really?", she backtracks and says that she can't promise he will. He starts sobbing again pathetically. Miki tells him to quit crying like a kid when he's a grown man.

Just then, Setsuna spots a figure in the crowd of onlookers. A dolphin keychain attached to a shoulder bag. The man notices Setsuna looking at him and hurries away. Love notices Setsuna thinking hard and asks her what's wrong. Setsuna says that there was a man with a dolphin keychain. Love says that the same man appeared when Miyuki became a Fushiawase. Setsuna says that that's not all — he's been there every time a Fushiawase has appeared. Setsuna thinks he may know something about what's going on.

The next day, the four of them convene at Kaoru's donut truck after school and talk about Manami. Miki asks if Manami's still not coming to school. Love says she isn't and that her class might be transferred to the substitute teacher at this rate. Inori says in a quiet voice that that's what happens when you get rejected by your fiance. The other 3 stare at her, and Love asks her if that's really what happens. Inori turns red and hurriedly qualifies that she doesn't have any experience with this, but that's just how she'd imagine it'd be like — right, Miki? Miki panics next and says not to ask her, Setsuna would know better. Setsuna gets flustered with a "Why would I?!"

The four of them suddenly realize that they have a better person to ask and call out to Kaoru. Kaoru deflects with a, "Well, all sorts of things happen in life. And there's all sorts of donuts, too!" to which Love retorts that she's already heard that line from him. Kaoru says that the reasons behind actions are only known to the people themselves. For instance, lots of people come to buy donuts, but he has no idea what their reasons for doing so are. The only thing he can do is try to put a smile on their faces by making delicious donuts. And isn't there something that the four of them can also do?

Love wonders aloud what she can do and then realizes that she can go to Manami's house. Then she might find a way to help. Kaoru sends her off with a lot of donuts to bring over, and she thanks him and speeds away. Miki can't help but smile and comments that Love always throws her whole self into helping other people.

Love arrives at Manami's apartment and rings the doorbell twice, but there's no answer. She's about to give up when she hears Manami say her name from behind her. Manami just came back from grocery shopping. Inside, Love presents the donuts and Manami starts making black tea to go with it. Manami's apartment has a single bedroom and a combination kitchen and dining room. There are no items like stuffed animals around, and everything is a monotone color. The place is clean. Next to the bed is round glass table that has the TV, air con, and DVD remotes all lined up together. Love observes that Manami is unexpectedly meticulous.

Manami comes back with a tray with the donuts and tea on it. Love comments that Manami looks cheerier than she expected, to which Manami replies, "Is that how I look?" Manami is smiling as she says this, and Love reflexively asks, "Then are you…not doing so good?" Manami starts laughing and comments on how straightforward Love is. Love apologizes, and Manami says she's sorry for being absent from school. Love asks if it's because Manami doesn't feel well, to which she says yes, it's something like that.

Love invites Manami to tell her if there's anything Love can do to help her. Manami looks down with a lonely smile and says that Love is such a busybody, but that it's to be expected when Love is working to protect everyone's happiness as Cure Peach. Love spits out the donut she was chewing and asks how Manami knows that. Manami says that everyone in the neighborhood knows. Love remembers that the team did transform before people of Clover Town Street before (Ep 45, in the park). Though the people living on the street likely didn't spread the news intentionally, the street gets a lot of traffic from shoppers, so it had likely spread naturally that way. That said, it had been a year since they defeated Moebius and stopped transforming, so it had slipped the minds of most people and the members of the Precure team themselves. Now that they'd become Precure again, though, it was likely that the people in the town would remember, making Love a bit of a small celebrity. Love starts idly wondering what will happen with Miki and Inori. It's not like they've been asked to sign anything, but…

Manami comments that Love is incredible for fighting for other people's happiness. Love gets all bashful. Manami then comments that she can't even grasp her own happiness, and Love kicks herself for getting carried away and forgetting that she's here to provide emotional support for her teacher. Love stuffs her face with donuts and tries to get Manami to eat some, saying that Kaoru's donuts always pick her up when she's down. Manami looks down and says that not everyone is as strong as Love. Love gets the sense that Manami's despair runs deeper than she had imagined. Her eyes drift over the room, when she spots a dolphin keychain on Manami's wallet at the edge of a table. It matches the one she's seen on that man that appears whenever there's a Fushiawase. Love first saw it on Manami's wallet when Manami bought her juice while talking about Love's plans for high school.

Manami notices Love looking at the keychain and says that her fiance gave it to her. Love pieces together that the man they've been seeing must be Manami's fiance, then. Manami corrects herself, saying it's actually her "former" fiance, and Love chokes on a donut. After washing it down with tea, she asks if the rumors were true then, that she broke up with her fiance. Manami confirms it and notes that it's already become a rumor. Love tries to backpedal but fails. Manami smiles at her and thanks Love for coming to check in on her, also signaling that it's time for Love to leave. At the entranceway, Love puts on a big smile and tells her to come back to school and that everyone is waiting for her to return. Manami shows her the biggest smile she's seen today. Love feels a little relieved to see that.

Manami also feels better after Love's visit and starts thinking that she should go back to school, but a dark haze floats behind her… On Sunday, Miki heads to Love's house as they're having a strategy plan on what to do about Maphisto and the Fushiawase. Just then, she gets honked at from behind. When she looks over, she realizes she knows this driver, who says they have something they need to talk to her about. Miki says that she's heading to Love's place, but they insist that the talk won't take long. Miki says she understands and gets in the passenger's seat.

At Love's place, Keitarou is reading a lifestyle magazine. He shows an article to Ayumi, which says that the Detective Pet Scoop show is in danger of ending. (The show is from ep 30.)

Miki arrives and apologizes for being late when she throws open the door to Love's room. Inori asks her if something happened, since she's not usually late. Miki says no, nothing really. They summarize what Love has told them about the keychain and that they're wondering if Manami's fiance is Maphisto. But wouldn't that make Manami the next target, then? Love notices that Miki isn't paying attention and calls her back; Azukina asks if Miki's feeling unwell. Miki says that she was just zoning out and sticks out her tongue in an "oopsie" way. Love and Setsuna go on to explain that they're going to try to catch the man next time and figure out his identity. Miki agrees, but Inori is observing her and wonders about what happened, as Miki isn't acting like she usually does.

Outside above Love's window, Maphisto hovers there, eavesdropping. He grumbles about how the Precure are getting in his way, but then smirks and says he knows what their weakness is before disappearing. The next day after school, Inori is on the way home when she notices Miki ahead of her walking in the opposite direction. Inori calls out to her, but Miki doesn't notice and walks onto a side street. That isn't the way to her house.

Inori runs after her starts to call out again, but stops when she notices that Miki is acting very strange. Miki normally walks with her head held high, but she has a slouch to her and is walking fast, wary of her surroundings. Since the day they had the meeting at Love's place, Inori has noticed that Miki has been acting very weird, always thinking about something else.

Miki stops in front of a coffee shop and goes in, still in uniform. Inori feels that she should turn back to respect Miki's privacy, but her worry wins out. Inori also enters the coffee shop, still in uniform, hoping that her teachers won't find out. (Note: Some schools forbid their students to wear their uniforms in places like cafes because they see it as the student acting as a representative for their school when they haven't approved it. If the student does anything bad, the school will also be blamed. This seems to be more of a stickler thing for private schools.) As Inori looks around anxiously, she spots Miki sitting at a table in the back. Her back is to Inori. Across from Miki is an adult man, but his face is in the shadow cast by Miki, so Inori can't make out his face. Heart pounding, Inori sits down nearby. At which point, she finally makes out the face of this well-dressed man: Miki's father, Katsuhiko Ichijou. Miki's parents are divorced, and her brother Kazuki lives with him. He's a famous music producer.

Inori feels embarrassed about following Miki and is about to stand up and leave when she hears Katsuhiko ask if Miki has rethought her answer about going to Paris. Inori stays and orders pineapple juice when the waitress comes by. (In case you were wondering, Cure Pine is for Pineapple, as its common abbreviation for this borrowed English word in Japanese is just Pine, パイ��) Inori thinks about how Miki never mentioned anything about this. Katsuhiko says that he knows Miki is being considerate of her mother, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Apparently, an acquaintance who works at a modeling company in Paris had offered to let Miki stay with them after middle school to study becoming a model.

Inori's heart races as she thinks about what a great chance this is for Miki and her throat is so dry she downs her juice at once when it arrives. However, Miki refuses, saying she's no longer interested in becoming a model and that this matter is closed. She stands up to leave. Katushiko demands that Miki stop. Miki gets out of her seat and turns around — just to spot Inori staring at her, frozen. Inori struggles to think of what to say and blurts out that she was also just about to leave.

Outside, the two of them walk together. Inori apologizes and says that she wasn't planning on eavesdropping, but… Miki tells her not to tell her mother that she met her father. Inori says she won't. They continue walking in silence. Inori wants to tell Miki to reconsider the offer, but she knows that she has no right to tell Miki what to do as an outsider — this is for Miki to decide. Her heart, however, cries out that this is wrong and Miki is lying to herself. She figures that Miki is lying about having lost interest in being a model because going to Paris would mean leaving her mother alone. Miki is talking slightly more than usual, explaining that she met her dad on that day they had the strategy meeting at Love's, and that he brought up the Paris thing then. She finds this a bother. She can't believe he would suddenly come out of the blue with an offer for Paris after years of only looking out for Kazuki and leaving her alone. Inori, trying to find something to say, agrees that it's difficult for him to suddenly do that. Miki latches onto this and continues on, saying that she already lost interest in being a model, anyway. Inori can't take it anymore and tells Miki that she thinks it's better if Miki doesn't lie to herself. She knows that Miki wants to go to Paris and become a model, and Miki shouldn't pretend otherwise! Miki tries to deny it, but Inori cuts her off by calling it a lie. Like a dam collapsing, Inori can't stop herself from saying that anyone can tell that Miki is lying, her dad included, which is why he keeps trying to tell Miki to reconsider. If she would just talk to her mother, she's sure that she'd understand—

Miki gets mad and yells at her to quit it, Inori has no right to lecture her on top of tailing her today. This is Miki's own problem, and she should stay out of it! Inori starts to apologize and explain, but Miki snaps that an honors student like Inori would never understand her feelings, and runs off.

Inori stands there, unable to stop Miki or run after her. She knows she was in the wrong, so she tried to be quiet… but she couldn't take it anymore… She mutters that she's acting like Love. But Love is so genuine that other people don't resent her for butting in. In comparison, she's… Inori chokes out a laugh and then begins to cry. Around the same time, Love and Setsuna are walking home from school. Setsuna "transferred" when she went back to Labyrinth, but she felt like seeing her classmates so she tagged along with Love to school. Though everyone went up a grade, the class composition hadn't changed. Everyone was happy to see her, but their homeroom teacher, Manami, was still missing. As a result, Setsuna and Love ended up talking about Manami again.

Though Maphisto hasn't appeared since, Love is worried about Manami and decides to visit her again, inviting Setsuna to join. Setsuna begins to say that she'll come, when she spots Manami's fiance on the other side of the road. Setsuna points him out and says that it's a good chance to grab him, but Love points out that there's a lot of people around. Setsuna directs Love to head to Manami's place, and Setsuna herself will tail the fiance until she sees a good chance to stop him. Love asks if she'll be okay alone, since that might be Maphisto. Setsuna shoots back a rare, playful, "Who do you think I am?" Love responds with, "True!" Setsuna clarifies that push comes to shove, she has a her two people from the Labyrinth as backup. The signal turns to walk, and she crosses the street to tail the fiance.

Love rings the doorbell for Manami's place again. This time, Manami opens the door on the first ring. She looks really tired, but lets Love in and pours Love some orange juice. Love immediately gets into it and asks her if she's heard about the monsters that say Fushiawase. Manami says she has, of course. Love explains that those monsters come from someone named Maphisto warping people who are feeling weak. She originally wanted to say "people whose minds are weak," but she left out the first part out of consideration for Manami. (In Japanese the verb 弱る can refer to 'to grow weak' healthwise, as well as being downcast. So it's probably more like "who are struggling mentally", but that wouldn't match the omission part in English. There might be a better translation that doesn't sound as mean. The omission is primarily to obfuscate whether it's physical or mental.)

Love says that because of that, she's worried about Manami. She asks if anything has changed lately, but Manami says no after thinking for a bit. In truth though, a lot has changed. She's been dealing with gaps in her memory lately, only to find that she had fallen asleep at some point again and again. When she was grocery shopping the other day, she suddenly found herself lying down in an office. The employee said she had collapsed. She thinks that anxiety is the reason. But she doesn't tell any of this to Love. Manami starts to find Love's concern tiresome. She tells Love that she's doing the best she can to return to school as soon as possible, and asks if Love can leave her alone. Love immediately says she can't, because Manami is her teacher, who she likes very much. This persistence is annoying, but Manami also finds herself crying before she knows it. Love asks if she's okay, and Manami says yes, and then says Love can stay as long as she likes.

Meanwhile, Setunsa is tailing the fiance at a set distance, waiting for them to get to somewhere without other people so she can question him. If necessary, she's ready to transform and fight. She's gripping her Linkrun tight, unconsciously.

The man suddenly breaks into a run. Setsuna gives chase. The man is surprisingly fast, increasing the distance between them. His frantic running only confirms that he's Maphisto in Setsuna's mind. Setsuna yells, "You're not getting away!" and places Akarun in her Linkrun, all while running. She teleports in front of him and cuts him off. The man scrambles away from her, but she teleports in front of him again and again and again. Before he knows it, he finds himself in a dead end. No one is around them.

Setsuna yells that he can't run anymore and to show his true identity. The man is confused and says he has no idea what she's talking about, and who is she, anyway?! Setsuna yells that he better quit playing dumb and that she'll never forgive him for making Manami-sensei sad. (In JP they've been calling her Manami-sensei this whole time, but that's a first name so I figured it might be weird to render it as Ms. Manami, since American English only really does that for last names). Picking up on the address, he asks if she's a student of Manami's. Setsuna says what does it matter if she is, and then calls him Maphisto. The man says, "Maphisto? You know him?" He then asks her to calm down; he's not Maphisto, he's Kentarou Kazama, Manami's childhood friend. "Manami's childhood friend?" Setsuna asks, "But aren't you her fiance?" He denies it, and asks her to please calm down so that they can talk it out. He doesn't seem to be lying. Setsuna curses Love mentally for getting the story all mixed up somehow. Elsewhere, Kaoru has just finished his last sale of the day. He calls out to the wagon that his bro can come out now. Tarte, Chiffon, and then Azukina pop into view, all with a donut in hand. Tarte tells the other two to dig in, and they do, with Azukina taking the bigger bite. She savors the taste in bliss. Tarte says that Azukina wanted to taste Kaoru's donuts right away when they got to Clover Town, so they headed here. Kaoru says he's real glad to hear it, and gives them free drinks. Tarte eats his donut in one bite, and then laughs and says he wonders if Azukina tagging along with him was not because she didn't want to part with him but actually because she wanted Kaoru's donuts. Azukina immediately denies it, then becomes shy and blushes, saying that the donuts are her second reason, but her first reason is Tarte. Tarte says her name, touched, and she says his back. The two of them go off to their own world, forgetting about Chiffon and Kaoru.

Kaoru says, how about getting married? And then cracks a joke that he'll be their matchmaker, even though he doesn't have a wife himself. Azukina comes to, then gets embarrassed about his teasing and runs out from the wagon. She runs off to the edge of the park, when a figure suddenly appears before her. She stops and looks up — to see a dark hooded figure. She screams, and when Tarte and Chiffon look over they see a man in a black cloak get on his motorcycle and start to drive off, Azukina in hand. However, Kaoru is already in front of him, blocking his way. Kaoru tells him to stop, that's his bro's fiancee. He has to leap out of the way, though, since the motorcycle just runs on ahead. Tarte desperately runs after the motorcycle but is left in the dust.

The rushing wind blows down the man's hood. It's the guy who ran that TV show, Animal Yoshida. Yoshida's thinking that this weird talking chipmunk-like animal will save the ratings of his show and prevent it from being canceled. Kaoru drives after him in his car, Tarte and Chiffon riding with him. But he's lost sight of Yoshida, since it took time to pack away all his cafe items. Tarte is nearly crying, but Kaoru tells him not to worry and presses his a button on his car navigation. A moving red dot appears on the map. He had placed a tracker on the motorcycle while he was jumping out of the way earlier.

Meanwhile, Animal Yoshida's rounding a slight curve, still going rather fast. Azukina, looking to escape, creeps out of his cloak. Yoshida tells her that it's dangerous and to get back inside, but she instead bites an arm. This combined with the curve wrecks his balance and the bike falls sideways, throwing both Yoshida and Azukina into the air.

By the time Kaoru arrives, Animal Yoshida is being carted off in an ambulance. Tarte frets over Azukina missing, worrying that she might have been crushed by the bike. A voice immediately scolds him not to say such an unlucky thing — turning around, there Azukina is. The two of them run into an embrace. Looking at them, Kaoru states that this why he wants to be their matchmaker, and then looks to Chiffon and asks if she wants to join him in doing so. Chiffon replies with a "Cure———!" Kaoru has no idea what that means, but she's hopping around happily. That evening, Inori heads to Miki's place to apologize for what happened that afternoon. When she arrives, she sees Miki's mother, Remi, closing up shop. Remi greets her as cheerfully as always, so Inori figures that Miki hasn't told her mother anything. Or, wait… Inori asks where Miki is, and Remi says that she hasn't come home yet; Remi thought she would be with Inori. Remi invites Inori in to wait for Miki to come back, but Inori wants to apologize as soon as she can to Miki and respectfully declines. When she's out of Remi's field of vision, she breaks into a run. If there's anywhere Miki went, it would probably be the park where they used to all dance together.

Meanwhile, Love realizes that it's gotten late and gets ready to leave in hurry. Manami, however, stops her and tells her to stay and have dinner. She insists that she'll phone Love's parents and boasts about her cooking skills. Love, noticing that Manami looks like she's barely holding it together and is forcing herself to smile, scrambles for words. Manami's smile fades as she admits that she doesn't want to eat alone. Seeing the light slide out from Manami's eyes, Love accepts the offer. Manami smiles again and turns to the kitchen, but when Love asks what she's making, she hears a sudden thump. Love turns around and finds Manami collapsed on the floor. Love calls her name, but there's no response. Elsewhere, inside of Kaoru's car, Tarte is trying to reassure Azukina. Azukina feels bad about causing an accident that injured Yoshida. Tarte says that it's not her fault since Yoshida was the one who was in the wrong for this whole incident, but Azukina mentions that Yoshida protected her when they went flying in the air by holding her to his chest. He crashed into the guard rail while doing that. As a result, Azukina came out unscathed. Azukina asks if they can go visit him in the hospital. Kaoru cracks a joke about simmering fish balls but not dried fish, which he has to clarify means that you condemn the action and not the person. He makes a U-turn so they can go in the direction the ambulance went. Miki did come to the park as Inori predicted, and is sitting on the stage. Miki had wanted to talk to Kaoru, but for obvious reasons to the reader, he wasn't there. Under the street lamp, Miki reflects on what happened that afternoon. She knows that Inori said what she did only because she was worried about Miki, but Miki had lashed out at her. And in her heart, she knows why — because everything Inori had said was true.

Miki hadn't given up on her dreams of becoming a model even once before, but their last year in middle school had made her feel responsible for having a concrete plan for her future and forced her to confront the reality of the situation. Then her mother had tripped down the stairs and sprained her ankle, and had to take a week off of work as a result. Remi had then joked that she was getting old and could relax more if Miki took over the shop. If it had been the usual Miki, she would've retorted that her mama shouldn't call herself feeble over one sprain, but that day she was different. She was thinking in concrete terms: If I want to be a model, what do I have to do? And it became an unrealistic dream for her. Remi saw her brooding and reassured her that she was just joking, but seeing her mom act so sweet led Miki to say that the idea sounded fine to her, she would always been with her mother. Words have a power, and saying it aloud made it seem real.

Then Miki's dad had come with that offer for Paris. Suddenly, the dream had a path that could make it real, and Miki's heart is wavering. Maybe she could talk about her father's offer with her mother, and her mother might understand, just like Inori said. She knows this, but that would then feel like she's choosing her dad over her mom. Then what would her mom think? She can't help but spiral into worry.

"I'm not perfect at all…" As Miki says this softly, she hears a snicker. Miki looks up to see a man in a black hood, gleaming in the moonlight. Smugly, Maphisto declares that Cure Berry is the weakpoint of the Precure. Miki stands up, on guard, but Maphisto stares at her with burning eyes, paralyzing her. He confirms that her heart has darkness in it, and tells her that she can no longer get away from him. Miki wants to protest that her heart has no such thing, but her voice won't come out. Maphisto begins his questioning, asking if she's sad. Disregarding her will, her voice answers yes, and yes again. She can feel him possessing her heart. He smirks at her when she's forced to beg him for the magic words to make the pain go away. He tells her she already knows the words. The words flash in her mind. He goads her to say them, sure of his victory now. But Miki, with her head hanging, only says, "But that's…"

FWIP! Miki whips her head up and glares daggers at him. "Like I'd ever say something like that!" Maphisto's smile vanishes. Miki is sweating and breathing hard, her Linkrun gripped tightly in one hand. She thinks to herself that she might've been done for if it wasn't for her Linkrun. Maphisto is annoyed. Miki tells him not to look down on the Precure and transforms into Cure Beat. The two begin to fight.

Inori makes it to the park, sure that Miki would have come here. However, she doesn't see Miki anywhere. In the middle of her confusion, the bushes suddenly shift, and both Berry and a man in a black cloak jump out of them, still exchanging blows. The man dodges Berry's kick and heads straight for Inori. Inori dodges him and immediately transforms into Cure Pine. But she's still confused and asks Berry what's going on. Berry tells her to watch out, that's Maphisto. Meanwhile, Love is calling Manami's name again and again. There's no response. Love dials for an ambulance on her Linkrun.

Beat and Pine launch a double kick and land a hit on Maphisto. He staggers and takes a step back.

Manami suddenly groans. Love frantically asks if she's okay. The sound of the ambulance's sirens grow nearer.

Berry and Pine continue to launch attacks at Maphisto, but he dodges them and smirks. He remarks that they make a pretty good combo for friends who had just hurt each other in an argument. Berry and Pine freeze for a second, becoming aware of each other. Seizing the opportunity, Maphisto makes his escape with a flick of his cloak, laughing all the while. The Precure run after him.

The ambulance arrives at Manami's apartment and the responders carry her into the ambulance. Love, worried, watches the process and looks after them as they drive off into the distance. Just then, Cure Berry and Cure Pine appear in front of her, asking if she saw Maphisto come this way.

The sirens of the ambulance ring through the night. On the stretcher, Manami is still unconscious. The paramedics are communicating by radio to the hospital when a man in a black cloak suddenly jumps in front of them from the side. The driver immediately hits the brakes, stopping the ambulance in the middle of the road. The driver gets out, thinking that they must've hit the man, but he is nowhere to be found. And thinking back, there was no feeling of impact when the driver stopped the car, either. The car shows no signs of impact anywhere. Another paramedic inside the ambulance is calling out to Manami, and she opens her eyes.

In front of Manami's apartment, Miki and Inori, now detransformed, explain the situation to Love. Love puts together the timeline, and then realizes that Maphisto must have appeared in front of Miki because Miki is troubled about something. She asks Miki what she was upset about. Miki starts to say something, then glances at Inori. She stops and looks away awkwardly. Inori attempts an explanation instead, but before she can say anything of substance, Setsuna comes running over, calling Love's name. With her is Kentarou. Love is surprised and asks why she's with Manami's fiance, but Setsuna ignores it and urgently asks where Manami is. Love says that she's in an ambulance. Setsuna nods, her face grave, then after a moment tells them to be calm and listen to her; she knows who Maphisto is.

Maphisto is Manami.

Love is so startled that she can't wrap her head around it. "What are you talking about," she says, "Manami-sensei is a woman, and…"

"Isn't Maphisto a man?" Inori finishes.

Miki demands that Setsuna explain it in a way they can understand. Manami's friend says they'll explain in the car, but they have to hurry to the hospital Manami was taken to.

Setsuna points out the direction of the car, and they all run after her. Setsuna takes the passenger seat and the other 3 climb into the back. There's very little traffic, and Kentarou drives at the speed limit. Love is surprised to hear that he's not Manami's fiance; he's her childhood friend, all the way from kindergarten. He laughs about how they played in the sand pit together, but most of the time they'd end up fighting and he would cry. Setsuna explains that Kentarou had heard Manami's fiance had broken up with her, and he had been trying to give her advice about it. Love thinks back to what Daisuke said, and asks if he was the man at the cafe that got into an argument with Manami. He confirms it, and says it was careless of him to be seen by her students.

The next parts are all explanation from Kentarou and Setsuna. That day, he met Manami and they had a conversation by the cafe's window. He hadn't picked those seats on purpose; those were the only ones open. At one point, Manami had taken out her wallet. Kentarou tried to say that she didn't need to, but the dolphin keychain on her wallet caught his eye. "You still carry that around?" he asked, and she got embarrassed and hid it by wrapping her hand around it. That keychain was from her first date with her fiance, which was to an aquarium; they had bought a set together. Kentarou had spent the whole conversation telling her to forget about her fiance, so seeing that dolphin irritated him. He told her again to throw it away. She apologized and said she would, but he told her to take it off right this second. She hesitated, which made him even more annoyed. He grabbed her wallet and said he'd do it for her. Manami pleaded for him to give it back, promising that she'd throw the keychain away, which led to other patrons turning to stare at what the fuss was all about. Kentarou thinks that was probably what Love's friend saw. Since that day, though, Kentarou felt that Manami was acting more and more off.

Another day, Kentarou was getting drinks for them from a vending machine in a park. He noticed Manami staring at the couples around them from her seat on a bench. He tried to hand her her drink, but she didn't notice and continued staring at the happy couples. Manami wondered aloud why she was the only one who had to suffer like this, then cursed them all, wishing for them all to fall into despair. As she said that, a black mist rose from her back. Kentarou thought he was just imagining it.

Yet, on another day, Kentarou had driven Manami to the ocean at her request. There, she stood on a cliff, staring at the sea with dark eyes. She told him that she had met her fiance one more time, since she couldn't accept being broken up with over the phone. And he had broken up with her again, in this location. Kentarou asked why she wanted to come here, as Manami took out her wallet and removed the dolphin. Manami said that she kept telling herself to throw the keychain away, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. If she was going to throw it away, it should be here. Telling him to watch, she wound her arm back, but then gave into tears before she could throw it. Kentarou urged her to throw it away, trying to be encouraging, but instead it hurt her, and she yelled that she couldn't do it. Kentarou told her she had to throw it away so she could be happy, again trying to give her the final push, but it made her feel more trapped each time he said this — and he hadn't realized. Her eyes grew lifeless, and she said the forbidden words, "Then… I just won't be happy." This time the dark haze seeped out of her, clear as day.

"Happiness is worthless."

When she said that, she suddenly lost consciousness and collapsed. As Kentarou rushed over to her, the dark haze took shape as a man in a black hooded cloak. He announced his name as Maphisto, and then bounded off. Kentarou put Manami in his car and then drove after Maphisto, but Maphisto disappeared and attacked Miyuki, which brought forth the Fushiawase. Kentarou figured the monster must be Maphisto, so he had driven to the shopping street and then gotten out of his car to make his way against the flow of people escaping. He stared in horror at the Fushiawase that came from Manami's despair.

Love saw him and told him to run, so he tried to make his way back to the car, but couldn't because of the crowds of people. He saw them transform into Precure then. Figuring there was nothing anyone else could do against a monster, and that it was up to the Precure could solve this incident, he started cheering for them.

After the Precure defeated the monster, he made it back to his car, but didn't see Manami anywhere. No matter how much he texted and called, she wouldn't respond to him. So every time a monster appeared, he tried to get to the scene, thinking that she must be somewhere nearby. But, as Miki says, Manami didn't bring forth the Fushiawase… It was Maphisto, who uses the sadness of others to make the monsters, Kentarou agrees. But since Maphisto was from Manami, it's virtually the same. And he doesn't want any more victims.

Miki notes that a hospital is bound to be full of struggling patients. Inori gets upset, saying that the hospital is a place that's supposed to give hope and courage. Love gets heated too, saying they must stop him if he tries to make the patients into monsters. Setsuna comments that she's taken some preventive measures, but…

The car arrives at the hospital. They immediately spot a large number of panicked patients, doctors, and nurses running away from the building.

"We were too slow!"

Kentarou parks and bolts from the car. The others do the same and run after him. Going against the flow of the crowd, they can hear the calls of the Fushiawase inside the building. And there's not just one or two. Love directs Kentarou to stay; they'll take it from here. The team leaps into the building and transforms.

End of Chapter 2

Personal commentary:

This chapter was so long my god. I think I'm like 3/5ths of the way through the book and there's like 3 more chapters to go (maybe only like 2 substantial ones if the last one is just an epilogue.) On the bright side, this chapter was extremely good and gave everyone something to do, with real character drama between Inori and Miki while Love and Setsuna advance the plot and Kaoru and Tarte go on a wild goose ferret chase that somehow ends up at the same hospital. The callback to Animal Yoshida is also fun. Unlike the Heartcatch or Suite novels, I actually feel like the writing is paying attention to the events of the show.

I'm particularly pleased by the sections Inori is getting, especially since she was mostly forgotten in the second half of the show. This novel has done well so far showing her selfless side (taking a hit for an ungrateful dog) and also keeping a little bit of attitude that doesn't make her boring. It's also great to see her be in the wrong for once in terms of handling people. I feel like in the show she only had issues with Tarte and the rest of the relationship blundering was Love's job. This novel gave her a chance to like mess up in a slightly more selfish way, while being completely in line with her character. The fact that she couldn't shut up because what Miki was doing contradicted her beliefs too much? Good. Inori's name and catchphrase is about believing, after all.

Miki's whole thing with her dream and home life and not wanting to abandon her mom is also very good and works specifically because her parents are divorced and don't talk to each other much. We don't get family drama like this nowadays in Precure.

Okay also how many murderous vibes was Setsuna giving off for an adult man to just start running for his life when he noticed a 14 (15?)-year-old girl tailing him?? That section was so funny GET HIS ASS. The fact also that he was running because he didn't know she was a Precure (since she arrived late in the first battle) is also a detail I only realized upon thinking back over the events. Good.

Maphisto thinking Miki is the weak link... If she was at top form her sheer aura would probably repel him. The Cures should just gather everyone together and make them shout "ATASHI KANPEKI" and see if that blows him into pieces.

So they CAN use their Linkruns as a phone? lolol like I said… Daisuke just call Love up when your sister is in trouble. just dial L O V E, I'm sure that's her Precure number. (Dokidoki don't interact)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this in the chapter 1 summary but Manami bought Love peach juice at her request, and this chapter has Inori drinking pineapple juice. I wonder if the other two will also get to drink their flavor in the next chapters?

Does Kentarou not know where Manami lives...? Did he really gotta go around to every Fushiawase location instead of ringing her doorbell?

Also I feel like they're setting up Manami x Kentarou but I don't really like him. I expect a speech from him about how sorry he is for not being sensitive enough to her feelings before he gets together with her.

I also think it's funny that Maphisto is a man like is he supposed to be Manami's idea of her fiance? I think that's what they should do. I'm curious if that'll happen

Hoope chapter 3 stays good and breaks the pattern of the other two Precure novels I've read!

[chocosea]

Fresh Novel Summary Chapter 1

Chapter Title: Fresh Precure Once Again!

One year after the fight with Labyrinth, Love, Miki, and Inori are in their 3rd year of middle school (9th grade).

They have to prepare for high school entrance exams. Inori is in Love's room to help tutor her. They were supposed to be studying together, but since Love is bad at school Inori basically became her tutor. Inori is studying for a high school that's connected to a college that has a vet program, so she has to do extra studying by herself after tutoring Love. Love has lost interest in studying and zoned out; Inori marked her answer book with a bunch of red marks. Love's mom (Ayumi) brings them snacks, and they quit studying for the day and talk about friend stuff. They recount their surprise at hearing Miki say that she wasn't going to high school and instead plans to attend beauty school. She's decided not to become a top model and wants to become a beautician now to take over her mom's shop.

Inori is wondering if Miki is really okay with that. Chiffon and Tarte come to visit by appearing outside of Love's window. Love lets them in and they take some donuts that were on the snack tray. Chiffon can speak a lot more now but doesn't seem to always understand the words she repeats. She has picked up some Kansai dialect from Tarte. They often move between Earth, the Sweets Kingdom, and Labyrinth. So they have stories of how Setsuna, Wester, and Soular are doing their best to make Labyrinth a happy country.

Love feels lost in comparison to her friends, who are all working towards a dream.

After school, Love has a 1-on-1 with her homeroom teacher as the teacher has to interview all the students about their plans for the future. The teacher, Manami Kudou, says that Love is still in middle school, so it's fine if she wants time to think about it in high school. Love agrees, but says that she feels like her friends are all working towards a dream, so she has to do her best to get her happiness also. Manami doesn't understand Love's catchphrase so Love clarifies that it's like how Manami's engaged, which is like getting super happiness. Manami protests that this has nothing to do with her own private life, but breaks out into a smile and Love teases her. Manami changes the subject to Love's terrible grades on the recent mock exam, and tells her that she won't be able to get into the school of her choice with this. Love is like, "Yeahhh, you got me there!" and says her polite goodbyes.

Manami thinks to herself that Love's a strange girl that makes you feel happy by being around her. Then she thinks that probably should be expected as Love is… (It trails off here.) She gets a call from her fiance, but her smile freezes over at the first thing he says: "I'm sorry. I really don't think I can get married…"

The sudden break in her happiness leads Manami to momentarily mentally blame Love for leaving, though she realizes how unreasonable that is. Just because Love's presence made her feel happy doesn't mean that she took it away when she also left. And yet, Love had only talked about getting happiness until this point, so her timing was truly something. Manami isn't processing anything else her fiance says; she just realizes that happiness and misery are two sides of the same coin that can be flipped over at any moment.

Meanwhile, Daisuke is hanging out at his baseball club even though practice has long ended for 3rd years. He told his friends he wanted to see his club since they're almost graduating, and got laughed at for saying something so uncharacteristically sentimental. However, his true purpose was to intercept Love coming back from her counseling session so that he could talk to her and find out what high school she's aiming for. Which is exactly what he does. He confirms that she's aiming for Yotsuba High School, which is where most of their middle school students go.

Love asks Daisuke where he's aiming for, and he says that he's unsure. This surprises her. He mentions that Yuki's (guy who had a crush on Miki) family owns a sushi restaurant, so he's planning on studying to become a chef rather than going to high school. Kento (guy who had a crush on Inori) is from the Mikoshiba conglomerate so he's going to study abroad in America. Daisuke says that he feels like the only one who doesn't have things figured out. Love immediately grabs one of his hands in both of hers and says she feels the same while shaking it up and down.

Daisuke's heart skips a beat. At the intersection, he says that he was thinking of trying for the private high school a town over since they have a strong baseball team, but if Love is going to Yotsuba High he might try that instead. He says this while blushing. Just then the signal turns green, and Love bounds off on the road while bidding him goodbye. She wasn't listening to him at all. Daisuke is left standing there, and the signal turns red again.

At home, Love speeds through dinner and her bath to start studying immediately in her room. There, though, she finds that Tarte has put Chiffon to sleep and is demanding that she stay quiet. She says sorry, and then points out that this is her room. She starts trying to study and it's not going well; she doesn't even know what questions she would have to ask to get an explanation that would make sense. Tarte goes on about how he agrees with her teacher and she doesn't need to compare herself to Pine or Berry. Love tells him to shush it so she can focus on studying. He apologizes and goes back to reading his manga magazine. All is quiet until Love starts making sleeping noises; she fell asleep at her desk. Tarte puts her cardigan over her.

The next day, Manami is absent from school. Everyone expects that she'll show up later in the day, but she doesn't. They feel that something's off as there's rumors going around that something happened with her fiance. Love doesn't believe it since Manami looked so happy on her counseling day and the wedding was only a few days away.

Daisuke is looking through reference books, thinking he's going to get serious about studying now that he's talked to Love, when Kento and Yuki appear. They get chummy with him and say they heard about how he was actually waiting for Love that one day. Daisuke denies it, but they tell him that they're rooting for him since their own crushes have no future (Yuki not being able to go to high school with Miki and beauty school doesn't match up with owning a sushi restaurant; Kento leaving for America). The two of them then march him off to the game arcade despite him saying he needs to study. He realizes that this is why he hasn't gotten serious about studying, since these two don't have entrance exams to worry about.

Daisuke loses a fighting game to Kento because Kento is rich and has every new game at home that he can play as much as he wants (though they always hang out on the second floor with the old games, so I guess Kento just is game buff). Daisuke goes to get something from the vending machine and looks out the window to see Manami sitting at a cafe.

At school during break time, Daisuke whisper reports to Love what he saw in a hallway. He saw Manami at a cafe in front of the station arguing with a man. Daisuke says that this must be her fiance. Love asks if Daisuke saw the man's face or knew what they were talking about, to which he answers no to both. Love says that he actually doesn't know if it was her fiance or not then. Daisuke insists that they were arguing about something and that it's weird for their teacher to skip school just to argue with a man in a coffee shop.

A few days later, Love is heading to Inori's house for studying. Passing by the park, she sees Kaoru's truck and decides to get some donuts to go. From the truck's shadow, she sees Miyuki sitting alone at the seating area. Love stops in her tracks. They had all stopped dancing after that competition they won due to having to study for entrance exams, so she hasn't seen Miyuki in a while and feels awkward about calling out to her. Love gathers up her courage and starts to call out her name, but Miyuki doesn't notice and suddenly leaves with a serious face.

Kaoru greets Love and asks if she wants donuts. Love asks him about what's going on with Miyuki, but he says he didn't notice anything.

Love arrives at Inori's house, which is behind their vet hospital in Clover Town Street. The person that opens the door for her isn't Inori, however, but Miki. Miki was at Inori's house to return a book and heard that Love was coming, so she thought she'd give her a little scare. Miki gets ready to take her leave so she won't get in the way of them studying, but Love tells her to stay and study with them. Miki asks why she should do that when she has no entrance exams. Love says that it's too bad then, since she brought Kaoru's donuts with her, which catches Miki's attention. Inori plays along and says that they should just eat them between the two of them, while Miki protests that they should've brought the donuts up first and joins them. Love jokes that this is her return-fire knockout surprise move.

That night, Miyuki thinks over the day's events in her room. Reika had suddenly said that she wanted to quit Trinity during a break in their dance lessons. Miyuki and Nana had pressed her for reasons, but Reika only cried and said that it was due to family matters and that she had to return to her hometown immediately. Miyuki knew that Reika was the one in most pain, but she couldn't help herself and snapped at her, saying she had enough and Reika could just do whatever. Miyuki wonders why she said that and why she didn't run after Reika and thank her for all the hard work she put in their group until now. She didn't want Trinity to break up, but in the end she was the one who broke them apart. Now crying, Miyuki concludes that she's the worst.

Just then, she feels a presence of a person in her room and lifts her head to look behind her. In the corner of her room stands a man in a dark hooded cloak. Normally she would yell, but for some reason she doesn't feel any sense of fear. She feels fascinated, like she's been hypnotized.

The man introduces himself as Maphisto, which uses the Kanji 魔 (demon, evil) for the "Ma" part. The rest of the name is in Katakana. His face isn't visible under the shadow of his hood, but his eyes shine with a strange light that she can't look away from. He asks her if she's sad, and she says yes. He asks again, and she says yes. He says he knows a way that will take away the pain of mourning a happiness that will never return. Miyuki begs him to tell her what that is. He tells her to say magic words, and she pleads with him to tell her what they are. He says that she already knows them. The words appear in her head, and at his goading she says them aloud: "Happiness is worthless." (Note about the Japanese: "幸せなんかいらない" literally translated, it could be "I don't need something like happiness." as well as "I don't want to be happy." いらない carries both the idea of not wanting something and not needing something; therefore I used "worthless" given the gravity of this statement in this particular context.)

The next moment, a murky darkness flies out of Maphisto's mouth and attacks Miyuki's body.

Daisuke is in the next room over and was listening to music with headphones, but took them off thinking he would buy a snack. When he does, he hears Miyuki scream. He immediately rushes to her room and sees her turning into a monster. Once fully a monster, what-was-once-Miyuki breaks the window and flies outside. It chants "Fushiawase" (Unhappiness) and also the word "Dancing."

Love, Miki, and Inori have finished studying and are heading out (Inori to see them off halfway). Love recounts how she saw Miyuki at the park. Miki jokes about how Love is always worried about other people when her own studying isn't going well, when they hear a yell. A beat later they hear a crowd screaming in fear. They run over there and see a 3 meter tall monster moving jerkily, as if dancing, as people scramble away. It grabs people with multiple long arms, and the people caught begin dancing in the same manner against their will. The book compares this to the fairy tale the red shoes; the people must dance until they die.

Miki wonders if it's the Labyrinth at work again, but Love immediately denies it since Setsuna is working to make that place better. The three of them start helping people escape. The monster is using anything around it to attack people.

Elsewhere, Tarte (with Chiffon on his back) has climbed onto a lamp post to see what's going on.

Love sees a man in his 20s looking up at the monster with a sad look on his face and directs him to escape. As he leaves, she sees a dolphin keychain on his bag, which she feels like she's seen somewhere before. Before she can recall where, Daisuke comes running over and calling her name.

Daisuke tells them that the monster is Miyuki and begs them to transform into Precure to save her. The three of them can't though, because they gave their items back to the Sweets Kingdom. The three of them try to call out to Miyuki but the monster only attacks them. They keep trying to no avail. Love shouts that she wants to save Miyuki, and from the lamp post Chiffon suddenly cries out. A light shines from the mark on her forehead, and the next moment Love, Miki, and Inori all have their Linkruns in their hands. Their Pickruns come flying down from the sky. The girls are surprised, but Pirun tells them that Love called them when she said she wanted to save Miyuki. The girls look at each other and then raise their hands all at once and shout their transformation phrase. Tarte finally catches up with them once they've transformed.

The Precure fight the monster, and it takes them a bit to get used to their roles again. Once they get the hang of it though, they hit it with a Love Sunshine Fresh and Espoir Shower Fresh, but as Cure Pine tries to cast Healing Prayer Fresh, a lone pet dog jumps in front of her. Pine immediately leaps and grabs it, and is hit directly by the monster's flailing arms. She crashes hard into concrete walls. The dog however is safe, and runs off happily once it hears its owner calling for it. Relieved, Pine passes out. Berry and Peach try to run over to her but are hit by the monster and go flying.

Peach spots a gallant figure lit by the moonlight on the roof of a building for a moment and immediately recognizes it as Cure Passion. Passion casts Happiness Hurricane, giving them that last purifying power they need to beat the monster. The people stop dancing, finally free.

The three of them, transformations undone, run over to Inori and help her stand. Inori asks about Miyuki, and they turn around to see Daisuke at her side. All four of them rush over. Miyuki struggles to remember what happened, and then recalls Maphisto. She tells them about the hooded figure that was standing in the corner of her room, but can't remember anything after that. Miki tells Daisuke that they should get her home so she can rest. Daisuke and Love help Miyuki up, and Miyuki finally notices the girls' presence. When she sees Love, she comments that it's been a long time and that she feels better getting to see Love. She asks Love to say her catchphrase so Love replies with a "Get your happiness!" with a thumbs up. Miyuki thanks her and says she can feel her energy returning.

They see Miyuki off. From the shadows, Maphisto watches them and scoffs at Love's catchphrase. Setsuna notices his presence and turns around, but he's already gone. The other three surround her and welcome her back, and she replies with a smile, already forgetting about the presence she felt. Tarte and Chiffon also welcome her back, and Setsuna calls their names and opens her arms wide. Tarte tries to leap into her hug but she only hugs Chiffon. Tarte makes a corny joke about how painful ("Setsunai") it is to get this from "Passion"-han. No one hears this pun and Setsuna greets him after and asks how he's doing.

Love asks Setsuna why she's here, and Setsuna recounts for them. When Chiffon's light shone, she was eating her handmade donuts with Wester and Soular. They said her donuts were good, but she noticed that they were holding something back and pointed it out. The other two were hesitant but told her that though her donuts were good, they didn't really match up to Kaoru's. She took a bite herself, said she'd do her best (catchphrase), then laughed, and the other two laughed as well. At that moment, her Linkrun suddenly appeared in her hand and Akarun came flying in. She realized that for the Linkrun and Akarun to cross dimensions from the Sweets Kingdom like that it must mean that the Precure team was out there fighting. Wester and Soular came to the same conclusion and told her that she should go, with Wester saying she had to bring back Kaoru's donuts as a souvenir. She transformed and the two of them clapped when she finished, to which she said, "Cut it out". After that, she used Akarun's teleportation powers to get to where they were fighting.

Setsuna and Love surprise Love's mom with Setsuna. Ayumi is touched to see Setsuna and welcomes her home. Setsuna shyly replies that she's back, and addresses Ayumi as her mother again. Ayumi hugs her hard. The same thing happens when Love's dad (Keitarou) returns, except he hugs Tarte hard because he can't hug Setsuna. (I don't understand why not.)

They have their first dinner together as a family in a year. Ayumi says that Love should have told her that Setsuna was coming because she didn't prepare anything special. Dinner is stuffed green bell peppers, which Love says is no good since Setsuna hates bell peppers. Setsuna laughs and starts eating them, and actually looks like she's finding them delicious. Love insists that she doesn't have to force herself, but Setsuna says that she's now able to eat them. Ayumi praises Setsuna and then gets on Love's case about not eating carrots. Love protests that her mom hates spinach, but her mom retorts that she can eat them if she forces herself. Setsuna starts laughing. She thinks about how much she loves this family.

Love and Setsuna go upstairs and Love says that Setsuna's room is just how she left it. Setsuna remembers that one time Northa acted as a fake Ayumi that Setsuna immediately clocked, but when she tried to convince Love that that wasn't mom, Love didn't believe her and took offense that Setsuna would be so mean. Ultimately, it was Ayumi's feelings towards Setsuna that was the key to saving her, and Setsuna started calling her "Mom" that day. The red heart bracelet from that day is something Setsuna brought with her to Labyrinth and is sitting on her desk there. (Episode 40)

Love entwines her arm around Setsuna's and tells her that she should stay for a while because it's been so long, and she's sure Setsuna wants to talk more with Miki and Inori. Setsuna had told them she was going back the next afternoon, but she has second thoughts now and decides to stay, thinking it might be okay to leave matters to Soular and Wester for up to a week.

The next day, another Fushiawase appears on Clover town street, this time sunflower themed. Now having gotten back into the swing of things, the four immediately transform and purify it quickly. The Fushiawase continue to appear day by day, at any time. The people they save say the same things as Miyuki did, and the team figures out that the "Happiness is worthless" phrase is the trigger. They visit Miyuki and ask her what she had been upset about, and Miyuki tells them that Trinity is disbanding and of the mean things she said to Reika. She has since met up with Reika to apologize, and they made up. The girls resolve to catch this Maphisto.

The Fushiawase keep coming and they keep purifying them, but they get the sense that the monsters are getting stronger. Tarte and Chiffon go to retrieve the Clover box from the shrine in the Sweets Kingdom, but when they get there they find the box missing.

Personal Commentary:

Forcing people to dance until they die? Is this Space Channel 5?

Despite having cell phones, they continue not to use them. Daisuke could have phoned Love but instead he had to book it over and hope she would already be at the scene of action.

At the donut scene I legit thought Setsuna was gonna rake Wester and Soular over the coals. I guess this is redeemed Setsuna, but it's really boring how they sanded off all her edges when they redeemed her. I think she should be able to to make annoyed jabs sometimes.

I really think that Ayumi should stop getting on Love's case about not eating carrots. There's so many reasons why specific foods don't work for people rather than just being selfish, and I really didn't like that part of Ayumi when watching the show. Love eats other vegetables so it's fine if she doesn't want to eat carrots. Lots of people with sensory problems have specific items they can't eat, and treating it as a moral failing helps no one. (Of course, everyone should eat vegetables because they vastly help your health. In cases where someone isn't eating vegetables at all, it's better to experiment to see what they can eat, slowly increase their tolerance by pairing it with food they like, and otherwise hiding the veggies and letting them know so they have a good method to eat veggies in the future. But anyway.)

Otherwise, a good first chapter. Really can see every part of this animated like in the show.

[chocosea]

Heartcatch Novel Summary Chapter 5

Chapter Title: Father!

(The title for this uses the particle よ after father, which is a way to call for someone but is kind of archaic. You could do something like "O Father" for instance, but that would be weird here. I'm not really sure why they used this here, maybe to imply the dual longing between Dark Precure and Moonlight.)

This chapter covers the remaining episodes 35~49 but skips all the slice of life stuff, including the fashion show, which I would argue is actually part of Yuri's character development.

[SPOT THE DIFFERENCE!]

A boss Snackey reports to Dune that Dark Precure lost. Dune contacts the Desert Apostles from his planet castle to tell them that they're useless and he's sent a present from the planet he's almost finished conquering. it's a desert devil. Then the book summarizes ep 37.

Kaoruko hesitates at letting the girls take the tests since they recently got the Mirage and Coppe hasn't recovered yet, but she doesn't make the same mistake she did with Yuri and lets them after they insist.

Mostly skips through the individual final tests even though it's like the culmination of their character arcs. only really stops to give a few extra sentences to Tsubomi's.

Kaoruko tells them how to use the Mirage which they just seem to know how to use in the show.

Extra conversation with Kaoruko after the battle where they ask if they can become as strong as Cure Flower and she says she's sure they can. She says she only used Heartcatch Orchestra against Dune. Moonlight asks if they will be able to purify Dune and Kaoruko says she doesn't know. The fairies insist that anything is possible for Precure, as even Moonlight was able to become a Precure again.

Sasorina's purification is given like 3 sentences in the book. Directly after they skip to Dune arriving on earth, but make no mention of Christmas. it makes it seem like it happened very soon after Sasorina was purified.

Dune breaks the necklace in front of the Precure after he defeats them. Sabaku also apparently accompanied him for this. He still takes Kaoruko with him.

Apparently finding the Heart Tree was easy for Dune with maximum use of his dark power. This seems to imply that he needed to get his power back to find it, which is why he crushed the necklace faster than he did in show. if so that contradicts the show, which had him show Kaoruko the Heart Tree before crushing the pendant.

Dune specifies that he wants to use Kaoruko to make the Precure trade away their perfumes.

The Desert Devils he releases after he takes Kaoruko are twice as big as the ones the Precure defeated and can shoot beams from their mouth and eyes that can topple mountains, transform things into deserts, and trap people in crystals. He sent in 1 million of them which is how they managed to turn the whole world into a desert by the time the Precure woke up the next morning.

The book has Yuri run home while tripping on the sand and then yell out for her mom before digging in the sand with her hands like Erika does in show. She manages to dig up other crystals but they're of the other botanical garden employees. She stops digging when she remembers that Kaoruko told her before that those who have been turned into Desertrians before won't be again.

The book acts like the crystals are the same size as they've been in the series so far and notes that Itsuki even brought back the 3 crystals of her family (grandpa + parents) that she found to the botanical garden when they meet up again. But in the show the crystals at her house are shown to be huge and rooted into the ground. Itsuki says that she couldn't find her brother. Similarly, Tsubomi brought back the crystals of her parents.

The show never showed Yuri's mom among the crowd of unaffected people that comes to greet the Precure, so I guess this is another continuity thing where the show didn't plan out Yuri's backstory this far. This is funny because in show the person they had show up for Yuri was the little boy that has a crush on her while Tsubomi, Erika, and Itsuki all got people who were more relevant to their lives. Luckily, the book did away with that random boy and actually let Yuri meet her mom. This is a fix that actually makes sense. Yuri is glad to see her mom again but doesn't break out into a smile because she's being considerate of Tsubomi, who doesn't have a family member to meet.

The book has Erika come to the conclusion that the people that are still around are people they've saved before. Tsubomi then comments that there's faces that she doesn't recognize, and Yuri says those are people cure Moonlight saved. And yet people like this are missing in the actual show.

There's a sentence here about Coppe taking the Heart Mirage out of his heart mark. Not sure why that's necessary since it implies that he's always storing it for them when in show they use that move multiple times without his presence.

They also said that Coppe was protecting the fairies for this Desert Devil fight but in show the fairies had become their capes to help them fly.

In the book Coppe lets out a roar when he points to the sky; in show he points silently in response to a question. There's also no segment about them taking photos; they all pile onto Coppe's back, while in show only Marine does. There doesn't really look like there's that much room to take all 4 of them visually in show. The crowd then says the same lines they say in show to see them off.

Dune visits Kaoruko and changes the wall in front of her to monitors that show the various Desert Apostle forces preparing for battle. Dark Precure went back into her cultivation tank to heal from losing to Moonlight.

They explain that Sabaku's hideout is connected to the planet castle via a long bridge, which is where Kumojacky and Cobraja are waiting. They show this in the show but I never really paid much attention.

Book says that Kumojacky and Cobraja had some of their human heart return like Sasorina did after facing the Precure's purifying light before and have doubts about the Earth takeover thing. still, they want to fight the Precure for fun, I guess.

[VERY DIFFERENT FOR SOME REASON!]

The book describes the area where Blossom and Moonlight meet Dark Precure as a Colosseum where Dune would make people he captured fight to the death. There's traces of blood on the stone ground. This is not how the area looks in show.

There's an extra conversation between Dark Precure and Moonlight not in show where Dark Precure asks who Moonlight fights for. Moonlight naturally says that she fights to protect everyone's heart flowers and Dark Precure says that she only fights for the person she loves. Moonlight questions this, as Dark Precure doesn't have a heart, does she? Dark Precure insists that she's fighting for Professor Sabaku, and that Moonlight, who doesn't love anyone, can't match up to her.

The book describes Sabaku watching them from the audience stands but the architecture doesn't match that in show. The book also has Blossom take the hit for Moonlight when he fires at her. Dark Precure then lands a kick on Moonlight that sends her crashing into a wall.

Sabaku beams Blossom a few more times and Chypre comes in to defend her. Moonlight notices that Chypre is about to get smoked and runs in to take the hit for her. Moonlight tells Blossom that she told her not to let the fairies get involved in the battles. having taken a lot of damage, Dark Precure kicks her and gets her to cough up blood and Moonlight is blown away. Dark Precure hits her with another beam and Moonlight collapses to the ground. Blossom tries to help her but gets hit with more of Sabaku's beams and likewise hits the ground and stops moving. This whole segment is for some reason very different from the show.

Sabaku says his line about Blossom being history's weakest Precure and Blossom and Moonlight start to move again and muster up the words to protest. Blossom says she's changed and Moonlight says stuff about how she isn't alone anymore and they carry people's feelings with them. Blossom agrees and she stands up slowly. Dark Precure says that she'll teach them that people's feelings mean nothing. Moonlight says that she doesn't understand people's true feelings and that she'll show her the full weight of the feelings of the Precure. Blossom and Moonlight start overpowering their respective opponents. Dark Precure and Moonlight fortissimo at each other again and Dark Precure falls over onto the ground and struggles to get up, trying to use her tact to prop herself up and failing. Moonlight shoots a silver forte wave at her when Sabaku dives in, like he does in show. (in show though, Dark Precure just had her back to a wall and Moonlight was shooting a normal beam. they hadn't fortissimo'd yet, either)

With his mask off and finally recognizing Yuri, she runs over to him, still in Moonlight form, and throws her arms around him.

[NEW!]

Yuri's dad goes on a longer summary of what happened to him than in show. He mentions finding the Heart Tree in Paris, how it touched him, and him and trying to research it only to get nowhere. He mentions that Dune told him you can control people's hearts if you use the Heart Tree and that he would pay for all of his research expenses if he joined him. Then Dune put the mask on him, which slowly erased his memories. (In the show, Hideaki put the mask on by himself. So another continuity error.)

Hideaki explains that he was afraid of forgetting Yuri and her mother so he took cells from the heart tree and some of Yuri's hair to make Dark Precure. He uses "omae" to refer to Yuri here which probably indicates distance, since I don't think you would normally address your daughter with this pronoun. He says that he wanted Dark Precure next to him so he wouldn't forget Yuri, but he ended up making her to make Yuri suffer.

The rest happens like it does in show with Dark Precure's final moments. after she disappears, Dune claps from the audience seating, which again doesn't exist in show.

[VERY DIFFERENT FOR SOME REASON!]

Dune specifically aims to kill Hideaki, unlike in the show where all 3 of them fight him for a bit. He launches an energy ball at Hideaki. Blossom and Moonlight block it but dark energy explodes from in it and knock the two of them out of transformation. He fires another at them and Hideaki jumps in the way and then does his dying thing. The book implies that the mask also gave him extra powers, since it notes that it was a dangerous thing for him to do without his mask.

When Tsubomi tells Yuri not to fight from hatred and holds up her other heart seed fragment, Yuri takes the part from her necklace and combines it while holding Tsubomi's hand. In the show, she just takes it from Tsubomi. At that moment, Sunshine, Marine, Kaoruko and Coppe arrive rather than in the show when they appear after Blossom and Moonlight had transformed and fought Dune a bit.

Dune has a little conversation with Kaoruko where he asks her why they're still fighting when the Heart Tree has withered. Kaoruko says that as long as people have hope and believe in the Precure the tree can bloom again. Not sure why this conversation was necessary considering that she basically said the same thing earlier.

[NEW!]

Dune decides that means that he should kill them in front of the Heart Tree to nullify all hope that remains. He says he'll be waiting for them there and poofs. Yuri and Tsubomi catch the others up on what's been going down. then Coppe tells them to take a break and it's revealed that Coppe can actually speak and does so with the fairies normally but just chooses not to most of the time.

So they all take a break by entering Coppe's heart mark which apparently links to a space that has a blue sky, a giant flower field, butterflies, birds, etc. there is also a hot spring so they go sit in it. Huh.

While Tsubomi, Erika, and Itsuki are kicking back and relaxing, Yuri is thinking about her heart seed and her dad's situation. She thinks over how she doesn't agree with how her dad called Dark Precure a doll without a heart, since Dark Precure tried so hard to be loved and to keep his love to herself. Yuri thinks of how if they weren't enemies they would have been sisters. She feels bad for Dark Precure; disappearing in her father's arms was her only saving grace.

Tsubomi realizes something is up with Yuri and asks her if something's wrong. Yuri says no, then asks forgiveness for her father's actions. Tsubomi tears up and tells her that she doesn't need to apologize, especially as she's the one who was hurt the most. She then cries and hugs Yuri. Then Erika and Itsuki also tell her that she can cry and they hug her too. Then the fairies also pile onto the cry-while-hugging-Yuri heap. Yuri thanks them and then breaks out into an ugly loud sob, and they all join her in crying loudly.

They all cry until they naturally quiet down, but the tears keep coming. Erika comments on this and then wipes away her tears and talks about how she used to cry alone when she felt insecure about herself in comparison to Momoka, but after crying she felt like she was tackle it again. Tsubomi adds in how she used to cry alone when her parents were gone and she couldn't make any friends, but she felt lighter after crying. Itsuki says that she used to cry about suppressing her true self but the tears helped wash away her moments of weakness. Yuri listens quietly, no longer crying. and then she says that her dad may have actually made them stronger.

[STOLEN LINES FROM LATER IN THE SHOW]

Tsubomi apologizes for her comments back when she was stopping Yuri from fighting Dune. Yuri shakes her head and says that Tsubomi helped her remember something important. Erika suddenly stands up in a loud splash and declares that it's funny that 14-year-old beauties have to fight Dune to save the world. Coffret regards the "beauty" comment with doubt, and Chypre corrects that Yuri is 17. Erika sheepishly apologizes to Yuri and Yuri laughs. Everyone else joins in laughing and are grateful that Erika is their teammate.

Tsubomi asks what they'll do after they defeat Dune. Erika says she wants to be a pro designer have her own brand. Itsuki says what she does in show about continuing with martial arts and trying other this out, but what exactly she's thinking of trying is a secret. Yuri says she wants to continue protecting her mother and become a botanist like her father. Tsubomi says she wants a job of greening the desert, which is a bit different from in the show. Tsubomi says that if she succeeds there she'd like to then go into space and plant flowers on all planets. (And this is a good time as any to drop links for why that's not necessarily a good idea.)

[NEW!!!]

They all feel ready to take on the final battle. Yuri says they'll fight with love rather than hate. They leave Coppe's space.

Outside of Coppe, they thank him and he smiles for maybe the only time in this franchise. They transform and ride Coppe's back to the Heart Tree.

At the Heart Tree, Moonlight asks Dune why he targets Earth when there must be planets out there that the suited for the Desert Apostles. He says that since the Earth intensifies his hatred, it's the most suitable planet for him.

He wants to pollute the planet his father, who he hates more than anything in the world, tried to obtain — though that world doesn't exist anymore, though, since he killed it. He decides to explain himself since he's going to kill the Precure soon anyway. His father was the head of the Desert Apostles and was convinced by Dune's stepmother to try to kill his first successor, aka Dune. His nanny sensed this was happening and led him to escape outside the castle, but their pursuer caught up to them and killed his nanny in front of his eyes. He was 7. He continued running and then hid in a building that happened to be the church of an evil god (they refer to this as a devil later). He prayed to the statue there and offered his soul in exchange for the power to kill his father. With that power, he killed his father, his step-mother, and his younger half-brother (who I assume the step-mother wanted to replace him with).

The Precure listen to this all and then start crying for him. Dune is like, hey, you're supposed to clap there.

[VERY DIFFERENT FOR SOME REASON!]

So they get started with the battles. The fairies become capes now. The fight is completely different from the show for some reason. Marine tries to land hits on Dune and gets blown into a mound of dirt. Sunshine tries and likewise. Not sure why they're trying to fight him one on one. Blossom nearly repeats the mistake but Moonlight holds her back and tells her that they can't win 1-on-1. I really thought they would've spent time in the hot spring talking about strategy considering they had downtime and Yuri used to do that with Cologne, but I guess the author wasn't actually serious about having to write that. Blossom and Moonlight attack him together and Marine and Sunshine stand up and use a red heart seed to up their speed. They knock him into yet another mound of dirt and then use Heartcatch Mirage. It describes the move as extending a flower road towards him. No mention of the goddess figure for some reason. It doesn't work on him.

Dune transforms to his giant form which is described as a devil form. He also has a long tail and bat wings, which is different from his design in the anime. No mention of the lizard. He summons purple clouds that cover the Earth and shoot dark energy that breaks up all the land around the Heart Tree. Coppe and Kaoruko move the base of the tree around to keep it safe, and Coppe's barrier prevents it from getting hit by the dark energy. Kaoruko beckons the Precure inside of Coppe's barrier.

Blossom asks if that form is Dune's true form. Kaoruko says that in her time she only fought him as a human. Moonlight says that this sad form must be from selling his soul to the devil and having his body taken over. Dune stops growing when he's 1/2 the size of the earth. Sunshine wonders if that's the size of his hatred. Since the book used the 14-year-old beauty line in the hot springs earlier, instead Marine notes that at least it isn't infinite. They can win if they use Precure's infinite power.

Dune starts hitting the Earth, which he has changed to be ashen now (probably from the clouds. In the anime it just was desertified and looked orange). Moonlight says that they can't let Dune having his way with the Earth. They all go out together, unlike in the anime. (Probably because the hot spring used their lines from this scene in the anime.)

Dune fires dark energy beams at them from his hands but they dodge and stop in front of him. Blossom looks at him with tender eyes and the lines here match the anime. The Heartcatch Mirage appears overhead when the Precure feelings are one. They become infinity silhouette, which is described as having a face as a mix of Tsubomi and Itsuki, hair falling in light waves like Erika, with the color of Yuri's hair. The cape around her is the fusion of all 3 fairies. (This is interesting because it implies that Infinity Silhouette should have dark hair. The anime version is basically a giant Tsubomi, down to the fact that the flowers in her pigtails are cherry blossoms, which is where cure Blossom gets her name from.)

After Dune's multiple punches get repelled, his expression changes to fear and he takes a few steps back. Infinity Silhouette says a different line than she does in the anime.

Infinity Silhouette: Your hatred is all for naught in the face of Infinity Silhouette. The love of the Precure shall envelope your hatred and your sadness, and purify it for you. Dune: S-stop… Stay away!

He tries to run away but is swiftly enclosed in an embrace. (Lamer than punching.)

The devil controlling him lets out a scream as it's purified, and all the dark energy shoots out from his body. Dune transforms back to his previous form. In Infinity Silhouette's embrace, Dune remembers being hugged by his mother as a child. He deages from being a man to a boy.

Dune: S-so this is… the Precure's love… I've lost.

He then disappears in golden particles like he does in the anime.

Infinity Silhouette sees him off with a smile and then the holy light is sucked back into the Heartcatch Mirage, leaving the Super Silhouette Precure and their fairies.

[NEW!]

Later, the team, detransformed, stands in front of the Heart Tree. Kaoruko ask for the Heart Pot from Coppe and its lid from Yuri. the book says Yuri apparently was using that to transform before, even though the anime always showed the entire pot being used. Kaoruko sets the pot down at the tree's root, and from the pot comes a rainbow that repairs the trunk of the tree. At the same time, a small purple light pops out. Yuri immediately says, "Cologne…!" and the light circles them happily. The tree fully revives, unlike in the anime where the new one is still a sprout at the end.

A breeze carries petals from countless of flowers from the Heart Tree to Earth's surface and purifies the desert devils, brings people back from their crystal states, and restores Earth. The Precure travel to the Precure palace and place the Heartcatch Mirage back there. They look upon their statues and then say goodbye to the fairies, who need to stay and protect the Heart Tree. They return to their everyday lives.

2 years later in spring, Yuri and Haruna visit Hideaki's grave in his birthtown in the Yamanashi prefecture. They light incense and clasp their hands together to pray. Yuri (mentally) tells him she has just passed the entrance exam into her father's alma mater, a big university in Kyoto, and is planning on becoming a botanist like him. They weren't able to keep any of his ashes given what went down, so instead in his grave is his white lab coat from a locker in the botanical garden. Her mom prays for a long time, during which Yuri reflects on what's happened.

After they defeated Dune, Yuri told her everything about being a Precure and what happened to her dad. Her mom had listened and accepted it all and just said she was glad that Yuri came back safe. Yuri cried at her mom's kindness. When Yuri got accepted into the university in Kyoto, she invited her mom to move to Kyoto with her, since it was clear that her mom couldn't keep living in the botanical garden apartments after her father died, but her mom had just shook her head silently. Haruna told her that Kaoruko said Yuri would become an employee at the botanical gardens after she graduates, so she doesn't have to move. Haruna says she got herself this favor with a smile, so Yuri doesn't ask her to move with her again. She thinks that her mom likely doesn't want to cry in front of Yuri whenever she remembers Hideaki.

Haruna finally finishes praying. Yuri asks her what she was praying so long for and Haruna says that she was praying to Hideaki that Yuri won't run into any weird bugs when she gets to Kyoto. This phrase "虫がつく" can also mean "to begin to keep bad company; to have an (unfavorable, unfavourable) lover​", so it likely that her mom is saying that she hopes Yuri doesn't run into anyone bad. She smiles and takes Yuri's arm.

As they come out of the temple that's halfway up a mountain, they're greeted with a panoramic view of Mount Fuji, which still has snow on its top. Surrounding all the mountains is a blanket of pink and white flowers in full bloom: cherry blossoms, peach blossoms, and pear blossoms. Seeing those flowers makes Yuri think of Tsubomi, Erika, and Itsuki (though Erika and Itsuki's don't match their heart flowers, and we can only assume Tsubomi's is meant to be a cherry blossom.) The 3 of them just entered Myoudou's high school and made a new fashion club since one didn't already exist.

Itsuki started being a model for a fashion magazine (guess that was her secret thing she wanted to try out). Momoka has graduated and gone on to become an international model in Paris, so Itsuki has taken her place as an in-house model. (So you mean, she does gravure too? Yikes.) She's going to balance it with her martial arts.

Erika has become her mom's right hand at Fairy Drop and has worked on designing clothes.

Tsubomi is doing her best to get employed by NASA in the future, so she's learning English. To conquer her fear of heights, she's been trying thrill rides at the amusement park when she has time.

Their days as a Precure flew by, but Yuri swears to the flowers before her that she will also work her hardest to make her dreams come true, holding that wondrous experience close to her heart.

THE END

Personal commentary:

The only important part of this was Dune's backstory. Which, by the way, is written wrong on the Precure wiki. I don't do any wiki editing so if someone wants to correct that, please do so. The wiki says he got help from his stepmother and stepbrother, but that's not true. He hated them and killed them also.

The whole hot spring thing was so random. Like the Yuri bath scene in like chapter 1, its inclusion raises questions about author intent, given that they have a major heartfelt talk and then all hug each other... while being naked. Like this can't be animated without a lot of censoring. They could have easily done the same thing in the giant flower field while clothed and had a picnic or something. I also don't see why they needed to steal lines from later in the show.

For that matter, I don't understand why there were so many details that were different from the show. I really don't understand who this book is for.

Dune while waiting for them to take a communal bath for like 2 hours: "What is taking them so long. I should have just warped all of us."

Already dropped links above because I couldn't help myself but the idea that everywhere needs flowers is cringe. Introducing species just because you like them to ecosystems that don't need them is all sorts of folly. What if the planets already have life and you're giving them something invasive. Tsubomi also says this in show with the implication that the flowers would heal people's hearts and prevent another Dune from appearing but that's very simplistic. In real life at any rate, the violence that produces people who hurt other people is very often systemic and can't be fixed just by letting people live among flowers. They should have leaned more into the magic approach here and indicate that she wants to help the heart flowers of people rather than literally planting physical flowers. But I guess the Heart Tree is only supposed to cover Earth, so who knows if there's another one of it in space. Regardless, this is a very ill-thought out dream. She's 14 here so let's hope she rethinks it in the future. (Probably not though, due to the bias against deserts.)

Dying at Itsuki basically becoming a bikini model (some of the time). Her arc in show is just so bad already by telling girls that the real freedom is embracing the status quo of gender norms. Every day I wish she had actually been written as a trans girl.

Well. This book was a lot of nothing. 5/10.

Oh yeah, there's apparently someone translating the actual novel. I haven't looked over the translation but if you're interested in reading the novel for some reason you could probably pop over there.

[chocosea]

Heartcatch Novel Summary Chapter 4

Chapter title: Cure Moonlight's Revival!

This covers up to episode 34 and includes very little new information. I mostly skimmed it. Recorded below are a few differences.

They summarized Itsuki's addition to the team instead of going over it in any detail with quotes borrowed from the show like they did for the other two. This just goes to show that Itsuki is the team member who is least integrated into the major plot (Erika gets her integration from being Tsubomi's foil and partner).

The book says Tsuboeri get training at Itsuki's dojo but this isn't shown in the show. it also explains that Itsuki plays defense on their team and Tsuboeri prioritize attack.

Yuri starts giving them advice on how to better fight. She feels that they might actually be stronger than her with friendship as the basis for their power. I don't think this was really shown in show either so the book is trying to make the development seem more gradual.

While reviewing ep 32 for this I noticed that the flashback shows Yuri in front of the Precure Palace when Dark Precure appeared before her. But from the earlier chapters of this book she didn't even make it there at all. Another continuity error.

They gave Yuri more lines speaking in favor of the girls taking the test rather than her stoicness in the show.

For the scene where Yuri cries at the bridge in ep 33 the narrative specifies that she's thinking of how foolish she was for insisting on fighting alone.

When Dark Precure goes to show Sabaku the change in Yuri's Precure seed, he greets her by saying that she wasn't supposed to come back until she had found the Heart Tree. (sheesh.)

Personal Commentary:

When skimming this I noticed that Dark Precure / Moonlight's fight parallels the one where Moonlight lost. They hit each other with Fortissimo and then one of them thinks that they've won only to be hit with the effects much worse than the other person.

This book really stopped doing anything new. sad

[chocosea]

JP Note: ～てきた, こともある

～てくる can just indicate the direction of a request. It is sometimes redundant.

こともある implies that something has happened at least once, but does not rule out the possibility of multiple times. It does not mean every time.

食事が済み、春菜が仕事に出かけると、ゆりは久しぶりに薫子を訪ねて植物園に行こうと思った。春菜が出がけに頼んできたこともあったが、あの日以来何度も訪ねてきてくれた薫子にまったく会おうとしなかった自分の無礼を謝ろうとしたのだ。

After breakfast, Haruna left for work, and Yuri decided to visit Kaoruko at the botanical garden for the first time in a long while. That Haruna had sometimes asked Yuri to do so on her way out to work was only a part of it; Yuri wanted to apologize for her rude behavior in avoiding Kaoruko every time she had visited since that fateful day.

I'm assuming the use of "sometimes" is warranted as multiple characters tried to get Yuri to leave her room before.

[chocosea]

JP Note: 微妙, 羽目に陥る

Ahh, 微妙. What a confusing word that can mean "subtle", "complex", "doubtful", or "not great". And people use it all the time to refer to some type of feeling that encompasses something from the above.

Well. In the case below it apparently means something more along the lines of "questionable as to whether something can or will actually happen", a branch of the definition "doubtful; questionable; dicey​". Most tellingly, it follows できるかどうか. Similar to 曖昧 in this context. 微妙だなー

I had to get help for understanding the below section.

Example:

キュアブロッサムはとっさに鉄棒の握り棒を両手で摑んだが、勢いがつき過ぎているために大車輪をやる羽目に陥ってしまう。

　──逆上がりもできるかどうか微妙なのに～～っ！

Cure Blossom quickly grabbed the bar, but all of her momentum sent her spinning around it awkwardly in giant circles.

I don't think I can even do this swing right, let alone a back hip circle—!

Honestly a weird thing to say, but I guess Tsubomi wanted to do a back hip circle (逆上がりも) and failed. The もできるかどうか also implies that she already knew that doing the back hip circle was going to be tricky?

Instead she was forced to do a (gymnastical) giant swing (大車輪). Forced is through 羽目に陥ってしまう, as (adj. or plain form verb) + 羽目に陥る appears to be a phrase that means that you're stuck/trapped doing something or in a certain state.

The のに at the end mostly expresses regret rather than working as a real contrastive function here.

"Basically, she ended up having to do a 大車輪, "despite" the fact that a 逆上がり was already going to be tricky"

[chocosea]

JP Note: に追われ

～に追われる means you are busy with ～ and have almost no time to do other things.

翌日、両親は引っ越し荷物の整理と花屋の仕入れ業者との打ち合わせに追われ、つぼみを連れて隣家の来海家へ挨拶に行ったのは午後になってしまった。

The next day, Tsubomi's parents were tied up with organizing their unpacked belongings and meeting a supplier for their flower shop, so by the time they took Tsubomi to say hello to their neighbors Kurumi, it was already the afternoon.

(I am guessing I can say "unpacked belongings" when it's just "moving boxes" because I assume they aren't literally just leaving their stuff in the boxes and stacking them that way.)

[chocosea]

JP Note: ～ではおらず

Apparently is a more formal way of saying のではなくて

ももかはつい先程までゆりと一緒にいたそうで、自分が思っていた以上に落ち込んではおらず、明後日からの学校には登校すると言っていたことを報告してくれた。

Momoka had just been with Yuri, and she reported that Yuri hadn't seemed as depressed as she was expecting and would be attending school the day after tomorrow.

Again the 自分 positioning here also caught me a bit off guard, again appearing with an 以上 nearby! Here it must refer to Momoka though since she's making the inference about Yuri's mental state.

[chocosea]

Heartcatch Novel Summary Chapter 3

Chapter Title: The New Precure

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom but Kaoruko's steps are heavy. It's been one week since Moonlight was defeated, and she's gone to Yuri's house every day but hasn't be able to see her. She can sense that there's someone inside, but there's never any answer no matter if she rings the doorbell or calls out to Yuri.

She's also tried to visit Yuri when her mom is home, but apparently all Yuri is holed up in her room besides for eating and using the bathroom. Spring break is almost over, meaning that Yuri will be a second year student in high school, but Kaoruko doesn't know if Yuri will even be able to attend school in her current state.

Kaoruko visits Momoka. Both of them have been trying to contact Yuri throughout spring break to no avail, but Momoka finally got a reply from Yuri and says that Yuri will come with her along for shopping. Erika pops out of her house too and bothers Momoka to take her too. The narrative describes Erika as looking young for her age, unlike Momoka who gives off a mature air.

Kaoruko tells Momoka to come by the botanical garden after she meets Yuri, and leaves as Momoka and Erika get into a sibling spat. Just then, she gets a phone call from Tsubomi, reporting that they've just arrived in Kibougahana. Kaoruko makes a big noise, which makes Momoka and Erika look at her. She apparently forgot about her son moving his family to the city from all the other stuff that was going on.

Kaoruko reassures Tsubomi that she didn't forget about them moving in, even though she kinda did. The moving truck of Tsubomi and her parents stuff arrives. Erika is curious but pulled away by Momoka by the ear back in their shop/home.

While waiting for Tsubomi, Kaoruko thinks back on the past 3 years, since she moved to Kibougahana. She moved here because she was promoted to director for the botanical garden and could feel that commuting via busy public traffic was getting hard on her. Tsubomi cried when she left. Tsubomi's dad, Youichi, works as a botanist and gives lectures in the Tokyo area while also doing research on endangered plant species, while her mother Mizuki works for a famous flower trading company. The two have to be away a lot so Tsubomi has some lonely memories, as the show covered. Tsubomi also wasn't really making friends at school. Her parents sensed this and both of them quit their jobs to open up a flower store instead, and it's been 3 years since then. (The show covered this.) Kaoruko had been taking care of Tsubomi in her parents' place but when she saw that their relationship was improving she thought it was all right to leave for her job at Kibougahana.

Tsubomi is moving in with Kaoruko again because her landlady wanted Kaoruko to stop renting and to purchase the place, so her son said he'd move the family over. They did some reconstruction beforehand to ready the house to be a flower shop, which finished 3 days ago.

Tsubomi arrives and they hug. While eating house-moving soba with the family, the back door bell goes off. Tsubomi rises to get it but Kaoruko says it's probably her guest.

Apparently, Tsubomi talks overly polite because one time Kaoruko told her that if she wanted to be a good bride it would be better to talk more politely than the rough expressions the neighborhood kids had picked up from TV. Tsubomi latched onto that and ran away with it and insists on talking politely even when Kaoruko told her that if she speaks too politely all the time she'll make conversation with her friends stilted. Tsubomi she says she likes it. Kaoruko thinks she gets her stubborn streak from her grandpa.

The guest at the back door is Momoka. Momoka says Yuri wasn't as depressed as she was expecting and that she'll be able to attend school the day after tomorrow. Yuri apparently told her that she was depressed because her boyfriend moved away. Kaoruko realizes that Yuri's referring to Cologne dying. Momoka says she's surprised that she never heard anything about a boyfriend from Yuri even though they were supposed to be close friends. She says that she told Yuri to visit the botanical garden when she's up to it.

Kaoruko returns to Tsubomi who says Momoka is really beautiful. Kaoruko says that Momoka has a sister Tsubomi's age named Erika that goes to the same school that hopefully Tsubomi can get along with. Tsubomi says that she wants to change from being shy and that she'll do her best.

The next day, Kaoruko shows Tsubomi around the botanical garden, then takes her to that hill overlooking the city that they feature in the anime and Tsubomi likes it a lot.

The morning after, Yuri sees Tsubomi when Tsubomi does her pep talk with a clover moment in ep 1. If you watch ep 1, Momoka and Yuri aren't shown, but apparently their schools are literally side by side. Their schools are right next to each other because of the whole Myoudou school advancement thing. Momoka says she pities Tsubomi if she get tangled up with Erika since Erika doesn't read the room and drags other people into her pace. Yuri laughs at this, even though she hadn't been smiling 2 days before when they went shopping.

Here ends anything interesting and new covered in this chapter. The rest of the chapter is summarizing episodes 1-13.

Below is a collection of slight differences from the show. I honestly have no idea why any of this differed since the writer would presumably be able to reference the show, but what do I know. After some time of reading I got tired and reverted to skimming and noted fewer things.

Tsubomi talks to a cactus she has on a side table when she wonders if she went too far with Erika. In the show she's holding the clothing Erika gave her.

The book says that Tsubomi went to the botanical garden after the dream to ask Kaoruko about it but Kaoruko had to go into a meeting. So then she goes to the hill and runs into the fairies (show scenes)

There are some slight differences of when they had the fairies talk but otherwise the scene is like in the show.

They specify that Sasorina made the Desertrian to lure out the fairies.

Some fight scene differences, like the doll breaking the tube Tsubomi hid in instead of reaching a hand in.

For her Cure name they specify that the blossoms she sees are the park's sakura trees, which are late blooming. I guess that's a metaphor for Tsubomi also.

In the anime Kaoruko gives Tsubomi her perfume back when she can't find it. In the book, it's Coppe for some reason.

[NEW!] It finally got back to Yuri in that she finds out about the new Precure from the news when she was looking up history stuff while studying. Yuri did her best to ignore the new Precure since she figured it was now their job and she didn't want to think about Cologne anymore. However, due to the number of attacks in the city from Desertrians, she ends up seeing how they fought multiple times, during which she felt irritated that they weren't coming up with plans or working on their skills. It feels like they're in a more precarious position compared to when she was a Precure, and they keep getting their fairies involved in the fight. When she was Moonlight, she always made sure that Cologne was a safe distance away, and he would do his disappearing trick. He would only come closer to give advice maintain a distance.

These new fairies are even babier than Cologne and can't do the disappearing thing and Blossom and Marine forget about them when they start fighting so they're always exposed to danger. If the fairies are defeated, then they won't be able to use the Precure Seeds to transform anymore and the Earth will fall to the Desert Apostles.

[NEWNESS RECEDING] Yuri is annoyed and goes to the botanical garden to observe who interacts with Coppe. The book says she aims for a day when Kaoruko isn't there, but in the anime (ep 10) Kaoruko is actually there observing them all. Tsubomi and Erika come in and talk to Coppe, so Yuri knows that they are Precure. The scene then follows the show with the clarification that Yuri asks if they know what geranium means in flower language and then indicates their answer is insufficient because she thinks they aren't cultivating their bonds with their fairies enough. Just go watch ep 10 again instead of reading this as the rest of the words are wasted on rehashing. After you watch ep 10, go watch ep 13.

Some differing details:

Kaoruko tells Yuri that any new information of her dad has stopped.

Some fight details are marginally different.

In the jump cut after Tsubomi and Erika nearly get killed by Dark Precure again apparently Kaoruko and Yuri came running up to them and helped carry them back to the botanical garden.

At the end of the ep when Erika and Tsubomi are watching Yuri meet up with her mom, the book says they see her from the botanical garden gate while in the anime it's some random tree on a road. Anime Erika says, "Can she really not become Cure Moonlight anymore?" but in the book it's more like, "We really can't ask her to fight with us anymore."

Personal commentary:

I guess this means that Tsubomi became a Cure like 1-2 weeks after Yuri had her epic loss? In the show I always thought it was longer but I guess it makes sense the Desert Apostles wouldn't leave the place alone for that long.

I gotta say the excuse they gave for Tsubomi talking politely to the point where it's abnormal is extremely het. Tsubomi bisexual stocks are falling

Why did Yuri say boyfriend instead of pet or favorite doll or something?? The Yuri x Cologne bait apparently exists and is strange as hell.

I'm surprised Tsubomi gets to learn Erika's name at all before meeting her. It's not like she shows any recognition upon hearing Erika's name that this is the girl that her grandma said she should try to get along with. She also got mad at Erika when she thought Erika was following her home, but Kaoruko according to this book told her that Erika was the younger sister of Momoka who lives in the fashion shop next door. So... continuity issues.

I was hoping the book would explain why exactly Dark Precure just let Tsubomi and Erika go after seeing Yuri standing there in the distance, but it didn't really besides noting that she had thought Yuri was dead before this. The other likely answer is just that she's letting them go because she thinks she's so above them that it won't matter but it like………. That has never been a good trope to me. Because the best way to ensure that something doesn't become a problem is to squash it out. She also had the chance right there and then to traumatize Yuri by killing Tsuboeri in front of her. So the fact that she didn't take it is...? Especially since she comes back 3 episodes later trying to kill Yuri again. Should've just done that in ep 10 girl. (I just wish the writers had given an actual reason why she couldn't or why she didn't think it was a good idea then.)

[chocosea]

Article Title: プリキュアの“恋愛描写”は20年間でどう変わった？　「彼氏」すら表現できなかったプリキュアがわんぷりで「カップル誕生」を描けるまでに至った理由

What has changed in 20 years of Precure's depictions of romance? Reasons behind the change from seasons that couldn't include boyfriends to the birth of a couple in Wonderful Precure

Some basic summary of this post written by Kasumi, the guy who keeps track of Precure sales and makes handy graphs and whatnot.

The beginning of this article is summary of Wonderful Precure's Satoiro developments.

Later in the article, there's some quotes from Narita. Summarized: After the first few seasons, the response they got from parents was that they would prefer not to have romance because the girls watching this were like 3, 4 years old. So it was a taboo to write about romantic relationships.

The first few seasons were about falling in love with older boys shoujo manga-style, then we have Fresh's whole "I'm not telling you my answer" ending.

In Happiness Charge Narita was uncertain about whether they should do romance as one of the main themes but Nagamine wanted to go for it. So they did a love triangle as one of the main writing setups. Narita still asked multiple times if it was okay to write what she was writing. When Megumi lost in love at the end of the series it became a big topic.

After Happiness Charge they took a step back again and romance barely features besides crushes that don't go anywhere.

This changed in Hugtto when Homare gets turned down by Harry, and Hana's whole thing with George (aka her future schrodinger's evil husband).

None of these depictions are like focused on romance as something that actually leads to a mutual, intentional relationship.

Tropirouge was made specifically to have 0 romance

Black Pepper was created with the idea that he was supposed to work with the girls to save each other rather than just saving them from a pinch. His feelings were only written in to add a bit of spice to the show. But he signals a shift from possible love interests being a prince you admire to a partner that fights with you.

Every season that has served as a turning point in Precure's depiction of romance has had Narita in charge of series composition (Happiness Charge, Otona, and Wonderful).

Article mentions that while before it was unthinkable for idols and actors to have romantic partners, in the 2020 era it's become more normal for actors and TV talent to declare that they're dating and for idols to continue their idol work while being married.

プリキュアでも、かつては「コクる」「彼氏」という言葉1つだけでも保護者から大ブーイングだった時代がありました。

In Precure as well, there was an era where the words "confession" or "boyfriend" were met with loud booing from guardians.

But the times and mindsets have changed so now we have a married Precure and a Precure with a boyfriend.

梅澤　実は大ブーイングでした。「コクる」「彼氏」というセリフも評判が悪かったです。中学生だから、必然性があるから、大丈夫というわけじゃない。両親が観せたくない作品になっては『プリキュア』じゃない、と痛感しました。 ぴあ『プリキュアぴあ』（P87）

This quote is basically what was just summarized above. In addition to the booing thing, Umezawa (producer for Fresh, Heartcatch, Suite) says that he realized that if they wrote things that parents wouldn't want to show their kids then it wouldn't be Precure

So I guess parent opposition is indeed a big reason why they've been avoiding romance. But nowadays:

Satoiro has been massively popular with elementary school girls.

The target range for Precure has risen now also with the cosmetics and the like, ranging from elementary schoolers to young women.

We should expect to see more depictions of romantic love in Precure in the future.

"Change is Precure's strong point."

[chocosea]

the heartcatch novel has devolved into just summarizing episodes. this truly sucks and adds nothing to the series or yuri's character. I think the rest of this book is just writing down what happened in the show with a few changes tbh so I'm not really that interested in close reading anymore. RIP to this novel. only the first 2 chapters were worth anything, but I guess that means it's 2x the novel that the suite precure one was, considering that only the epilogue in that one was worth anything.

[chocosea]

Heartcatch Novel Summary Chapter 2

Chapter Title: Cure Moonlight's Defeat

Cure Moonlight is nearing Cure Flower's level by now. Moonlight and Cologne have been working together really well, with them always taking time to analyze how the fights went afterwards and taking time to prepare for the next one.

Yuri hasn't lost once yet, but Kaoruko thinks that's because the Apostles haven't been working together. In her era, they did work together and she had to be saved by Coppe multiple times. (Yuri's dad sure knows how to pick 'em huh)

Cologne is also way weaker than Coppe was in the past as he is too much of a literal baby. Current Coppe can still take down a general, for instance.

Kaoruko is thinking that Yuri might need to take the Precure test to get the Heartcatch Mirage, which means she'd have to fight the previous Precure.

Kaoruko originally got the Mirage 2.5 years after she became a Precure, after the Heart Pot was full of seeds. She's thinking that it would have to be Coppe fighting Yuri at the test because she doesn't have the strength anymore.

Kaoruko thinks that even if Yuri is stronger than the Desert Apostles, she's not strong enough to beat Coppe at his full strength. When Kaoruko did the test she fought against her predecessor Cure Rose, who was about 20 years younger than she is now. Even then it had almost been a fight to the death. Kaoruko doesn't want to let Yuri experience failure. (well. too bad the chapter title is should I say. aha)

Professor Sabaku has also been trying to get his Desert Apostles to fight together but they keep saying they'll do it and then don't. He's annoyed. He's also worried that Dune will kill him if he doesn't finish the desertification before Dune makes it to Earth, in a year or two. His impatience led him to speed up the growth of the girl in the tank, but in doing so she's lost one of her wings. He has named her Dark Precure and given her gothic lolita clothing. (Funny that they would specify this.) Though he does this for her and thinks of her as his daughter, he won't let her call him father. Their relationship is closer to master/servant.

The first task he gives her is to find out Cure Moonlight's true identity. He's asked the Desert Apostles to do this in the past but their blood lust was too strong that Cologne would sense them every time. Sabaku tells Dark Precure she doesn't have to fight Moonlight, just find out who she is.

When she arrives, Moonlight has just taken down Cobraja's Desertrian and they're about to duke it out. Dark Precure hides herself on an apartment building roof and watches them.

Cobraja summons his cards, which all have pictures of him posing on them. Moonlight is like, you never learn, do you? You can't beat me with those cards. and he's like, haha well I have a new, strongest card ever today, and summons a card with. him. in. swim trunks. in a sexy pose.

Moonlight is absolutely pissed at this and tells him this is foolish and to hurry up and fight her. Cobraja's upset that she insulted his rare card. He fires his cards at her and mentions that the new card has twice the explosive power, but Moonlight summons two shields through Moonlight Reflection and fires them at the cards while moving her palms in a circular motion. The shields move in the same way. Each card hits the shield and explodes, and the shields remain intact.

Cobraja is like, what is this new technique?! and Moonlight is like, you desert apostles really don't talk to each other. Kumojacky and Sasorina already know about this. Moonlight beats Cobraja by using her two Moonlight Reflection shields to reflect his cards back at him. (cobraja go boom)

Dark Precure watches this and mutters to herself about how inept these generals are, and that she would do a much better job. At that moment, Cologne looks in her direction and she immediately drops to the ground. She cools her blood lust and Cologne decides that it was his imagination.

Moonlight finishes restoring the Heart Flower to the salaryman that was turned into a Desertrian. Meanwhile, Dark Precure has flown 500M in the air and watches Moonlight detransform and have a conversation with him. Dark Precure has eyes that are better than birds of prey and hearing as good as a rabbit.

Dark Precure tails Yuri from the skies all the way back to her apartment. When Yuri goes in, she drops to the roof of another building and reads Yuri's family's nameplate. Satisfied, she goes back to the hideout.

Dark Precure tells Sabaku about Yuri's identity and she can tell he's shocked. She asks him if he knows this girl, but he says no and does his best to stay calm. She asks him to give her the order to beat Moonlight, but he says he has a more important job for her, which is to locate the Heart Tree. They have a world map behind his chair that has every possible place it might take root circled, of which there are 5000 locations.

3 months later, Dark Precure spots the heart tree in the Swiss Alps, but it notices her and lets out a deep fog, after which it disappears. She searches for it in a frenzy, but it's gone. When she goes back to the Desert Apostle hideout that orbits earth, she sees Sasorina sitting on the castle walls, staring out into the desert. Dark Precure asks if she's ruminating over having lost to Moonlight again, and Sasorina gets mad that someone lower than her is speaking up at her so casually. Dark Precure questions if she's actually ranked lower than Sasorina. Sasorina says that just looking at Dark Precure makes her annoyed because she can't help but remember Moonlight. Dark Precure is confused and asks her what she means. Sasorina is like, oh, you haven't noticed? your hair might be different, but your face is identical to hers. This bothers Dark Precure greatly, and Sasorina seizes the chance to taunt her. "You're named Dark Precure and all. So like, maybe you've got Cure Moonlight's DNA?"

Dark Precure protests that can't be possible, but Sasorina says that she heard from a Desert Apostle scientist that the generals were made from desert creatures, but Sabaku used something that looked like hair from an amulet for Dark Precure. Before Sasorina even finishes saying that, everything clicks into place in Dark Precure's head. She realizes that she hasn't been given the order to defeat Moonlight because she has Yuri Tsukikage's DNA in her. she wonders if that makes her and Yuri sisters.

Sasorina is annoyed and asking if Dark Precure is even listening to her, but Dark Precure tells her to shut up because she's thinking. As she says that she hits Sasorina lightly with the back of her hand, but because she's so strong Sasorina goes flying off into the distance. Dark Precure goes to make her report but stops in front of of Sabaku's room. she wonders what it means for Sabaku to be human also, but stops thinking because she's afraid of uncovering his true intentions and doesn't want to resent the figure she regards as her father. then she enters the room and reports only about the Heart Tree.

After that, she occasionally drops in the Hanasaki Botanical Garden as a disguised civilian to gather information on Yuri in between searching for the tree. She learns about Yuri's father going missing 2 years earlier, proof for her theory. She asks Kumojacky if Sabaku is human. Kumojacky says he doesn't really know, but he heard from a boss Snackey that Sabaku had been researching the Heart Tree but his research ran into a dead end. From there Dune made him a follower. Dark Precure nods and leaves, without thanking Kumojacky for the information. He finds this rude.

The next day, she pretends to go looking for the Heart Tree but really tails Kumojacky's trip to the park next to the botanical garden. As usual, his Deserterian gets purified and he retreats after fighting Moonlight a bit. Watching them from high up in the sky, Dark Precure feels angry at Kumojacky, the same way she felt watching Cobraja. As she watches Moonlight get applauded by the civilians she saved, she feels a rage building in her. "I'm the only daughter Professor Sabaku needs," she thinks.

Dark Precure hurtles down towards Moonlight. Moonlight notices the sheer killing intent and realizes she doesn't have time to move the housewife she had just returned the Heart Flower to to a safer location, so she jumps up to meet the force. This isn't good enough however, and she's blown away with one punch. She goes crashing against a tree. Her right cheek is swollen, and a line of blood comes trickling out of her mouth.

Moonlight uses all her strength to stand up and asks who Dark Precure is. She's shocked to hear the Precure name, as is Kaoruko, who is watching secretly from behind some of the botanical garden's plants. Coppe arrives, and Kaoruko tells him to take action if something happens to Moonlight.

Dark Precure says her whole line about how if Moonlight is the light of the moon, then she's the shadow of the moon. And when the shadow devours the light and all becomes dark, the world will be the Desert Apostles'.

Moonlight rushes at Dark Precure with a flurry of kicks and strikes, but Dark Precure dodges, then returns the same attacks. Moonlight blocks everything with the techniques Kaoruko taught her, but dark Precure's just doing that as a distraction from the dark energy she's building in her palm. She fires it at Moonlight. Moonlight tries to block it with crossed arms but she goes flying again. Just before she crashes into the ground, she manages to flip around and land on her feet.

Moonlight summons the Moon Tact. Dark Precure opens her right eye, which is gold while the other is blue. She summons the Dark Tact with the same movements Moonlight did. While Moonlight stands there in shock, Dark Precure attacks first by casting Dark Power Fortissimo. Moonlight casts Floral Power Fortissimo in response, but because she's a second too late the Dark Fortissimo has more acceleration. It explodes in front of moonlight and damages the surrounding area.

Dark Precure thinks she's defeated Moonlight and imagines bringing her corpse back as a present for Professor Sabaku. She's extremely excited about this idea, but when the smoke clears, Moonlight is nowhere to be found.

Rose petals dance in the wind behind Dark Precure. She turns around to see Coppe in his transformed state, standing on top of a streetlight in the park. Yuri is in his arms, detransformed into a white dress and unconscious. The narrative describes him as wearing a kimono and hakama with a dye pattern like a student from the Taisho era. Cologne is riding on his shoulder.

Dark Precure demands to know who he is, but naturally, he doesn't talk. She gets ready to attack again with the dark tact, when Professor Sabaku appears next to her and tells her to stop. he instead thrusts out a hand with dark energy towards Coppe. Coppe raises his own hand to the sky and summons a rose storm. The moment that Sabaku fires his dark energy, Coppe disappears with Yuri and Cologne. The energy blast explodes emptily in the sky.

Dark Precure asks who that man was, but Sabaku smacks her, and she goes crashing to the ground. She looks up at him, on the verge of tears. He yells at her for getting close to Moonlight. Dark Precure thinks he's about to hit her again, so she protects her head, but he grabs her right wrist. His grip is intense with anger. Dark Precure takes a scared glance at him, and in that moment he teleports them away.

Kaoruko watches Sabaku and Dark Precure disappear and then returns to Yuri, who has woken up. Yuri asks what Dark Precure is, and Kaoruko says she doesn't know but she thinks that the Desert Apostles made her. Yuri says she won't lose to either Dark Precure or Professor Sabaku again, but Kaoruko says that from what she saw, Dark Precure and Moonlight were of equal power, while Sabaku was likely stronger.

Yuri says she wants to get stronger, and Cologne says she definitely can. He pulls out the Heart Pot from Coppe's heart mark and puts in the most recent Heart Seed, and tells Cure Flower that this makes the pot full.

Kaoruko tells Yuri to go to the Precure Palace when her cheek has healed. Yuri wants to go right away, but Kaoruko tells her that she needs to take a strenuous test there so she should go only when her body and mind are in perfect condition. Yuri asks what the test is and Kaoruko says that she can't tell her, but she's sure that Yuri can pass it. Yuri says she'll come back after she's healed and goes home with Cologne.

Meanwhile, Dark Precure is put back on tree-searching duty after spending 3 days in an isolation cell. What Sabaku said has been echoing in her head: "I made you to act as my right hand. What's the purpose of harboring such useless emotions, when you don't even have a Heart Flower?! From now on, you are to do nothing but execute my orders!" Half of her wants to earn back his trust badly, but the other half hates Yuri even more now. She still wants to crush her.

Dark Precure locates the Heart Tree. She tells Sabaku and they begin pursuing it at a distance so that the tree won't notice them. Yuri has finally healed and goes to the botanical garden for the trip to the Precure Palace, but before that Kaoruko says that the Heart Tree spoke out to her and said that it wants to meet Yuri. Yuri asks if this means that it has any information about her dad, and looks hopeful. Kaoruko says she doesn't know for sure, but she doesn't think that the message was to notify them of anything bad.

Yuri puts the Heart Pot into Coppe and her and Cologne are enveloped in holy light and warped to the tree. Meanwhile, Kaoruko and Coppe warp to the Precure Palace to wait for Yuri.

At the tree, Chypre and Coffret appear and greet Cologne. They tell Yuri that they've been watching her and that she's really strong. She holds them and pets them on the heads, then teases Cologne by saying that these other two fairies are actually cute. Cologne plays along and pretends to sulk for a moment. Then he tells Yuri that with these two other fairies he thinks that they can have 2 more Precure. the Heart Tree called them here to convey this.

Yuri turns away from them. Cologne says, don't you want teammates? and Yuri says that she's fine by herself, as Cure Flower defeated the Desert Apostles by herself before. Cologne says that the situation is different now that there's Professor Sabaku and Dark Precure. Yuri assures him that she'll never lose to anyone.

Cologne knows that he can't change Yuri's mind and understands that she says this because of the sacrifices she's had to make to take on this role. She doesn't want anyone else to have to struggle through this, out of kindness. (the show also mentions this.)

Cologne says that he understands, and that they should head to the Precure Palace. Yuri nods, but at that moment they hear a girl laugh as a dark shadow swoops to the ground. It's Dark Precure.

Yuri tells Chypre and Coffret to hide behind the tree. Yuri transforms into Moonlight and begins fighting Dark Precure — they are evenly matched. Professor Sabaku lands next, and Cologne alerts Yuri. she insists that she can fight alone.

What follows is basically the scene you see in show. Moonlight landed a clean hit on Dark Precure and was about to follow up when Sabaku fires a dark energy blast that Cologne catches to protect Moonlight. Sabaku makes a surprised noise at this. The narrative explains it as Cologne using his life force to absorb the dark energy. The words he says in his dying moments are in the show. Goodbye Cologne.

Dark Precure is smug and says that this is the end for both Moonlight and the Heart Tree. Moonlight stands up slowly, still crying, and she vows to keep fighting until she can take revenge for Cologne. Both Moonlight and Dark Precure face off with Fortissimos, and when they separate after a volley of clashes, Dark Precure is on one knee. Moonlight thinks she's won for a second, but then she screams and falls backwards in her pre-transformation dress. There was no way for her to win fighting on rage alone.

Sabaku is pleased to see that the Precure has fallen. (so much for any lingering feelings about your first daughter.) However, he's surprised and angry to see that the Tree hasn't wilted yet. Yuri strains a laugh and tells them that new Precure will definitely appear to protect the tree. Dark Precure declares that this is Moonlight's end and fires another energy beam at Yuri, who catches it with her transformation seed. She tells Chypre and Coffret to find the next Precure. Dark Precure tries to chase them as Moonlight's seed breaks, but at that moment a big explosion occurs. The Heart Tree breaks parts of its island away, leaving Sabaku and Dark Precure on a lone piece. As it moves away, a glittering light falls before their feet — 2/3rds of Moonlight's seed.

Dark Precure tries to fly to the other part to confirm that Moonlight is dead, but she's stopped by Sabaku. He says it doesn't matter since even if she's alive, she can't become a Precure anymore. Dark Precure is about to disagree when he wraps an arm around her shoulders in a side hug. Sabaku praises Dark Precure for the first time in her life and says that they should have a toast for her. She blushes slightly, filled with bliss at getting what she's always longed for from her father.

From afar, Coppe and Kaoruko watch the island Dark Precure and Sabaku ride upon shrink in the distance. Coppe has Yuri in his arms. They had arrived just to see Yuri get beaten by Dark Precure. Kaoruko cries and laments not having taken Yuri to the Precure Palace earlier. Yuri's grip loosens, and her fragment of her Heart Seed falls out. the narrative describes the seed fragment as broken like Yuri's heart, without the ability to shine. Kaoruko picks it up and holds it tightly, crying and anew.

Personal Commentary:

Dark Precure to Sasorina:

(Courtesy of a friend)

Fun time to mention that Precure has only shown blood once in the actual animated shows, that being when Mana (Cure Heart) gets bit by a dog in her movie. Moonlight bucking the trends again #icon

Despite the Taisho-era kimono fashion notes, looking at Coppe's "hot guy" design in the show there isn't really a pattern so I wonder if the art style was just too simple to capture any pattern? Or maybe 絣 can also be used for solid dyes?

Sabaku aka Hideaki truly wins for worst dad award. Fucked over not one, but two daughters. I think we have to kill this guy. (Jump cut to the finale)

I was expecting Moonlight's rejection of having teammates to be a drawn out thing, but she really only gets 5 minutes to decide this. And for that matter, Coffret and Chypre couldn't have dug up Tsubomi and Erika in the next 5 minutes anyway. The best they could've done would've been to locate Kaoruko and Coppe. (Kaoruko not accompanying Yuri was a major miss on her part as well.)

That would be a pretty funny series though. What if you became a magical girl but it was because someone told you you had to save another magical girl within 2 minutes and so you appear there and just get hit aside like a sandbag, but because you showed up you acted as a shield for the more experienced magical girl to stave off the opponents that one time. And then afterwards you're like. So umm what's going on? and the magical girl just trauma dumps on you about The War and you're like haha... um... what have I got myself into

Cologne's dead! Time to pull out the obligatory joke image!

(His voice actor is Akira Ishida, who also voices Kaworu from Evangelion. Hence the Rebuild death joke.)

The note about Yuri losing to Dark Precure by fighting on rage alone is a nice tieback to how Tsubomi reminds her that that's not what Precure fight for. Only by holding love and center herself in supportive relationships does Yuri win... Love that for her.

[chocosea]

JP Note: 自分以上に & 目に見えている

自分以上に: Seems pretty self-explanatory, "more than (my)self", but it threw me for a loop when I was expecting the 自分 to then be the subject of the action, but it was not so.

目に見えている: Literally "the eye can see" but basically indicates sureness in the observation. In most cases you would not translate this literally.

どうしても、薫子から聞いた父親に関する報告をしなくてはならない。自分以上に失望することは目に見えている。

She would have to tell her mother what she had learned from Kaoruko about her father's whereabouts. Yuri knew her mother would take it harder than she had.

Here we can see the overall assumed frame of reference is Yuri (given the は particle in the sentence before that I didn't include here), but the subject that hypothetically experiencing the despair (失望する) is actually her mom. Through indirect intuition because the phrases chosen implies another person. whoopee. I love being temporarily confused.

[chocosea]

JP Note: と言ってもよかった

This can mean "safe to say" or "you could say" as と言ってもいい. Apparently you can conjugate it to past tense and it doesn't change the meaning? Unlike how ～ていい (It's okay to do ~) and ～てよかった (I'm glad I did ~) have different meanings.

Sample sentences:

薫子はデューン率いる『砂漠の使徒』が地球に近づいていることをペンダントの変化で知り、コッペに命じて植物園全体に結界を張らせた。

　先手を打ったことで、デューンが失った自分の魔力を取り戻すために、植物園に近づく可能性はほとんどないと言ってもよかった。

Kaoruko could sense when the Desert Apostles whom Dune commanded neared Earth through changes in the pendant, and (had already) ordered Coppe to enclose the entire botanical garden in a barrier.

With this preemptive measure, there was virtually no chance of Dune approaching the botanical garden to recapture his lost powers.

(Well, you had a pretty good run of getting him to drop off for nearly 50 years.)

[chocosea]

Heartcatch Novel Summary Chapter 1

Chapter Title: Cure Moonlight is Born

(There is a LOT of detail in this book, so this is going to be long.)

It starts on a day when Yuri goes to visit the Hanasaki Botanical Garden, of which she has visited countless times because her dad, Hideaki, was employed as a chief botanist there. Because of that Yuri loves flowers and knows flower language. The garden has 15 different greenhouses and houses 15,000 species of flowering plants from all over the world. (The show really didn't give the sense of scale of this place.) The room that you most often see in the show with Coppe-sama is known as the "Plushie Mansion" because everyone thinks he's a giant stuffie.

Yuri came to the botanical garden because Kaoruko (Tsubomi's granny and the head of the garden) wanted to give her information about how her dad had gone missing in Paris for over a month now. Kaoruko was the one who recommended Hideaki for the Heart Tree project.

Kaoruko tells Yuri that a week after her dad went missing in Paris they got the international police involved but couldn't find him, so the search was expanded to all of France and then to every country, but no dice.

Yuri is shaken. Her mom, Haruna, stopped eating and sleeping for 3 days when they had first got the news that Hideaki had disappeared, and then had to be hospitalized for 10 days and has only been back for 3.

Kaoruko gives Yuri Darjeeling tea, which she has done for her ever since 4th grade when she was waiting for her dad's work to finish after cram school. Yuri has picked up a habit of putting her pink finger slightly up from copying Kaoruko as a kid. Kaoruko mentions that her granddaughter Tsubomi who is close to her also does this. Yuri gets ready to go home because she needs to do dinner preparations as her mother started work again because she can't stand being stuck at home anymore as her mind goes to bad places when she isn't busy.

As Yuri is leaving she feels someone looking at her. Kaoruko says it must be Coppe since she's so beautiful, but after she leaves Kaoruko says out loud, "It wasn't Coppe who was staring at Yuri-chan, but Cologne, right?" and Cologne pops out from Coppe's heart mark. Cologne says that he's decided on Yuri. He refers to Kaoruko as Cure Flower, which she asks him to stop doing, but he says Cure Flower is a legendary figure to the heart tree and they never use her real name.

Cologne says Yuri looks athletic and he really likes her heart flower, which is a pure and honest white lily. Kaoruko is against Yuri becoming a Precure because she's already going through a lot with her dad. Cologne says that even despite all of that, her heart flower isn't showing signs of wilting, which means that she has a strong spirit. As he puts it, it's like she was born to be a Precure.

Kaoruko is mad and tells him to find someone else, but Cologne protests about how they need a Precure as soon as possible since the Desert Apostles are on the move again, which he says Kaoruko should already know. She doesn't say anything back, but it's true as the pendant of her necklace has been glowing since a month before. The pendant has some of Dune's magic sealed inside it and reacts whenever the Apostles are near earth. She's already gotten Coppe to set up a barrier around the botanical garden.

Kaoruko becomes calmer but tells Cologne he has to find someone else. Cologne relents and flies out of the garden to search. Apparently Coppe is a fully matured fairy who can shapeshift and teleport but Cologne is still a young fairy so he can only disappear and fly.

Yuri and her mom live in company housing for the botanical garden, and her dad's paycheck covered their expenses (which includes the cost of private school of Myoudou Academy) just barely. Her mom had gotten a job at a shop at the station to help with finances, and she's been working there for a year and a half, since Yuri entered the Academy.

Yuri would've been fine going to a public school, but her grades were so good in 6th grade (of elementary school in the JP system) that her homeroom teacher went ahead and recommended her to Myoudou Academy. Haruna agreed to this for Yuri's future.

—

So, timeline summary:

Hideaki has been missing for one month. Haruna has been back from the hospital for 3 days, and she was hospitalized for 10 days. before that she didn't eat or sleep for 3 days. For a total of 16 days, which implies that Yuri and her mom found out about him missing 2 weeks ago. Yuri is in halfway through her second year of middle school (1.5 years). Given the Japanese schooling system, she's in 8th grade.

—

Yuri is thinking that she won't tell Haruna about this new information (about the search being expanded and not finding anything) to prevent her mom from breaking down again.

Yuri has gotten into the habit of doing the cooking in her house, which both of her parents enjoyed a lot. Her dad didn't really say anything but "it's good", but her mom would tell her what she thought in detail so Yuri's cooking improved that way too. She felt happy when her parents would eat her food. (RIP)

Yuri decides to make 3 portions of food and sets aside a place for her dad. Haruna returns from work and immediately asks about what she learned, but Yuri tells her that they'll talk about it in detail so she should go change her clothes and wash her hands first. Her mom says she doesn't know which of them is the mother. Over dinner Haruna is sad to find out that the search isn't turning up anything but Yuri tries to reassure her that her dad might have actually found the Heart Tree and is just lost in research. Her mom notices the third portion of food and asks about it, to which Yuri says that she prepared it so that her dad can eat right away when he comes back. Haruna asks about what she'll do with the 3rd portion of sashimi she bought if he doesn't come back, and Yuri says that she'd boil it in soy sauce and bring it for lunch tomorrow, of course. Her mom laughs, for the first time since Hideaki has disappeared.

Yuri feels lighter seeing that and starts talking a lot, about her club stuff. She's been athletic ever since she was a kid and was chosen for relay all six years for sports day in elementary school. In middle school she was scouted for basketball and volleyball for her height, but she didn't have interest in team sports so she went with the track and field club so that she could just practice on her own. She's not people shy, she just prefers improving on on her own without talking to people. She won the city's 100 meter race this year and placed second in the prefecture, so she's been chosen to be the prefecture's representative at the national competition. Haruna says that if it's on a Sunday she'll have work off and can come cheer and make Yuri a fancy bento. Yuri says she's starting to feel pressured, but she doesn't actually mean it as her expression is soft.

Yuri's mom thinks she felt someone in their entranceway, but there's no one there. (COLOGNE IS THAT YOU.) Yuri opens the door and looks left and right and the hallway but there's no one there.

Myoudou Academy is an integrated system of middle and high school where you can go from one school to the other without entrance exams. It gathers the brightest students from the prefecture, and Yuri's always been the top of the class even through all of this. Most students who have outstanding grades go to cram school but Yuri has just been preparing on her own and asking her teachers stuff since she entered middle school. (So I guess she only went to cram school for 2 years in elementary.)

Yuri is taking a bath and feels like she senses someone in the changing area (?!). She feels like she's being watched going about her day. (Cologne WTF)

Momoka appears and they're described as best friends. Yuri confides in her about being watched and Momoka's answer is, "It's probably just some boy that likes you, isn't it?"

Momoka says that Yuri looks pretty without her glasses and should swap to contacts. (THE GLASSES HATE….!) She takes off Yuri's glasses and says that she could definitely make it work and she could model with her. Yuri takes her glasses back and is like I was a fool to have asked you about this. Yuri gets up to go back to the classroom and Momoka is like noooo Yuri i'm not making fun of you I swear! if you don't like me anymore then I won't have a single friend pleasee don't be mad at me

Momoka's alone because she's been a popular model ever since she was young and is popular with the boys which makes other girls jealous of her. She and Yuri are in the same class this year and since Yuri is also a loner due to her academic focus they gravitated towards each other. The book describes them as oil and water personalities that became close anyway. Momoka does gravure modeling (yikes). She has to miss school a lot so she gets her notes from Yuri. When the two of them go shopping for clothes together Momoka picks out outfits for Yuri and Yuri finds her skill and style amazing in that regard. Yuri feels that she can relax most when she's with Momoka. (yurimomo, anyone?) But yuri still feels eyes on her while she was talking to Momoka. (Cologne, cut it out.)

Cologne finally shows himself in her room while she was studying, after a week of stalking her. He's like sorry I've been observing you for a week, and Yuri's like, you've been observing me since that day you were peeping at me in the bath? And he gets all red and is like "How rude! Despite how I look, I'm a gentleman! I may have been in your bathroom, but I absolutely did not take a single glance at your nude body!" (okay. is this really how we want the first conversation to go)

Yuri finds this funny and says she'll believe him. Cologne sits on her desk and asks her to be a Precure, then has to explain what all the terms mean.

I'm not sure this was ever covered in the Heartcatch show but Cologne explains that the Desert Apostles are a group of wandering people who used up all the resources of their old planet, so they just find new planets to inhabit and use up all the resources there, and then they move onto the next one. They change planets to deserts because that's what's best for them to live in. Apparently the Desert Apostles have been eyeing earth for 400 years (since the Edo period) but Precure have been fighting them off.

Cologne explains the Heart Tree and mentions that every human has a heart flower, and if they all wither the tree will die. He says Yuri's heart flower is a white lily and Yuri confirms that it means "pure" and "majestic".

Yuri agrees to be a Precure because of the Heart Tree's connection to her dad. Cologne tells her that she'll likely meet the Heart Tree if she grows as a Precure. Yuri says that she'll be able to meet her dad then; Cologne says he can't promise that. (LITTLE DOES SHE KNOW…) He looks dejected when he says that so Yuri laughs. She says she likes how honest he is.

Kaoruko is wondering how Cologne's search is going because she knows it isn't easy to find people who can become Precure. Just then Cologne shows up and is like I did it! and then calls for Yuri to come in. Kaoruko is shocked and is like, "Didn't you say you were searching for a Precure this week?" and he's just like "yeah after observing her for a week I'm confident that there's no one else that can become a Precure" (dude.)

Yuri requests seriously that Kaoruko let her become a Precure because she wants to meet her dad again, and she's prepared to lay her life on the line. Kaoruko says that she'll be the one to train her then, all the while thinking about how she can't make Yuri's mom sadder.

Kaoruko is near 65, but was apparently the youngest karate champion in all of Japan before. She had to give it up due to the injuries she sustained from fighting Dune, so she started botany instead. She doesn't talk about her karate days with most people.

Kaoruko is secretly hoping that Yuri will give up after strenuous training. However, Yuri goes all in. She quits track and field to start training immediately. Her advisor asked her to at least wait for the national competition but she said no. (Girl, what about your plans with your mom…) Yuri only liked running the 100 M dash before. Didn't want to do 200M her reasoning was apparently "A man who chases two rabbits catches none". Her advisor was hoping she'd rep the country in her sport someday. (rip yuri olympic dreams)

Afterwards, Yuri goes to Kaoruko to set up her schedule. She's practicing karate 1 hour before school and 2 hours after school, and on the weekends from afternoon to evening. (wow they're taking this so seriously. the heck were Tsubomi and Erika doing)

After 1 month of training, Yuri has already mastered the basic 6 "kata" of karate. Kata or "form" refers to "detailed choreographed pattern of martial arts movements". Kaoruko then teaches her close combat and battle efficiency, as well as palm strikes as Yuri's special technique. (I do believe you get to see her use that in the show.) Yuri masters that in 2 weeks also. She can blast Kaoruko away even if Kaoruko blocks perfectly using this technique.

Kaoruko says she's not young anymore and her body can't keep up, so Yuri will be training at Myoudou's dojo starting from the day after. They specialize in aikido rather than karate. Yuri won't have to worry about paying for classes because Kaoruko told Gentarou (Itsuki's grandpa and an old friend of Kaoruko's) that Yuri has talent that might surpass her own, so she'll be admitted on scholarship.

Kaoruko is already 99% sure that she'll say yes to Yuri becoming a Precure but the 1% of her that's hesitant is because Yuri is too serious and has no flexibility in her heart. She's hoping that Myoudou's aikido, which focuses on stillness, will nurture some capacity for space in Yuri's heart.

However, she doesn't get to start training there because the next day the Desert Apostles take over the news channel and announce themselves. They're broadcasting from a cave with a throne in it, with Sabaku sitting in it. Sasorina is given an age, 24-25. She says that they know Cure Flower is alive and about which area she lives in, even if she's erased her presence. They're coming for the pendant she has. The other people who see the news think it's just an internet prank since no one knows about Precure. These current Desert apostles are different from the ones Flower fought before.

Kaoruko tells Coppe to call for Cologne and Yuri. She tells Cologne to give Yuri a heart perfume. the moment Yuri touches the perfume she transforms. The way they narrate her transformation sounds more like the other three's rather than the quick one Yuri had in the anime. Here, she sprays one thing at a time. They describe the blue in her outfit as indigo blue, and also her one long bang is supposed to be reminiscent of a crescent moon.

Kaoruko asks Yuri why she chose Moonlight as her Cure name, and Yuri shyly says it's because she likes Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Cologne has been helping Yuri prepare by telling her to think of a name beforehand and he already explained how to purify Desertrians. He's being cheeky again, whistling when Yuri completed her transformation and winking at Kaoruko now.

They feel a presence of a Desert Apostle so Kaoruko tells them to all grab onto Coppe. Coppe teleports to the area, the parking lot near the station. Sasorina is terrorizing people with the Snackeys. she spots Haruna, who works at a shop in the station and sees that one of her three yellow rapeseed flowers in her heart is wilted, which makes her a prime candidate for being turned into a Desertian.

Sasorina does so, and like always, plucks off the human trapped in the orb part of the captured flower and throws it aside. As it falls, Cologne quickly catches it and brings it to Yuri. When Yuri realizes it's her mom, she falls silent and trembles in rage. Kaoruko reminds her that fighting from anger is dangerous and that she needs to think calmly about how to save her mom.

Yuri jumps into combat and tries to palm strike Sasorina, but Sasorina teleports behind a mailbox, which she now makes a Desertrian out of with Haruna's heart flower. It tries to trample on Moonlight, but she jumps high into the air and has that classic Precure moment of wow I'm so high up. She reverses direction in air and lands a kick on the Desertrian, which goes crashing into the wall of the parking lot.

The Desertrian starts talking, sad and angry about Hideaki not having contacted them at all. Haruna's upset at how much he's made Yuri worry as well. (Honestly, deserved.) Sasorina of course thinks this talk is useless and orders it to attack again. It changes the mail into bombs and starts firing from its mouth. It also cries out that it can't stand living without Hideaki and yells for him to come back.

Yuri finds that she can only dodge but not fight back upon hearing her mom's voice, until Cologne reminds her that she needs to beat the Desertrian to save her mom. Yuri declares that she can't forgive the Desertrian for changing the letters and postcards that holds people's feelings into bombs and beats the thing for good. Cologne directs her to summon her Moon Tact and she casts Silver Forte Wave and purifies the Desterian.

As Yuri confirms that her mom's flowers are fine, Sasorina attacks her. Yuri tosses the flower orb to Cologne and catches Sasorina's hair that's trying to wrap around and sting her. Sasorina for some reason says, 一刺しでゴートゥヘブンよぉん! which literally has "Go to Heaven" in it in English dkjlf;kjd. (It's like, with one prick, you'll go to Heaven!) Sasorina was trying to sting Yuri in the throat but she chops it to bits with her hands. She then grabs the part that's still connected and swings Sasorina into the sky like she's getting ready for a hammer throw. She lets go and Sasorina crashes into a building.

Sasorina retreats like a sore loser. Cologne births a Heart Seed, which he does while turning his back to Yuri and wagging his tail. The narrative describes it like a chicken popping out an egg. The Heart Seed goes back to the Heart Pot Coppe has. Onlookers have appeared so they all grab onto Coppe and teleport back with Haruna.

Haruna wakes up in the botanical garden, fine but confused. Kaoruko says that there was a big commotion at the station and she found Haruna collapsed there, so she and Yuri brought her to the garden. Kaoruko says they should head home now that she's awake, but Haruna realizes she didn't do the shift change at her stall and wants to go back there. Yuri walks with her as Haruna says that they should eat out tonight, since it's been a while.

Yuri senses that Haruna seems to be in a good mood and asks her if something good happened. Haruna says that she doesn't want to say because Yuri will laugh at her, so Yuri promises not to laugh. Haruna says she had a dream in which she became a post box and rampaged while yelling at Hideaki.

Haruna asks why Yuri has been bringing around that plushie lately (Cologne). Yuri says that she found it at a boutique and just happened to like it so she bought it. Haruna picks up Cologne and studies his face. then she says that he doesn't look very cute, and asks if Yuri would like her to buy her a cuter plushie. Yuri is about to laugh, but notices Cologne eyeing her secretly. So she says that she's never been that interested in the cute things that would appeal to the average girl. She prefers something that's just a little bit more cheeky. As she says this, she takes Cologne back.

At the station Haruna explains things to her coworkers on a later shift. Cologne says, "Sorry for being cheeky," to Yuri, and she laughs and teases him, saying that her mom accepted him after that, and that he's lucky she doesn't like cute things. Seeing his sulky face makes her smile.

Yuri asks him if people who become Desterians remember what happened, and Cologne says it looks like that and that they probably feel better after getting all their feelings out. They reconfirm their goal to get stronger so that Yuri can get a clue about her dad from the Heart Tree.

Haruna comes back and says that they should get something delicious and takes Yuri's hand for the first time in a long while, and Yuri feels light.

At the villain hideout, Sasorina reports about the new Precure to Professor Sabaku, who has been entrusted with all of the desertification plans. (He sure climbed his way up the ladder in an entire month, huh.) Kumojacky and Cobraja are happy to hear this. Kumojacky asks how strong the new Precure was, and Sasorina says she can't say anything yet because today was only a greeting. Kumojacky says she must have just lost and ran away. Sasorina grabs him by the collar and says he shouldn't make jokes like that, and the next time she'll finish the Precure off. He gives a noncommital noise and shakes her off. The two argue over who gets to fight the Precure when Cobraja asks Sabaku to let him do it. Sabaaku just tells them not to make any moves by themselves, since he's the one who will decide. He leaves the room.

Apparently he created all 3 of them, starting from Sasorina and then Kumojacky and then Cobraja. The 3 of them are made from taking the genes from a scorpion, poisonous spider, and a cobra, (kumo in kumojacky is "spider") and combining them with a mostly wilted heart flower.

Sasorina was originally a nursery school teacher but a kid she was looking after died due to some accident and after all of the societal pressure she had a mental breakdown and was being treated at a facility. (I think in show you see her wake up here after she's been purified.)

Kumojacky was kidnapped after he had failed to become a pro martial artist due to his egocentric and violent personality. He had been expelled from his school of martial arts and fallen into despair.

Cobraja was a fashion coordinator but he would verbally abuse any model he didn't think was prettier than himself and also get into fights with designers who didn't make clothes that fit his tastes. He was likewise expelled from the fashion world.

Sabaku has hopes for them as generals but the three of them have very strong personalities, so he's a bit worried. He returns to his room to stare at the enchanting, wriggling lifeform in his cultivation tank. it's a girl curled up like a baby would be in a womb, with wings on her back. he murmurs for her born soon and refers to her as his daughter while staring at her in a trance.

Personal commentary:

My god! So much detail! I really like that they actually bothered to build on the Heartcatch world. The character motivations are really interesting also. This is truly like watching a trainwreck though given how Moonlight's solo attempt turns out. I'm gonna read Cologne dying in 1080p HD. Though tbh, he kind of deserves it after being a creeper for a whole week. Was that bath scene really necessary? I don't think so! The mental image of Yuri leaping up from the bath to yank open the door to confirm that there's no one in her bathroom is not really something I need. Cologne is lucky that he's a stupid animal and not a humanoid thing. Him dying later is paying for his cheeky sins. Why is he even a boy fairy. Why do the fairies have gender. They're not the ones birthing the other fairies, that's the Heart Tree's business. So what's the point of them doing that? Why does Cologne have an idea of what it means to be a gentleman? Maybe Kaoruko let him watch too much TV.

Things I forgot about the series: Itsuki's family owns their private middle school that they attend.

The rabbit proverb is like word for word almost in Japanese. makes me wonder if English or Japanese took it from the other. there was also another one earlier that was the same, but I don't remember what it was.

Really thinking about how deserts are treated so badly in media as signs of like death and whatever when they're their entire ecosystems. It's unfortunate, especially given that Sasorina is like Arab coded as a villain.

I appreciate the foreshadowing with Yuri's upcoming failure regarding the having lack of flexibility. Since ultimately Cologne dies because she didn't agree to have a partner. AU Cure Momoka where?

I also really appreciate that there's a real reason why the Desertrians are attacking their area specifically, and it's because they want that power Kaoruko is squirreling away. Always nice to have a real reason instead of just "uhh they kinda happened to be hanging out here."

The line where Yuri said she couldn't forgive the mailbox Desertrian was also really good because it nods to how she can't even get a phone call or letter or anything from her dad right now. It's unacceptable to put someone else in that situation by turning their attempts of communication to bombs.

The word that I used for "boutique" was "fancy shop" store in waseigo (ファンシーショップ) and refers to stores like this