#PCD172

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Precure Day 172

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 24 - “The New Power of the 5!” Date watched: 11 January 2020 Original air date: 22 July 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/j16tyB3 Transformation Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/6k6SzS0 Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

for once it’s not a wrist brace

When we left off, Nozomi, Coco, Nuts, and secretly Milk had arrived at Nightmare HQ only to be confronted by their missing teammates: Cures Rouge, Lemonade, Mint, and Aqua wearing Nightmare masks! How can she save her friends from the depths of their own insecurities? With the power of her strong feelings, of course. Let’s dive in!

The Plot

Nozomi isn’t the only one surprised to see that her teammates have been taken. Bunbee is also taken aback at the presence of Precures in the office. Kawarino, however, taunts Nozomi and says her voice will never reach them. Nozomi tries to pull off their masks anyway, but to no avail, as Kawarino informs her these are the Masks of Despair and cannot be removed once applied. Nozomi transforms into Cure Dream, preparing to fight the villains, but her teammates quickly restrain her while Kawarino tries to put a mask on her. It doesn’t take, because she’s still holding onto hope, but Kawarino taunts her that she’s the only one left, all her friends have already sunk into despair, and this upends her long enough for the mask to take hold.

As Despariah is only interested in obtaining the Dream Collet, and nothing more, she tells Kawarino he can do as he pleases with them, so he orders them to jump into the pit, which they do. Bunbee grabs Coco and Nuts and demands they hand over the Dream Collet but Milk jumps out, latches onto his face, and this gives Coco an opportunity to escape and jump down the pit after the girls before the trap door closes. Kawarino says it doesn’t matter, because the Precures are immersed in a tranquil world where they can forget about their worries, and nobody has ever escaped it.

Inside the Dream World, Nozomi finds herself sitting at a table with Rin, Urara, Komachi, and Karen, with a huge feast in front of them. They encourage her to put aside her worries and just eat, and she does, but she hears the jingle of the charm Coco gave her, and stares at it. Even when the others encourage her to forget about it, it keeps distracting her.

Outside in the pit, Coco hears the jingle of the charm and catches up to Dream. He begs her to remember herself and wake up. Inside, Nozomi begins to question how they all got together since they have little in common, and reiterates that she’s forgetting something. Suddenly she remembers Coco’s words to her, encouraging her to work hard to make amends with her friends, and she calls out for him, and his voice reaches her as well. Her mask begins to crack, which startles Kawarino. Coco puts his head against hers and enters her dream, where they both appear on the top of a flowery hill.

He embraces her and says he thought he’d never see her again. She tells him that he reminded her about what was important, and that she has a dream she wants to come true! Then her mask completely shatters apart! Kawarino can feel this and is completely floored.

Dream and Coco go to help the other cures break out of the nightmare. Nozomi reappears in the dream as Cure Dream and encourages them to leave. They all appear dead-eyed now, and mutter about their insecurities, but Dream encourages them to circle around and hold hands. Her warmth reaches them all and she apologizes for causing trouble, but they all accept the blame.

All of their masks shatter and break in a huge burst of light, and they reappear in the Nightmare boardroom, astonishing Bunbee, Kawarino, and even Despariah herself. Nuts and Milk take the chance to break free from Bunbee’s grasp at this point. Kawarino is furious that his plan failed but Bunbee urges him not to fight in the boardroom, so he teleports them all to his special arena, a huge colosseum, and brings in Girinma to throw them around.

The team tries to remove Girinma’s black mask but he’s too far gone and too strong and he flings them into the walls. Kawarino tries to sneak attack Dream but Rouge saves her, so he attempts to get into her head again by telling her that she’s hurting because of Nozomi, but Rouge says she just wants to protect her friend. He goes over to Lemonade and suggests that she should give up on her friends and save herself, but she rebuts that she will keep her friends AND her dreams, and Dream and Rouge come over to save her. He turns his attention to Mint, who is restraining Girinma, and tells her she’s stuck with the boring jobs again. Aqua comes to her side and insists this is Komachi’s kindness, which she knows better than anyone. The villain taunts Aqua by calling her a loner, but Mint responds that they’re all there for her and they’ll never let her feel lonely again! Together they’re unstoppable! And while the older two are keeping Girinma restrained, Dream, Rouge, and Lemonade all do a flying kick that knocks him over. At this point, Kawarino is fed up at the setbacks and powers up Girinma one more time into an even bigger, more monstrous form, and once again he sends the girls flying.

The fairies come over to Dream and Milk laments how useless she’s been, and how all of this is her fault for getting in the way, but Dream tells her that she wants to rebuild the ornament together with Milk. The girls all stand up and face Girinma, who prepares his final blow, but Milk screams out that she wants to rebuild the ornament as well, and her bag begins to glow.

yeah it’s basically the same thing as Porun

Five color-coded beams of light erupt from her bag and appear in the sky, turning into a giant butterfly-shaped baton. Nuts surmises that this is a new attack for the team and they unite their feelings, board the butterfly like a spaceship called the Symphony Set, and begin to fly it around. It sprouts enormous butterfly wings made of energy, and they charge it right into Girinma, declaring the attack Precure Five Explosion. Kawarino flees before the impact, and Girinma is disintegrated.

The girls fly off on the Symphony Set out of the Nightmare dimension and arrive back at their school, where it breaks apart into five lights that enter their brooches. Coco and Nuts praise Milk for her strong feelings creating this new power.

We cut back to the shop, where we see the girls and Milk have all completed the ornament. Milk plays tsundere but it’s clear to all that she was eager to be involved, and Nuts notices that she’s blushing. Everyone laughs it off as the scene fades out.

The Analysis

I love how Nozomi never ever gives up, even when it would be so much easier to do so. She’s the Precure of hope, damn it, she’s not going to lose herself so easily! She has enough awareness to wonder how and when she became friends with the school’s idols, and then Coco’s charm helps to remind her of the reality where they’re Precures. She’s able to break out of the nightmare world with his help and then she dives right back in to help the others to break free as well, because that’s the kind of person she is. This is what being the Pink Cure is about. And how does she appeal to them? She tells them that together, they can do anything. She rekindles their friendship by accepting them as they are, acknowledging that each of them has flaws and insecurities, but together they’re stronger than anything.

This is reiterated during the climactic fight in the arena, where Kawarino goes around to each of the girls trying to hit them in their insecurities but, thanks to Nozomi’s earlier encouragement, they refute him and help encourage each other. Even Milk gets in on the action. When she feels useless for being unable to help in the battle or any other aspect of their lives, Dream encourages her by saying they’ll rebuild the butterfly ornament together, and this reinforcement of her value to Nozomi and the girls leads her to try to protect them and unlocks the Symphony Set. Nozomi is the heart and soul of this team, and everyone is better for having her around, just as she’s better for having them.

What’s really interesting about the dream world they all end up in is that it’s not some dystopian hellscape, it’s actually very pleasant. They’re all sitting at a table eating a feast together, it’s practically idyllic. However, the girls have no memory of being Precures, or of the fairies. The idea seems to be to trap them in paradise forever and they’ll never want to leave. It might have worked, but Nozomi being the glue that holds them all together gives her a heightened awareness of the oddity of them all hanging out together without a clear reason to do so, which is what starts to wake her up.

I forgot to point this out in the ep 23 review, but the Masks of Despair that the Nightmare Cure 5 wear are the same ones worn by the Nightmare board, as opposed to the pointy ones worn by Kowaina.

Top to bottom: Nightmare 5, Nightmare executive board, normal Kowaina mask, Girinma’s black mask

It really raises the question of who’s actually underneath those masks? Other subjects that Nightmare has conquered? They don’t seem to be allies to the cause...

One fun little animation tidbit was when the team broke out of their masks, they transitioned from a shot of them in the dream world to the real world, in the same position, even though we’ve seen clearly that motions do not track 1:1 between the two realms. In this case they really were all holding hands to break free and I thought that was a good touch.

What I love about this episode is that we get to see the team unite after a great hardship and prove the strength of their deep bonds, being rewarded with an even greater power. Their fight in the colosseum is one of the best fights we’ve had in this show so far, because of the high stakes and how the girls are all reaffirming their bonds with each other along the way, to make up for the disagreement. The setting allows them to jump around through rubble and stadium seats and entryways and walls, and it’s very spacious so they can be scattered about before reuniting. And then they unlock that new attack.

Five Explosion is a really cool finisher, and it’s got a great musical cue to go with it. The Symphony Set may be kind of strange looking in their individual modes, and even when combined it’s weird, but they all get beamed up onto it like it’s some kind of spaceship, and it sprouts giant butterfly wings. That’s leaps and bounds more imaginative than anything the FW shows did with their powerups. It’s all about presentation!

This also wraps up Milk’s introductory arc nicely. She started out very selfish, exploiting others for her advantage, because she had to in this cruel world. She continues being rude even after reuniting with Coco and Nuts and meeting the Legendary Warriors, and she does cause them a lot of grief, but they still stick their necks out for her when she’s in danger and this doesn’t go unnoticed. She feels extremely helpless when Nightmare kidnaps them all, and defies orders to stay behind at Natts House Ultimately this pays off because she’s able to save Coco and Nuts from Bunbee and retrieve the Dream Collet, and then during the battle with monstrous Girinma she desperately wants to save the girls in return for all their kindness to her, unlocking their new power. Going forward, she’ll still be rude, but she’s definitely improved.

On the villain side of things, this is a sad farewell to Girinma, the first and best of the current crop. He was that perfect mix of cunning and ruthless while still being entertaining to watch. Also his voice was great. This shows us just how far Nightmare will go to achieve their goals, that they would turn one of their best generals into a mindless beast as punishment. They are an entirely results-oriented company, and don’t actually care about their employees. Oh, how the analogies write themselves.

One of the most satisfying parts of this episode comes at the very end, when they’ve completed the ornament and they’re all sitting back admiring it. It bookends this arc perfectly. Milk snarks about wanting to make sure they didn’t screw it up again but it’s clear she really wanted to help.

Notably, in the middle of it, you can see the charm that Coco made with one bead for each of them, fairies included, and I think that’s a really nice touch. The eight of them are united by the same goal: restoring the Palmier Kingdom and defeating Nightmare, but more importantly their friendship is at the core of the show, which this charm represents just right. And I believe you can see this ornament in the background going forward so it wasn’t just a plot point to be forgotten.

The climax in the middle of the show is always intense, by necessity, but this one feels even more desperate than those of FW, MH, or SS because this time, not only did the villains win for a time, they actually subjugated the heroines for a bit. The stakes in the prior shows may have been higher, but the way it’s portrayed here really tugs at the heartstrings, so I’m giving it the win. (for reference check days 25, 26, 72, 73, 120, and 121. Also, days 30 and 122 for powerups following these incidents). The next episode will be a breather from the intensity, it’s a very light-hearted and fun respite as they prepare for a vacation. Look forward to it!

Pink precure Catchphrase Count: 1 kettei during the preview. It counts!