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Precure Day 228

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! 30 - “The Power of a Monarch and Nuts’s Worries” Date watched: 26 October 2022 Original air date: 7 September 2008 Screenshots Precure Metamorphose Gallery | Sky Rose Translate Gallery Project info and master list of posts

In the name of dreams, I will hope at you!

Kurumi gets into a fight with Nozomi! Everyone gets swept into the story of Princess Kaguya, and Nozomi makes a cheeky joke about her magical girl forebears. Even Nuts wrestles with his worth, and invents a new toy. Will everyone reconcile their relationships? Let’s dig in!

The Plot

During a lesson on The Legend of the Bamboo Cutter (the story of Princess Kaguya), Nozomi and Kurumi get into an argument about the need for Kaguya to leave her Earth family and return to the Moon Palace. This leads to Coco scolding them for interrupting. Kurumi takes this personally and later informs Nozomi that they aren’t friends anymore.

Nuts finishes and tests the Milky Note, whose function remains unclear.

The Director has a dream/flashback of spending time in the Cure Rose Garden with Flora before Anacondy wakes him with a gift. He dismisses her as she doesn’t have the Rose Pact.

Syrup and Princess Crepe find Kurumi moping after school, and Crepe pointedly reminds her that she’s not fulfilling her caretaker duties by running away. Kurumi returns to Natts House with Syrup to make amends. Coco says it’s water under the bridge. Meanwhile, everyone else is out looking at the moon during the Tsukimi celebration.

Suddenly the girls (sans Kurumi) find themselves sucked into the moon, and quickly deduce they’re in the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

Princess Kaguya appears to them, but reveals she’s Shibiretta, and she turns a meteor into a Hoshiina to destroy the girls.

Nuts tries to contact them with the Milky Note but it doesn’t work. Princess Crepe imbues it with some magic, allowing them to reach Nozomi et al. Cure Dream tells Kurumi to stay away and keep the Rose Pact safe.

Princess Crepe affirms that this is the right course of action for a caretaker, to protect Coco and Nuts, but Kurumi argues that her duty is to all the citizens of Palmier, and the cures have also enabled a lot of joy among the citizens, so in fact helping them is part of her duties. Crepe agrees, satisfied that Kurumi can live up to her responsibilities.

Kurumi writes a letter to Nozomi and pours her strong feelings into it, allowing Mailpo to track it to its destination in the moon palace.

Milky Rose saves the day and teams up with Cure Dream, each of them protecting each other’s backs from the meteors thrown by the monster. The other girls also partner up. They then grab large boulders and throw them back at the Hoshiina, stunning it long enough for Rose to use Milky Rose Blizzard. The fantasy world fades away.

Back at Natts House, Nozomi and Kurumi make peace while everyone enjoys the moon viewing with traditional dango. Unfortunately Nuts feels very down because he sees his invention as a failure and believes he’s of no value to the Precures, and so the episode ends on a melancholy note.

The Analysis

What I Liked

The fight between Nozomi and Kurumi is, on the surface, about the necessity of Princess Kaguya returning to the moon in the story. Obviously it’s actually about Coco and Nuts returning to Palmier after the girls defeat Eternal, and that’s a good conversation to be had.

We finally get insight into why the Director wants to get the Rose Pact and gain entry to the Cure Rose Garden: he loves Flora.

Anacondy pining over the director also sheds some light on her.

The pattern of the monarchs helping out one of the main fairies continues. It seems Princess Crepe is mostly here to help Kurumi/Milk understand her responsibilities as a caretaker. This episode has a decent arc, with Kurumi admitting that she wants to be a part of the action as her way of protecting the Palmier Kingdom.

The visuals of the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter are nice, both the backgrounds mimicking traditional paintings as well as the new costumes for the girls. Also, the girls get transformation scenes in their fancy outfits which is always a plus in my book.

Nuts’s angst will set the stage for the next episode.

Nozomi gets a cheeky line in about being the rabbit of the moon (tsuki no usagi). With Sailor Moon being a likely inspiration for the team dynamic and characterization of this series, that’s a good nod and I’m sure someone has been waiting to make that joke.

What I Didn’t Like

Nozomi and Kurumi’s debate about Princess Kaguya was obviously more about Coco and Nuts leaving, and while that was acknowledged in the narrative briefly, I would have liked more discussion. While it’s true it was mostly resolved last season, now that they’re back, there could be more to say on the subject. The ending is inevitable but talking about it is a good thing.

This is the first time Anacondy has indicated she has feelings for the Director, and I wish that had come up sooner. It might have made her a more interesting character up to this point.

It’s not clear what Shibiretta’s plan was. A big part of the fight is that the Hoshiina can break apart and reform itself, and bombard the team with meteors. It had the upper hand until Kurumi showed up, but I feel as though the girls could have fought their way out with a similar strategy as they ultimately employed.

This episode and the next really should have been a proper two-parter, as they approach similar ideas regarding Kurumi and Nuts’s roles in the team.

MIscellaneous

As mentioned last time, the ending has changed to “Ganbalance de Dance ~Relay of Hope.” I wrote about it here.

Nuts tapping away on the Milky Note like it’s a laptop is amusing when it only has about 4 buttons.

Even the animators were like “We have no idea what to do with this.”

There is an animation error near the beginning of the episode. In the group shot of Coco’s class, the girl to the left of Kurumi has bits of the desk behind her sticking through her head.

Also, spot the main characters

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is the oldest written Japanese story. It’s about a princess from the moon who comes to live with a bamboo cutter’s family. When she grows up she is very beautiful and sought far and wide, but she turns away all suitors. Eventually she has to return to the moon kingdom. As usual, very little of the story is actually used in the episode, it’s just set dressing.

Moon viewing, or tsukimi, is a traditional fall activity in Japan with a lot of traditions associated with it, some of which are shown in this episode like the special dango and the pampas grass. This tradition has been seen in Precure before in Splash Star 34. 

Nozomi (and Urara) being “Rabbits of the Moon” is a reference to a different piece of folklore. Much like how western cultures see a man in the moon, Asian cultures see a rabbit in the moon.

Based on this episode and some reveals down the road, there is a theory that the Director and Flora are Syrup’s true parents, which would potentially explain why Eternal is after him.

Princess Crepe acts as a decent mentor figure in this episode. She still taunts Kurumi a bit but it’s in the interest of bettering her.

Milk does not appear in her fairy form in this episode.

Conclusion

It’s a decent episode with grand aspirations. Unfortunately it falls flat for me. Tying the moon viewing into the tale of Princess Kaguya was a good transition, but as always they didn’t do enough with the premise. I will say that Kurumi got a nice scene at sunset, where she talked with Syrup and Crepe. It builds up her and Nuts’s arc that will be resolved in the next episode, about the disparity between her duties as a caregiver and her responsibilities as the Blue Rose. We’ll explore that more next time. Otherwise, it’s a holiday episode that doesn’t really do much with the holiday it’s given.

Next time, on Precure Daily, Milky Rose gets a powerup! Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 kettei