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Precure Day 127

Episode: Futari wa Precure Splash Star 29 - “Flappi and Choppi are in Dire Straits!” Date watched: 8 June 2019 Original air date: 27 August 2006 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/9LKKaID Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

“I’ll kill you!” - Optimus Prime, 2014, colorized

I was all ready to write this episode off as more goofy filler. But then, I changed my mind. Why? Let’s set the scene.

Saki and Mai are chilling at the Mishous’ place, finishing up their summer homework. Interestingly, despite Mai being a little more academically inclined than Saki, she also hasn’t made much headway on her homework, because she’s gotten absorbed in drawing all the sights around town over the summer. This results in both of them helping each other when they gain some understanding about a concept the other is struggling with, and it’s lovely.

Unfortunately, the fairies are restless and rambunctious. They keep disrupting the girls by making lots of noise and running around them.

and through them

Saki and Mai try to distract them in various ways: television (where Moop and Foop get entranced by an ad for soap which reminds them of the Fountain of the Sky, more on this later), letting them run around in the next room, letting them run around outside, but invariably, Moop and Foop do something that sets Flappi off as he’s trying to make moves on Choppi, and he starts chasing them around.

Yeah, he’s actually the big troublemaker this go-around, not them. A little surprising, I know. Little dude has murder in his eyes (see top pic) and it takes Saki telling him to chill the fuck out before he calms down temporarily. So the lesson here is that even Moop and Foop can see that his love for Choppi is one-sided. Where does that put him on the maturity scale? Low.

Moving on, down in Dark Fall, Akudaikaan is giving Miss Shitataare crap for being inept, as usual, but she says she has a plan that will work this time, as usual. Once she leaves, Akudaikaan tells Gohyaan to go after her.

Up at Mai’s place, the doorbell rings and they receive an unexpected package from Underwater Delivery Services later (lit. Mizushita something something) which is not at all suspicious. It turns out to be a set of bath soaps, which they don’t really know what to do with, but they smell nice. Flappi continues to flirt with an oblivious Choppi, only to be distracted by that most treacherous of enemies..... bubbles. The younger fairies have gotten into the soap and made soapy water that they’re using to blow bubbles. This sets him off and he gets in a shouting match with them about their intentions, trying to spoil his advances, which results in Saki and Mai having to intervene again, placate all parties, and get an understanding about what’s going on. However, someone interrupts.

raise your hand if you saw that coming

Yes, it turns out the soap was from Miss Shiitake (actually I think they make that joke in a later episode), in some ploy to capture Moop and Foop and learn the location of the Fountain of the Sun. She gloats that she has the upper hand because of the soap, which she makes her Uzainaa out of, but it’s not shown to be especially dangerous without her making it into an actual monster, and she could have used literally anything else aquatic, like the water in the pond that the soap bubbles were in, or the kitchen sink, or the toilet, or the plumbing itself, or [insert long list of water-adjacent objects in a modern household]. What I’m saying is that, as usual, her plan doesn’t make any sense and last episode was an anomaly. In fact I’m going to pause the recap here to analyze her methodology thus far, because there are particular reasons I don’t want to do it at the end.

Miss Shitataare was introduced as a bigger threat than the enemies the Cures had faced thus far (except for Gohyaan and Akudaikaan, of course). She came out swinging, attacking the girls with water sickles at point blank range before they had even transformed, and even when they did transform, she was still able to overpower their Twin Stream Splash and leave them weakened until Moop and Foop gave them the Spiral Rings, powering them up enough to win the fight. She’s seemed to have a grudge against the tiny fairies since then, because in almost every subsequent appearance she’s made it a point to hold them hostage. Her strategy is generally: Put on a disguise, get close to the girls, and then attack. The one time her disguise was useful was the last episode, where she separated the girls. In this episode, she makes a big show of presenting the soap to the girls and acts like it’s a key component to her plan to defeat them, but as far as I can tell it’s just soap. Then there’s the detail that her Uzainaa are generally not particularly more threatening than we saw the prior generals using. The eel was fast and gave the girls the runaround but that’s been about it. Without any particular signs of struggle greater than what they were able to overcome without the power boost, they always summon the Spiral Rings to finish off the monsters. Granted, this is a creative choice driven by the desire to sell toys, and there’s narrative gain by showing how their new friends contribute their power to the cause, but as far as purely needing the power boost, there hasn’t been much need for that. However, that’s an endemic problem to a toy-based franchise and I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole too far.

Back to the matter at hand. This Uzainaa’s special ability is that its bubbles are apparently explosive, and it manages to force Bloom and Egret all the way down the mountain from Mai’s house to the beach. They get tossed around a little but they trick Miss S. into momentarily letting go of Moop and Foop, who break out of their bubble and provide the Spiral Rings so that the Cures can finish off the monster with Spiral Heart Splash. With peace restored, Saki and Mai ask Moop and Foop why they were dead set on playing with the soap bubbles, and they explain that the scent reminds them of their home in the Fountain of the Sky, which everybody present is able to sympathize with. Following this exchange, the screen fades to white and the credits-

JUST KIDDING!

Remember that exchange in Dark Fall earlier? Well, since Miss S. failed, Gohyaan is here to pick up the slack, and he’s no slacker. With three minutes left in the episode, he brutally attacks the detransformed Precure and grabs Flappi and Choppi, taunting them that they’ll have plenty of time to tell him where the Fountain of the Sun is, or if they truly don’t know, divulge whatever they do know, and mocks the girls because they can’t do anything in their current states. Then he descends back into Dark Fall as the two lunge at him, but they are too late and are left grasping at sand. Thus, the episode actually ends with Saki, Mai, Moop, and Foop staring at the ground looking shocked and afraid at what just happened. They can’t transform, they don’t know how to reach Dark Fall, and their fairy friends are in serious danger. How’s that for a cliffhanger?

As I said at the start, I was ready to write this one off as goofy, inconsequential, maybe a little sentimental but not better than the emotional bonding and general fun of the last two episodes. By the end, I had almost forgotten about Gohyaan (probably a side effect of spending ~90 minutes watching a 24 minute episode to get screencaps, ps check the gallery), so when by all accounts it was looking like a textbook happy resolution, the fairies will work out their differences and everybody will get along, I was surprised when Gohyaan showed up and kidnapped Flappi and Choppi. Consider me rightfully shocked. Then I remembered what happens next episode, and realized maybe I should have seen this coming, but I’m glad I didn’t because it allowed me to be surprised. The twist ending doesn’t completely negate the wishy-washy (no pun intended) rest of the episode, but it certainly makes for a powerful subversion of expectations, and I give the show a decent amount of credit for that.

Next time, the moon shines bright on a windy night! Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 Zekkouchou Nari!

Miracle Drop Count: 5