#PCD137

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Precure Day 137

Episode: Futari wa Precure Splash Star 39 - “The Rare Miminga Cause a Fuss!?” Date watched: 30 June 2019 Original air date: 12 November 2006 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/c5YcJ7O Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Mascots, cryptids, what’s the difference?

Here’s a fun episode with a weird moral and a finale that suggests folklore creatures are real after all! HUG does this once or twice as well and I find the concept to be funny.

The plot

While playing hide and seek by the Sky Tree, Flappi, Choppi, Moop, and Foop are spotted by Kenta and Miyasako, who came out there to practice manzai in private. They all freak out.

The next day at school, Kenta is trying to convince everybody that he found a miminga, a type of cryptid, and Miyasako backs up his story, going a step further by drawing what he saw.

With that kind of validation, word spreads throughout the town fast and everybody is excited. Saki’s parents bake miminga cornets, which Saki can’t bring herself to eat. Everybody thinks that miminga sightings could drive tourism and boost business. They bring in a famous college professor, who tries to warn them that professional consensus was that miminga were strictly the stuff of folklore, but nobody listens and the town mounts a search. Saki and Mai seem to have a plan to throw people off the scent, but things escalate too quickly and they’re roped into the search party. Even Kintolesky sees all the people out and about and asks what’s going on, and when he’s shown the drawings of the so-called Miminga, he recognizes them as Precures’ fairies. He walks over to Saki and Mai, who are overwhelmed by the hubub, and with a snap of his fingers he forces Flappi and Choppi out of their Crystal Commune forms and then draws attention to them.

Saki and Mai run away with their fairies, and Kin ushers them to follow him, but they say “We’re not falling for that!” so they make a hard right and.... fall into a pit. They end up in a room filled with weightlifting equipment and Kintolesky tells them it’s his training room, and they are welcome to make use of some of the equipment to improve themselves. They aren’t very keen on this idea, again reminding him that they’re not interested in his goal of training them. However, he has them trapped, so they can’t leave without fighting him. He creates an Uzainaa out of equipment but once again, he does most of the fighting himself. The girls have transformed into Bright and Windy, and they manage to go toe to toe with him. At one point Kin puts on some additional weights, and tries to get the girls to do likewise, to make the battle more interesting. They dodge the flying ankle weights, then Moop and Foop appear out of nowhere and give them the Spiral Rings. They use the Light and Wind attacks to down the monster, then Kin combines the rest of the weights into this Uzainaa, only for the Precures to perform Spiral Star Splash to defeat it. Kin quips that he’ll need to find a new gym before he makes his way off. Also, I don’t remember commenting on this before, but the fairies that appear from Kintolesky’s defeated Uzainaa are gold.

I’m probably late to figuring this out but it seems the inclusion of gold as an element comes from the Chinese classical elements: Fire, Water, Metal (gold), Earth, and Wood. You’ll notice each of these correspond to one of our generals, but the Kiryuus and their wind element isn’t present. They may come from the concept of Aether but I’m sidetracking enough by researching this. It’s just funny to me that Gold is lumped in with the rest of these elements. Maybe that’s western bias.

Back up topside, Saki and Mai decide to bring the search to an end: they hide behind a bush and bring out puppets that look like Flappi and Choppi, allowing Kenta to see them, and then when everybody gathers around, they reveal their “ruse”, claiming it was them all along, practicing for a puppet show. The professor tells everyone he had been trying to warn them that miminga weren’t real, but they weren’t listening, and everybody concludes that they had a lot of fun exploring and walking around regardless, and they should do it more often. All is well that ends well, and as everyone walks away, an actual miminga pops out of the bushes for a moment, unseen.

surprise!

The Analysis

it’s.... another filler episode, really. Ever since the girls got the Spiral Rings, the show has devolved. Unlike the early arcs, Saki and Mai are already close and they don’t have much that they can do to reaffirm their bond, nor have they encountered a threat to their friendship on the same level as when Cures Black and White were separated, and there’s not a supporting character arc for us to follow like the Kiryuus. There isn’t even a goal for the girls to achieve beyond collecting Miracle Drops and restoring the fountains, while FWPC at least had their attempt to find the kidnapped Wisdom and the power of the Prism Stones (as much as that arc dragged, at least there was a goal). The girls get individual episodes like Mai’s art struggle or Saki’s softball tournament that let them shine, but these are intermittent and don’t contribute to an overall objective. (incidentally, this is my overall problem with Smile Precure) So, you’ve got this episode about the fairies being mistaken for cryptids, and the result is that Saki and Mai have to take the fall for their fairies again, and everybody laughs it off at the end and says “well maybe we should go out more anyway,” and there’s some weird running gag about listening to people completely before jumping to conclusions that they keep harping on. I don’t want to call it a moral because, technically, they undermine it several times. Kenta and Miyasako didn’t technically see Miminga but they saw mythical creatures, and at the end they reveal that there actually was a miminga. Maybe the lesson is supposed to be about mob mentality but that doesn’t feel right either.

Moop and Foop are getting the shaft lately. They basically only show up to give the girls the Spiral Rings. Their predecessors in powerups, Porun and Lulun, were at least present in a meaningful way from their introduction through to the finale. We saw what they were doing, they even got character development. Moop and Foop don’t have that. They made friends with Saki, Mai, Flappi, and Choppi, and we heard how they admire the Kiryuus for saving them, but that’s been it for their character progression. In the last several episodes they have only appeared for short sight gags and to summon the Spiral Braces. Also, Saki and Mai no longer tote the Splash Commune around, nor do we see Moop and Foop actually enter it, they just play the stock footage starting with them already in the screen. The end result of this is that Moop and Foop are less memorable, which is sad since they had a pretty good idea with them being a little more mature and perceptive than Flappi especially.

Kintolesky is a delight as always, and here I think he leans a little more into his villainy. He’s not as out-and-out evil as his predecessors but he purposefully kidnaps Saki and Mai so he can have a fight with them, caring not for their circumstances. (okay he did something similar last time but it’s more direct here) In prior appearances you could argue that the duo could have left the fight, not that they ever would, but here they’ve been teleported to a room who knows where with no choice but to fight him. Honestly the Uzainaa feels superfluous and is only there to get knocked around so the girls can earn their Miracle Drop. I wish they’d come up with another way to do that for Kin’s arc since he’s so much more interested in fighting his own fights.

One thing I do like is a small continuity nod, there’s the obvious bit about Kenta and Miyasako continuing to practice manzai, but also, in their cover story, Saki and Mai claim they were going to put on a puppet show at the library like Kaya and Miyasako did way back in SS09.

This review feels a lot more cynical and condescending than I thought it would be going in. It’s a fine episode, but it’s very light on substance and it doesn’t advance any plot or character, not even the supporting cast. It’s got some good jokes but it doesn’t stick out in this series. Then again that’s normal for the 30s in these shows. We’re getting close to the endgame, though, so things should pick up soon.

Next time, it’s Mai’s birthday, and Kintolesky makes his last stand. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 Zekkouchou Nari!

Miracle Drop count: 6