#PCD150

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Precure Day 150

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 02 - “Full Throttle Passion, Cure Rouge!” Date watched: 2 October 2019 Original air date: 11 February 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/xjAlUBg Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Ah, man, what a good episode. We learn a bit more about Nozmi and Rin’s bond, about Coco’s past, and about the villains. Plus there’s some great character beats. It’s still kind of a dense episode like last time but since it’s not introducing everything there’s some room to enjoy the moment. Let’s start!

The Plot

Nozomi can’t wait to tell Rin about becoming a superhero but Rin thinks she’s just playing around and is a little concerned at how spacey she’s being. Nozomi continues to insist that she’s telling the truth as they wait for class when Coco, in his human form, walks in, introduces himself as Kokoda Kouji, and announces he’ll be their homeroom teacher for a while.

(Notably, his family name basically amounts to “It’s Coco”, or you can derive “Coco” from the first syllable of each name)

After class, Nozomi drags him outside, and he explains that he wanted to stay close to her for the sake of Precure. Rin overhears this and asks what’s going on, so Coco explains to both of them about his homeland which has been devastated by the Nightmare Corporation, and how he needs the Dream Collet to restore it. Rin is understandably skeptical, but after Coco accidentally transforms back into his true form in front of her, she begins to believe his story. Nozomi asks her to become a Precure with her but Rin declines.

At the same time as this is happening, we get to see Nightmare headquarters for the first time: a giant, spooky skyscraper. Girinma announces to his boss that he’s found the Dream Collet but it slipped through his hands. The boss, Bunbee, mocks him and tells him that he needs to find the Collet for the sake of their boss, Despariah. 

Back in the classroom, Komachi and Karen come looking for Nozomi to ask her what happened in the library the other day, but Rin tells them she isn’t around. Later Rin flashes back to a time when she and Nozomi were young children, and Nozomi got hurt. Her worry is that Nozomi is impulsive and will hurt herself without Rin’s help. Nozomi also recounts the event to Coco, explaining that with Rin’s help she was able to forget the pain and keep moving forward. Coco segues this into an explanation that his best friend is trapped in the Dream Collet, and they need all 5 Precures gathered to release him, as well as to gather all 55 Pinkies to make a wish and restore the Palmier Kingdom. A Pinky happens to show up right there, but Girinma has been antagonizing Rin, chasing her to where the pair are, and Rin begs Nozomi to stay out of this Precure business, it’s too dangerous and she’ll get more than just hurt. Nozomi, however, is confident now, and tells Rin to watch her as she fights for Coco’s dream. She transforms into Cure Dream and begins to fight Girinma,

At the same time, Urara is sitting on a bench, practicing her lines: “I don’t want to put my friend in danger.” At that moment, a red butterfly flies past her, and her curiosity gets the better of her, so she follows it.

On the battlefield, Girinma has turned a lamppost into a Kowaina and uses it to grab Dream while taunting Rin for being scared, as he says that this is what happens to the fearless. Rin flashes back to her childhood again, this time she and Nozomi were walking down the street at night when a large bird flew in front of them and spooked Rin. Nozomi wishes the fear away and helps Rin stand up and keep walking. Rin says that of course she’s scared of the monsters, but what she’s most afraid of is losing Nozomi, her best friend, and she wants to do anything to help her now! At that moment, the butterfly appears and lands on Rin’s wrist, transforming into another Pinky Catch and allowing Rin to transform into Cure Rouge! Rouge battles Girinma, insisting that she and Nozomi have always been together, and will be together forever, and then launches her special attack at him: Precure Rouge Fire. This takes the form of a butterfly trailing a rope of fire, and it knocks Girinma into the Kowaina, freeing Nozomi and allowing her to use her finisher to destroy it.

Girinma retreats, the girls reconcile, and Rin says being Precure was too dangerous to let Nozomi do it alone. The Pinky is still around and Coco instructs Nozomi in how to catch it in great detail.

DX Pinky Catch in stores now, only ¥2000

As the two girls and Coco celebrate their victory, we see that Urara was spying on them from behind some bushes, and she asks out loud to herself “What’s a ‘Precure’?” DUN DUN DUN.

The Analysis

Rin is my favorite character in Yes 5, which is why she’s my avatar while I work through this series. This episode really demonstrates what I like about her: she’s very down-to-earth, kind of snarky, and gives Nozomi a lot of crap, but it’s because she truly cares about her and Nozomi isn’t exactly a clear thinker. She worries about her friend, and worries that she’s overstepped herself. Rin was surprised to see how Nozomi had matured without her realizing it, because she met Coco and found something to work towards, but she was still getting into trouble, so when Rin saw the extent of the danger she was in, she couldn’t do anything but to save her friend. Remember this down the road.

This is our first proper introduction to the Nightmare Corporation in their natural setting. Unlike the ANCIENT EVIL of the last three seasons, Nightmare is just a business, and their business model includes opportunities for advancement and presumably higher pay. Instead of being destroyed, failure means termination. Their secret base isn’t a cave in an alternate dimension, it’s a conference room in an office building, and the board is made of a bunch of people with Kowaina masks on.

Since the major theme presented so far is finding and chasing your dreams, having an oppressive corporation as the villain faction makes an interesting foil and a very interesting commentary on Japanese society, where conformity is everything and corporate employees are often expected to work brutally long hours at the detriment of their health.

We get to see just how much of a dreamer Nozomi really is in this episode. As soon as Coco says he wanted to watch over her at school, she blushes and assumes he means he wants to date her, which she’s certainly amenable to. Then, in a gag that results in him falling on top of her in a compromising position, she blushes deeply before pushing him off and declaring that she has a very specific plan for her first kiss: under a Christmas tree with her boyfriend. (remember this!)

Another good gag is that Urara has a penchant for reading scripts that tie in quite nicely to whatever is happening at that time. In episode 1 she reads “You have to find your own path yourself!” right as Nozomi is running by wondering what she should do with her life, and in this episode she says “I don’t want to put my friend in danger” at precisely the moment Rin is thinking that about Nozomi. I don’t remember this gag from my previous viewings of the show so I’ll be eager to see how frequently it happens. 

Speaking of her, I really like how they keep the other cures-to-be involved in the show before they actually get to transform. Urara is usually sitting alone, practicing her lines when someone or something comes along that grabs her attention. This is how she wound up spying on Nozomi and Rin’s fight, and will play into her becoming a cure. Komachi and Karen are also fun. They were baffled by the magically restoring library the previous day and want to ask Nozomi for an explanation. Their slightly different reactions betray their personalities: Karen is concerned about the wellbeing of the school and students with unexplained phenomena occurring, while Komachi views supernatural events as an exciting change of pace. Karen calls her “curious” for that, but Komachi says she prefers the term “inquisitive”. She’s similar to Honoka in that regard. Anyway, since it’s still a few episodes before either of them gets to transform, I’m glad that the writers thought up a natural way to have them around and incorporate them into the story, which makes it more natural when they do finally get to go. There have been shows that basically introduced the new cure the same week as her first transformation, not counting pinks for obvious reasons, so going back and seeing a show where they laid the groundwork is retroactively refreshing.

It’s interesting to me that despite being nearly 20 years old the first time I watched Yes 5, I didn’t really recognize how blatant the product placement was. The Dream Collet is clearly a toy, although unlike some artifacts from the previous seasons it at least looks like it could reasonably be a sacred artifact from a mystical civilization. The Pinky Catches are fairly small toys compared to the phones of the last three shows, being essentially large digital watches, or wrist-mounted v-pets. I always thought the fact that you have to open the glass cover to transform was a little weird but it’s not the end of the world. What really gets me, in the sense of “how did I not realize they were peddling toys”, is the bit at the end where Coco gives Nozomi a very detailed lesson on how to catch a Pinky, which for all intents and purposes is just opening the lid to the watch, shaking her wrist around, and then closing the lid. I assume there were some interactive elements in the toy where you could play with the captured Pinky but I don’t really know. Within the show, opening the lid gives Coco an instrument to lure the Pinky over to the Precure catching it. For Nozomi, this episode, it’s a bell. I don’t remember if it changes by cure or by Pinky or what so we’ll find out together.

Catching 55 Pinkies constitutes our Macguffin quest of the year, but since there are so many of them, each individual one isn’t a major event like the Prism Stones, Heartiels, or getting seven Miracle Drops and I’m pretty sure a lot of them get caught offscreen after a while. So far they’ve done a good job of not making it seem like the Pinkies are the be-all end-all of the plot.

I would be remiss if I neglected to mention that Rin’s seiyuu is Takeuchi Junko, who notably voiced Kenta in Splash Star immediately preceding this, but is probably most notable for being the voice of Naruto. Rin’s voice is a little higher pitched than in those other roles, which I assume is closer to Takeuchi’s natural speaking voice.

Additionally, Girinma is voiced by legendary seiyuu Nobuyuki Hiyama. His list of credits is extraordinarily long but he’s recognizable for his high-pitched voice. Notable other parts include Freezen in the second Max Heart film, Viral in Gurren Lagann, and Ikkaku in Bleach. Something I like about Girinma that I almost forgot to discuss is how he sounds very sly and confident when speaking to the girls, but pitiful when facing Bunbee. He stammers a lot in the office because he’s afraid. Also, his name is derived from kamakiri, the word for a praying mantis. Now you know!

Also there was a funny Kamen Rider reference near the beginning and that pleases my toku-loving heart.

I do want to talk about the music, and the clothes: both school uniforms and Precure outfits, but I will save those for a later post. Next time, things are going to get lively and lemon-scented as Urara takes center stage. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 kettei!

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