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Precure Day 197

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 48 - “Hope VS Despair: The Final Showdown!” Date watched: 16 June 2020 Original air date: 20 January 2008 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/nfV2ySD Transformation Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/6k6SzS0 Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Fly, my monkeys!

When we left off, the girls were fighting Kawarino in the Nightmare Colosseum. He tossed the girls around in a show of strength, and he managed to manipulate Milk into despair so he could place a Nightmare mask on her. Despariah used the Dream Collet to restore her youth, rendering it useless. Nightmare hasn’t completely won yet, but they’re damn close to it. How will our girls get out of this?

The Plot

As Despariah revels in her new eternal youth, Kawarino taunts the Precures that all hope is lost for them, and all that’s left is despair. They’re beaten, battered, and bruised, but nonetheless, Dream finds the energy to stand up and declare that she will never despair, and she lunges at Kawarino. However, he knocks her back into the ground, and then throws around the other cures, until they’re all collapsed on the ground, barely able to move. Notably, a bead bracelet lands beside Rouge.

He mocks the Precures and points out that even if they somehow beat the odds and manage to defeat him, they still have no way to restore the Palmier Kingdom, so they’re fighting for nothing. Throughout all of this, Coco and Nuts can’t do much but watch, and through tears they thank the girls for everything they’ve done to help them so far. Then they turn and face Kawarino themselves, but he blows them away with minimal effort while smirking. He pulls out five pieces of the black paper and throws them at the girls, where they land on the ground and quickly expand to encompass them. He explains that this is the Darkness of Despair, which picks up on people’s hopelessness and traps them forever. It surrounds Rouge, Lemonade, Mint, and Aqua, but it’s slow to cover Dream, the Precure of Hope. She uses the last of her strength to barely stand up, and tells Kawarino that she never wants to feel the way she felt when all her friends were captured and had the masks put on them, and she knows they’ve always pulled through when they banded together. This slightly stirs something in her teammates, but Dream collapses from exhaustion while Kawarino continues to taunt.

This time, however, it’s Rin’s turn to be inspirational. She stares at the bracelet and starts talking weakly to Karen, admitting that she finally found a dream for herself after discovering that she enjoyed making accessories. Karen sits up a little bit and admits to Rin that she also found a calling, after helping Milk made her realize she wants to help the sick and injured of the world by becoming a doctor. The other girls sit up and get in on the chatter, with Urara admitting that her friends helped her realize that she could pursue and enjoy singing as a second goal aside from her acting. Komachi chimes in that her novel, Pirate Hurricane, won an award and she attributes it to the help she got from everyone. To return the favor, she wants to put all her effort into making her next story one that everyone can enjoy, and tells them about her shared promise with Urara to create a story for her to perform in when she’s a better actress.

Now that they’re all talking about their dreams for the future, they’re not despairing anymore, and the Darkness of Despair begins to retreat away from them as they stand up, declaring that they need to see these dreams through to fruition. Together, they can do anything, so they won’t give up on their dreams, and they will rebuild the Palmier Kingdom! Coco and Nuts are overjoyed to see them recover, and after a group pose the girls charge Kawarino. He tries to shoot dark energy at them but they dodge and deflect it, coming together for a five-way kick on the chameleon monster!

He knocks them away, slamming them into the walls of the coliseum, and then tries to drown them in despair with the black paper again, but this time, they just stand up and break out of it. Kawarino starts to crack, worrying that the Precures won’t follow “their” path, as he glances at the masked employees packing the arena. Dream starts to realize what’s going on and he takes this chance to try to reclaim the high ground as he reveals that Nightmare’s rank and file are none other than the inhabitants of the Palmier Kingdom! However, this doesn’t have the desired effect. Instead of being upset at seeing what’s happened to their citizens, Coco and Nuts are instead relieved to learn that they’re alive and safe. They launch into speeches about how hurt and lost they were when they thought everyone and everything they loved were gone, and how the five lights of the Precures restored their hope and optimism and faith in other people. At this point, Milk twitches a little, and Despariah, still watching from her throne, glances at the small fairy.

The Princes of Palmier continue to encourage their citizens to believe in the precure and shake off the depression, since they’ve all experienced the power of their hope firsthand during the girls’ visit to Nightmare, and they go on to say that with all the people, they won’t need the Dream Collet to rebuild after all. One of the audience members sheds a tear and a crack forms along its path, and then Milk begins to cry through her mask before breaking out of it. Kawarino is flabbergasted, and looks up at Despariah for guidance. She merely glares at him disapprovingly.

if looks could kill (and the award for original caption goes to..... not PCD)

Desperate to regain his boss’s rapidly declining approval, Kawarino grumbles about how hard he tried to lead the girls to despair, and then yells that he’s done playing around and he’ll destroy everything they love. He attaches five sheets of black paper to himself directly (as opposed to in mask form) and begins to grow. He grows to fill the Colosseum, much like Girinma all those episodes ago, but the difference is that when Kawarino is done mutating, he still has his consciousness and his appearance is exactly the same, just larger. Undeterred, the girls fight on, managing to land a few blows on his body, and they help each other avoid his various attacks.

Their teamwork inspires Milk to turn to the bystanders, Nightmare’s employees, and encourage them to have hope. The team performs a rush on Kawarino, each performing their special attacks in turn. Mint Shield protects Mint and Aqua from his tails, Aqua Tornado focuses his attention, Rouge Burning and Lemonade Shining blind him, and then a Crystal Shoot to the face knocks him back. This display of Precure’s power to reject despair is enough to push the employees over the edge, and their masks begin to break one after the other. The fairies of the Palmier Kingdom fill the stands and Milk directs them to send their energy to Precure.

no miracle lights needed

The team bathes in the light of thousands of hopes and dreams as Despariah watches in disgust and Kawarino loses his composure. Milk joins Nozomi as the team begins to perform Precure Five Explosion, now glowing with the light of hope. Kawarino tries to resist, but the power overwhelms him, and as he’s overcome, he looks over to Despariah one last time, hoping for her to acknowledge him and save him. However, she merely smirks, and he dissolves into sheets of black paper.

He died as he lived: a simp

The fairies flood the arena, surrounding the Precures, Coco, Nuts, and Milk, and it’s a joyful reunion, but short lived, as Despariah rises from her seat. She remarks on the fearsome power that the girls possess to destroy Kawarino and shatter all the masks of Nightmare, and then says she’ll show them true despair! (how many more despairs are there?) The coliseum falls into darkness, and hundreds of vaguely humanoid Kowaina, with Despariah’s old mask, begin to emerge from the shadows. Coco and Nuts usher the citizens to safety, and the Kowaina charge forward at Despariah’s command, surrounding the Precure, as she gleefully tells them to taste true despair to their hearts’ content! With that, the screen fades to black.

The Analysis

This whole arc is the absolute peak of what makes Precure so good, but this episode in particular stands out among the three parts of the finale. The girls start out at the lowest possible low. It looks like the bad guys have won. They can’t use the wish of the Dream Collet, Milk has been cast into despair, their greatest enemy has had her strength restored, and Kawarino is proving to be a very tough opponent himself. It really seems like there’s no hope left for the girls, but nonetheless, they press onward. They manage to find light in the darkness, and their perseverance weakens their opponents and awakens their allies. The strength of their hope leads them down a path to achieving their dreams even in the greatest adversity and lets them weaken their opponents. They eliminate Kawarino and the entire Nightmare employee base, leaving only Despariah herself to be reckoned with. It’s such an incredible turnaround from where the last episode ended, the team climbed out of nothingness and they’re nearly at the summit of the mountain.... or so they thought, as the episode ends with Despariah finally taking matters into her own hands. It’s an ending that leaves you worried, but at the same time, the girls have overcome everything else that stood in the way of their dreams, surely they can overcome this too.

I’m really glad that Rin and Karen’s subplot about being unsure about their futures is used as the turning point of the episode. It would be easy to have Nozomi give another inspiring speech about hope, but instead, they use the two girls who have the least concrete ideas of what they’re aiming for in life and build on that. They fulfill a season’s worth of character growth, with Rin explaining she wants to make fashion accessories while Karen wants to be a doctor. Since the major theme of the show is dreams against despair, it’s so emotionally satisfying to have the conclusion of their arcs, where they find their dreams, as the foundation of the team’s revitalization. The two girls have finally found what they want to strive for, and they won’t let Nightmare get in the way of them achieving those goals, so they inspire each other and that inspires Urara and Komachi to talk about how their dreams have evolved since the start of the series, and now they all have a bright future worth fighting for and nothing can take that away from them! They encourage and uplift each other and they have each other’s backs, so despair has no room to take hold anymore. And that moment, when Kawarino realizes he can no longer bring them to despair, is wonderful.

There are two aspects of this episode I absolutely love, and they are closely related to each other: The first is how the girls keep fighting and manage to inspire the Palmier citizens out of the darkness. The other is Kawarino’s rapid downward spiral, culminating in his defeat. They are inversely connected and represent a major theme of this arc, and possibly the entire series, which I’ve only realized this late: control vs partnership. Kawarino just wants control: control over his underlings, and control over the Precures. When the girls’ unshakable support for each other snaps them out of despair, he has no other tools to control them with, and their teamwork trumps his individuality. He tries to use the truth about Nightmare’s rank and file being the residents of the Palmier Kingdom against them, but it backfires and he loses his control over them as well, and the combined teamwork between all the fairies giving their power to the Precure is Kawarino’s ultimate undoing. Conversely, the girls rise higher and higher once they realize Nightmare no longer holds any power over them, and they work in harmony to thwart Kawarino and free their allies. Nothing symbolizes this better than their final rush on the giant Kawarino before they perform Five Explosion. He is clearly powerful, but they manage to get the jump on him by deflecting his attacks and pulling his attention in all different directions before Dream knocks him back and leaves him open for the finisher. Also, I believe this is the first time all five of them have used their Symphony Set attacks together with no stock animation.

The fairies also get some great speeches in. When Kawarino reveals the truth about the Palmier citizens, both he and the audience expect Coco and Nuts will despair from this, but instead they turn it around into gratefulness and explain how great the Precures are, and why everyone can rely on them. It’s this particular speech that breaks Milk’s mask, and then she turns around and gives her own inspiring speech to the crowd about how she could do it and so can they, because the Precure need their support. These efforts further the ideas of hope and trust in your friends being stronger than control or despair.

The rapid escalation of events after the girls free themselves from despair is great, because it reinforces the idea that dreams and friends are the key to overcoming everything. It also contrasts nicely with Kawarino’s fall. It's a battle of control against partnership, and when Kawarino stops being able to control the girls, he loses his edge. He has always sought Despariah’s approval, but as soon as he loses his control, he gets sloppy and inadvertently gives the forces of hope more ammunition when he reveals that the Nightmare masked employees are actually the citizens of Palmier. This is supposed to be his trump card, but Coco and Nuts turn it around and use it as a source of hope against him. As he stops being able to overpower the Precures, he quickly loses favor in Despariah’s eyes, and he realizes how little she really cares for him. Since his entire character up to now has been built around his adoration for her and winning her favor, this revelation that he’s actually as disposable to her as the other Nightmare subordinates is beautiful tragic irony. 

Now that Kawarino has assumed his monster form and his giant form, I want to revisit all of Nightmare and compare what he did differently from his predecessors.

Girinma

Arachnea

Gamao

Bunbee

Hadenya

Bloody

Kawarino

I don’t remember if I pointed this out before, this project has been underway for a long time and I can’t remember everything I wrote, but all the animals that Nightmare represents are predators of butterflies, which is some excellent symbolism. But what I’m really here to discuss is their transformation between their normal and black mask forms (where applicable). For Girinma, Arachnea, Gamao, and Hadenya, who all donned black masks, they were mutated into giant and more monstrous versions of their bodies, and lost sapience, seeming to revert to a more feral mindset. Kawarino, however, didn’t apply a black mask, but rather the black paper that was previously shown to become black masks, and is now revealed to be concentrated despair. He applied 5 strips of it to his body, which caused him to grow and swell similarly to the others, but when he was finished, he retained his same body proportions and his intellect, essentially just becoming larger, and presumably stronger. It is very telling that he’s not willing to subject himself to the torture he put his subordinates through, which really describes his whole character. He’s willing to force others around, because he considers them disposable, but he protects his own well-being so he can have a future with Despariah, only to realize too late that she doesn’t value him any more than he valued his subordinates. 

Despariah herself is enjoyable to watch in this episode for that same reason. Even though she’s now restored her youth and could presumably stomp the Precures herself, she chooses to just sit back and watch Kawarino do what he does, only offering occasional commentary and dirty looks. She really does just see it as entertainment, presumably because she believes that Kawarino has it in the bag, and if he doesn’t, she can step in without issue. She doesn’t really care about Kawarino except that he makes her job easier, so the colosseum setting is actually very fitting in that regard, because the life or death fight between her warrior and her enemies is just a show for her. By putting her a little closer to the action but still acting as a passive observer, the show actually manages to make her more threatening than she was when she basically cooped up in her office, because now we can actually see her and her reactions, and her indifference to the proceedings is haunting, however, this makes the few reactions she does provide that much more fun. At the end, when she’s the last member of Nightmare still standing, when she decides to get serious and unleashes her army of Kowainas, that’s an incredibly chilling turnaround after the ever more inspiring events of the episode up to that point, in a way only Despariah can deliver.

This episode started with the team at their lowest point, dragged them to the pits of despair, and then pulled right back out as they cheered each other on and inspired an entire kingdom’s worth of people with the strength of their hope. I could write forever about how beautifully inspiring it is for the audience, but it’s not over yet. Their greatest obstacle remains in front of them, and it’s going to take every ounce of courage they have to defeat her. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 kettei!