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Precure Day 227

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! 29 - “Tennis with a Hot Guy in the Highlands!?” Date watched: 25 October 2022 Original air date: 31 August 2008 Screenshots Precure Metamorphose Gallery | Sky Rose Translate Gallery Project info and master list of posts

Hello. I’m the villain.

Note: I am still experimenting with the automatic screenshots. I wasn’t satisfied with taking them every 10 seconds so I changed it to every 5 seconds and added a few custom shots. The gallery is larger than normal as a result of this, but I think it gives a better overview of the episode without as many major gaps as the 10 second rule.

Summer vacation continues with the long-awaited getaway to Karen’s mountain villa! There the girls engage in a variety of activities such as tennis, and tennis, with some tennis for good measure. But not all is as it seems when a mysterious man shows up...

The Plot

The girls travel to Karen’s villa, which is every bit as sprawling and fancy as her private island resort.

Jiiya promises to make a big meal for everyone that night, so Nozomi declares they should get hungry by playing sports.

A new villain named Mucardia shows up at Eternal. Anacondy is much friendlier to him than to Bunbee, and she dispatches him to get the Rose Pact.

Nozomi wants to play on the villa’s tennis courts. Rin points out Nozomi doesn't even play tennis, but she’s gung ho for it anyway, as are the others.

Mucardia appears in the sky and decides to spy on the girls for a while.

The girls aren't very good at tennis but seem to have fun anyway. Then Rin and Karen play a match and it's much more intense.

The fairies watch from a balcony. Kurumi turns to Milk and begins feverishly writing a postcard to Palmier. Nuts sees her working hard nonstop and wants to find a way to help her that doesn't inconvenience her. He begins drafting a new toy.

Mucardia shows up to the tennis court under the name Momoi Kyousuke, claiming to have gotten lost. He takes on Rin and Karen in a doubles tennis match. Meanwhile, Nozomi Urara, and Komachi go after a Palmin.

Kyousuke smooth talks R&K with a magic trick and some flowers before leaving. He secretly turns the whole forest into a Hoshiina. His plan is to take out Rin and Karen (the brains and brawn of the team) and the rest will fall in short order.

When everyone gathers, they complain that the Hoshiina is too big and strong. Dream applies what she learned in tennis and tells them to watch its movements and strike back.

The fight consists mostly of the girls deflecting blows from the monster and landing a few hits on it until Coco helps them perform Rainbow Rose Explosion.

Mucardia remarks that the other cures aren’t so bad, but his real victory is getting close to the team.

After the battle, Nozomi, Urara, and Komachi compliment the flowers that Rin and Karen received before they all go to eat Jiiya’s dinner. The episode closes with a shot of the two flowers in vases against a backdrop of the mountain at sunset.

The Analysis

What I Liked

The girls relaxing (kind of) and having fun playing tennis, in a very slife-of-life moe setting, was so fun. I don’t always like this (my thoughts on Smile will come eventually) but here it works.

Related, the contrast between how Rin and Karen play tennis compared to the others is great. Obviously R&K are experienced players while the rest are amateurs, but everyone has fun with it in their way.

Urara has good form (not technique) despite never actually playing. She says she portrayed a tennis player for a show once, and that might be my favorite joke in the episode.

Compared to the last episode, Princess Crepe is barely in this and has maybe 3 lines of dialog. That’s a win in my book.

Mucardia deciding to scout out the girls and get friendly with them rather than revealing his identity is a good strategy we’ve seen used before by Kiriya, Michiru, and Kaoru. It won’t play out in a redemption arc, but I enjoy it for now.

What I Didn’t Like

When Milk begins writing her letter to Palmier, Syrup complains that he needs a rest. The response to this is odd, with Milk saying she has to keep the citizens of Palmier informed of what’s going on as she’s a caregiver. This is fine as it’s her prerogative but it does nothing to address Syrup’s complaint that he’s being overworked. A practical solution would be for him to just wait and make the delivery the next day or something but this is not discussed.

Once the Hoshiina shows up, the episode drops in quality drastically. Mucardia’s plan was supposedly to take out Rin and Karen individually but he doesn’t even come close.

Normally, in a divide and conquer plot, one of two things will happen: either the singled out group will individually overcome the villain, or they will be pushed to their limit and rescued at the last minute by the rest of the team. In this instance, though, neither happens. Rouge and Aqua aren’t faring well against the monster but the other girls join the fray quickly with a half-hearted “strategy” from Dream

The above issue makes the monster, and Mucardia himself, seem like less of a threat. Anacondy holds him in high regard, and everything about him reads “formidable opponent” and then he underperforms in his debut fight. If it’s intentional, it’s not showcased well.

If a stranger showed up on a huge private resort claiming he got lost while sweet talking some teenagers, I’d be asking a lot more questions than Karen does, and he’d get an escort to the exit rather than just a point in the right direction.

Miscellaneous

Milk appears in her fairy form for the third episode in a row.

The Cures use Rainbow Rose Explosion as their finisher for the second episode in a row.

In the preview of this episode from the last one, Rin is implied by her mannerisms to be infatuated with Momoi Kyousuke. That does not carry over to the actual episode, where both she and Karen agree he was nice and appreciate the flowers he gave them, but nothing more than that.

The girls get some cute athletic clothes during the tennis scene.

Nuts is shown drawing artwork of what will become the Milky Note.

This is the final episode to use “Holding Hands Also Links our Hearts!!” as the ending theme. Next episode it will change to Ganbalance de Dance for the third and final time.

Conclusion

The fight scenes are a staple of this franchise, but I don’t remember feeling this disconnected between the plot and battle scene in a while. It feels obligatory, the monster design is underwhelming and unintimidating, and you could remove the fight entirely and not lose anything from the episode. It peaked at the girls just having fun at the resort, and Mucardia infiltrating to see how they act was a good idea. It might have been better left as a routine monster fight rather than Mucardia trying to divide and conquer right out of the gate. The episode also starts Nuts’s story arc as he struggles with his sense of worth, leading to a new toy. The plot calls back to episode 26 of the previous series, when they went on a summer vacation to Karen’s island resort. It’s a very middle of the road episode compared to the last two which were very good and very bad respectively. I just wanted a litle more substance, even if that substance was pure fluff.

Next time, on Precure Daily, Kurumi and Nozomi have a fight. Look forward to it!

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