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Precure Day 236

Film: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! The Movie: Happy Birthday in the Land of Sweets! Date watched: 19 March 2023 Original release date: 8 November 2008 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/a0l24df Precure Metamorphose Gallery | Sky Rose Translate Gallery Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination

Given the general theme and when this is coming out, you would expect more Wonka references, butit didn’t occur to me until just now. Oh well. Once again it’s time to take a trip to the movie theater to have a Precure adventure on the big screen. It’s another good one, and puts a different spin on the Precure movie exclusive upgrade that will set a precedent for films to come. So let’s dig in!

The Plot

The film starts with a brief skit by the fairies, in a more limited, puppet show-esque art style. It casts Syrup as a giant monster, with paper wings and seaweed eyebrows, attacking Milk before Coco and Nuts show up and transform into Precures to defeat him with giant mame daifuku and chou cremes. It’s very silly. After that they do a similar lesson as in the first film, introducing the Miracle Light 2 and explaining how to use it. Once again, when they warn not to swing it around in case you hit your neighbor, there’s an exaggerated detail shot of a battered fairy: Syrup and Nuts in this case. It’s so out there for Precure and makes me laugh.

After that, the movie kicks off properly. It’s Nozomi’s birthday and everyone is setting up for a party at Natts House while she sleeps. Coco gently wakes her, teases her for her sleeping habits, and then declares that she looked like Sleeping Beauty. Nozomi is enamored by this comparison and fantasizes a little bit about being awoken by a kiss. Coco teases her further by asking if he should have kissed her awake like in the story, causing Nozomi to become extremely flustered and deny this. Coco claims he was just kidding, so they go and join the birthday festivities.

This is only Nozomi’s fantasy

As they’re about to cut the cake, an oven suddenly appears out of nowhere, and out of it comes a girl who introduces herself as Princess Chocola of the Sweets Kingdom. Coco and Nuts know her, and this makes Milk act jealous. Chocola is being chased by Bunbee, who turns Nozomi’s birthday cake into a Hoshiina to capture her, so the girls transform to fight. As usual, this is where you really see where the film budget is going, as the cures jump around and attack in duos with punches, kicks, and their special moves. At one point they topple the cake monster onto Bunbee, who teleports away, and they finish it off with Rainbow Rose Explosion. As thanks for their efforts, Chocola transports everyone to the Sweets Kingdom, which is a land where everything is made of candy or confections, and says she wants to take them to the castle. There’s a quick cut to the throne room in the castle, where Bunbee talks to the Queen and reveals he brought the Precures as requested and asks for payment, but he is chased out by the Queen’s two advisors, Dry and Bitter Amidst this, the Queen declares she’s going to eat the sweets of Precure.

Finally, about 20 minutes into the film, the opening theme plays over a montage of everyone trying out all kinds of sweets from all over the kingdom on their way to the castle, which is on top of a giant layer cake. There’s a brief scare when Karen points out that eating all these sweets will make them fat, but Princess Chocola assures them that Sweets Kingdom snacks don’t make you fat. Dry and Bitter show up to continue escorting the girls around the kingdom, while they instruct Chocola to take all the fairies to the castle. She seems uncomfortable, but does as she’s told. Dry and Bitter try to sow discord, acting disdainful for sweets and the enjoyment of them. At one point they criticize Nozomi for picking run-of-the-mill cream puffs to give to Coco instead of something more unique to this world, but she’s not bothered, and Rin also explains to them that Coco loves cream puffs so he will appreciate the sentiment. The two aides don’t really understand. Eventually, the obvious villains make their move: they lure the girls to different locations and then kidnap them, with the objective of turning them into sweets. Dry takes Rin and Karen to the freezer, intent on transforming them into ice cream. Bitter takes Urara and Komachi to the oven to become cookies.

While this is happening, Coco and Nuts are about to enter the castle’s throne room, but they can tell that Chocola is hiding something and they coax her to explain what’s happening. She almost speaks up, but before she can come clean, they’re all summoned into the Queen’s chamber. The throne room is dark and dilapidated, with rubble on the floor and huge bites taken out of all the pillars. Chocola is clearly scared of her mother, who quickly captures Nuts, Syrup, and Milk while implying that she’ll soon eat the Precure. Chocola runs away from the castle in tears, passing by a lonely Nozomi who is looking for her friends. Nozomi can’t ignore a crying girl (in her own words) and tries to find out why the princess is upset, but before she can get an answer, a masked person shows up to fight her.

“I’m not Coco, Coco doesn’t wear a mask!”

The audience will immediately realize that the enemy is Coco, but Nozomi doesn’t seem to recognize him. He declares that she is the last Precure and the others will soon be dead. The five girls, in their separate environments, transform into Precure. They put up good fights but are overpowered and begin to turn into sweets, with Cure Dream becoming chocolate. The fairies manage to free themselves and rush to save Dream and Coco, successfully separating Dream from her opponent. When they’re safe, Syrup accuses Chocola of betraying them, but all the nearby citizens defend her, with the justification that her sweets still taste good, so she can’t be a bad person. (This will be somewhat important later.) Mailpo also tells Syrup that Chocola helped free them all. The princess reveals to Cure Dream that a bad person called Mushiban is controlling her mother and she’s too scared to confront him. However, she does pull out her Miracle Light and restore Dream’s chocolate arm to normal. Dream encourages Chocola to be brave for the sake of her friends and family, and so they fly back to the castle to save the Queen. Dark Coco ambushes them mid-flight, so Dream takes him on while Chocola goes to rescue her mother.

Dream’s duel with Dark Coco is intercut with shots of her teammates having been completely converted to sweets, but as she espouses how much she wants to spend time with them and hang out and do normal friend things, her strong feelings reach her friends.

They manage to break free from their sugary prisons, quickly turning the tides on Dry and Bitter and defeating them. When Dream is almost completely turned to chocolate, Dark Coco tries to kiss her, mockingly, but she breaks his grip. He removes his visor and reveals his identity to Dream, who stops fighting back now that she knows who he is. She pivots to dodging and running from his attacks while calling his name, hoping to break through to him. Ultimately it’s revealed that he’s actually being puppeteered by Mushiban through a gem on his chest. Mushiban uses Coco’s latent power to summon a Black Fleuret and continues to attack. However, Dream is starting to get through to him, and the gem controlling him begins to crack. Dark Coco moves in for the final blow against Dream, but freezes as Coco fights for control of his body. Dream quickly moves in to kiss him, causing the controlling gem to completely shatter, and he falls to the ground, exhausted..At last fully awake and freed from the spell, he thanks Nozomi profusely for saving him..

Meanwhile, Chocola makes it to the throne room, where she runs into Kurumi and asks for help taking down the bad person controlling her mother. A furious Mushiban leaves his hiding space behind the throne room, declaring his contempt for the values of courage, hope, and love that the Cures were going on about, just as Kurumi and Chocola arrive in the chamber. Chocola goes to save her mother while Kurumi transforms into Milky Rose and fights the villain. Their battle takes them all around the throne room, exchanging blows, breaking even more pillars, and threatening to bring the roof down. At several points Rose barely avoids Mushiban’s attacks. Chocola avoids the falling rubble and pleads to her mother, and the controlling gem in the Queen’s tiara begins to crack like Coco’s did. She talks about all the things she wants to learn from her mother, like tasty sweets, smiles, and love, and this seems to really get through to her.

Mushiban tries to step in to once again decry this nonsense, but Milky Rose chastises him for interrupting, and summons the Milky Mirror to perform Milky Rose Metal Blizzard. Mushiban gets buried in a pile of rubble and an exhausted Milky Rose reverts all the way back to Milk. At the same time, Chocola tells her mother she loves her, and the controlling stone crumbles, freeing the Queen. Mushiban isn’t down for the count yet, as he rises from the rubble and expresses his desire to eat delicious sweets while slowly moving towards the Queen. The other Precures all arrive to block his path, and the Queen explains that she has made him plenty of sweets, the reason he isn’t satisfied is because he has no heart. He doesn’t like this answer, so he begins powering up, intending to bring the entire Sweets Kingdom down.

all the ovens in the kingdom couldn’t deliver this much of a burn

The cake and the castle atop it are split down the middle, pierced by a giant tower twice as tall as the cake mountain. The sky outside turns dark and rubble falls on the land, endangering innocent bystanders. Queen Dessert creates a platform to transport the Cures to the top of the cake, and Chocola accompanies them. They meet Mushiban at the top of his tower, preparing to destroy the entire Land of Sweets. He declares that their battle will be a test of their ideals: his desire to devour everything against the love, courage, and hope of the Cures and the Queen and princess.

Then the fight begins. Mushiban has the upper hand, throwing the Cures around with a mix of chops, blocks, grabs, kicks, and light energy attacks, and mocking their so-called strength. He summons a huge ball of energy and directs it at the ground, causing it to expand out in every direction. Dream runs back to protect Chocola, so she takes the brunt of the attack while the others are knocked aside. Mushiban declares there’s no more hope, courage, or love left, but Chocola rejects this, insisting these values will never go away, and her Miracle Light glows. She calls upon the strength of her friendship with Nozomi, and asks everyone to give their power to Cure Dream. Power flows to the top of the tower, and on the ground Queen Dessert asks everyone to use their Miracle Lights and combine their strength. Everyone channels their energy and it flows into Dream as she stands up to Mushiban and smiles. The power upgrades her into an all white version of her Cure outfit and she grows angel wings, reintroducing herself as the miraculous light of blooming feelings, Shining Dream.

Angel wings are ALWAYS cool

Mushiban, still refuting her values, has ditched most of his armor and takes Shining Dream on in tight pants and a midriff-exposing tank top as he summons a beam sword. Shining Dream explains that sweets taste the best when shared with friends, and she wants to share all her feelings, good and bad, with her friends. She summons her own blade, the Starlight Fleuret, and flies around Mushiban, clashing blades with him as she explains that her powers blossom when she’s being cheered on. Shining Dream manages to break his guard and performs her special attack: Precure Starlight Solution. She becomes light itself, piercing Mushiban with dozens of beams before reassembling on the other side. Finally defeated, he begins to dissolve, and asks if it’s true that sweets taste better when shared. Nozomi affirms this, and he disappears into gold dust, smiling, having found peace too late. All the damage to the kingdom gradually fades away as the sky clears.

her genuine sadness gets to me

Later, the kingdom is having a birthday party for Nozomi. Chocola presents Nozomi with a new birthday cake, admitting she got some help from her mother. The queen thanks them all for saving the kingdom, and they all pop confetti cannons to finally wish Nozomi a happy birthday. She turns to face the camera and thanks everybody as the ending credits begin to play.

The ending credits have Chocola standing in front of the cake mountain, holding a flip notebook with pictures of the party. They collectively tell a rather funny story on their own:

Everyone is sitting around wearing animal ears

Nozomi relishes her slice of cake a little too much.

Bunbee is seen standing alone in Eternal, looking forlorn and eating the cake that he stole. He also has animal ears for some reason.

Karen and Rin take a picture posing with Dry

Urara and Komachi chat with Bitter

Nozomi tries to kiss Coco again, in his fairy form, and he seems a bit reluctant. Syrup just looks annoyed in the background while Kurumi is really flipping out about this betrayal.

If you’re keeping track, that’s the third attempted kiss in this movie.

Nuts is seen dressed up in Dark Coco’s outfit, and he really does not seem to like it. Neither does Cocol. Komachi appears conflicted and Nozomi is living for it.

Urara is seen performing on a stage, while the crowd of people waves their miracle lights in unison.

The next slide is a reverse of this, showing all the main characters (Syrup, Komachi, Rin, Coco, Nozomi, Chocola, Nuts, Queen Dessert, Karen, and Kurumi) standing in front of the crowd watching Urara perform and waving their lights.

Next is a picture of Chocola fixing Nozomi’s animal ears, while Nuts looks sad, Karen and Komachi giggle at each other, and Kurumi has heart eyes for some reason.

Lastly is a picture of everyone, where all the girls are sitting in the front row and the boys and queen stand behind them. Chocola is hugging Nozomi and everyone is smiling for the camera. The real Chocola, holding the notebook, waves goodbye at the audience as the music comes to an end and the credits say “Owari” or “The End”.

Since the credits play over this during the movie, it can be hard to get a good view at the images in still form, but I took screenshots of each slide using the creditless version of the ending theme and uploaded them to the gallery for your enjoyment.

The Analysis

The early years of Precure had a great run of films, and this is a proud continuation of that legacy. It’s outwardly kind of simple, thematically, but it pushes its message with such sincerity that you can’t help but be drawn in. It also has a really inspired alternate world, probably the best since Splash Star, and a fun original villain. For bonus points, there is 100% less gratuitous celebrity voice acting in this compared to the last two. The movie has a good setup, build up, payoff, and climax. It delivers memorable scenes, crafts loving character moments, and is a great story about family and friendship.

The friendship theme in this film plays out differently from prior movies..The FWPC era movies were about the two partners having a disagreement and later making up with each other, showing that the strength of their bond was their source of power. The first Precure 5 movie did the opposite, forcefully splitting up the girls and proving that their friendship was a source of strength even when they’re apart from each other. In this film, the girls are split up again, and there’s definitely an element of the strong-even-when-apart concept, but the message is more about how friends make everything more fun and enjoyable, and Nozomi gets the lion’s share of that. Yes, she’s the center of the team, and the main character of the series, but a whole bunch of Nozomi’s screentime involves her either spending time with her friends or espousing how much she wants to.

Like in the previous film, Dream is unique in that she doesn’t defeat her opponent by simply overpowering them physically and leaving them too weak to continue. Instead she is able to sympathize with them and resonate with their feelings. It’s not a perfect mirror to what she did with Dark Dream, since Coco is mind controlled and already an ally of hers, but the parallels are obvious, and that kindness and compassion is her greatest strength. Even Mushiban begins to admit this, in his final moments.

There’s also a secondary theme, as in the previous movie, about standing up against abuse and finding strength in different ways, which is visualized through Chocola’s relationships with Mushiban and Nozomi. Chocola goes through a great arc herself, starting out feeling helpless and desperate, and ultimately being willing to stand up to a powerful evil, thanks to the strength and courage that Nozomi inspired in her.

That actually results in an interesting phenomenon. While Nozomi is the main character that the narrative follows, Chocola is more of the protagonist whose actions move the plot forward and who grows as a person. She’s the one who leads Bunbee to the Precures, and then takes them to the Land of Sweets. She brings everyone to the castle where they are then kidnapped by the villains. After Coco is possessed by Mushiban, she frees the other fairies and runs to Nozomi for help. She frees her mother from Mushiban’s control and enables Nozomi to become Shining Dream. Almost every major plot event is instigated by her, even if she’s doing Mushiban’s bidding, and Nozomi and co. are there to respond. Naturally, Nozomi still has an important role in the narrative as she confronts Dark Coco and comforts and inspires Chocola to take her steps against Mushiban in the first place and I’m not trying to downplay her accomplishments. Both of them are strong characters here and they complement each other well. Nozomi spends most of the movie just being really nice, wanting to get stuff to share with her friends. When the bad guys question this or say it’s useless, she shuts them down and emphasizes that people appreciate being thought about. It’s still friendship and love, as always, just a different angle on it and I think that’s a nice touch.

As far as antagonists go, Mushiban is the only one of note. Dry and Bitter just kind of exist to say and do bad things. They’re one-note as villains. They have no motivation of their own. They aren’t even named in the narrative, just the credits, and they only exist to save Mushiban’s reveal for the final act. Fortunately, Mushiban himself is more fleshed out. Even though he doesn’t appear on screen until the third act, he’s an active participant in the story from the beginning, since he’s controlling Queen Dessert, Dry, Bitter, and later Coco, and this allows the audience to get an impression of how powerful he is. His motivation is hilariously simple: he wants to finally actually experience the deliciousness that sweets can bring. The rub is that he’ll kill five girls in order to do it, which suddenly sounds a lot more dark. His absolute conviction to this goal (and the excellent voice acting) keeps him threatening. I enjoyed him because he had a powerful presence throughout the film, starting from the disheveled state of the throne room and the Queen who clearly wasn’t herself, up to the climax where he’s engaged in a furious sword fight with Shining Dream. He never lets up until the very end, where he finally begins to accept the error of his ways.

The other characters in the film are, unfortunately, not given much to work with. The other Precures just kind of feel like they’re along for the ride, as they don’t contribute to the narrative beyond occasional lines about enjoying spending time together. Kurumi is absolutely shit upon, given almost nothing to do other than tagging along with the other fairies. She completely transforms during the opening battle against Bunbee. Near the climax she gives Chocola a pep talk when the princess has already committed to defying Mushiban, and Milky Rose fights him to keep him busy while Chocola frees her mother, but she uses up her energy and doesn’t even get to participate in the big final battle. It makes sense within the established rules about her powers, but I think it is a big middle finger from a writing standpoint. She had a whole arc in the show not so long ago about how she wants to be a part of the team AND also be a caretaker for Coco and Nuts. I wish the movie writer was privy to that. It’s also possible the movie was written before the producers of the series decided to introduce Milky Rose, and so she was a late addition to the script, which could explain her limited role, but that’s only my speculation.

The action scenes, thankfully, are generally top notch (there’s definitely some moments of lackluster though). They’re fast-paced and creative. In the early scene at Natts House, there’s a part where Lemonade grabs the Hoshiina with Prism Chain and then she, along with Dream and Aqua, swings it around and hurls it towards Bunbee, which really stands out to me as something they wouldn’t be able to do on TV. The battles in the Sweets Kingdom where the girls are being turned into sweets are intense. They’re pierced and attacked by weapons in a way that they probably couldn’t get away with in the show. Bitter uses ice needles to attack Rouge and Aqua, which are seem to sink into their skin and turn them into ice pops. Similarly, Dry flings flat-edged cards that seem to cut the skin. Both of these actions slide under the radar because there’s no blood, but it’s powerful imagery. Meanwhile, Dream’s fight with Dark Coco is full of powerful blows given a lot of emphasis mixed in with some beam attacks. The two jump all over the place, and Dream pulls off an impressive series of back handsprings to evade. When Dark Coco reveals his identity and summons his Dark Fleuret, Dream switches only to evading his attacks, except at the apex of their battle. Mushiban, through Coco, tries to strike Nozomi directly on her head with the sword, and she just sits there and lets him, because she has started to get through to him and she believes that Coco can’t bring himself to hurt her. They do a quick fakeout to make it look like blood has been shed, when it’s just juice, and again it’s the type of shot that I think would be too much for Sunday morning.

The climax, where the cures face off against Mushiban together, is short lived. They try and fail to land hits on him, and he throws everyone either on the ground or into each other, and then puts them all out of commission with a dark energy attack. It’s good action but sometimes hard to make out what’s happening. This makes way for the true pinnacle moment of the film: Nozomi’s transformation into Shining Dream, and her one-on-one battle with Mushiban. This is where you get some of the best animation in the film, with Shining Dream flying around and clashing swords with Mushiban.There’s a particular moment where she rotates in midair, striking Mushiban twice. As soon as he’s defeated, the lighting turns to a somber twilight appearance, as a nice touch.

The scene where Dream kisses Coco to wake him up is a direct callback to the beginning of the movie, where he teases her about doing the same thing and compares her to Sleeping Beauty. The parallel is obvious, Coco is asleep under a spell and the kiss of his true love lifts that curse. There’s a point in their battle where a mind controlled Coco tries to kiss Dream as well but it’s done mockingly and she slips out of his grasp. It’s also the first onscreen kiss in the entire Precure series, and I believe the only kiss between a main Cure and another character. This makes it all the more special. It does cement their relationship in a way we seldom see in Precure romances, even though they never outright say they love each other or mention this moment later. Despite the sometimes ambiguous way the rest of the series handles it, and Nozomi’s rejection earlier in the film, she loves Coco and cares emphatically about him. The kiss is brought up one last time during the ending montage, when Nozomi attempts to kiss fairy form Coco and he seems nervous, but that’s treated as a gag. (Side note: I am aware that their relationship is controversial to some within the fandom. Whatever your feelings on it, please respect the message of the film.)

Obviously, Shining Dream is our requisite movie super form, but unlike the ones in every other movie, it’s exclusive to Cure Dream, and this will unfortunately become a trend for the next few fall movies. Regardless of the snubbing of the other main characters, let’s go over the design.

It’s a slightly embellished version of Cure Dream’s normal outfit in all white, with pink trim, and her hair is pinker than before. The skirt has an extra layer, as do her sleeves, the cuffs on her boots and gloves now have feather patterns, her back bow has longer trails, the chest butterfly is larger, and she has a pink rose in the center instead of a gem brooch. Also, her hair loops are tied with small wings instead of ribbons. And, obviously, she has angel wings that she retracts half the time. It’s a fantastic design and exactly what I want from a Precure powerup form. White is a good color, as it represents purity and the combination of all other colors of light. Any color can be upgraded to white safely, and it really works here. The pink highlights keep her grounded to her base theme, and the embellishments in the form of more curves and ruffles, and the extra rose on her chest, bring it all together. The angel wings are the icing on the cake. Compared to the Butterfly forms from the last movie, it’s undeniably better, and it even uproots the Phoenix power forms from the Max Heart film as the bext upgrade form so far in this franchise. (thoughts on Cure Angel, Mugen Silhouette, Crescendo Form, and others will come when I get to them).

Regarding the setting, this film continues the trend of the Precure movies taking place in an alternate world such as the Land of Clocks, the Garden of Clouds, or Paris. The Land of Sweets, or Dessert Kingdom, is one of the more creative movie worlds the movies have come up with so far. I think it might be one of my favorites, bumping up with the Land of Toys from the Fresh Precure movie (we’ll get there). It’s got a fun and creative atmosphere, similar to the tasting room scene from Willy Wonka. There’s so much you can do with a world made and also full of food, which they take advantage of. I’m especially fond of the montage that plays during the opening song where you see a bunch of examples of edible stuff.

I criticized the last movie for cramming in celebrity voices, and for a rushed finale. One of those two problems is nonexistent here, thankfully. The climax is still a little quick but it’s appropriately built up to and so there isn’t the same sensation that the writers ran out of time or had to cut some scenes to make it fit. My only complaint is, again, that Kurumi doesn’t get to do much despite supposedly being a main member of the team. I believe the next film, All Stars DX, gives her some more to work with, but it’s a shame she couldn’t shine in her own series’ movie.

Miscellaneous observations

Mushiban’s name is a play on the word 虫歯 (mushiba) meaning tooth decay, which is what happens when you eat too many sweets and don’t care for your teeth. Brush and floss regularly, kids!

Dry and Bitter are somewhat unusual. As I mentioned above, they’re not actually named in the dialog, and pretty much no information is given about them throughout the movie. They aren’t explicitly shown to be controlled by Mushiban, but they have gems on their chests for most of the movie that are gone when they reappear during the epilogue. Since nobody calls them out for their earlier actions, it can only be assumed they were also under Mushiban’s control like Coco and the Queen. Furthermore, they don’t have animal ears in their first appearance, but they do when they meet the girls. After kidnapping Rin, Urara, Komachi, and Karen, they reveal that they’re just headbands and throw them away. However, during their small appearance in the epilogue, they have animal ears once more. Are they fake? Are everyone’s animal ears fake? They had no problem conjuring up enough for all the main cast to wear during the credits montage. Also, Mushiban never has any. There’s a chance that the royal family are the only ones that actually have real animal ears and all the other residents are pretending. It opens up an unusual can of worms. There’s a chance it’s explained in some interview or series book I haven’t read, but maybe it’s truly a mystery.

The movie was released on November 8, Nozomi’s actual birthday.

Coco and Nuts transform into faux-precures in the prologue, calling themselves Cure Coconuts and wearing the outfits of Dream and Mint respectively. Everyone has a thick outline in this sequence for some reason. This is the first ever semi-canonical instance of male Precures. In 2023, the series would finally introduce a legitimate boy Precure in Cure Wing. And it all started here.

Also in the opening sequence, in the transition between the skit about Syrup being a monster, and the actual explanation of the miracle lights, a series of stagehands usher Syrup offstage. Their faces are not seen, but they’re clearly meant to be the five girls. It’s a detail that goes by quickly, to the point I missed it on my first several viewings of the film, so a great easter egg.

If you’re not familiar with Miracle Lights, here’s my writeup on those from the last movie explaining what they are and how they’re used.

Among other notable names, Yoshihiko Umakoshi was a key animator on this film, and in particular is believed to be responsible for animating the fight between Cure Lemonade and Mint and Bitter, as well as the climactic fight between Shining Dream and Mushiban. Umakoshi is a high profile animator and character designer, who is most famous in Precure for his work on the distinctive character designs and animation for Heartcatch Precure. Prior to Precure he spearheaded the Ojamajo Doremi series. He also worked on Casshern Sins and Saint Seiya Omega, and currently is the animation director for My Hero Academia.

Kurumi gets very annoyed and possessive when Chocola gets close to Coco, even though she’s markedly younger than him.

Bunbee’s presence in this film is the first time a TV antagonist has featured in a movie, since they normally feature original villains. Some will appear in future films, but it’s still rare.

During the fall down the purin mountains, Karen is blushing and holding her skirt down as if she’s afraid she’s going to flash someone. Although several of the others are wearing dresses, none of them seem bothered by the risk of exposure, and of course nothing ultimately happens because it’s not that kind of movie. It’s an odd detail to include at all, when everyone always has magic skirts.

Our original voice cast are:

Doi Mika as Queen Dessert. She’s known for playing Queen Serenity in Sailor Moon, Hayase Misa in Macross, and Takani Megumi in Rurouni Kenshin. She previously played Saki’s mother Hyuuga Saori in Splash Star.

Kawata Takeo as Princess Chocola.She played a one-off character named Nozomi in Max Heart, Princess Filia in Splash Star, and later plays Chypre in Heartcatch. She reprises the role of Chocola in DX3.

Otsuka Akio as Mushiban. He’s a veteran voice actor with a long career, famous for his deep voice. Popular roles include Kyoryaku Shunsui in Bleach, Batou in the Ghost in the Shell franchise, and All For One in My Hero Academia. He’s also the voice of Snake in the Metal Gear game series. Mushiban is the only character he has ever played in Precure, and he will reprise the role in All Stars DX3.

Ishida Akira as Dry. He’s known for playing Kaworu in Evangelion, Gaara in Naruto, and Kotaro in Gintama. He also played Cologne in Heartcatch.

Matsukaze Masaya as Bitter. Known for playing MegaBlue in Megaranger and Otori Kyoya in Ouran High School Host Club, he has no other Precure roles

Conclusion

This was another great Precure film. It has a few new ideas to try out, and it executes them well. It pushes the envelope somewhat in terms of what it’s willing to show the audience, and it caps off a great film about family and love. It stumbles in some spots, and a few supporting characters needed more to do, but it’s still a worthwhile experience and a great capstone to the pre-All Stars era.

Next time, on Precure Daily, Syrup has a revelation about his past. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 kettei!

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 Go Go!#YPC5GG Movie #PCD236

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precuredaily · 3 months

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Precure Day 240

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! 41 - “Rin-chan's Date with a Hottie!?" Date watched: 8 January 2024 Original air date: 30 November 2008 Screenshots Precure Metamorphose Gallery | Sky Rose Translate Gallery Project info and master list of posts

Girl. You can do so much better.

Rin is trying to figure out what compels people to wear jewelry and accessories, with some provocation from Nuts. So she turns to the most bedazzled man she knows: Momoi Kyousuke. He seems strangely interested in learning her and her friends’ weaknesses, though…

The Plot

After Rin sees a man walking down the street covered with all manner of gaudy accessories, she can’t get him out of her mind, questioning why anyone would wear so much unnecessary stuff. Nozomi tells Rin that she wants to wear all the accessories she makes, which Rin dismisses saying that’s not a good reason to wear accessories. Nuts challenges her by asking if accessories are something you only wear when necessary, sparking a larger discussion. Nozomi also brings up a new cake shop that she wants to visit, which the other girls show some interest in.

Over at Eternal, Mucardia visits Anacondy, remarking on the lack of Bunbee. She coldly tells him that he can join him if he’s so interested, so Mucardia drops the subject, and she subtly threatens him into action by saying she has high hopes for him. So in his guise as Momoi Kyousuke, he visits Fleuriste Natsuki to chat up Rin and try to gain intel from her. She thinks he’s taking her on a date, even while he not so subtly asks about her friends’ strengths and especially their weaknesses. Rin doesn’t really notice this because she’s still pondering Nuts’s question, stopping to stare at a window display of accessories, and then helping a crying girl who has lost her older brother. When Rin catches the girl staring at her homemade brooch and bracelet, she gives them to the child, who says she’ll give them to her brother, because her brother wears everything she gives him.

Momoi takes Rin to a new cake shop to try to get more information out of her. She recognizes it as the one Nozomi was talking about, and who should show up then but the girl herself, upset that Rin would come here without her. When she sees Momoi and starts to put together the pieces, Rin tries to deny what it looks like. Before they can try to settle the perceived misunderstanding, their food arrives, served by Bunbee. All of them instantly recognize each other, and Bunbee accuses Momoi of trying to become the Precure's new leader instead of him. Momoi rebuts this and accuses Bunbee of abandoning Eternal. Then he realizes that he has said all of this in front of Nozomi and Rin.

Realizing that the gig is up, he transforms into his monster form for the first time, so the best friends transform into Precure as well. Mucardia turns a table into a Hoshiina while taunting them with their perceived weaknesses (their desire to help others) and says he deserves the Rose Pact, but Dream says that they want to answer Flora’s feelings, since she bestowed it to them. This speaks to Rouge. The pair are about to get attacked by the Hoshiina when Milky Rose kicks in, defending her friends’ motives, shortly followed by Cure Lemonade, and then Mint and Aqua. Mucardia tries to belittle the girls by revealing things he knows about them, and Rouge explains he was disguised as Momoi, but honestly the information he reveals to the girls is laughably insubstantial. The trio of fairies arrive, and Rose uses Metal Blizzard to destroy the Hoshiina. The cures perform Five Explosion on Mucardia, who tries to put up a barrier to defend himself, but as the attack starts to break through, he gives up and flees.

Later, back at Natts House, the bedazzled man that Rin saw at the beginning shows up with the little girl Rin helped, because he is the mysterious older brother she bequeathed the bracelet to. He explains that he wears whatever accessories his sister gives him, because that’s what makes her happy, and it makes him happy in turn. Rin tells Nuts that wearing things because it makes others happy is as good a reason as any, which he affirms is essentially what he was leading her towards earlier. Nozomi turns to Rin and says that Rin puts all her strong feelings into making accessories, so she wants to wear them all as well, which makes Rin smile.

The Analysis

What I Liked

It’s a strong episode about Rin confronting some of her biases and assumptions about what she does and why people express themselves, how they dress. She realizes that it’s okay to wear things just because you like, or even because it makes other people happy. It’s kind of an off the wall lesson for this show in isolation, but for Rin’s character arc it’s poignant. Also, as a self-proclaimed Rin fan, I’m happy to see her get focus.

Nozomi and Rin’s friendship receives a wonderful boost in this episode, as they’re shown to be paying attention to each other’s interests and looking out for one another even when it outwardly looks like they’re talking past each other. Rin seems dismissive when Nozomi brings up the pastry shop she wants them to go to because she wants to talk about the man with accessories, but she recognizes it when she’s out and about. While not the same, Nozomi clearly cares about Rin’s passion for jewelry, as stated when she tells her best friend how she wants to wear all of the accessories she makes.

The ep comes close to mocking people with lots of piercings and jewelry but stopped short. That’s a weird thing to put in the positives column, but considering the way it turns around and shows that the reason the man wears all the accessories is for his sister, it’s a clever bait and switch. I should also point out the subtle but on-brand bucking of gender roles when the child insists that her brother will love Rin’s bracelet, even though it’s a stereotypically girly design. He is indeed later shown wearing it.

It’s good, and funny, to see Bunbee at least trying to make an honest living for himself out of Eternal. When confronted, he doesn’t even try to put up a fight, even though he could probably still summon a Hoshiina. He just runs off. On the other side of the Eternal coin, Mucardia’s true design is very intimidating in the right ways. Was it worth all the build-up? Perhaps not. He’s similar to Bloody from last season, the last and strongest general to show up who tends to do things his own way and doesn’t transform until the 40s.

The fight against Mucardia was chef’s kiss. The art quality in this episode is overall very strong. There's some animation tricks to keep it under budget, but it moves well when and where it needs to. The gallery contains stitched versions of several panning shots for you to check out.

What I DIdn’t Like

Rin. Girl. Come on. Come ON. You can do so, so much better than this guy. Even putting aside his allegiances, all he does on this date is belittle her compassion and probe her for weaknesses. The nameless man wearing all the accessories would have been a better match, because at least he shows kindness. The fandom joke is that everyone else is paired up, but nobody loves Rin, because her romantic interests across both seasons have been:

a college man who she thought was hitting on her, but was actually buying flowers for his girlfriend

A ghost who thought she was his lover

some boys in the first movie who were intimidated by her athletic ability

and now a creepy man who is actually an unapologetic major villain. (this)

Mucardia felt like he got the idiot ball this episode. He’s so far been shown to be the shrewdest mind in Eternal, hatching devious plots with the Precures none the wiser (although, his game show gig was pretty unnecessarily elaborate). Suddenly he’s just directly asking Rin what everyone’s weaknesses are and accidentally outs himself in front of her?

I believe I’ve spoken about this before, but the jewelry maker that Rin uses…. Look, I know it’s a toy plug. I’m sure it’s great fun for kids, and has good tactile feedback. But not only could she easily string together the chain bracelets just as quickly by hand, but the color and shape of the links inside the machine doesn’t even match the solid pink bracelet that she shows off as having made. Have some consistency.

Miscellaneous

King Montblanc does not appear in this episode.

Milk does not appear in her fairy form in this episode.

Mucardia’s monster form is themed after a centipede, and his name is derived from “Mukade” for the same.

The man who wears all the accessories is voiced by Ono Daisuke, a popular voice actor likely best known for playing Sebastian in Black Butler, Kujo Jotaro in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Erwin Smith in Attack on Titan. He will go on to play a character in the Happiness Charge Precure movie. His sister is played by Shitaya Noriko, whose most prominent role is as Matou Sakura in the Fate series, and Tsumugiya Ururu in Bleach. She has no other Precure roles to her name.

Conclusion

As the series starts to clear out the remaining villains in the ramp up to the final arc, it was time to have Mucardia step into the spotlight. I wish he could have had a better reveal after all his buildup, but despite this the episode is truly great overall with great character dynamics and Rin showing her best side.

Next time, on Precure Daily, the girls have to find out whether Arabian Nights really are like Arabian days. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure catchphrase count: 0 kettei!

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 Go Go!#YPC5GG41 #PCD240

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