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Now in Japan
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Written by maehara
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Saturday, 10 February 2007 00:00 |
 Growing individuality for the Emissaries of Darkness equals a growing unwillingness to just be tools for the Dark King, Nagisa has problems working up the nerve to express her feelings to Fujipi when a ove rival appears, and Honoka receives a shock when the girls' powered-up abilities provide an avenue for Kiriya's return. Plenty going on, then...
43 - Wavering Appeal! The Heartfelt Note to Fujipi
Nagisa and Honoka's class have been chosen to represent the school at an inter-school choir contest - reason for celebration for the singers, you'd think, except that one of the other girls, Yui, is too busy worrying about her love life to get excited. Nagisa's keen to help her out - until she finds out that Yui's pining for Fujipi, and begins to think about exactly what her own feelings for him are. Meanwhile, the Dark King is getting ever more impatient for his minions to retrieve the power of the prism stones for him - but Belzei and the others are beginning to worry more about their own continued existence, and less about their master's...
44 - The Greatest Happiness!? Nagisa's White Christmas
With Christmas coming, Mipple and Porun are looking for a way to cheer Nagisa up - she's still in the dumps over Yui's approach to Fujipi, and just a little jealous over how easy she found it to speak to him. With Christmas being a romantic time of year in Japan, though, she's determined to finally get her say at the school's Christmas party. The Dark King, meanwhile, continues to flex his powers of destruction, while Belzei and the others continue to look for a way to avoid being held in his power forever.
45 - Sing, Sakura Class! Have Confidence in your Chorus!
It's almost time for the Inter-School Choir Contest, and the girls have been practising hard. With very little time left, though, Chiaki decides to change the song they'll be signing. The ides is to find a simple, high-impact song they can perform really well - not everyone's initially keen on the idea of changing the song so late, but Chiaki and Nagisa eventually talk the rest of the choir round. Even then, though, there's something about the new song that still doesn't seem right to Chiaki. Meanwhile, Belzei spotted Kiriya's appearance at the end of his last battle with the girls - realising he has the ability to stop them achieving their goal of freedom from the Dark King, he decides it's time to step up their efforts to retrieve the power of the stones from Porun...
Poor Nagisa - no matter what she does, she can't seem to work up the nerve to be entirely honest with Fujipi. And he seems so keen, too. Having to deal with Yui's efforts over the course of episodes 43-44 is obviously quite hard for her - it's never much fun to watch from the sidelines - so there are a number of scenes there where you're almost shouting at the screen for her to get on with it and say her piece. That's all overshadowed, though, by what Honoka's probably going through after the brief reappearance of Kiriya, and having her reminded of the heartbreak she suffered when he was first taken away. I had a sneaking suspicion at the time that, since he was the first of the Dark Zone villians not to be killed on-screen, he'd be making a comeback - and that comeback is now underway. Smug mode: on.
Meanwhile, life as individuals has changed the baddies, and I stand by my prediction that they'll come good in the end. There's a growing confusion there coming from the thoughts they're having about protecting their own hides, and the nervousness they're now feeling when in the Dark King's presence, that I'm fairly certain will lead to them breaking free somewhere along the line.
I could have done without the singing, though. Pretty Cure's theme song sticks in my head enough without having to listen to it through the episode as well. Chiaki's also the obsessive-compulsive type, and gets waaay to into getting the song "perfect" - so it's blessed relief when Belzei turns up to wreak some havoc.
Overall, though, still good - although maybe progressing a little too slowly, given the stage of the series we're at. Only four episodes to go now, and they'd better be good ones... |
