Heartcatch Precure – 22

Well, so it happened: this episode confirmed the identity of the third Precure, even though it already has been obvious who she was going to be anyway. I really admire the way the creators ended up doing it, though. They chose for a very natural introduction instead of just forcing some convenient arc about the student council president.

It’s a shame that the entire design of this show is what revealed her identity: lead characters are pretty. That’s a cliche that even this series failed to avert. Ignoring that, though, this episode really introduced Potpourri to the student council president by sheer luck: they really just happened to bump into each other. No extra forced plot twist beyond the ones that the series already consists of were used.

In any case, this episode also showed that Tsubomi has joined the greenery club at school. This is really something that I notice with a lot of other bland lead characters in mostly mediocre series: characters like these really have no interests whatsoever. They’re bland because it’s not clear at all what they’ve been doing before their respective series starts. Heartcatch Precure however is the complete opposite: this essentially is Tsubomi, making the best out of her youth: trying out various hobbies, pursuing her own interests of flowers and fashion. The episodic format of this series is indeed somewhat forced, but it really makes excellent use of this format to give Tsubomi a taste of all these different hobbies.

Also, Kumojacky and the typhoon. I’m not exactly sure what’s so awesome about that, but the badass way in which he discovered his new technique: the typhoon punch, it just made this episode even better. Out of all three minions, this guy, with his pride and honour, is my favourite.
Rating: ** (Excellent)