This episode reminded me of a mistake a lot of the bad mahou shoujo have made: the mascots. A lot of creators seem to believe that as long as you have them act brightly enough all the time, they’ll end up enjoyable. Instead of portraying them as cheerful characters, they take this way over the top by making this cheerfulness their only character trait. When the series also starts putting these mascots into central roles, you’ve got your recipe for disaster. I think the best example of this is Lilpri, which started airing during the past spring season: what could have been a fun and over the top idol series got completely out of hand when the creators suddenly found it a good idea to make these really badly characterized mascots the lead characters.
Chypre and Coffret know exactly what they are: support characters. They never get into the spotlights, they do their jobs by alerting Tsubomi and Erika as fast as possible about any desatorians, and while both are cheerful, they also know how to… you know, act normally. Then Potpourri came, and seemed to be doing the complete opposite, and she actually got a few episode parts in which she was the central character. Granted, because she was only born recently it makes sense to portray her as a little kid compared to the more “professional” Chypre and Coffret, but something in me didn’t really get used to her. So when this episode again promised to be another arc about her, I had a bit of doubts.
But god dammit, what a sweet episode it turned out to be. I knew from the moment that Potpourri and the little girl stopped playing that my fears were wrong, but even then I was surprised at how GOOD and sincere this episode was. Cure Moonlight’s return alone was already awesome enough, but I love how well Potpourri and that little girl she met acted and made up.
I mean, this show is actually setting out to be even better with its second half than its first half here. There was a far bigger contrast between the light and dark parts, but I like how at the same time the creators aren’t forgetting to keep this a bright and fun series. The creators had a lot of fun with the facial expressions in the bright parts here, not to mention how well the fight was animated (seriously, show: screw the magical beams and instead keep with the martial arts: those really show off how good the animation here is). On top of that, the creators also made excellent uses of Cure Moonlight here, by having her remind her how close Itsuki would have been to losing Potpourri.
I also wonder when we’re going to see the mysterious grandfather again. He hasn’t appeared in ages, but that just shows that he hasn’t been needed, and how the cast has grown.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
The song that played when Cure Sunshine engaged into combat was so epic
Your enjoyment and continued blogging of this show is what got me to finally seek out episodes online and start, and I’m glad I started – this definitely stands out head and shoulders above usual mahou shoujo fare, and all its Precure predecessors. I’ve been enjoying this show a lot – that said, I pretty much have to disagree with your assessment of this particular episode. Having Potpourri take centre stage and being a whiny brat totally did not work for me 😛 but then again, I am a heartless mean child-hating witch, so your mileage may vary!
I do agree that Coffret and Shypre are pretty much perfect as side character mascots, though.