Sara Talks Anime

“Could you hold on a minute before you continue?”

SPOILER WARNING: This post contains details from Episode 13 of Meitantei Precure. Some of them are important, some of them may not matter.

I said it last week, I’ll say it again. Holy shit. Like, this is the episode that I believe deserves the holy shit more than last week. Now, you may be wondering: Sara, what the hell is happening in Meitantei Precure to require you to say this? Well, it’s time for you to find out.

Like shown in the preview, Maestro Usonoir has made the decision to head out, even if that doesn’t occur straight away due to Agesiene working to prevent him from coming into play yet. Does that work? Shh…wait carefully.

Anyway, back in the Makoto Mirai place, we have the latest case that Anna and Mikuru are needing to solve that we’re thrown in the middle of: a boy’s toy robot got stolen, and the thief is in the location with them! If you paid enough attention to the designs of the suspects, you’d be able to pin down exactly who the culprit is. But before I transition to the next statement, Jett giving the kid a lolipop was so sweet.

This leads into a Hanninda confrontation, with the Cures transforming and taking care of it as per usual. But as we’re still far too early into the episode for the Cures to just take the Makoto Jewel and run away, we’ve got to have Arcana Shadow appear, with her even transforming to try and take care of Anna and Mikuru before Maestro Usonoir can come.

This fails, and Maestro Usonoir still comes, alongside the other generals. A fight occurs, and Maestro Usonoir decides to show off his powers, which involves moving individuals from one space to another, and making lies reality, even if only for a brief period of time. He even uses this power on Anna, which he uses to make her kneel. Anna’s like “screw you, I’ll make my own answer” and breaks free.

During that skirmish is also where we get a revelation about the Makoto Jewels: they’re all parts of one big Makoto Jewel, and Pochitan (even if unknowingly at this time) is rebuilding that big Makoto Jewel step by step.

One “protection via Cure Arcana Shadow and sudden knowledge in the Tome of Mirages” later, and the gang all disappear. I genuinely don’t know what Cure Arcana Shadow’s deal is yet, but I genuinely hope that she doesn’t reform, because having a character like her who’s a Pretty Cure but actively goes against the values that the main cures stand for is such a cool viewpoint, and I genuinely hope they don’t decide to have her reform.

I really feel like her story could be one about the pressure of being a “star detective” weighing too heavily on her, and deciding that working with the phantom thieves was the better option, even if she has to occasionally protect the new star detective(s) to make sure that they have a reason to keep going, thus keeping the game of cat and mouse from ending, even if she knows that logic dictates that the detective has to win.

Haha…one can only hope that’s what Toei is planning on doing with Cure Arcana Shadow. I’m not going to expect it of them, but I still feel like my idea is a genuine idea worth exploring in a magical girl series. I genuinely feel like not enough of these shows truly focus on the pressure that comes from being a magical girl.

One final revelation is that Pochitan is (slowly!) regaining the ability to speak, showing it by referring to Anna and Jett perfectly by name, while butchering Mikuru’s name. Only took us 13 episodes…and based on typical Precure patterns, we have 40-something episodes to go before the series is over. There’s already been a lot of lore revealed in this 13 episode time frame, which is a good sign.

Next week appears to be more of a lower stakes episode. While the preview still shows us having a Hanninda confrontation, I doubt it’ll be as serious as this week’s episode. Which, honestly, I think we deserve a lighter episode after last episode and this episode.

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