Score: B+

This show continues to surprise me with how well it handles the characters. Sora and Mashiro are developing excellently early on and making this show an easy one to get into. I’ll admit that some of the recent Precure seasons had left me less and less engaged with the franchise. But this show continues doing things the right way. It was a perfectly sensible choice for this episode to focus on Sora’s fears of having Mashiro fighting alongside her. The show hasn’t forgotten the natural fear Sora has fought whenever she’s jumped into a fight. So naturally she’d be terrified of someone she cares about being in the line of fire. That allowed for a natural and good conflict to emerge in this episode.

Sora’s a great protagonist

The flashbacks for Sora were just the right length. It let us understand her feelings even better without dragging things out. This girl’s life was changed when she was rescued. She chose the path of a hero and stuck with it. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a cost to it. She effectively isolated herself. Even when people are doing something they want to do that doesn’t mean they won’t have feelings of missing out. So, Mashiro became her first real friend and has built up a great connection between them early on. That just further elevates Mashiro’s worth in Sora’s eyes.

But that feeling of Mashiro being precious only left Sora terrified. It’s easier on her to risk her own safety than to risk seeing Mashiro get hurt or killed. Training on her own couldn’t leave her prepared for the fear of losing what she cares for. The time skip was nice since it let Sora’s fears build up and made it clear that Mashiro was at least aware of Sora’s nightmares. Sora continues to be a likeable character that is easy to empathize with. It’s hard to get mad at her for simply not wanting to see anything bad happen to Mashiro.

I guess Ellee thought this was a serious argument

And it’s not like things got truly ugly between them. There was some level of argument there, but nothing too heavy. How could there be though? The issue is Sora does not want to see her friend get hurt. Mashiro obviously can’t agree with letting Sora fight by herself. But that doesn’t mean she’s angry at her for caring. She especially can’t get too mad when she knows Sora has been having nightmares over it. In the end all she could offer was her own feelings. The only solution was to express that she cares as much about Sora as Sora cares about her. Their feelings are the same on that front and she doesn’t want to sit around watching her friend get hurt either. She just had to leave the ball in Sora’s court in terms of reaching out and accepting her friend fighting beside her.

Enemy got beamed up

Not much to say about the new finisher. It’s fine, but something about it feels a bit empty to me. I think that’s probably because it is just a magical hole that appears a distance away over the enemy. Something about it just feels a bit empty. The enemy gets sucked into some random hole in the sky…and then they lose. But at least the action was fine in an episode that wasn’t really about the action. I appreciate how they make sure to not just have Prism be the same as Sky. It allowed her to thrive in a way even Sky didn’t expect with that flash bang attack. The main pair needed time to talk which meant unleashing moves like that.

Sucks when the boss bothers you while having a meal

They are doing a solid job letting the villain have some personality. I kind of like how the guy running the food stand heard the “harassment from upper management” that Kabaton was dealing with. It threw him off for a second, but he just kind of rolled with it. At least we did get a voice for Kabaton’s boss. He was obviously not the big bad of this series. We still don’t really know what his boss wants with Ellee, but we can start to guess. If the power to create Precures rests with her that would make her a target worth going after. If only to avoid the past being repeated with legendary magical girls stepping in to stop any evil plots. Hopefully we learn a bit more about what exactly Kabaton’s boss wants to accomplish.

I really like these two

This was just a solid episode. The show keeps making it easy to talk about it. Sora and Mashiro are a likeable pair and their continued character arcs are keeping me engaged. I think this is what can make a show truly thrive. The overall story can take its time building up. But the important thing is having a strong first impression and then a hook to keep people along for the ride. So far that hook really has been the main characters. Hopefully that can keep on going for the whole darn show.