Score: C+

Obviously, the show needed to fit in a beach episode. Kind of nice that they did time it for Summer. There wasn’t that much to this episode, but it did involve teaching Sora to swim. That probably won’t matter ever again in the show, but it’s a nice bit of growth for her. And it was another opportunity for Mashiro to be a good supporting presence for Sora. She could lend her some help, ease her along the journey, and honestly had the most practical advice out of anyone there. Even Ageha was relatively useless since was more used to teaching kids to walk-in ankle-deep water than teaching anyone to swim.

What is this guy trying to accomplish

I’ve got to say that the Undergu Empire is one of the most casual evil organizations of all time. They are just letting Minoton casually get his training regimen in without putting any pressure on him to accomplish anything! Kabaton was the last enemy General to receive some contact from his forces and feel any pressure to accomplish anything. Battamonda (no idea what happened to him) never had any open contact with his superiors. He just showed up on his own and disappeared on his own. If not for the next preview I’d have to wonder if this organization is even trying!

Minoton is truly the worst General so far. What is the point of his training!? He’s not fighting anyone himself. There isn’t even the mild threat that he might step into the fight at the same time as his Ranborg. Which is funny since if he ever did then he might accomplish something. But he seems very determined to just work out and criticize others when he’s not doing anything himself. Battamonda was a scumbag with some clever schemes. And Kabaton was selfish, but also seemed frustrated by his defeats. This guy is just…”eh whatever”. He doesn’t really care if he loses and the most motivated, he gets is when seeing others having fun instead of training.

Glad things worked out for her

There honestly isn’t much to say about this episode. I suppose it’s perfectly valid to work around the idea that Sora learned to swim via just having fun at the beach. Though I kind of have my doubts about that being functional since a lot of the fun was on the beach itself and not in the water. But Sora is a pretty incredible athlete. Maybe she could just naturally pick up swimming once she relaxed enough. Although in the end it was less about relaxing and more about nearly passing out while she was drowning…

While Sora was concerned over it, I don’t think the issue of the Earth being mostly covered in water will be a factor. Mostly since people don’t live in the ocean and the enemy is completely focused on kidnapping Ellee. We’re still not sure why (halfway through the show), but they are only after her. So long as the Precure don’t hang out around the ocean, swimming ability won’t be a tactical issue. Maybe a clever enemy might find a way to create an underwater fight on land, but right now we’ve got Minoton. And clever isn’t something you’d ever use to describe him.

How are they losing to this?

The fight was fine. Though it does make you question how powerful the main characters are at this point of the show. They struggled to defeat a deflated floatation ring…That’s bad! Also why were they so determined to fight where that thing wanted? There’s no active danger and they could just sit on the beach until it decided to come to them. This guy isn’t even actively going after Ellee. And the other people on the beach only spawned when the monster appeared. At no other point in the episode did it even look like other people were on that beach! Just sit on the beach and have Prism fire pot shots at him. Also wasn’t the point of deflating the ring being so that it would sink? How did it get back to the surface!?

These two carried the episode

Thank goodness the preview looks a bit promising. The show might have finally gotten through its quota of relatively meaningless episodes and is ready to move the story forward a bit. At the very least it appears like the Undergu Empire might remember that Ellee is their target! For now, though this was another pretty casual episode. Sora is the greatest part of this show and focusing episodes on her will always make for a passable episode. But there’s not a whole lot going on right now. And I do think part of that is the utter lack of development for the enemies. It’s hard to get invested since we just don’t know who our protagonists are fighting against.