Score: A

This episode definitely delivered in terms of a good first clash between the main villain and the Precure. It managed to do something I wish more seasons did. It allowed for a clash between main cast and their main antagonist early and gives them something to build on. It’s tough when the heroes and the villains have almost no interactions or relationship to each other. But in this one we got a bit of a fight and the establishing Usonoir’s goals. Now the girls are increasingly motivated and he’s actually got some sort of connection with his enemies. Better than him only having sat around sending out minions for the entire series!

This guy is no joke

In a sense all the cards are in Usonoir’s hands. He’s the one with the magical tome that will give him a cheat sheet on the future. But it almost doesn’t matter who gets the jewels. The girls can pretty much get 100% of them and that’s fine. He likely has the means to find the jewel when the time is right. It obviously would be best to just get the fragments. But he can still force the Precure to collect them by sending out his minions to steal them. There’s nothing the Precure can really do either. They can’t get to where this guy is and can’t just look the other way as the jewels are stolen. There isn’t even a safer place to send the jewels than where Pochitan is already sending them. Anything they do just plays into his hands.

Saved by prophecy

And Usonoir can really throw hands! He was just dominating. Now to be fair the Precure have lost in back to back episodes to Arcana Shadow and even she barely could take a hit from him. His speed is terrifying considering how big he is. He’s got speed, power, and a pretty good mental attack capability. About the only thing the Precure could compete with him on is resisting that power of lies. But honestly…that’s about right. They are “detectives” so that’s the one power that might be less effective on them. But everything else was just way too much to handle.

The only thing that saved the Precure this time was that tome. He is basically a slave to it. If the tome says he leaves without killing his enemies…then he will. There’s no reason for Usonoir to actually go. But the book itself creates the reason by simply stating the action. I am curious on the timing. Did Arcana Shadow or her fairy somehow influence the tome to present that? A “lie” to help save the other girls? She obviously is a good girl at heart so I could see that being the case. But either way…as things stand Answer and Mystique can’t stand up to this guy. If it wasn’t for the prophecy giving them some time to prepare…it wouldn’t end well.

Can’t wait for some answers

The mystery of Arcana Shadow remains. She clearly has a reason for what she’s doing, but we just don’t know yet. There’s something she stands to gain from this world of lies or she simply wouldn’t be helping Usonoir out with it. I do wonder if she might be doing some undercover work though. Luluka seems to believe that lies have some merit and that could be attached to her getting close to this group of thieves for a particular purpose. But there’s just no telling exactly what she wants yet. But I do think her character is incredibly interesting. And in the end she did save the day before it got completely out of hand.

He came, dominated, and left

This was just a great episode. The only mystery that remains is why Usonoir wants to create this world of lies and what lies in particular he wants to make into truth. But regardless the main villain of the show (so far) has done a great job establishing his threat level. He could destroy the Precure, but he doesn’t really need to right now. The priority is the jewels and so long as someone is collecting them then that’s fine. His main frustration (maybe because Anna was from the future and Mikuru was never meant to be a Precure) was that neither girl was in the tome. But that seems to be rectified so he shouldn’t be frustrated and rushing himself to get involved again. At least not until the day of prophecy.