Score: A-

It is starting to become clearer what the story intends to do with Sora and Shalala. I did start out thinking that she was just pretending to be a good person and was running the Undergu Empire. Now that’s still technically on the table, but it seems far less likely at this point. The path they are taking is also potentially a standard one, but it should work. It seems at this point that Shalala will end up captured by that Empire and will be turned into either a General or just a mindless opponent for the Precure to face off against later.

A hero no matter the circumstance

This episode even showed us how events might end up occurring. Sora is the type that will put herself in harms way when she realizes that the active threat is suffering themselves. That was the case with Kabaton and probably will be the case with Shalala. She is a straightforward hero after all. Sora just can’t abandon those that need saving. And considering how powerful Shalala was…that would make her a terrifying enemy. I don’t think Sora will be able to pull off a 1v1 this time.

But I don’t expect to see Shalala back anytime soon. At least I think she will come back after Battamonda is defeated. That guy is the main threat at this point though he probably won’t last nearly as long as Kabaton did. Letting Shalala stay out of the picture for a bit works well anyways. It will make her return more dramatic for the characters and the viewers since we won’t have seen her for a while.

He didn’t do a great job here

Tsubasa really messed everything up this week. Maybe he’s getting a bit full of himself with the whole knight thing. He couldn’t even safely perform recon and presumably got hit so hard with one attack that he was significantly injured and knocked out his Precure form. Then he failed to transform again once he’d rested for a while and was quickly KO’d when Battamonda snuck his way into the castle to go for Ellee after the fighting was over. The consequence of that was that the King/Queen were put in a seriously bad state. Now maybe if he was healthy he wouldn’t have been in there at all, but maybe not. The focus was on the duo move between Sky and Prism. He could have stayed behind to be safe and remained transformed.

Sky’s fist told the story here

It was satisfying though to see Sky just straight up pissed. She was ready to punch the daylights out Battamonda. It was a smart move on his part to run away. We didn’t get a good look at Sky’s face but one can imagine it was full of rage. At least that moment was set up by a very cute call for help by Ellee. Having her say Sora’s name was sweet and shows how important this hero girl has become for Ellee’s entire life. I’m not sure if this was technically her first word, but it was said with passion!

That rage moment contrasted nicely with the nice exposition scene with Sora and Shalala. It’s kind of funny how Sora’s words to Shalala weren’t simply gratitude for being saved, but rather she gave her a gift XD. If this was a plot it is extremely well set up since she seemed to have held onto the stone that Sora offered her years ago. And Sora getting that back seems to set up nicely the eventual battle to try and save Shalala from mind control (or something).

This thing was a legitimate threat.

Kind of glad one enemy did take on that overly powerful finisher from Sky and Prism. It’s such a crazy attack that seems too strong to me. But finally, we got to see the limit of what it could handle. And it barely managed in this case. Without quite a bit of backup that thing might have crushed the finisher and been unstoppable.

I also appreciated the tactics at play in this episode. It was smart to take advantage of how competent those knights are. They could handle Ranborgs on their own (or with some Precure backup). But if they were the ones to finish off the enemy then they wouldn’t be purified. The precure moves can manage that, but the rest allowed a super Ranborg to be summoned.

Able to dodge the problem of Sky and Prism being separated for now

Honestly, I had a pretty good time with this episode. It was a somewhat effective method they used to get around Mashiro going home. In the end they didn’t even have to deal with it. The King and Queen getting cursed created a good excuse to get out of there. It took away the huge issue that they’d have with having Ellee return to Earth while her parents are right there for her to be with. And this episode was just a great one for Sora. She got to face her past and throw everything she had into the present. She is still upset about Shalala but this hero girl faces forward. I can’t wait to see where the story goes from here and when we’ll get the next Precure on the team.