My Own Review
WHEN INSPIRATION FAILS
Previously on GPPC:
The Castle of Flames became the first outpost of the Hope Kingdom to be freed by House Hope.
And Princess Towa swore a solemn oath that she would claim her throne and take the whole realm from the Dysdark usurpers...
THE NEXT DEGAS?
It's a lovely autumn day in Noble Academy, and suddenly, a gasp of awe comes from the Precure cottage.
KIRARA (to a a drawing Yui, excited): Is this a Hope Kingdom castle?
YUI (nods with a smile)
YUI (sincerely, looking back): That scene, the rebirth of the Castle of Flames, is deeply etched in my mind.
*Flashback to the purification of the Castle of Flames, the first free outpost of the HK, with its flaming rainbow beacon*
YUI: I want to put that feeling into a picture.
And thus, she has drawn what her photographic memory accurately records about such a spectacular event.
YUI (slightly insecure): But I wonder if I'm doing it well...
KIRARA (savvy, nodding): Yup, yup!
MINAMI (behind them): On that note, the Yumegahama Museum of Fine Art is holding a competition. Yui, would you like to enter?
YUI (surprised): A contest?
TOWA (excited): Many people will get to see your pictures!
MINAMI: Why don't you give it a try?
YUI (smiling, optimistic, showing her sketch of the Castle of Flames): You're right. This may get me closer to my dream of becoming a storybook author-illustrator. I'll give it a try!
Later on that day, Yui is looking at the contest leaflet.
YUI (surprised): The contest's theme is "The Smiles of Everyone"...
YUI (musing): So it means... "something that can make everyone smile"? But the technique and the composition must fit the theme and be original.
She then puts her charcoal to the blank canvas, but... she cannot draw anything! Yui Nanase's got illustrator's block for the first time in her short life!
AROMA: What's the matter?
YUI (brooding, weary): Sigh! Sigh! (Pause.) A contest means that the other participants must be at a high level. (Determined.) I cannot just draw any regular picture. I need to draw a great picture, a perfect masterpiece, right? (Insecure once more, blushing.) C-can I really do this...?
At sunset, Yui is still in that room all alone (with the pet-servants), busy with her masterpiece, and always critical towards it.
YUI (fretting): Not like this... The composition...
She is so concentrated that she pays no heed to the door opening and her friends coming in.
HARUKA (hushing the other Cures): Hush!
Yui is still busy, now discontented with the result and diligently, yet fretfully, applying the rubber.
YUI (nervously erasing her drawing): No... this design is iffy...
Her friends watch in silence, with utmost concern, until Minami breaks the ice.
MEANWHILE IN THE HOPE KINGDOM...
MINAMI (wondering): I heard that Prince Kanata returned to the Hope Kingdom?
AROMA: There was something he wanted to look into.
Indeed, Kanata is seen entering the Castle of Flames...
...and, once he has entered, looking to the left and right.
What is he looking for? More information about the Dysdarks and how to defeat them, we presume.
KURORO (worried): Will Prince Kanata be okay?
MME. SHAMOUR: Oui! If he's near the Castle of Flames, he should be safe. Thanks to the power of the Royal Key, he can come back here in an instant.
LEÇON DE CUISINE
HARUKA (upbeat, cheerful): Madame Shamour, please start your leçon!
MME. SHAMOUR (excited): Oui! Today's leçon will be on cuisine!
KIRARA (as savvy as ever): I'm starving! Perfect timing...
HARUKA (taking her leave): Yui, do your best!
YUI (turning around, a tad embarrassed): Okay...
MME. SHAMOUR: Allons donc commencer la leçon!
With her cat-paw wand, she teleports herself and the Cures to the Leçon Pad dimension, leaving Yui on her own.
YUI (determined): I need to do my best.
STRUGGLING WITH ILLUSTRATOR'S BLOCK
That night, Yui tries to change her own original art style for a different one.
Disneyesque?
YUI (fretting): There must be people better than I am...
Cubism?
Not even Yui herself is convinced.
YUI (worried): Can this ever make people smile?
No matter how much she carries on, there is something wrong.
YUI (losing hope): Will a picture of a princess really work out? I feel like I don't really know what to draw anymore.
Sighing, she buries her head in her hands and collapses on the table.
YUI (wearily): What should I do?
"I see a young maiden in a room. She is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by her side there is a bunch of withered violets. Her hair is dark and crisp, tied into French braids, and her lips are red as a pomegranate like the rim of her spectacles, and she has large and dreamy eyes. She is trying to finish a picture for the Illustration Contest, but she is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and exertion has made her faint."
In the end, she closes her eyes and begins to drift away...
YUI (in her sleep): What should I do?
In the end, awakening by morning light, Yui finds a cake box and a note by her side, and she gasps in awe at the pleasant surprise...
The note reads:
"When you're tired, eating cake is the best!
Madame Shamour taught us how to make this.
Be sure to eat it. Fight!
Haruka"
YUI (teary-eyed): Haruka...
Her best friend darted to her side, and came into the room. The young maiden had her head buried in her hands, so she did not hear the footsteps of her friend, and when she looked up she found a beautiful note lying on the withered violets.
"I am beginning to be appreciated," she cried; "this is from some great admirer. Now I can finish my picture," and she looked quite happy.
But will this encouragement put Yui Nanase back on the tracks?
RAIDER OF THE LOST MUSE
Having stuffed herself with cake and found it rather good, Yui takes to the canvas once more.
YUI (confident, determined): Haruka's got my back. (Effusively doing "We can do it!") I have to get myself together! (Suddenly losing confidence, sighing): But... something that can make everyone smile...
YUME'S VOICE (from off screen): What are you drawing?
YUI (gasps): Huh?
*A WILD HEADMISTRESS APPEARS*, coming towards our prospective Degas.
YUI (surprised): Headmistress Mochizuki! (Hesitating) Uh... uh...
YUME (looking at the canvas): Oh? It's completely blank.
YUI (embarrassed to death, in a panic): I'm-I'm still thinking about what... to... draw!!
Yume looks on, surprised. These youngsters nowadays...
YUI (having calmed down, insecure): I am thinking of entering the contest. (Lowering her head.) But I don't have any good ideas.
YUME (smiling warmly): With that expression, you will lose sight of the things you used to be able to see.
YUI: Huh?
YUME (calmly): Don't think too hard about it.
YUI (nodding, sincerely): Okay.
In the tennis court, Yuki is practicing his serve as hard as usual.
From outside, Yui watches the ace tennis player for a while, thinking of what could make him smile...
KENTA (loudly, passionately): She sells seashells by the seashore!
(In the original Japanese, he says "amenbo akaina a-i-u-e-o", the most famous pronunciation exercise in that language. So I had to replace it to retain the significance of the scene: amateur actors practicing elocution.)
DRAMA CLUB (passionately, in chorus/unison): She sells seashells by the seashore!
Yui watches "Romeo" and the other thespians practicing elocution as well.
KENTA (still effusively): The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains!
DRAMA CLUB (passionately, in chorus/unison): The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains!
(Original Japanese: "kaki no kikuri no ka ki ku ke ko." Ut supra.)
CHEERLEADERS (lively, all three in unison, shaking their pompoms and their booties) Go!! Go!! Noble A-ca-demy! (At a faster pace, allegro): Go! Go! Noble Academy! YEAH!!!
Then Yui walks across the garden and spots Hanae tending to the autumn flowers as lovably as usual.
YUI (brooding, to herself): Everyone is leaving me behind... (Walking with heavy tread and a heavy heart) So this is the place where dreams gather... Noble Academy. Am I really fit to be here?
LEAVE ME ALONE!
The next day, Kirara has obviously visited her favourite shop, as we can see.
KIRARA (cheerful, showing her box of Marble Doughnuts): Morning! I bring refreshments!
TOWA (excited and nervous): It's almost time for the contest!
MINAMI: How is it going? Do you have something in mind?
HARUKA (cheerfully): If there's anything we can do to help, just give us a shout! Like a massage on your shoulders!
YUI (shyly): Th-Thank you...
YUI (blushing, turning her back away from her friends): But... I'm sorry. I don't think I'm going to enter the contest.
PRECURES (surprised): Huh?
YUI (tears in her eyes): I'm sorry. I have some errands I need to run.
And, saying these words, she leaves her concerned friends behind.
MINAMI: Yui?
MEANWHILE, THE DYSDARKS...
In the Dysdark fortress in the Hope Kingdom, a new plan is taking shape.
DYSPEAR (coldly): We have no more time to waste. (Pause.) Do you understand?
CLOSE (determined, coldly): We cannot let them do what they want. (Commanding) Stop.
STOP (yes-sir, on bent knee): Here.
CLOSE: Freeze.
FREEZE (yes-sir, on bent knee): Here.
CLOSE (coldly): Show them overwhelming despair.
STOP AND FREEZE (unison as they get up, speak, and cross through the portals): Yes, sir.
And Lady Dyspear watches them with that smug smile of hers...
Oh... and have you noticed that Shut, in spite of bending the knee, has not said a single word today?
It might as well be a Shut dummy...
ADVICE FROM A CHILD
In the meantime, a lonely, brooding Yui strolls wearily through the woods with her head looking down.
YUI (worried): Why can't I think of anything to draw?
Suddenly, in the meadow at the edge of the woods, she is surprised by a lovely scene...
CHILD: Gasp! So pretty!
YUME: They are blooming quite nicely indeed. Let's try drawing them.
The aged headmistress is leading a group of six preschoolers, two boys and four girls, all of them wearing satchels and carrying sketchbooks... Don't tell me, Yume gives kids art classes?
CHILDREN (in chorus): Oka-a-ay!
Yui watches and listens, astonished. Maybe here she will find the muse she had lost...
YUI (coming close to Yume): Headmistress...
YUME (smiling): Oh, do you want to join in? The Blue Sky Drawing Class?
YUI (surprised): The Blue Sky Drawing Class?
YUME (sincerely): From time to time, I teach children how to draw.
YUI: I see.
Then, suddenly, Yui's attention hones in on the pigtailed girl sketching on the hill slope.
Yui watches the little girl colour in her flower in multicoloured stripes, just like a rainbow. The child's choice of pattern surprises her.
YUI: That's pretty. But... why are you mixing so many colours together?
LITTLE GIRL (while colouring): Because it's cute (kawaii).
YUI (surprised): Huh?
LITTLE GIRL (while colouring): It's cuter this way.
And thus, our museless young artist begins to understand.
YUI (sincerely): You are definitely right. It's cuter this way. Do you like drawing?
LITTLE GIRL (elated): I love it!
YUI (surprised): Why?
LITTLE GIRL (elated): Because it's fun!
And thus, Yui finally understands. Her insecurities had made her lose her grip of the zest and the passion that she always puts into her artistic projects. The zest and the passion that this child displays.
YUI (sparkles in her eyes): I see. You're right!
YUME (happy as well, behind them): What pretty colours!
YUI (looking up and over her shoulder): Headmistress!
YUME: How is your picture for the contest going?
YUI (insecure): Um... (Pause.) I wanted to give up on it. I kept thinking about winning the competition. And thus, I couldn't see what was truly important. Maybe I forgot it all about it. The fun in drawing!
YUME (smiling contentedly): Did you find something you want to draw?
YUI (smiling, wavering at first): It's still not clear yet, but... Headmistress! Could I borrow a sketchbook and some pens?
YUME (pleased): Of course you can!
YUI (bowing very low): Thank you very much indeed.
Then, after bowing, she gets up again with sparkles in her eyes...
...and soon she's busy drawing a few lines, black on white: the first rudiments of a rainbow.
The old headmistress watches a now encouraged Yui with content and lovingly.
Suddenly, a pair of twin Dysdarks pop out of their keyhole portal.
STOP: Stop!
FREEZE: Freeze!
YUI, YUME (surprised): Gasp!
CHILDREN (frightened, huddling together): Huh? What are those?
THIRD TIME... THE CHARM?
STOP: So many dreams...
FREEZE: So little and yet so powerful...
YUI (stepping in between the Dysdarks and the preschoolers, in a Taking the Bullet stance, determined): I won't let you two take these children's dreams!
STOP: Do not get in our way.
FREEZE: If you do...
STOP & FREEZE (unison, their visors glowing green): ...then we'll start with your dream.
And thus, for the third time in her short life, Yui Nanase has a keyhole opened in her chest.
This being the third time, she resists, with all of her strength, the twindividuals' attempt to probe her heart.
Which surprises both Stop and Freeze...
STOP: What now?
YUI (determined, racked with pain, resisting): I won't let you have your way!
STOP: She blocked it?
FREEZE: Who is she, exactly?
(She is Yui Nanase, and she has been targeted twice before!)
STOP & FREEZE (unison): Go!
YUI (still resisting, now beginning to waver): My... dream...
Her resistance finally gives way, and the Dysdark twindividuals probe into her heart keyhole. This time, her dream is not seen, but it's directly shut beyond an iron door.
The seismic activity outside the Academy and the scaring off a flock of crows by Desporg!Yui alert the Precures.
And thus...
PRECURE PRINCESS ENGAGE!
PRECURE PRINCESS ENGAGE!
Arriving on the battleground, the transformed Cures see the enemy is yet another Yui-based desporg.
YUME (to the children, concerned): All of you... It's dangerous here!
CHILDREN (fleeing into the woods, scream in fright)
CURE FLORA: Yume!
YUME (surprised): Oh my.
CURE FLORA (determined): Please get away from here!
YUME (surprised): Where have I seen you before?
(Flashbacks of the times Yume came to after surviving Dysdark attacks, with Cure Flora standing before her.)
CURE FLORA (startled): Eek! That must have been a mistake! Please take the children somewhere safe! Leave this to us!
So Yume nearly recognized Haruka in Cure form...
YUME (clasping Cure Flora's wrist with strength uncommon to a septuagenarian, determined): No! I won't let any more people get hurt!
There you have the Precureverse's answer to Olenna Tyrell.
Looking up and seeing who the victim du jour is, all four Precures are shocked.
YUME (concerned): Come on, let's get away from here.
CURE MERMAID (patting on Yume's shoulder, determined): We will save her!
CURE TWINKLE (after kicking away a crayon projectile targeting Yume): Please go away!
YUME (surprised): Who are you four? (The Precures nod.) I'll go ask for help. Don't force yourselves! (Off she runs into the woods.)
CURE SCARLET (concerned): Yui... you pushed yourself too hard once more...
For now, let's plunge into the unconscious Yui's mind as she lies trapped there.
And we find her spirit crouched in a fetal position, head buried in hands. This foretells nothing good...
YUI (depressed, apathetic): I don't need dreams... Who cares about storybooks?
HARUKA/CURE FLORA (from outside, desperate): YUI!! YUI!! YUUUUIII!!!
Notice Yui's highlight-less Mind Control Eyes/Empty Eyes.
YUI (emotionless): Who is that?
Through a tear of light that forms in the darkness of her unconsciousness, Yui sees the Cures fending off her desporg self.
YUI (emotionless): That's...
As she watches all four of the Precures fighting with all her strength, Yui's eyes widen and she dares to look up.
YUI (feeling more encouraged): I...
CURE SCARLET (outside, determined): Unforgivable!
YUI (touching the sphere of light from which she watches the Precures in her mind's eye): Ah... Ah...
The Precures' resolve encourages Yui and makes her snap away from despair. The highlights return to her brown eyes...
YUI (encouraged): Everyone... that's right.
PRECURES (determined, unison): We will protect Yui's dreams!
YUI (getting up, steeling herself): What I want to draw... (Determined.) Only I can draw it. Strength, kindness, and beauty... The form of the Precures!
The colour of her state of mind changes from pitch black to hope green. And she sees the bars of her prison before her.
YUI (clutching the bars, determined): I have to get out of here!
YUI (clutching the bars, determined): I have to get out of here!
Outside her mind, the unconscious Yui begins to move her lips, as if she were speaking.
Which surprises the Dysdarks.
STOP & FREEZE (unison): Huh?
STOP: What?
FREEZE: What's going on?
The Precures are astonished as well.
CURE MERMAID (seeing that Yui is moving): Her senses...
YUI (determined, thoughts): I will get out of here!
YUI (in her mind, shaking the bars, determined and irate): I have to draw it!
Her hand reaches out to get through the bars, but this draws the Dysdarks' attention.
STOP & FREEZE (unison): Oh! (Their visors glow green.)
STOP: Impossible!
FREEZE! She should be in despair!
As the desporg's powers weaken, Yui begins to utter a few moans as her eyelids flicker, though not opening still. She seems to be in intense pain.
C'est l'heure du Grand Printemps!
And soon Yui is purified...
...and the Dysdarks retreat into their keyhole.
STOP: What now?
FREEZE: What happened here?
(They retreat into the keyhole portal. At unison as usual.)
YUI'S NEW MUSE
YUI'S THIRD DREAM: I want to draw a story only I can draw. The power of dreams... the importance of protecting those dreams... I want to express those feelings...
Confirmed: The token muggle will chronicle the Precures' exploits.
YUI (coming to in Cure Flora's arms): Thank you. Thank you all for saving me. I could hear all of your voices.
CURE MERMAID: You were fighting despair.
CURE TWINKLE: Wow, Yuiyui!
YUI (a little ashamed): When I saw you four fighting, I finally understood.
YUI (feverish with inspiration): What I want to draw is all of you, fighting to protect our dreams! The form of the Precures!
PRECURES (unison): Yui...
YUI (encouraged): That's why I'll do my best (ganbatte) in my picture for the contest! I want to show everyone the power of dreams! So I will submit a picture!
The Precures can't be happier.
After a while, the headmistress returns to the clearing in the company of Mrs. Shirogane, the sports teacher, and an intellectual-looking dashing male teacher (what did he teach at Noble Academy?)
YUME (surprised): Oh?
MRS. SHIROGANE (looking around): There's no one here.
ALL FOUR: How strange...
MRS. SHIROGANE (having a realization): Could it be those rumoured princesses?
YUME (wondering): "Rumoured?"
MRS. SHIROGANE (sincerely): The students say there are princesses fighting to protect our dreams.
YUME (surprised): Our dreams? (Looking up to the sky and smiling.) I see.
The next day, as the sun rises over Noble Academy, Yui has already done her last skilful brush stroke.
YUI (pleased, taking her paintbrush from the canvas): All right, I'm finished.
PRECURES (elated): Squeee!!
AROMA: Are these the Precures?
PUFF (elated): They are so pretty!
That day, in the Fine Art Museum, the pictures submitted for the competition are displayed.
And Headmistress Mochizuki stops before a rainbow painting of the Cures doing Grand Printemps, painted in true Yui Nanase style.
YUME (surprised): Uh? (Standing close to the picture): Thank goodness. You were able to draw it. It's really wonderful. (Giggles to herself.)
Who said she (Yui) would wallow in despair forever? Here's a masterpiece!!
"Rainbow of Dreams"
Yui Nanase
-- Award of Excellence
YUI (hopeful): Even for a little bit, I hope the shining power of dreams can reach even more people.
MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
On Yui's lost and found muse: Fearing that she would be out of her league in her first competition, our token muggle hoist the white flag and got her lifetime's first case of illustrator's block. It took her inspiration from a child drawing a rainbow character and from the Precures fighting for her freedom to encourage her and give us yet another masterpiece, this one awarded with a Mention of Honour. Indeed, Yui, you can do it!
On Yui's third desporg targeting: Once bitten, twice shy, thrice ??? In fact, Yui's own plight this week may fill the vacant slot: Thrice enduring. Thrice hopeful. Thrice encouraged. By Yume, by the child, and by her Precure friends. Having been already trapped twice, this time she resisted it more strongly, and fought for her consciousness, giving it all. Like getting immune to iocaine, it takes time and stronger doses, little by little and one at a time, to develop this resolve, capable of moving mountains. Yui Nanase, though the token muggle, is to be reckoned with.
On what Kanata is seeking in the HK: It appears to be something important for the deliverance of the Hope Kingdom. Only time will tell, but we are all on the edge of our seats.
On Yume's social involvement and attitude in battle: Like Olenna Tyrell crossed over with Maria Theresa and a hint of Winston Churchill, thus I describe the headmistress of Noble Academy. Her concern that the Cures might get hurt was genuine and sincere.
On Shut within this episode: Not a word stole through his parted lips, and not a movement, like a flicker of eyelids, was seen. My fan theory is that there was a Shut dummy on bent knee in the throne room this week, while the real Shut was practicing the make-up tips he learned from Madame Shamour. My headcanon also includes the look of Shut's bedroom, which has a canopy bed with curtains and bedclothes in Prussian blue, thickly embroidered with silver thread; a baroque wardrobe that takes up a whole wall; an equally baroque dressing table, with a Louis XIV mirror in a silver frame, packed with lots of cosmetics and make-up, and a shrine to Twilight, now sharing space with pictures and mementos of Towa and Cure Scarlet.
To wrap it all up: A Yui-centric episode, for a change, and one that reveals our token muggle as more than meets the eye, even surprising the Dysdark twindividuals by struggling within her imprisonment. And Yui's dream has changed once more: to write and illustrate the story of the Precures. Maybe we get, like in Digimon 02, the end revelation that she is the author of the book retold on screen in the finale coda.
NEXT EPISODE (42)...
Meet Karin, an adorable newcomer in showbiz...
...whose mentor is none other than the ever-so-savvy Kirara Amanogawa, about to enter the US fashion biz and become an international celeb...
First she'll take Manhattan...
Then she'll take Berlin!!
And thus, she's even developed her own signature in Latin letters (with a star over the I, of course!)
But having to choose between expanding her career horizons and performing her Precure duty will put Kirara between a rock and a hard place...
EXTRA:
"The Bond": An illustration of Yui infused with the Precures' colours...
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