YOUNG SPONGENSTEIN

KIRAKIRA PRETTY CURE À LA MODE
Episode 28  - My Own Review
YOUNG SPONGENSTEIN

Centre stage, yet in the background, reserved and shy...

So Tachibana explains that what a cake needs to rise are the feelings (omoi) of whoever baked it.






Macaron and Chocolat warm the batter to make it easier to mix.

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
This kind of episodes are not my kind of cup of tea because 1) I have never been into physics and 2) I am neither an introvert nor any good at interacting with them.
But still I get to learn more about the chemistry of everyday life from these Himari-centric episodes. For instance, now I know why churros have a star-shaped cross section.
So Himari finds a niche and a leadership position as the assistant to Yuu Tachibana, the real-life and renowned Sweets Professor who introduced her to kitchen science. I thought from the moment the old blighter walked into the KiraPâti that he would don a lab coat... Again, and he looks and acts like the classic "good" mad scientist, a lovable eccentric with a steampunk bent (with those goggles and that perfectly waxed Kaiser moustache).
And with reserved, serious Himari for an "Igor," I agree that these two are perfect foils to one another.
I mean, wasn't it perfect introducing some "Fronkensteen" references here and there?
It was a shame that she was not stained in darkness... but I know breaking the formula was here prioritised over breaking the introvert.
Once more, we get a Glaive episode. And again he's as hot-blooded and full of himself as usual. Feel free to ship Glaive and Elysio. That's another OTP of mine, but one that remains to see if it's canonised.
As well as Those Four Mooks. Instead of Those Two Guys played for comic relief (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern being the ur-example), there is a gender-equal quartet of imps that, like Gru's Minions, only differ in a few minor details. Finding (unofficial fan) nicknames for them was not easy, but one of the male mooks I named Adolf just by taking a look...

Left to right: Hot Lips, Pippi, Cappy, and Adolf.

Which brings us to the premise of anime censorship of dark toothbrush moustaches. I see nothing wrong with them myself, but most people see one and instantly think of a certain short, grumpy Austrian.

Characters like the Rocketeers' Meowth (AKA Meowth-That's-Right) have donned black toothbrushes as part of their disguises, and the Western dub either has erased the fake facial hair or --like in the more extreme case of Meowth-That's-Right in the Indigo League episode "The Legend of Dratini"-- the whole episode was never shown to European (and rest-of-the-world-sans-Asia) audiences. (Well, Jessie and James also carried real firearms and threatened a reservation ranger --tied to a chair-- at gunpoint, and also restrained the ranger with an arm-breaking pose, to pry out information about where in the reservation to find endangered pokémon... and the episode as a whole dealt with pokémon poachers and pokémon shot dead with guns... so the toothbrush moustache was just the tip of a bloodstained iceberg.)
Hopefully, next episode will be far more exciting, given who is the limelight character and what is most likely to happen to her. I will also draw inspiration from here for my Macaron de Chocolat AU Shades of Dawning --which is still on hiatus--. Honestly, I can't wait for next week... and it seems that Elysio will corrupt Yukari, leading Akira to fight for freeing her... you know what this means:
-inspiration for said AU
-a Shakespearean review
Oh, how much my blood pressure is rising exponentially!! <3 <3 Cure Macaron stained in darkness and Chocolat will bring her to the light...


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