CIEL RENTRE À PARIS?

Kirakira Precure à la Mode
My Own Review - Episode 37

CIEL RENTRE À PARIS?

The thorough Samhain decoraitons even feature a vampire garçon (though I think, IMOHO, that Akira should don some make-up to appear far paler).

Ciel has just made this pumpkin cream... the best part is the sugar thread lace...
doesn't it look really professional?








The apple in the middle is a jack o'lantern!

Having criticised Ciel’s sweets without even trying them, Madame Solène then takes a look around Ciel’s shop. She isn’t exactly filled with praise for it, either.

In my headcanon, Solène is a portmanteau of her full name, Solange-Hélène.

She has come to take Ciel back to Paris... wondering why she has chosen this provincial town in the hinterland of an Asian island nation...

But if she wants to take Ciel back to la Ville Lumière, 

Solène will first have to pass over a dead Bilberry.




Luckily, our bifauxnen leader and our hardcore rocker are right there to restrain a warp-spasming reformed PFM in the nick of time.












Aoi's duh face. Even more with Solène's and the highschoolers'.

Ciel does some martial arts to prove Ichigozaka local colour.

Solène is not amused.



Maybe the sight of her ward drenched in perspiration has set her off.


The shopping district of Ichigozaka is not even second to the Champs-Élysées.


Well, Solène: la calle Enmedio in Castellón is not even second to the Champs-Élysées either.








AKIRA: ...but the people here are warm-hearted and kind!!
(Akira taking a stand for the fruit and veg shop, and for all of Ichigozaka... that's my leader...)




YUKARI: Pourquoi Paris? For the cosmopolitanism, or some other good reason?


SOLÈNE: If she stops here in Ichigozaka, her dreams, her hopes, will never come true.

Yukari inquires as to why it has to be Paris. The reason is that Paris will provide a world-class stage for Ciel. We then get a flashback showing us when Madame Solène first discovered Ciel’s talents.

Mon Trésor (Poe reference!), the Left Bank pâtisserie where Ciel once worked.

The queue outside Mon Trésor is outright called "la Seine!"

***Flashback to Paris a few years before***

Solène initially asked Jean-Pierre, but he turned her down

Solène et Jean-Pierre

Ciel just happened to be present at that time, and that was when Solène invited her to come along with her. Ciel accepted.
Sometime after that, Ciel just disappeared from Paris, from France, from Europe – that was when she arrived in Ichigozaka, right across the globe. Solène has sought her out because the World Pâtisserie Contest will be held in Paris. Hearing that has the girls start feeling down, and even question why Ciel chose to be with them.

BILBERRY: You don't need to act like a goody-two-shoes. You're free to do as you please.




CIEL: Thank you, Bilberry!!

All of the girls seem to be worried about what Ciel’s future holds, including Ciel herself. Fortunately, Ciel has someone to give her some advice – which is to simply do what she wants. To follow her heart.

BILBERRY: I... am not encouraging you...!! It's so foolish...
Tsundere attitude confirmed. And she's also that flustered for a good reason.

Anyways, Ciel cheers up and she makes it clear that she doesn’t intend to go to Paris.

Just in time for Elysio to show up and stain a jack o'lantern in darkness...

PARFAIT ÉTOILE!

The battle plays out as you’d expect, except this pumpkin monster is able to split apart. Its lower half (torso) crashes down on Custard, Gelato, and --most relevantly-- Macaron and Chocolat, which distracts Parfait.

Like Atlas, our OTP now has to shoulder the weight of the heavenly vault -or the more mundane Samhain counterpart thereof-.

Elysio binds Parfait down while her attention is elsewhere.

Parfait falls to the ground, where Elysio stares and glares for a while – it cuts back and forth between the two opposing sides. Turns out the other Cures aren’t defeated yet, either.

GO CHOCOLAT!! ALLEZ ALLEZ!! Look at how much of a strain... the younger teens appear to take it far worse... not to mention Macaron... GO CHOCOLAT!! IT'S JUST A HOLLOW PUMPKIN, NO MATCH FOR YOUR STRENGTH AT ALL!

Following which, Macaron Julienne is used to break Parfait's ties.

Cure Gelato plays some Smashing Pumpkins with those radass ice boxing gloves, and then the finishing move is deployed as usual. With the monster of the week defeated, Elysio retreats. After that, the girls get back to making sweets.

In true Proust style (also, Ratatouille the Pixar film revisits the same scene from À la recherche du temps perdu), Solène's first spoonful of pumpkin pudding...




...triggers memories of her youth in the Rhône Valley countryside.


SOLÈNE: Oh la vache! Have you even used French butter?

Madame Solène tries the pumpkin pudding, and she loves it. Ciel then tells her that she learned consideration for the people she makes sweets for, and that she shows Solène the heights she can fly to as a pâtissière.

Madame Solène accepts that answer, though she suggests that Ciel should participate in the contest with the KiraPâti.

All Elysio can do is look on and wait, and bid his time.
Unlike his partner, Elysio is all sang-froid.

We end with a glimpse of the pitiable state Glaive has reduced Diaval to.

The plot definitely thickens...

Especially with the Glaivemobile becoming a Werewolf (better than a Jaguar, right)?

EPILOGUE: BACKSTORY / RETURN TO PARIS (FROM THE FILM)

Jean-Pierre lecturing the twins


Kirarin and Pikalio


When Kirarin became Ciel for the first time.












That attire Yukari and Akira are donning as they stroll along the Left Bank.
They look like straight out of a classic film...
Really cements the fact that my OTP is canon.

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
That wraps up episode 37, and it was certainly predictable – but it’s a pretty common thing you’ll see in anime. A character looks like they’ll have to leave, but they don’t in the end. A bit like when Ami was to leave for Berlin in Sailor Moon R...
The main plot itself is nothing new since we have seen it in so many shows, of how one character got an offering to chase their dream in a foreign land but because of his/her commitment to her friends (nakama), s/he can't go and the others questioned themselves are they holding that person back.
It's a dead horse plot. But still interesting especially with Solène's dynamics with the KiraPâti staff. A bit like when Fawlty Towers gets visits from psychoanalysts/Germans/Yanks/Lord Melbury... or a guest dies, or the health inspector comes. The way the dead horse premise was carried out is refreshing and reminds me of Fawlty Towers, especially with a tsundere Bilberry in the role of Mr. Fawlty (another refreshing note). Another thing that makes this episode interesting is how the highschoolers questioned hanging around with our prodigy. But especially the battle and how it goes from the Cures -especially the highschoolers- shouldering the weight of it all à la Atlas... to a succession of left and right hooks so powerful and so impressive that a Smashing Pumpkins pun was definitely mandatory. #AoiApproved reference!
Also, the Proust moment. THE PROUST MOMENT. Most people who have seen Ratatouille don't recognise the same memory-triggering flavour experience as a literary allusion. To one of the most iconic opening scenes in French literary history:

Et tout d’un coup le souvenir m’est apparu. Ce goût, c’était celui du petit morceau de madeleine que le dimanche matin à Combray (parce que ce jour-là je ne sortais pas avant l’heure de la messe), quand j’allais lui dire bonjour dans sa chambre, ma tante Léonie m’offrait après l’avoir trempé dans son infusion de thé ou de tilleul. La vue de la petite madeleine ne m’avait rien rappelé avant que je n’y eusse goûté ; peut-être parce que, en ayant souvent aperçu depuis, sans en manger, sur les tablettes des pâtissiers, leur image avait quitté ces jours de Combray pour se lier à d’autres plus récents ; peut-être parce que, de ces souvenirs abandonnés si longtemps hors de la mémoire, rien ne survivait, tout s’était désagrégé ; les formes — et celle aussi du petit coquillage de pâtisserie, si grassement sensuel sous son plissage sévère et dévot — s’étaient abolies, ou, ensommeillées, avaient perdu la force d’expansion qui leur eût permis de rejoindre la conscience. Mais, quand d’un passé ancien rien ne subsiste, après la mort des êtres, après la destruction des choses, seules, plus frêles mais plus vivaces, plus immatérielles, plus persistantes, plus fidèles, l’odeur et la saveur restent encore longtemps, comme des âmes, à se rappeler, à attendre, à espérer, sur la ruine de tout le reste, à porter sans fléchir, sur leur gouttelette presque impalpable, l’édifice immense du souvenir.

Et dès que j’eus reconnu le goût du morceau de madeleine trempé dans le tilleul que me donnait ma tante (quoique je ne susse pas encore et dusse remettre à bien plus tard de découvrir pourquoi ce souvenir me rendait si heureux), aussitôt la vieille maison grise sur la rue, où était sa chambre, vint comme un décor de théâtre s’appliquer au petit pavillon donnant sur le jardin, qu’on avait construit pour mes parents sur ses derrières (ce pan tronqué que seul j’avais revu jusque-là) ; et avec la maison, la ville, la Place où on m’envoyait avant déjeuner, les rues où j’allais faire des courses depuis le matin jusqu’au soir et par tous les temps, les chemins qu’on prenait si le temps était beau. Et comme dans ce jeu où les Japonais s’amusent à tremper dans un bol de porcelaine rempli d’eau de petits morceaux de papier jusque-là indistincts qui, à peine y sont-ils plongés s’étirent, se contournent, se colorent, se différencient, deviennent des fleurs, des maisons, des personnages consistants et reconnaissables, de même maintenant toutes les fleurs de notre jardin et celles du parc de M. Swann, et les nymphéas de la Vivonne, et les bonnes gens du village et leurs petits logis et l’église et tout Combray et ses environs, tout cela qui prend forme et solidité, est sorti, ville et jardins, de ma tasse de thé.

Next time, we get the pet-centric episode... Pekorin finally becomes human, though she's only a toddler (obviously), and the Cures have to sit her. Hope something more interesting happens across enemy lines, since Glaive has practically drained Diaval like a shot of dark werewolf liquor... Elysio has a reason to worry, definitely... is there some struggle for power, and will it come through after the introduction of human Pekorin?

IN NEXT EPISODE (38):

The spotlight falls on Pekorin; we see new plots unfurl

as our team pet becomes a most adorable li'l girl...

The Cures will have to sit her for a while, but what's exciting

is how this subplot on Glaive's power-up will uplift the fighting...