WHY (NOT) TO FLIRT WITH LULU AMOUR

Hugtto!Precure, Episode
My Own Review - EPISODE 13
WHY (NOT) TO FLIRT WITH LULU AMOUR

Meet Lulu Amour. The fact that her given name is spelled with those Rs? The usual Asian L/R mixup. At least they got her French surname right!

It doesn’t take long for Lulu to make quite an impression on her classmates; she excels at everything, from literature to tennis.

Lulu utterly defeats in a game of tennis

Lulu seems to be able to master everything she turns her hand to. This results in several of the male students attempting to ask her out. Lulu’s response to that?

Lulu threatens to ‘take them out’

The boys swiftly give up on her after that show of strength.

Lulu made an impact at school as her intellect and physical prowess are at the top condition, acing everything from literature to tennis. She was ever courted by some male students, however since she has no understanding of love, queer or straight (ironic considering her surname) she took it as a challenge (by punching a pillar so hard) and drove her male suitors away.

Say 'allo to her little friend. In fact, Mr. Wright-Hooke is dying to see those guys...

Lulu’s surprise party

However, Lulu doesn’t seem to react well to the surprise party at all. She finds it pointless – not even Harry and Hugtan’s entertainment changes her mind on that.

Dreadpan. Get used to this; it's Lulu Amour's default expression.

(I wanted to write "deadpan" and a key finger of mine stumbled on the R key for some Freudian slip reasons... so the "dreadpan" thing, which fits her like a glove, has stuck)

They hosted a surprise housewarming  - welcome party for Lulu thinking she might have problems adjusting to her new environment. Instead of being surprised, Lulu felt indifferent and could not understand the meaning for the party, in her usual deadpan tone. (Even Hug-tan was left speechless!)

Although it was one scene, Papple was discussing with the Mysterious Man from before how many Future crystals are there and there are Pink, Blue, Yellow, Rose and Navel Orange. Which might indicate that Rose and Navel Orange are the remaining Precures members.

The strange and creepy part was the Mysterious Man was washing his hands very thoroughly like a cleaning disorder (OCD... or Pontius Pilate reference?) and it might play a factor of his behaviour when he appeared onscreen preaching something very significant to the main plot.

Lulu created a theender from a female student suffering... it is not known what caused her to be targeted; the girls went to battle, and they were actually worried about Lulu upon hearing she was in the park during the attack.

The resulting theender is, of course, a Faulty Tower (I had to pop that pun in somewhere...)

Lulu was the one who summoned the theender -  she decided it would be more effective to revert to previous methods in an attempt to learn more about PreCure power.

However, this theender has a trick up its sleeve, and transforms.

Their foe takes on an UFO-like form. Cure Yell ends up clinging to it, but she gets thrown off. Following that, Cure Yell ends up talking to Lulu.

Cure Yell tells Lulu that she wants to be family – they may have differences, but they’ll be able to work them out. When Lulu asks on what basis, the pink Cure gives her a simple one: Hana Nono likes (suki) Lulu.

... which somehow triggered a strange feeling in her body.

Like warmth...

Why are her heart circuits all warm and glowing?

Following that, they take out the theender in the usual way, and find Lulu is safe and sound.

Later that night, Hana sneaks into Lulu’s room and is eager to get to know more about her.

Lulu at the Nonos': just like me as a teen at the Garcés'. Finding time to bond with a foster clan that had happily married parents and siblings.

 After the battle, Lulu expressed her feelings during dinner and everyone was happy about it. 

Although Lulu recorded her findings, she could not really understand why Hana's words had an effect on her but she decided to continue to monitor her as they both felt asleep...

Hana ends up falling asleep pretty quickly, and then Lulu is left wondering what Hana would think if she knew her true identity. She quickly casts that thought aside, and then falls asleep alongside Hana.

That brings this episode to an end, and I think it was a pretty good start for an arc that will be focusing on Lulu. I like Lulu a lot, and this episode just further reinforced that for me.

It seems pretty obvious where this arc is headed. If it gives us more episodes like this one, then I have no problem with that all.
I also wonder if the episode title, ‘The Transfer Student is Fresh & Mysterious’, is a shout-out to Fresh Pretty Cure. I have said before that Lulu reminds a lot of Eas from that particular season.

Although I am still curious about Lulu's real identify is a) a gynoid or cyborg or, b) an enhanced human who has detached all emotions (Ken Ichijoji or Snow Queen style).

So far, both of these theories are plausible. Though... The fact that Lulu's heart is made of silicon and Tron lines appears to support the fembot theory.

But her frank and unintentionally savage comments (Lulu, like Yours Truly or Applejack, is so straightforward that she makes a pretty gauche first impression) made it hard for anyone to approach her. In fact she was so rock solid, that no one was able to get through to her, and it had gotten to the point it actually discouraged her from persisting any further. 

However the important thing to note this episode was Pupple’s discussion about the Future Crystals. The White one is said to have been destroyed, but it is still missing. I have been suspecting this for a while now, but I firmly believe Hugtan is the White Crystal herself, especially given her power is white as well.

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
The one were Lulu Amour makes an entrance at class. As a general rule, every dark magical girl just has to infiltrate the same school her enemies attend, and most usually don the corresponding uniform. And she has to one-up all her classmates in everything, making the Smart Girl or Brains of the sentai appear to be a twit, and the Big Girl or Brawn appear to be a puny sissy, in comparison. And Lulu Amour, as expected by Yours Truly, excels at everything, from literature to tennis via driving away any male suitors.
I have always had a thing for Aces, broken or otherwise. Just because they're faster, but especially smarter, than the average audience surrogates. I am NOT the kind who likes Fools who are often put as the stock protagonists of anime... I prefer Aces, and tragedy to comedy, overall. (Of course it depends of the kind of comedy; British-style clever comedy, like Monty Python and other such shows --also, Lemony Snicket--, as well as parodies, are always hilarious to me).



CURE MA CHÉRIE - EMIRU AIZAKI (IDOL SINGER) - FUTURE CRYSTAL RED, CRYSTAL ROUGE
CURE AMOUR - LULU AMOUR (IDOL DANCER) - FUTURE CRYSTAL PURPLE, CRYSTAL VIOLETTE
WEAPON: TWIN LOVE GUITAR
Mais oui... En français? And, though none of them is a bifauxnen, I ship these two already.




On the Charalu front, we wonder if the new YouTuber Charalit post-heel-face-turn will come across Lulu and how their reunion will be... So far, there is a bit of a Charalu/Emilu conflict within me... but we shall see how it all unfurls along this summer cour, right?



IN NEXT EPISODE (14)


The only thing difference is Lulu is behaving like a machine who thinks with logic and since this is a show about love and friendship, Lulu might get affected by the girls' actions and her emotions will start to appear and will play a big factor during the later part of the arc.
Next episode, the girls including Lulu take a job at the local kindergarten, and with so many toddlers running around, chaos follows! Until then, see you in the next post!