A SPREAD OF WINGS

Hugtto! Pretty Cure - Episode 44
My Own Review
A SPREAD OF WINGS

Already this is an excellent episode

Saaya finally got the chance to act with her mother in a new epic... With Saaya and Reira both prepared to shoot a scene for the film they are working on, they end up getting sent into the world from the script. Since it is set in a medieval European fantasy world, everyone’s outfits change to be appropriate for the setting.

Since Lulu is now a Wonderland character, ie the Cheshire Cat, now it's Emiru's turn to become Red Riding Hood... or is she a druid of sorts?

Daigan has a brief scene as a pirate or brigand of sorts... (or is he a woodsman?)

He's a lumberjack and he's not okay... he eats all night and he cooks all day!

It was also fun to see Emiru as a little mage or druid spouting out "Cure Up Rapapa" from Maho Tsukai and Lulu as a catgirl saying Mirai Asahina's catchphrase. Her catchphrases are "Did you just say○○?!" (○○っていいました？！ ○○tte iimashita?!^?) and "This is so exciting!" (ワクワクもんだぁ！ Wakuwaku monda~a!). Even Daigan showed up (To everyone's surprise) and tried to protect Saaya from a cute Welsh Green dragon which ran over him 3 seconds flat...

Of course, Saaya is still playing the princess. And Reira appears to be playing her mother in-universe, a warrior queen (since she is armoured, she appears to be the frontline commander type)!

Saaya and Reira may be in a different world, but the show must go on

Saaya and Reira act out their scene. (Maybe this could be a fine AU, with Reira a widowed warrior queen and her daughter as a reluctant crown princess who would rather be a healer - maybe sth of a Henry IV-Lion King retelling?)

As that happens, they are also watched from the shadows by Ranze Ichijou, Saaya’s self-proclaimed rival. She doesn’t feel that her heart was in the scene, and pretty much challenges her to single combat - I DEMAND A TRIAL BY COMBAT!.

Throughout the episode, Saaya was feeling anxious working with her mother Reira and was not giving her all during the scenes with her mother. This annoyed Ranze who also showed up and claimed that Saaya is betraying their rivalry. 

Saaya and Ranze have a fight scene

Saaya and Ranze act out a fight scene, but Saaya doesn’t quite manage it, due to being more of an intellectual and wearing petticoats against a martially-trained and trousered rival, who quite obviously wins the duel. She says she’ll do better next time and offers to shake Ranze’s hand, but Ranze refuses. She believes that only worthy opponents shake hands.

Saaya talks to Doctor-Septa Maki about her aspirations

After an amusing incident caused by Ruru, Saaya has a chance to sit down and talk with Doctor... Septa Maki (who is in the cast as well, obviously playing a healer). She reveals that she gathered all kinds of experience whilst working in various fields of medicine, before eventually discovering the path she is on now, that of obstetrics. Saaya asked Dr-Septa Maki why did she chose to be a obstetrician; and she was touched by the birth of life when she was still an intern and chose this career path. Saaya finally took the courage and told her mother that this will be the first and last film together as she decided to be a doctor after that.

Saaya and Ranze shake hands

Getting back to filming, Saaya is able to flawlessly act out the scene with Reira. Afterwards, however, she says that she will quit acting after filming this epic wraps up. It is not acting that Saaya wants to pursue, but a career in medicine. This comes as a shock to Ranze, who is upset at first but she understands Saaya’s decision in the end. 

And thus... gimme five... Ranko's girl recognises the blue-eyed upstart as the worthy opponent she was all along! Ranze was upset about it but Saaya explained her reasons which she finally admitted defeat. The two of them finally make peace and agreed to be the best in their field. 

(Which in turn also changes Saaya's clothing into a similar get-up as Dr Maki-probably a healer class - and even Saaya taking on the robes of a septa instead of regal petticoats!).

Whilst Ranze accepts it, stage-mum Reira is not quite able to bring herself to do the same, having always wished that her daughter would follow in her footsteps. Reira didn't express her feelings to Saaya and it cause her to become a theender by Ristle. Ristle takes advantage of this, using her toge-power to bring forth a wild theender, who snatches Hugtan, so naturally it is time for PreCures to do their thing.

Reira has to accept that Saaya is becoming her own kind of young woman - you cannot live your children's lives, but accept that they usually branch off when they come of age...

During the battle, Saaya is able to go within the chest of Theender!Reira, where she finds both Reira and Hugtan. Reira is proud that Saaya is growing up, but she can’t bring herself to cheer her on. 

Theender!Reira grabbed Hug-tan and absorbed her into her body. The girls went to battle and Cure Ange realised her mother is the opponent of the week (it maybe helps that she's an armoured warrior queen with long Prussian blue hair, right?). She too entered theender!Reira's body and into Reira's psyche. 

However, Saaya was able to touch Reira’s world, which allowed her to find her own dream. Saaya saw what her mother has gone through for her and even sees Reira giving birth to Saaya which touched her. Reira admitted that she has problems expressing her feelings to Saaya all these years despite knowing that her daughter has looked up to her. 

Leading to his heartwarming, fluffy mother-daughter embrace... awwwwww... 

Saaya thanked her for taking care of her and giving her a chance to express her love for her. The two finally hugged each other and free her from the dark force...

PreCures defeat the monster after that, and everyone returns to the real world. The filming goes smoothly afterwards, with Reira and Saaya improvising a little bit.

With everyone walking home, they realise Christmas is coming up. In her excitement, Hugtan manages to summon Santa Claus (OH, SANTA!). That brings this episode to an end.

After everyone returned to the real world, the girls realised it will be Christmas soon and Hug-tan summoned Santa Claus from above!? Did Hug-tan just drop Santa from above? Maybe this is a veiled allusion to Cornelia Funke's Als der Weihnachtsmann von Himmel fiel (When Santa -literally, the Christmas Man- Fell from the Skies)!

Eh, not as cool as the time as when Hugtan conjured Cure Black and Cure White out of thin air

Well, first of all, it probably won’t come as a surprise that I really like black cat Lulu (thinking of maybe she'd be Cheshire Cat in the Emialice AU - with Masato as the King and Henri-ette crossdressing as his Queen!). But, she’s not the star of the episode.

Saaya’s episodes have been consistently excellent, and this one is no exception. She has been struggling with her future and this episode brings all that to a satisfying conclusion. It’s episodes like this one that make me feel I don’t quite show Saaya enough appreciation. She’s definitely up there as one of my favourite blue Cures, that is for sure.

Still was a very enjoyable episode, though.

Definitely a step up from the previous episode, and just an all round excellent experience that focused on Saaya, her mother, and her career choice. 

This episode is a better episode than the previous episode between Saaya and Reira. Since Reira is always portrayed as a calm and cool mother but yet to see that Saaya has grown up which she finally broke down in her psyche. However being the gentle and understanding daughter, Saaya was able to understand her mother's love and thank her for bringing to this world.

It was also no brainier that Saaya choose to be a doctor (which field of medicine will she choose?) rather than follow the same path as her mother which is too similar to Minami Kaido's arc when she choose to be an ocean veterinarian than taking over her family business. The difference was that the higher-class Minami was worried of her family's rejections while Reira was more repressive, less expressive towards Saaya. 

It also gave closure between Ranze and Saaya which I felt that Ranze was given too little chance in the series so far unlike Ranko and Kirara (anyone else seconds the Ichijo descent theory?) which I enjoyed their banter when the two are around. 

Other than Daigan who actually thanked Saaya for trying to save his soul when he was apparently "killed" and her choosing the path she want to go with in her life. The rest of the girls were just goofing around until the battle.

The fact Saaya’s character has been neglected throughout the entire series and this episode made it all the more apparent. For me, it was just a whole lot of nothing new under the sun, mainly because I already knew the outcome and all this was was wrapping up the so-called “character arc” about Saaya’s dream changing. She is a smart girl, and she understood that when it comes to pursuing a difficult dream such as going into medicine, she need to commit to only one thing at a time. That’s why this film was going to be her last acting project. But breaking the news to her mother made her feel anxious about it. Luckily her mother is the supportive type, and despite having been exploited by Ristle, she has always told Saaya she would support her, no matter what her dream becomes. The heartbreak for her mother was more about her having grown up to the point she is now choosing her own path, pursuing her own dreams outside of the realm of which has been introduced by her mother. But it was only because she was able to experience that, she knew medicine was what she wanted to do.

Other than that, frankly I don’t have anything more to say about this episode, I already knew Saaya’s arc was not going to make up for the lost time. During Homare’s episode (43), I listed my complaints about how Saaya’s character has been severely neglected to the point it has been as though she has been demoted to a background character— and I am not exaggerating, she litterally had no presence for so long! I just don’t really have anything more to add to that, or else I am just going to repeat myself for the 21938197312983rd time. It’s just a shame that both she and Homare got the short-end of the stick.

In other news, I can’t believe Hugtan summoned Santa! Girl, he’s a busy man with Christmas around the corner! Well anyhow, no surprise to see we got a Christmas Episode, which leads us to Episode 45.

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
OH SEVEN GODS WHAT AN EPISODE!
The highlights are not only every Ranze-centric scene (and Lulu's catgirl costume), but also when Ristle took advantage of Reira's stage-mum agenda, and worries that her daughter might defect from showbiz, in order to make her the victim of the week (Reira Yakushiji who was upset that her own daughter is growing up and that one day she won't be acting alongside her; insert Cersei Lannister parallels here). The way Saaya reached out into her mother -just like it happened to Henri in last episode- was heartwarmingly amazing and amazingly heartwarming. Reminds me of my own mum and our relationship ;) !
Speaking of this, I would like to rec a marvellously fluffy book if you live in Spain or any other Hispanic country, and have a relationship with your mum like Yours Truly, or that between Saaya and Reira ;) Para mi hija que ha crecido, by Lidia María Riba, published by V&R Editoras. Nowadays it has been discontinued, but you can keep on looking for it on the second-hand book market! https://www.google.com/search?q=para+mi+hija+que+ha+crecido&rlz=1C1SVEA_esES466ES468&oq=para+mi+hija+que+ha+crecido&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60j69i65l2j69i60j0.10994j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
It can also presently be read on wattpad, although I am worried that they will delete it sooner or later: https://www.wattpad.com/174671885-%E2%80%A2para-mi-hija-que-ha-crecido%E2%80%A2-i 
And by the way, here's another rec for a discontinued Spanish book, an equally fluffy one, I have been looking for in second-hand since childhood: the illustrated poemary Tanto amas, tanto vales, by Gloria Fuertes, published by Susaeta. https://www.casadellibro.com/libro-tanto-amas-tanto-vales/9788430591732/658484 It contains only Gloria's pacifist poems and those that center on loving, cherishing, and warmth. Yes, I know I am a big sweetie and that sensible adults tell me I am already one of them - but still this is a free country and liking fluff is not illegalised... awwww...



NEXT EPISODE (45)
It will be pretty obvious that it will of course be the Christmas Episode of this continuity, right? Seeing it is the obligatory Christmas Episode next week, we are getting closer and closer to the finale, right? Until then, see you in the next post!