HOW GELOS STOLE CHRISTMAS

Hugtto! Pretty Cure - Episode 45
My Own Review
HOW GELOS STOLE CHRISTMAS

We’ve had other shows' Christmas episode, so now it is Hugtto!‘s turn. There is some stuff with Santa Claus, but more importantly, Lulu gets to be the star of this episode. And to make up for lost quality time with her single papa, right?

Ruru and Harry brush up on their Christmas knowledge

Previously, Hugtan decided everyone should celebrate Christmas together, so she only went and summoned Santa Claus (who fell from the skies, in an obvious nod to Cornelia Funke!).

 Turns out Saint Nick is feeling under the weather due to dropping down from such a height, so Christmas will have to be cancelled. Fortunately, there are a few girls who are willing to step in to ensure that Christmas still goes ahead – and Doctor Traum Trauma (yes, we find out his full name!) shows up to lend his support as well.

Traum with his Reindeerzord troika

Presumably Santa’s sleigh and reindeer are back in the North Pole (Rovaniemi, for more info), and Rudolph has a fever, as such he is unable to deliver the presents, but Traum has just the thing for that: a Reindeerzord and four-seater sleigh. 

Saaya’s reaction to the Reindeerzord is pretty amusing (1. I wonder how Entrapta would react - 2. does the heart-shaped gem act as a fog-light?). The girls offered to help and Dr Trauma appeared (how did he get into Harry's shop without anyone noticing him) and he has a robotic reindeer with a creepy voice to deliver the presents.

The girls get ready to prepare presents

Whilst Traum (let's call him by first name since now, right?) asks Santa to take him on as a Santa-in-training, the others get to work preparing presents.

Traum asks Lulu if there is anything she wants for Christmas

As Emiru and Lulu, our Twin Love OTP, work on some presents together, Traum continues to be a doting father and asks his girl Lulu if there is anything she wants for Christmas. She isn’t having any of it though; she says that there isn’t anything, and even if there was she wouldn’t tell Traum. (Can gynoids get drunk? I totally imagine a sloshed Lulu clasping Emiru and singing, in liquore veritas, this Mariah Carey song... All I WANT FOR CHRI-I-ISTMA-A-AS IS YOUUUUU!)

Traum simply wants to realise his dream of seeing his daughter smile – and that seems to be something Emiru intends to help with, as she asks Lulu if she would like to follow her heart.

Saaya hugs Reira (awwwwww...)

We get a nice scene between Saaya and her mother next, with Reira giving her daughter a Christmas present. What’s particularly good about this scene is that we see that Reira has now completely accepted the idea that Saaya wants to be a doctor.  As the other girls were preparing the presents, we also see Saaya's mother Reira giving her a present and she gave her blessings for Saaya to follow her dream.

Emiru, Hana and Hugtan deliver presents

With all the presents ready, and an extra addition to the Reindeerzord courtesy of Saaya, it is time for Christmas presents to be delivered. Santa, Doctor Trauma, Hana, Emiru and Hugtan board the sleigh, and take off. Soon everything was ready and Dr. Trauma, Hana, Emiru, and Hug-tan follow Santa to deliver the presents.

Among other spots along their hometown of Hagukumi, they visit the condominium where the defectors live - Charalit and Daigan are safely snoozing cocooned in their sleeping bags, but where's Papple? Surely she could not resist the temptation of the bar downstairs...

When Emiru and Co. were delivering presents, the idea of that one little girl waking up and telling her parents that she met Santa – who was actually two girls, a gentleman in a top hat, and a baby – quite amuses me. As they delivered the presents, the more Asu Power was created which delighted everyone. Even Hana gave the same little girl her assurance that her absent parents will come back to celebrate Christmas with her which it did.

Gelos was getting impatient with George who is seen painting a field of flowers and ignoring her pleas to take action. 

She found the same bottle or chalice (remember the Crisis Grail?) that her former followers Takumi and Jinjin used to turn themselves into a twindividual theender... and subsequently removed the Grail from the vault where it was kept safe.

Lulu is radiant

Whilst presents are being delivered, and Gelos takes matters (and the Crisis Grail) in her own hands, Lulu is trying her hand at making curry for the Christmas supper. It doesn’t go too well at first. Lulu decided to give Dr Trauma a surprise by making curry rice for him in his absence, after learning what Christmas is all about. 

Although Dr Trauma was overbearing when she was preparing the presents, she finally went to ask Mrs. Nono for advice on making curry rice. 

However, once the Nonos her foster family tell her to make it her own, Lulu has an idea for what she could do. Although it failed the first time, Lulu was encouraged to make it her own way...

Jumping ahead a bit, it is time for a Christmas party. There is an uninvited guest, however. Gelos shows up, drinks the Grail dry, and attempts to stop Lulu’s time and punish the little traitor gynoid with stasis – Traum leaps to her defence, by taking a hit to the chest that was meant for Lulu (taking the bullet Éponine-style, but with a power ray). 

Gelos appeared in front of the girls who were preparing their Christmas party and drank the contents of the Grail. She turned into a large theender and started petrifying muggle revellers. 

It is Gelos’ turn to be the monster of the week

Naturally, PreCures do their thing. The girls went to battle and were struggling against her.

PreCures fight against Gelos, who wants time to stop as she does not want to face getting old (what, her motivation comes down to fading youth - didn't any more lilies drop down to the ground as sunlight than Frau Gothel's?). She is a formidable foe, and a few muggle revellers end up getting caught up in the crossfire of the fight and having their time frozen.

Takumi & Jinjin put a stop to Gelos’ rampage

HALT, my lady!!!

Suddenly Takumi and Jinjin appeared and told Gelos they still care about her no matter how old she becomes. 

And she sincerely agrees... "grow old along with me, the best is yet to be... you will still need me, you will still feed me, when I'm 64!"

A hug à trois... :* awww...

It is not PreCures who stop Gelos, though – it is Takumi & Jinjin, her former subordinates. They tell Gelos that they actually care about her, which is enough to stop her, seeing that Those Two Guys were sweet on her all along. 

This weakened Gelos and purified her. Gelos returns to normal, and is a lot happier, having finally discarded her urge for absinthe and her KISS makeup. Merry Christmas to her as well! 

Well, in Hagukumi they say

that Gelos' small heart grew three sizes that day.

And then, the true meaning of Christmas came through,

and Gelos found the strength of ten baronesses, too!

Later that night, Gelos was welcomed by her two followers who celebrate Christmas with her...

Merry Christmas, my lady! (Presents AND an umbrella to shelter her from the snow... awwww...)

With the fighting over, Saint Nick returns home.

Henri & Masato join the Christmas party

The Christmas party can finally begin proper, and a few familiar faces show up. Henri is out of the hospital now, albeit with a cast on his left foot and a crutch. Naturally, he is accompanied by Masato.

Lulu hugs her father

Lulu finished the curry made her own way, which she finally presented to Dr Trauma and even called her "dad!". Dr Trauma was touched and tried to get her to say again but she politely declined him again... Lulu offers Traum the curry she made, and also wishes him a merry Christmas. She calls him her dad as well, which naturally makes Traum very happy.

He then reveals that his first name means "dream" in German (but his surname means "injury" in Greek - these two words are a minimal pair)! Unfortunately for him, it is a one-time only deal, so Lulu won’t be repeating herself.

As we see George painting a flowering field and later paint it over with white paint, whitewashing the canvas, this showed how his mind is already warped that he is willing to destroy the present to create his own future. 

This was an excellent Christmas episode. Then again, I believe any episode that focuses on Lulu is an excellent episode, so I guess that shouldn’t really come as a surprise.
Lulu calling Traum dad and hugging him was heart-warming. Emiru was the one who encouraged her to do so, and it was really nice.
Another parent-child interaction that was heartwarming came from Saaya and Reira. Too bad we didn’t really see much from the families of the other girls.

When Emiru and Co. were delivering presents, the idea of that one little girl waking up and telling her parents that she met Santa – who was actually two girls, a gentleman in a top hat, and a baby – quite amuses me.

A fun festive episode, and probably the calm before the storm of the final act if the preview for the next episode is anything to go by. The arrival of 2019 means we will have to wait a couple of weeks for the next episode of Hugtto!, though.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this:

Merry Christmas and a Happy Winterval!

They also had this Yule-card with chibis - my Twin Love girls on the top look soooo adorable...

Well I had I a good idea what to expect this week, but it didn’t make it any less painful to watch. What I find baffling, was how poorly this episode was executed. They could have done so much better! The majority of the time I found myself either lost or rolling my eyes. The only thing I actually found hilarious was the mecha reindeer’s super creepy “Merry Christmas” voice. It had me cracking up every-time it said it. Although much of the episode didn’t appeal to me, there were afew moments that made me happy, such as Saaya gushing the reindeer, yet at the same time it frustrated me because this is a side of Saaya I wished we had the opportunity to see more of. Another instance was seeing Lulu make curry for Dr. Traum, and acknowledged him as her father by calling him such for the first time. This is also something I wished they took the time to properly expand on without it feeling rushed.

But among all things, the one thing that irritated me the most, was the way they handled Gelos. When we first saw her, I had hoped for her to become a promising antagonist, but much to my dismay, we saw no such thing. Among the ‘evil crew’ the only ones who have any decent records are Bishin, Ristle and George. The main problem with the way they dealt with Gelos, was how she spirals into madness, she goes MIA, makes one or two random appearances since, and then they give us this episode to “save her”, which was a total joke. In fact, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure Papple did more than she ever did! This is undoubtedly one of Hugtto’s most glaring flaws. This kind of treatment towards not just the antagonists, but even towards the main trio, infuriates me so much, and the is the main reason I cannot wait for this show to be over and done with! I surely wouldn’t be feeling this way had they not dragged us on with these crappy filler-like episodes that did little to nothing of contributing to the main plot, or anyone’s character developments!

Luckily for us, the next episode will be focusing on the plot again, as it should be, because it is finale time.

I am looking forward to it because there’s only four episodes left, so means it will be the beginning of the final boss fight! I just hope they go all out with it and end on a high note. At the very least, they are off to a good start by making me feel super super uncomfortable with how creepy George has been lately. Just watching the preview makes me shudder! I am also looking forward to how Bishin and Ristle are going to be used in this final battle, especially since Bishin is in despair of losing pretty much everyone, and Ristle was reconditioned to be George’s puppet again.

This episode is a mixed bag. One, we do get to see Gelos' desperation on why George is not doing anything and she makes the same mistake like her followers by turning herself into a One-Winged Angel. Ironically enough, it was her two followers, Takumi and Jinjin which she previously dumped them, who saved her from despair and she finally turned into a new leaf.

The other was the Christmas part which I am not really convinced that was the real St Nick since he only delivered presents to their town, Hagukumi, only. (But then Precure series have little logic on what they do) and I am pretty sure that Santa has a pack of reindeer (nine in total) and not just one to help him pull his sledge. The funny part was Santa just walked out of the door when his job is finished which how he is going back to the north pole, towards Rovaniemi or wherever he came from...

But I really enjoyed Lulu's efforts in trying to make Dr Trauma happy. Although Dr Trauma was overbearing which annoyed Lulu but I know they loved each other very much especially when Dr Trauma took a hit to the chest by Gelos which was meant for Lulu (taking the bullet Éponine-style, but with a plasma ray!). 




MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION
The Trauma family Christmas:
(PS. Traum or Trauma? Most likely Traum Trauma, as redundant as it may sound):
The return of Rosentakumi & Guildenjinjin (PS. Got a new OT3 for this show)!

Merry Christmas from everyone!

IN EPISODE 46:
Seeing that next episode is the new year episode and George finally choose to go after Hana, it will be the prelude to the finale! 

Maybe the dystopia that our well-intentioned extremist fears...