EVERYONE, WE'RE CHANGING EVERYONE...

Hugtto!Pretty Cure - Episode 48
My Own Review


EVERYONE, WE'RE CHANGING EVERYONE...


This is it! The Final Battle!

Well, here we are at the end. Only episodes forty-eight and forty-nine of Hugtto! are left, and I may just opt to review the show next week rather than cover the final episode.
For the moment, though, I shall be focusing on episode forty-eight, which brings us to the end of the final battle.

Cure Yell fights George Kurai

This episode picks up directly from the previous one, with Cure Yell left alone to confront George Kurai. Kurai says that the world will always be full of toge-power, but Cure Yell knows that there will always be asu-power as well. Unfortunately, Kurai manages to get the upper hand in the battle and forces Yell to de-transform. However, Hana refuses to give up. She is not alone.

As everyone has fallen including Cure Ange, Étoile, Amour and Ma Chérie who are trapped in crystals, Cure Yell began facing off against George.

Hello, FBI...

George continue to preach that her efforts are futile and all he wanted a world without suffering and pain. But Cure Yell rebutted that there is still hope for humanity. George managed to weaken Cure Yell till she transform back to Hana.

Hana still stood up and believe in herself and everyone else also started to get up including Hana's petrified mother who somehow shed a tear and could hear her voice. 

Hana agreed that life sometime can hurt but it is because we experience pain, we learn how to be stronger so that we can build a better future. 

Hana then declared that she will support those in need because she can do it! Hana's body started generate Asu power and Hug-tan also lend her strength to her. Hana transformed again into Cure Yell (In Real Time!) and managed to destroy George's magic storybook and saved Hug-tan!

Thanks to her resolve, Hana transforms back into Cure Yell and is able to blast away Kurai’s book with asu-power. Hugtan is freed due to that. What’s more, time starts returning to the world.

reunited with the other Cures

The other Cures are able to get back, and they all prepare to confront Kurai. He isn’t about to give in just yet, and transforms.

Kurai looms over the town

Kurai attempts to destroy the town of Hagukumi, but of course PreCures protect it. All five girls hold off Kurai’s attack, whilst the townspeople watch on. They start cheering for PreCures, which produces a whole lot of asu-power.

The Asu Power from Cure Yell also released everyone from the time freeze and freed the other four Cures! George refused defeat and become part of Dark George and tried to destroy everything in a berserk rage...

A young George Kurai and Traum Trauma, as 30-somethings, watch the epic battle from their window in present-day Hagukumi...

PreCures are empowered by everybody’s cheers

PreCures channel all of that asu-power into their final attack; however, they have a little help with it this time around.

The girls tried to hold off Dark George and their Asu Powers started to overwhelm the whole world! The townspeople started cheering for them and a miracle happened!

Names for the Nonos as Cures: Cure Bear (Shinta), Cure Birdie (Kotori), and Cure Beneficent (Sumire)

Aki (R, long-haired) would be Cure Autumn and Junna (L, short-haired with glasses) would be Cure Springtime (cannot think of any better codename - plus, it matches)

Cure Infini et Cure Éternité (because Masato deserves a codename to match his French significant other, hein?)

Cure Dandelion (Tanpopo, L) and Cure Onion (Yone, R)

Cure Charalit, Cure Papple, and Cure Daigan??? (Wooow, even the big darn hero defectors got into the game and don't their battle costumes look gorgeous?)

Cure Traum (armoured in a new Traumzord, chest initial and all...)

Cure Gelos, Cure Takumi, and Cure Jinjin

‘There is a PreCure in everyone’s heart’ indeed. Everyone becomes a PreCure for the final attack. Forget ‘everyone is here!’, we’re doing ‘everyone is a PreCure!’ now. 

Everyone including Hana's parents, Kotori, Henri, Masato, their classmates and allies all become Precures! With it, the girls went to Cheerful Style and used Minna De Tomorrow Attack to purify Dark George!

Kurai is defeated with the attack, but as the tower of eternity crumbles Cure Yell still has some unfinished business to take care of.

As the Crisis Tower started to collapse on itself, Cure Yell rushed to find George who is sitting alone in his room. George finally admitted defeat and Cure Yell returned his handkerchief to him.(Which is from the first time they met) 

Cure Yell talks to the defeated Kurai

Cure Yell enters the tower of eternity and finds Kurai. He admits defeat, and Cure Yell says that they should go into the future together. Kurai claims he doesn’t believe in the future, but Cure Yell has a simple question for him about that. Why did he always say ‘until next time’?
Cure Yell hugs Kurai, and with that he is once more able to go into the future – he parts with those three words.

Cure Yell wanted him to follow her but George claimed he does not believe in the future however Cure Yell wonder why he always said "See you again" every time he leave her? George shed a tear and said the same words to her before disappearing.

As the Crisis Tower collapsed, Cure Yell returned to everyone as now the future is saved...

Ange is the first to hug Cure Yell when she returns

Cure Yell emerges from the tower of eternity, and naturally everyone is happy to see her. All the other Cures hug her, with Ange leading them. The sun rises on the town, and everyone watches.

An Emilu moment as well? This episode is spoiling me

So this episode ends with the dawn of a new day.

https://rorymuses.wordpress.com/2019/01/20/hugtto-precure-episode-48-until-next-time/



MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION: AT LAAAAAAST!! At last we got the Continuity Cavalcade for THIS finale! Pop that champagne like bubblewrap! And NOT only did we get to see Cure Infini (and his crush who also deserved a Cure form), but EVERYONE ELSE as Precures... Including all the Criasu defectors!!
Too sad they all got too little screentime after their liberation to pull off the customary One Day More filk, isn't it?
Wow! This episode is full of emotions! 
The surprising part was how everyone become Precures in order to save the world which usually it was the townspeople just gave energy to our heroines and save the day but this time, Toei did differently and got everyone involved! In fact, some of these Cure designs were not bad looking, like how Kotori and Papple looked lovely while Dr Trauma looked kooky in a mecha suit and even Hana's grandmother Tanpopo and her friend Yone got into action! 

We also saw that a younger version of George and Dr Trauma does exist in their town of Hagukumi in the present and George was emotional after seeing the miracle the girls created. (Although it does raise questions that how Future George and Dr Trauma managed to avoid seeing their younger selves all these while? If by chance, they meet each other, wouldn't that create a time paradox like Doc Brown from Back to the Future mentioned before that it could destroy the space time continuum) 

Finally the final scene which is similar to Kira Kira à la Mode conclusion of how the Big Bad is never really destroyed but rather change his ways for the better. Although we probably will never know how George got his powers. (Lazy Writing again!) 

But George's last words to Cure Yell was pretty emotional and he never tell her why he was so fixated on her. (Which it is better as if Hana found out she is someone dear to George, she might freak out and create another time paradox!)

This week’s episode was so beautiful, and yet at the same time, so frustrating to watch. I kept on waiting and waiting, and waiting, but damn it all, they stubbornly REFUSED to give us any details about Hana’s future, and her future relationship with George. (As for Hugtan, I mean it’s obvious at this point, the intro before the episode and the preview more or less confirmed it, Hana is definitely Hugtan’s-Tomorrow's mother.)

However as much as it pains me, to some extent I can imagine why they chose not to. After-all, the golden rule of time traveling: One cannot carelessly reveal details of the future, or else there may be repercussions. This was probably the unspoken rule they decided to follow, especially since we now know that both George and Dr. Traum (in particular) already exist in the present timeline, which means, the future Harry spoke of is not as far off as the girls think.

Luckily for us, it seems all of that and more will be the focus in next week’s finale, and for the sake of all of our sanity, they better give us at least HALF AN EPISODE (or more) of the girls in the future! I desperately want to know what is Hana’s and George’s relationship is, especially now that we actually saw what appeared to be a more youthful version of himself in the present timeline. With that in mind, it begs the question: How large is the age-gap between them anyways?!? (Not that I really care once she’s an adult…. Unless the guy is immortal. I mean Dr. Traum described him as an “Observer” soooo…. maybe he is? Like the Watcher angels? They never really explained much about him, so I hope we will get some answers about that next week.)

The beginning of the episode was absolutely solid, and is hands down my favourite part. That was when they discussed the theme of the series, how life isn’t sunshine and rainbows. We won’t always be happy, there will be time where we will struggle, and lose we lose our way, but despite whatever hardships or ordeals we face, as long as we don’t give up (especially on ourselves), we will still be able to find happiness in the future.

It was also the epic, because even though Hana didn’t get a new form like most heroines do (and I doubt we will see it next week since the fight is over), she was still a badass (did you see the way she OBLITERATED George’s book?), and we got to see everyone in town become precures instead, and united, they were able to defeat George’s berserk state, which was pretty awesome when you take into consideration the meaning how everyone is capable of becoming a precure.

However despite the cool set up, the second phase (mid-episode) of boss fight itself was terribly underwhelming. The reason for that was because I felt they were going in circles, repeating more or less same points they had already mentioned in the beginning. It was a clash of two different ideals, where neither one of them refused to budge for quite some time.

WHY NOT JUST RIP MY HEART OUT?!?!?!

This problem with repetition could have possibly been avoided had they allowed George to explain why his time has stopped, and more about why he so desperately wanted an eternal world with Hana (besides the fact the future hurts her and Humanity drives itself into ruins). And where much of my disappointment lies. Usually in these final fights, we get an answer behind the final boss’ motives. But instead we were only given more cryptic conversations that didn’t do anything to reveal anything, but continued to hint that Hana and George will or at least had a special bond in the future. In fact, I was genuinely surprised that Hana never actually asked him why time had stopped for him. It’s such an important question, yet it was never asked. The only question she did ask was why was he afraid of the future, but he didn’t answer, instead responded with, “it seems you and I are not destined to understand each other.” which is another curious statement to make, and makes me wonder more about the circumstances of their fate.

Was it the most memorable boss fight I have seen in a precure series?
No, not even close, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad one!

Shit you two are so cute together. Now take us to the future and tell us about your love story.

Once the fight was over was when I felt more emotionally invested again. Although, I have to admit, while I did feel a bit awkward watching Hana take George’s hand and hug him, I still enjoyed the final scene between them. It was so sweet and made me emotional (especially when he cried). It also made me think how despite the fact Hana has been incredibly oblivious to love, somewhere deep in her heart, she seems to understand they are connected in a special way. (And there is no doubt the dream they shared re-enforced such feelings). That’s why she points out his contradiction, how even though he doesn’t believe in the future, he always tells her, “until next time”. And it is also this scene we got to see the softest and calmest we have seen George seen since he had given her his handkerchief, which she ironically returned today.

And this is why I really hope with the time jump, we will get the chance to get a better understanding of the depth of George’s feelings and where it stems from, and clarify what kind of relationship he has with Hana. In fact, this now my biggest concern going into the finale, because I know it’s going to drive me bonkers if they leave us hanging with a bloody open-ending!

Next week is the final episode. It’s incredible how not long ago I didn’t think I was going to make it, yet here I am, we can see the finish line. Hopefully they will treat us with the answers and backstory we really want to see.

I’m pretty happy with how the conflict against Criasu ended. Granted it didn’t give us a fight on the same level as Splash Star, but we still got some very cool moments here. Hana standing up to Kurai in her civilian form, everyone becoming a PreCure – including the return of Cure Infini, and the hugging at the end make this a satisfying conclusion. Well, it isn’t quite over yet, but the next, and final, episode seems like it will be an epilogue more than anything else.

Kurai had some creepy moments, but overall I think he was a pretty decent villain. His motive for freezing time almost certainly came from the loss of a loved one. Perhaps not the greatest villain from the PreCure franchise, but still a pretty good one.

Seeing everyone become PreCures was a pretty good moment. Particularly with the return of Cure Infini. On that subject, Henri and Masato are still going as strong as ever – I wasn’t sure whether to take a screenshot of them flying, or other Masato lifting Henri.
Compared to certain other couples, the stuff between Hana and Saaya has been fairly minimal, but I feel like Ange being the first to hug Cure Yell was pretty significant.
We even got an Emilu - Twin Love moment, with the two hugging as they watched the sunrise. So good.

Next time is the final episode, and it appears we will be looking to the future with that one. There could also potentially be an appearance by Cure Star, if Hugtto! continues the tradition of having the next season’s Cure cameo(s) at the end of a season.

Homare looked different with long hair...

Saaya with short hair... not bad but I still like her with long hair... 

(Wait... where are Emiru and Lulu? Are Twin Love the pop duo still a thing?)

So where are you during the final battle, Cure Tomorrow?

So with the Where Are They Now Epilogue next week, what can we expect to see? Seeing from the preview, everyone began to start a new path in their life and the future has been restored. But it looked like Hana is going for one more soul searching before the series end. Until then, see you in the next post for the Finale! 

Just more footage from the rest of Team Star Twinkle from the trailer...