IN WHICH A NEW STUDENT STARTS HER FIRST CLASS EVER

Star*Twinkle Pretty Cure
Episode 13 - My Own Review
IN WHICH A NEW STUDENT STARTS HER FIRST CLASS EVER

The thirteenth episode of Star ☆ Twinkle has a simple premise; it is Lala’s first day at school. There’s nothing else that needs to be said here, so I’ll just jump right into the episode.

Lala’s first day of school

With Lala officially being allowed to live on Earth now, there is something that she wants to do: go to school. The film director from the previous episode is able not only to get her a uniform, but also to get her enrolled at the same school that the other girls attend, and it isn’t long before she is causing quite the stir. It seems somewhat odd that a parvenue transfer student would quickly befriend the sun and moon of Mihoshi Secondary School.

Lala is shocked to discover that adolescent Earthlings can calculate two-digit figures as doing sums in their heads (so, Maths not a priority in her homeworld? Lucky b*tch...)

As you would expect from an alien attending school for the first time, Lala ends up standing out quite a bit. Her verbal tic, finishing every sentence with -lun, doesn’t exactly help matters, either. The day doesn’t end particularly well for Lala, who runs straight home and hides out in her room.

The perky, merry, free-spirited boy with the nutbrown quiff is Tatsunori Karube, more informally known as Karunori. Don't forget him, 'cause he's the victim of this episode...

Oh... sorry, Mr. Karunori, 'scuse me if you slipped! 

Lala accidentally overturned the mopping bucket...

Episode 13 started with Lala going to school. She decided not to rely on her AI and as such made a lot of blunders and mistakes which she felt embarrassed. The stress got to her when her fellow classmate, Karunori, unintentionally remarked her as weird and she ran back to her cabin sulking.

Lala surprises the others with a proper greeting, as well as attempting to drop her verbal tic

For Lala’s second day of school, she brings the glove that lets her communicate with her AI along with her – whereas humans study in schools, everyone on Lala’s home planet got what they needed thanks to AIs like her own. Which means her whole species is as self-taught as yours truly!! This leads to Lala acting very out of character, even stopping herself from using her “-lun” verbal tic.

The next day, she took her AI glove along on her left hand, in order to communicate with the AI, and behaved like a typical student which got Hikaru worried. She gathered everyone the next day to go to school (on a non-school day) and explained to Lala that they want her to be herself and enjoy school life. 

The Sun and Moon bring Lala to the school on their day off

With Lala acting strangely, Hikaru decides to ask Elena and Madoka a favour. The following day, the three girls bring Lala to school despite having a day off. Hikaru pretty much tells Lala that she doesn’t have to be like everyone else; she is absolutely fine just being herself. Lala realises this, but their happy moment is cut short.

Suddenly Kappard appeared and absorbed Karunori's imagination (apparently, he and other Raiders can sense "the power of a distorted imagination") from the boy's chest, apparently from his heart, to turn his own two-blade sith sword into a surfboard, or was it a hoverboard?! I was expecting like a monster or a new suit created out of Karunori but this is lazy since we know that the girls will defeat him (as always) and he retreated in the end.

Kappard’s weapon was powered up

Kappard and the mooks at his command appear, still very keen on getting their hands on the Star Colour Pens. Lala and the others transform, but during the fight Kappard is able to power up his weapon and cause some damage to the school grounds.

Cure Milkyway swears to protect the school

Cure Milkyway is not pleased about the school getting damage, so she swears to protect it. Together, PreCures do their usual thing and drive away their foe, returning Kappard’s weapon to its normal state in the process.

Hikaru and Lala ready for a new day of school

When Lala returns to the school on the following day, she is back to being herself. She even picks up a nickname from the other students: “Lun (-chan)”, due to her verbal tic-lun. 

In the end, Lala was accepted by her classmates and peers and was given her nickname-Lun-chan due to her ending her sentence with "-lun" 

She and Hikaru go to class hand-in-hand, ready for their class duty.

This was a fun episode, which only made me like Lala even more. It was some pretty typical fish out of water stuff, but the fact that Lala is the focus is exactly why I was sold on it.

I’m sure the other girls will all have their moments in the future, but for the time being Lala pretty much has number one spot as my favourite Star ☆ Twinkle girl.

Whilst this was an enjoyable Lala episode, I feel like overall it wasn’t quite as good as episode 12. Ups and downs are inevitable in a show that will have around fifty episodes though, and it wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy this one.

Next time, we getting an Elena episode – more specifically, one that will focus on her family.

This week, Lala enrols into the girls’ school, but it wasn’t quite what she expected!

I have to say, this episode was incredibly well done. I am glad that they were able to use this event in a meaningful way! I appreciated seeing the theme of Lala’s struggle to adjust as a foreign student. One of Lala’s biggest struggle was going to school without her AI assistant. In her world, AI provide them precise instructions and answers to their question. In fact they demonstrated the consequences of being too dependent on AI, as Lala was shocked when she learned that Earthlings of Hikaru’s age can (usually) add two-digit numbers when they do sums in their heads, something she cannot do. I commend her for trying problem-solve on her own, but at the same time I felt sad for her because she wasn’t comfortable with asking for help. And the reason for that was also because she was struggling to fit in with the class. She became incredibly self-conscious of what others have thought of her, and tried to change herself to fit the mould. Luckily Hikaru noticed how uncomfortable and stressed out she was, and decided to talk to her about it so she wouldn’t have to deal with it alone.

This week we also finally got to see what the Master’s blessing changed about the generals’ weapons! It took me a minute before I realized what it did exactly, and that was taking the target’s imagination, and whatever that may be, will reflect the form of the enhanced weapon. In this case, Karunori’s imagination was a hoverboard (BACK TO THE FUTURE STYLE) of a sorts. It was creatively used, but I would say it best served as a shield compared to the whole ‘crash into everything’ sort of destruction Kappard was doing.

The school episode is a cultural shock for Lala since she is used to rely on her AI for advices and now she is unsure of what to do in school which led to all sort of situations. 

Although Lala tried to make things right but Hikaru want Lala to be herself and count on her friends and not relying on her AI. Kappard turning his sword into a hover-surfboard was really what Toei could come up with? We know the generals are not going to be defeated now unless it is an important plot-related episode but at least do something like creating a monster not something gimmick which the girls clearly can overcome with the Southern Cross Shot.

Next week Elena will be back in the spotlight, featuring more about her family! (VEREMOS SI SON ESPAÑOLES O NO... ESTOY TAN TENSA...)

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
Theories confirmed: Just as I had guessed, everyone on Lala's homeworld is self-taught or homeschooled with the help of AIs -- recalling my own unusual upbringing (and, for the record, I was not homeschooled, but taught myself everything one needed to know but Maths and social skills from the library at the institution where she spent her childhood until 16; long story).
Lala in uniform: Wow wow wow... the Mihoshi Secondary look really fits the colour of her hair and eyes...
Be yourself no matter what they say: a dead horse lesson, and a value that I encourage myself A LOT and cannot stop encouraging. Or, as Tyrion Lannister puts it, if they call you a name, make it your own.
Sakurako steals the show: Once more. The way she ranted at Lala and insisted on the school rules COMPLETELY PWNED everyone else at class.
A new MO for the knotraiders: OUIIIII!!! What they did to Karunori was one of those pleasant subversions that come completely out of nowhere and leave you with a Goliath frog in your throat. Apparently, Raiders can sense a distorted imagination within people's hearts -- and Karunori was feeling guilty for having been criticised and chided by the class representatives earlier on at class, as well as for hurting Lala's feelings -- which became the catalyst for the weapon of the week du jour...
Book Smart Hikaru confirmed? We just saw her doing sums in her head and weighing some objects (Measures is Maths in primary and Physics in secondary), and we know about her passion for astronomy... but time will tell if she is one of those other few cases in which we have been blessed with a pink Cure, or red Ranger, who is not a dunce...
On the Pen front: No new Pens recovered, and no Princesses awakened (not even the Aries one from healing the filmmaker in last episode...). Hope that the state of things gets to change a little soon...



IN NEXT EPISODE (14):



Seeing that we are getting an Elena episode next week about her family and her brother is clearly behaving like a brat, estoy impaciente por reseñarlo para ver si de verdad son medio españoles... Y, sabiendo que uno de sus hermanitos va a ser la víctima de turno fijo, es igual que seguro que han escogido a la Nena equivocada con quien meterse...