IN WHICH WORTHY OPPONENTS DRAW THEIR BOWS

Star*Twinkle Pretty Cure
Episode 16 - My Own Review

IN WHICH WORTHY OPPONENTS DRAW THEIR BOWS

https://angryanimebitches.com/2019/05/star%e2%98%86twinkle-precure-episode-16-17/

The sixteenth episode of Star ☆ Twinkle puts Madoka in the spotlight once again. This time around, she is participating in a national archery tournament.

Madoka conquered fierce competition in the preliminaries

The main event in this episode is the aforementioned archery competition. Madoka is pretty keen to win it for the sake of her father, who seems to have become somewhat obsessed with his research into aliens.

Translation: "Mihoshi Secondary's Venus" - Besides, that's one massive PR balloon!

Since Madoka is doing a thing, that means that Sakurako Himenojo is present. If Elena is the sun of Mihoshi, and Madoka is the moon, that makes Sakurako the Venus. With those golden ringlets and that caustic temper, she's already off to a good start for that title!

One of the standout competitors, Yumika Nasu

Madoka is more or less a prodigy (tensai) when it comes to archery, but there is another girl, a dark horse tomboy who is able to perform at Madoka’s level. She is Yumika Nasu. She’s a solitary type, and believes that friends/nakama are just distractions.
Madoka and Yumika are equals when the competition starts, so they end up having to face each other in a deciding round.

Yumika KNottrigger

During a break in the competition, Hikaru, Lala, and Elena make lucky charms for Madoka before sitting down and eating lunch with her. Yumika, on the other hand, becomes a target for Ayewan.

Cure Selene wants to face Yumika in the deciding match

Cure Selene and the others fight the 'trigger. Cure Selene does not take kindly to hearing Yumika called her an ‘enemy’, and she makes sure to let Ayewan know. With the power of Sagittarius, Selene gives PreCures the opening they need to finish the fight.
Yumika is returned to normal, whilst Ayewan and Bakenyan make a hasty retreat.

Results of the competition

Madoka and Yumika face off in the deciding round of the competition, and it eventually reaches an end, with the Moon of Mihoshi winning gold and the dark horse taking her second-place silver in stride, like the worthy sportswoman she is. As too, does this episode.

This was an enjoyable Madoka episode. She got to do her thing whilst being supported by her nakama/friends.
Actually, it seems that Madoka is picking up quite a few rivals lately. Firstly there’s self-proclaimed rival Sakurako Himenojo, and then she had a thing with the Blue Cat. Now there is Yumika Nasu. Madoka seems to be quite popular.
Madoka's father does care about her despite showing little emotions during the archery competition. Madoka's rival on the other end was your typical loner who does not believe in the power of friendship and lose the match. But Madoka is a goody two shoes and encourages her rival to work harder (or rather do her best -- why the fudge does "ganbare" get so often mistranslated as "work hard"?) so they can meet again. 

There isn’t really much more that can be said about this episode. It done its job, and it done it in a decent enough manner. I do hope that we get to see Yumika again at some point.


Next time, the girls return to Planet Zenny where the Blue Cat has a heist planned. Needless to say, I am looking forward to seeing the Blue Cat again.

Not much to say about this episode. It seemed to have focused more on the product placement of the “Fortune Capsule Maker” than anything else. (It was really cute though!) Madoka wanted to win the competition in hopes to cheer her father up a bit since his investigation hasn’t been going well. It’s good to see though that the excuse the alien agent who posed as the director isn’t fooling him anymore since he is re-investigate the evidence of the battle that transpired there. It does make me wonder if he will make an eventual breakthrough, and I am curious to see how he would react if he were to discover his daughter is fighting it out with aliens to protect space!

As for the rival, I didn’t particularly care much about her. She appeared to have been a bit envious of how Madoka was surrounded and supported by nakama friends, and so she kept on convincing herself that nakama friends just get in the way.

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
Two Selene focus episodes in a row?? Makes me feel like it's Xmas AND 12th Perigee!!
Yumika: this very week we lost GrumpyCat, we happened to get a character who is just like her, ie GrumpyCat, as gijinka (in human form)! Purely coincidental?
YumiKaguya as kismesis?:
With the Blue Cat, it's far more like Valjean and Javert. With Sakurako, it's the standard Cure Ojousama fare of the second-fiddle who wants to surpass Her Ladyship. Unlike these other two, the third candidate for kismesis is a tomboy to the core, aloof and a worthy foil-shadow to the Moon of Mihoshi...



IN NEXT EPISODE (17):
THE. BLUE. CAT. RETURNS.
This time, she's planning a heist on Zenny... like, are we going casino-robbing, Ocean's Tetralogy style?