IN WHICH THE CATGIRL FINALLY JOINS THE OTHERS

Star*Twinkle Pretty Cure Episode 23 -
My Own Review
IN WHICH THE CATGIRL FINALLY JOINS THE OTHERS

You know, I think that episode twenty-three of Star ☆ Twinkle might just be a homage to Star Trek, of all things. Well, more specifically a certain alien species from Star Trek. Oh, and there’s also the small matter of welcoming Yuni to the team – you know, a few episodes after she transformed for the first time…

So Fuwa is part tribble, then?

In this episode, the others decide to hold a welcome party for Yuni. That soon gets overshadowed when Fuwa eats one of the catgirl's Matter Cookies, causing the tribble-like pixie to feel intoxicated, then to uncontrollably multiply - like rabbits. 

Feeling responsible for what happened, Yuni tries to tackle the problem on her own.

Elena has some bread crusts (hard bread, as for ducks or torrijas de leche) ready for the hungry Fuwas

As you may have guessed by this point, this episode of Star ☆ Twinkle is on the sillier side. It is about Yuni learning that she is part of a team now, and can rely on the others to help her out. Elena is the one who spends the most time with Yuni this episode, helping her to realise all that.

Lala is prepared to deal with the Fuwas

This episode is pretty much one that focuses on Yuni, but that doesn’t meant that the other characters can’t have their moments. Lala is particularly noteworthy in this episode.

Mao makes another appearance (the M in her logo is a Virgo M...)

We also get another appearance from Mao. I hope that becomes a recurring thing, because it would be nice to see Yuni putting her shapeshifting abilities to use every now and then.

Yes! Doughnut belts for everyone! -- MOVE OVER RAMBO

Not exactly the most intimidating weapon

Our villain for this week is Kappard, who does manage to capture the original Fuwa, singling her out from the legions of the copies. 

Though at first he's got a real pest control issue before singling the original out...

KAPPARATTA!!

Come here, come with daddy...

The girls transform, but Cure Cosmos quickly discovers solo attacks won’t work. Fortunately, she does have a team she can rely on.

Good luck Purunce is so elastic!!

Yuni and Elena

So by the episode’s end, Yuni has learned the value of teamwork. Perhaps she’ll stop being so aloof in the future, and actually spend time with the others.

An episode with a rather silly premise, but it does serve to develop Yuni’s character a bit more. I’m happy with that: more Cure Cosmos is very much something that I welcome. Its also nice to see her interacting with the other Cures, too; in this case, Elena.

Next time, it's the middle of the summer, but things are going to get very cold on a permafrost planet... (oh, who could follow these sheroes and escape Thermidor!)

This week revolved around the mayhem of Fuwa greedily taking Yuni’s special cookie that made her drunk and gave her hiccups, which then caused her to start spawning endless copies of herself. Although the girls had figured out how to make the copies vanish (by feeding the little gluttons) it didn’t take long for the girls to become quickly overwhelmed and were unable to contain them all. It took a team effort to resolve the issue, but working together with others was something Yuni was not used to. She is so used to working independently, she doesn’t know how to rely on others. Knowing that the situation they were dealing with was impossible to handle alone, Elena wasn’t about to let Yuni go off on her own, and made sure to stay tagged with her. She also showed her the benefit of working together as a team, as Yuni had forgotten to bring some food along to give to the copies, and later the two of them were able to act on the spur of the moment to have one distract the public while the other lured out the wave that had made its way into the shopping district.

But it wasn’t just about not being used to having others to depend on, Yuni also felt she needed to resolve this problem alone because she felt responsible for it. It is definitely going to take her some time, as even by the end of the episode, Yuni was about to go off on her own again, but Elena made sure to capitalize the opportunity to make sure she stuck around for the welcome party they had put together for her.

Besides the hilarity of the situation with Fuwa’s hiccups of doom, what I really liked about this episode was that we got to see the girls switch up the pairs they are usually with. The usual duos were switched up with Elena and Yuni, and Lala and Madoka, while Hikaru worked together with Purunce. It was just nice to see because I enjoy it when we actually get to see the girls interact with the others more so than the ones they usually stick close to the most. I thought the brief interactions between Madoka and Lala to be quite cute, as both of them are kind of the brains of the group. It was really funny when Madoka realized Lala’s A.I. was referring to hiccups, her expression was priceless.

I also found it amusing to some extent how Kappard was quick enough to beat Yuni to capturing the original Fuwa, and successfully ended their misery by scaring the shit out of her. Unfortunately for him, Fuwa slipped out of his grasp once more thanks to the girls successfully retrieving her. This probably makes Kappard the only General at the moment who was the closest to actually succeeding, especially since he even used his powers on Fuwa’s copies to enhance his weapon. Had Yuni fought him on her own, he probably would have beaten her thanks to the power of fluffballs.

Next week, the girls are back to searching for the pens and will be visiting a planet of frost and snow!

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
Yuni or Uni? (It's as in 'verse): Still she is missing a surname, and will not be getting one until she debuts as a schoolgirl this autumn. Anyway, her first name when I read it on some sites and subs makes me think of sea urchin genitals, while the name of this catgirl is pronounced yoo-ni as in 'verse -- so I use this spelling to keep on reminding myself of that (compare Giulio in Kirakira à la Mode).
Parasprites - that tribble episode. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E10SwarmOfTheCentury