ANDERSENIAN RAMBLES, GLEANED IN ANDERSEN COUNTRY

Not exactly on his native island of Funen, but still here in Denmark, in the northernmost towns like Skagen and Sæby (both in Frederikshavn Municipality).

There is actually a lot of Romantic literature in H.C. Andersen's tales. He head read Hoffmann, Tieck, Jean Paul and Clemens Brentano, all of these. The German Romantics had showed the way in a renovation of the fairytale, based upon the commedie dell'arte of Italian Carlo Gozzi, and, on his return home from Italy in 1834, Andersen saw the Children's Ballet in Vienna, from which he might have taken inspiration for, among others, "The Shepherdess and the Chimney-Sweep" (and other object-centric fairytales). In Novalis' Heinrich von Ofterdingen, there is an Arthurian allegory about Arcturus and Djinnistan (the land of genies), of how the reign of prose and reason is vanquished, and of how poetry and fantasy are set free. Arcturus' crystal palace can be found again in "The Snow Queen."

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THE EXPANSE OF FAIRYTALE

The magic tale or fairytale, as exploited by H.C. Andersen, is a genre in constant development and expansion. It is striking, how diverse his contributions are to one another. The author is inspired by many other narrative formats, especially those whose reach is limited: anecdotes ("The Princess and the Pea"), fables ("The Ugly Duckling" and many other animal tales), legends (already "The Undead," of 1830), parables ("The Daisy and the Skylark"), realistic tales ("The Naughty Boy," "In the Nursery,") and even short novels ("The Snow Queen," "The Ice Maiden"). The travelogue A Poet's Bazaar resembles actually something like an Andersenian fairytale collection: it is a brightly-coloured, diverse mosaic of small tales, a large quantity of various kinds of short fiction.
[...]
There are many pairs of these fairytales which contrast with one another. "The Snow Queen," of 1844, and "The Ice Maiden," of 1862, have been mentioned before. One can already infer from their titles that they are related. In spite of clear similarities, these two tales are quite different from one another. Both of them have sprung from a traumatic experience which the author had at age eleven. His father lay on his deathbed, half dead of a lung disease (either consumption or pneumonia), and his mother explained: "The Ice Maiden has taken him away!" Both tales depict a journey of life through many stages. Good and evil are in constant conflict, and the whole universe, from heaven to hell, plays a part. Both protagonists, resilient faithful Gerda and daring Rudi, defy the ice, the cold, and the power of death. Gerda succeeds in freeing her beloved Kai from the underworld realm of the Snow Queen. Amor vincit omnia. Rudi, on the other hand, becomes the Ice Maiden's prey. Therefore, he is torn away apart from Babette immediately before their wedding can take place. It comes off as irrational and meaningless. - Both in his life and in his works, Andersen frequently returns to the thought of death, a theme that literary authors will first intensely explore about one hundred years later, in the second half of the twentieth century.

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Andersen takes inspiration from the folktale in all of its forms. The magic tale with its mysterious and magical world can be found in, for instance, "The Travelling Companions" (1835) and "The Snow Queen" (1844). Fabliaux, satirical tales, can be found in "Little Klaus and Big Klaus" (1835) and "Hans in Luck" (1861). But also the fable -the didactic and/or moral anecdote with animal characters, that is particularly known from the ancient world and from Grand Siècle France- is employed by Andersen. "The Jumpers" (1845) is an example that shows, at the same time, how Andersen mildens the fable's dry, rational style by adding to the mix elements of the magic tale (the king whill give the princess as a prize to the jumper who jumps the best). In other cases, we see Andersen employ the parable as a genre, ie the story which, taken as a metaphor, functions as the illustration of an idea. "The Buckwheat" (1842) illustrates, for instance, pride before a fall; "The Bell," the relationship between natural science and artistic creation as pathways for seeking the truth.

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During the 1830s and 1840s, there follows a series of introspective fairytales, which, on one hand, deal with the problematic of the self as a splitting, and, on the other hand, by diverse means try to postulate a redemption, a healing of this splitting. These are tales like "The Little Mermaid" (1837), "The Nightingale" (1843), "The Ugly Duckling" (1843), "The Snow Queen" (1844), and "The Bell" (1845). It is mandatory for all of them that redemption remains a postulate, just liike in "The Ugly Duckling." Although these are some of Andersen's best fairytales, this fact has to do with that the obligation of redemption in that case grows out of their self-problematic themes, so that it reaches so deep that it becomes unbearable.

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Josefine Ottesen writes, with Isblomsten, upon Andersen's "Snow Queen" (of 1844). A comparison of the two would, in this context (a short article) be too extensive. (Basically, Cornelia Hale is frozenhearted and spirited away by a Snow Queen to her magical land/secondary world of permafrost as her adoptive daughter and heir, in a parallel to Kai; while Cornelia's teammates have to travel to that realm, once an idyllic realm of eternal springtime, and free both the land and Cornelia by vanquishing the Snow Queen). This is only to name that the books (the W.I.T.C.H. novels) drink from the literary heritage and engage in dialogue with earlier works. According to Anna Karlskov Skyggebjerg, it is part of the genre conventions for the fantastic narrative and the fantasy genre to engage in dialogue with, or write upon, already existing works and drink from the literary heritage. Unlike most mainstream serialised middle-grade fiction, which is often characterised by a simple writing style and without literary ambitions, the W.I.T.C.H. novels stand apart from their predecessors because most of the books are stylistic works of fine art. That the books engage in dialogue with H.C. Andersen's fairytales is, in the meantime, not an aesthetic quality per se, but more of an expression of the genre's use and reuse of established patterns and genres.
In terms of genre, the W.I.T.C.H. novels are written into the fantasy genre, yet Josefine Ottesen's Isblomsten and Den gyldne kilde lean more towards the fairytale tradition than towards the fantasy genre, and the genre conventions are defied less in her books, because there are fewer exemples of playing with the genre.
Annette Øster -the Skyggebjerg article she names is "Tingseventyret som genre og litteraturpædagogisk mulighed" -

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There have been written a great quantity of interpretations and analyses in the form of articles, though concentrated around a very limited number of (Andersenian) fairytales. Thus, "The Shadow" was and is the most interpreted (and over-interpreted) of these tales, as well as "The Little Mermaid," "The Snow Queen," "The Bell," and "The Nightingale," which all belong to the most often analysed texts.

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The mother of Thumbelina wants to have her as her own (for sig selv) --expressed in such a way that it implies that she does not have man at home, and does not need one either. She wishes for a child, not a real child, but a "teensy weensy" ("lille bitte") one. Maybe she is one of those mothers who wish for a baby -and then wish that their child should remain always a sweet and heartwarming little baby, that they can care for. Maybe that is the reason why she gets such a diminutive child, only as tall as her thumbs. A little doll, a figurine, that never will leave her side.
Thumbelina is the perfect fashion doll. She is fresh out of the box -here, the flower bud-, she can sing, she can row and sleep in her "lovely lacquered nut shell" which she has received for a boat and for a cradle; "violet petals were her mattresses, and rose petals her covers."
Her mother reminds us not so little of the woman we meet in Story the Third of "The Snow Queen." The Third Story bears the subtitle "The Flowering Garden of the Old Lady who Could Conjure." Little Gerda is here taken as a possession by the affable titular old lady, who does not want to let her go. "Such a sweet little maiden have I really been longing for," she says, and then she enchants the rose-bushes to disappear under ground, lest Gerda should ever chance to think of Kai and carry on on her quest for him. She wants to hold little Gerda all to herself, in an eternal childhood.
Thumbelina's mother is a caregiver of the same kind, of those who want to keep their child as a plaything of theirs and do not want to let them go. She has no need for a human child, that will grow up and carry on with a life of their own. She wants a teensy-weesy child, that never grows any bigger, and that thus, at the same time, is a teensy-weensy adult of foetal appearance.
Maybe this is why Thumbelina is born without wings! For that is the other quirk, or attention-grabbing detail of the story. A pixie has, in anyone's mind's eye, got wings on their back.
Pixies like Tinker Bell or the Flower Fairies have wings, but Thumbelina has none. In the nighttime, she lies in her lacquered nut shell cradle; in the daytime, she plays in the kitchen table, where her mother has filled a deep basin with water and lets Thumbelina sit in her nut shell, so that she can sail from one side of the "lake" to the other - and back again. She cannot, in other words, reach any other place on her own. She is in a little "lovely" prison, that the mother has made for her fashion doll.
Yet Thumbelina is ostensibly satisfied with being there, where she is. We never hear anything of her longing for somewhere over the rainbow, feeling bored, or having anything against her mother or the existence in which the latter keeps her imprisoned. The only sign of the fact that it really is an imprisonment, just like Gerda's at the witching old lady's in the Third Story, are the intense limitations in her everyday, as well as the eye-catching fact that she does not have any wings.
Thumbelina nevertheless flies the coop, but actually against her will. Like fashion dolls in all their sugar-sweet pink femininity are as good as asexual, Thumbelina, in spite of having come from a stamen in the flower bud, is deprived of the desire and the possibility of becoming an adult woman. She cannot fly. She cannot fly away from this lady, who is not a real mother, but related to the old lady who enchanted the rose-bushes away, for Gerda not to dare to think of love.
But then there comes someone or something from the outside world (the frogs), and whisks her away, out into the wide world, where great perils lurk: Thrice, three times (the froglet, a riverside insect, and Mr. Mole), someone will want to have her for a bride, and thrice, three times, she wants not.
There is over Thumbelina's essence as a fairytale character, and over her journey, the same uncertainty that surrounds the hero of "The Firelighter." Her origins are mysterious; her little body, so out of scale with the human world that she is planted into, is not the less remarkable. And, when she finally moves out in the wide world, the past with her mother is torn away from her memory, the ties to childhood are cut (if there have ever been such a childhood and such ties in the first place). She does not long back, she is without a past. But, even if she moves further and further out into the wide world, in the long term this is rather bereft of a resolve on which direction to take. And all the time, without any definite desire or thought of a goal to attain. She literally goes with the flow.
Of all this uncertainty in the events that shape her story, one can actually only say that, first things first, it is a movement away from something. It is a flight.
Thumbelina ends up crossing paths with someone of her own kind, finally accepted for being the one she is, and not a foetus of the desires of another individual. But first, she must go through so dreadfully many trials, ere she ends up being the queen of the realm of flower pixies. And that she ends there, where she ends, resembles to no degree her own desires or longings. Circumstances seize upon her and lead her a long way out into the wide world, to a place that may be "home," but that she has never dreamt of, and where she has never been before. Deliverance does not lie in anything she wants, but in the one she is. It is something uncertain, but not completely uncertain after all.

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From the titles, it could be near-laying to regard "The Ice Maiden" as a later counterpiece to "The Snow Queen," but, even if Andersen, in several context, has used the terms "ice maiden" and "snow queen" in such a fashion that these two names are actually synonymous, referring to the same phenomenon, it happens to be quite little that connects these two great narratives to one another, and that the best thing would be to take them as separate entities.
When, in his autobiographies (1841, and 1855), in the depictions of his father's death, he lets his mother say: "The Ice Maiden has taken him," this is not the seed to the story of the Ice Maiden, but, seen from the context, completely unambiguously, an inspiration for "The Snow Queen:" a female figure, which is seen in the ice-flowers upon the windowpane, and that "takes," ie spirits away, a person, in the fairytale little Kai, in the autobiography the father.
Andersen's first poemary (1830) contained the ballad "The Snow Queen," whose sinister female figure quite obviously, like her fairytale counterpart, is "riding a cloud so black / without looking back," but who, otherwise, to a higher degree, is a first draft for the later Ice Maiden. The common ground between the villainess of that novella and the Snow Queen of the poem is that, with lethal results, both of them intrude into an engagement story, by "taking" the young man, right as he is to become one with the bride.
The 1830 Snow Queen ballad itself has roots back to the folk songs about elven maidens who capture the knight on his way to his fiancée (Herr Olof, Herr Byrting...).
In this chorus of themes and motifs, a special prominence is given to the relationship between eros and thánatos, which rises to the foreground as the central theme of the tale, as a motif of destiny and a life theme. A lethal life theme.

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Quite similar characters (to Johannes, the Tobias character in "The Travelling Companions") we have in Elisa of "The Six Wild Swans," who is so pious, so pious, that the hymnal can tell the breeze that turns its pages that she is more pious than the hymnal itself -- and Gerda in "The Snow Queen," who des not need to get a magic potion from the Finmark woman to vanquish the Snow Queen, for, as the wise crone herself tells the reindeer:
"I cannot give her any greater power than she has already! Don't you see how great it is? Don't you see, how people and animals have to serve her, how she has made it on her own two feet so far away into the wide world? She does not need to know of her power from us, it lies within her heart, it lies within her being a sweet innocent child."
All these characters are, thus, the incarnation of the fundamental, naive goodness itself, a trust in the world and in the good guidance of providence. And it there is nothing that seriously attacks this goodness, for it is so the world is as well, and it is only ostensibly or rarely that it may prove evil and dreadful and wrong. The goodness of Johannes stands in a pact with higher powers, with piety towards the late father, who is a warrant for that the ostensible evil lets itself be vanquished or, as in the case of the lovely princess, turn it into what it in its heart of hearts and actually all along was at the end of the day: good.

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It deals with the instant of death as an ascent into the light and omnipervadent happiness, and in the dream happiness, that means a fusion not only with every living thing around, but also, and equally importantly, a fusion of the intensity of the present and the experience of growth. In an ejection of inner life, life is drained away. One may therefore also say that reality burns together in that instant - or that it burns to the ground. Life is used and consumed at one discharge.
The dream or vision or the inner ascent is not "only" a dream or illusion, while reality is the harsh reality outside. In a wise understanding is it the dream that costs one one's life, not death, which kindles the wavering light of illusion. They do not dream while they ae about to die, but they die of the dream's overwhelming intensity.
The fusion or identity that the three-centuries-old oak and the little match girl experience comes at a price. It is not only a flight away from anything, it is also fulfillment, a movement into something, a movement or a journey or a quest, that comes at a price. Whether it be the little mermaid's desire to rise up towards the Sun, or Elisa's desire (in "The Six Wild Swans") to recreate her lost identity, or the steadfast tin soldier's desire to become one with the equally steadfast ballerina, or Gerda's desire (in "The Snow Queen") to find once more and warm the frozenhearted Kai. Everything comes at a price. So is it in folktale as well. But, for Andersen, the price to pay is often life. And especially when what is being sought is such a limit-shattering experience.

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And they are texts of vastly different kinds. But, by paying some attention, one will see that the over 200 texts so far can be reduced to a more reduced number of fundamental stories, that the others are thus variations upon.
One may call these fundamental stories or motifs -the word motif originally meant a motive, ie a catalyst, something that moves or causes events- or one may call them mythemes or myths, according to if they are the seed to a description of events or something that islogem per se, in itself, shaped like an event.
One of the foundational images or mythemes of fairytale literature, which has succeeded in story after story already from the beginning and all the way down to the latest reinstallments, is the one that may be termed transformation or metamorphosis. A long series of Andersenian texts are either stories about metamorphoses or lead towards a point where metamorphosis occurs.
In "The Six Wild Swans," it lies in the premise of the folktale itself. The brothers are turned into swans, and Elisa, who has also been banished from home -leaving home and travelling out into the wide world are two other mythemes in Andersenian literature-, is now seeking the brothers to turn them back into humans. A project which for herself, at the end of the day, turns out to be a transformation process through death and resurrection. Metamorphosis is one with the process of becoming an adult, and it is the power of love that secures the way forwards towards one's real identity.
Both Elisa and Gerda (in "The Snow Queen") venture forth into the wide world to find their missing brother (missing brothers, plural, in Elisa's case) and redeem them through metamorphosis.
The Little Mermaid and the cygnet in "The Ugly Duckling" have themselves as the great metamorphic project, while the tin soldier, the Christmas tree, the snowman, and the dryad are more leaning towards their own desire for metamorphosis, or are tragically metamorphosed against their will, being liquified or reshaped, which can be interpreted both as a fulfillment of identity and as as pure, sheer destruction.
The drive towards metamorphosis that is the catalyst in so many stories and motifs in Andersen's works is a drive forwards towards renewal, new identity, a creation-drive, which has ascent and sublimation as a sign of identity. But it can also turn backwards towards lost identity, towards a state of primordiality and staying in the past for life.
It is a dream, a desire for otherness and identity in one, which may make life-drive and death-drive, eros and thánatos, to resemble one another to the point of confusion.
Johan de Mylius

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Ellen Hillingsø
Winter is a time for reading and being read aloud to. The dark, cold afternoons and evenings invite us to hygge (coziness), company, and good stories. To sit down and read in a warm room, while there is pitch black darkness outside, is nothing more than formidable. Equally good is it, if one can have another person read aloud. I have always been pleased with this experience, because then one can completely surrender, shut one's eyes, and visualise the story in one's mind's eye.
But in my childhood I always got a wee bit tense when it was H.C. Andersen that my parents lowered from the bookcase. For there was always some darkness in these fairytales. The poor protagonists must always go through so many dreadful things before the story came to an end. And some of these characters were even quite unsettling people. I understood and learned, thus, in my early life, that there are always two layers to these stories: an aesthetic and a moral!
The aesthetic lies in the beautiful language and the lovely descriptions of nature, while the moral lies in what every single character shall learn to develop and come any further.
It was in the latter that the unsettling lay, for some of these characters were so thick-headed and understood so little that it nearly led them into dire straits, and some others were so frail and vulnerable that one shuddered at the thought.
But, as an adult, I realised that the unsettling feeling is so intense because it is ourselves whom we read into the stories. We live ourselves fully and completely into "The Little Match Girl," we become her, but we also become "the Snowman," who does not understand that a snowman and a fireplace make a very bad match.
We are, in the fairytales, confronted with everything that we contain that makes us human, from our own frailty to our own arrogance and hubris.
Therefore, it is always a great idea to have someone to talk to after the reading, so one may ponder what it means to be a human or a person, and a self among the others. What it takes, what we shall learn, and that we should try to understand that our greatest strength lies within our own hearts, just like in the case of little Gerda in "The Snow Queen."
I hope that you, dear reader, will receive some bright moments in the darkest times of the year, in the company of H.C. Andersen's complex characters, and that you will enjoy the beautiful descriptions of nature and the lovely illustrations.

...AND I'LL TRY NOT TO SING OUT OF KEY

Hugtto Pretty Cure - Episode 21
My Own Review
 ...AND I'LL TRY NOT TO SING OUT OF KEY

With Cure Ma Chérie and Cure Amour joining the team, what ever could happen next?

Emiru and Lulu opened this week's episode!

 

With Lulu and Emiru joining the ranks as Cure Amour and Cure Ma Chérie respectively, they ask the other three what is most important for a PreCure.

Hana gives a typical Hana answer, "trust your feelings," and Saaya and Homare interpret that to mean fellowship (nakama).

PreCures aren’t the only ones getting new additions to their team.

Gelos joins the management team at Cryasse. It is also made ever clearer that the president of the company is not exactly what he seems.

(IE. The Great and Powerful Kurai is actually a hologram projected by Listol)

Jenos introducing herself and it annoyed Papple especially she was forced to listen to Kurai's tantrums. Although Jenos still greeted Papple as her senior, it's obvious that Jenos will definitely overshadow her. Furthermore, Ristle pushed several buttons on his console and Kurai just happen to appear to get angry with Papple. (The plot thickens)

Emiru is ready to transform over the smallest thing

Moving on, Harry’s shop becomes quite busy and the girls help out. When a woman panics about losing her purse, Emiru misunderstands and thinks her bag is a threat. She almost transforms into Cure Ma Chérie, but Homare puts a halt to that.

 Harry asks Emiru to run an errand for him – he needs her to buy nappies, milk and various other things for Hugtan. Emiru isn’t too eager to go, until Harry tells her that she will be patrolling at the same time.

Emiru and Lulu on patrol

Much like before, Emiru is ready to transform into Cure Ma Chérie at the drop of a hat. However, any trouble they come across turns out to be totally inconsequential.


After Emiru and Lulu reintroduce themselves to the girls as the new Cures, the girls help around Harry's shop. But Emiru being Emiru, she overreacts to everything: like a customer misplacing her wallet, an elderly lady crossing the road even though she has the right of way, and even thinking that a wild theender appeared where it was just the sales promoter announcing the special offers. 

After getting the shopping, Lulu and Emiru go and take a break. Emiru has her guitar with her, but Lulu thinks that it sounds gloomy. Emiru feels like she has given her all, and not got anything she rightfully deserves in exchange... the reason why she is playing out of key are these doubts about her identity. She ends up running off, leaving Lulu to return to Harry’s shop alone.

Lulu felt anger towards Emiru

 Lulu talks to Hana and Saaya about Emiru. She reveals that she feels a little anger towards Emiru, and worries that she has become her enemy. However, they tell her that the frustration she feels is because she loves (dai/suki) Emiru. Lulu is worried about Emiru's frustrations. However, the others ensure her that as long as Lulu cares for Emiru, things will work out.

Homare and Harry find Emiru 

Homare and Harry (with Hug-tan in tow) end up finding Emiru sulking in a playground cave, and ask what happened. Emiru tells them she got angry and took it out on Lulu, and now she feels unfit to be a PreCure. However, after Emiru explained her frustrations, Homare asks which made and makes Emiru happier: becoming a PreCure per se, or becoming a PreCure together with Lulu. (That rhetorical question really hit the spot!) 

Emiru honestly replied that being together with Lulu is much happier. Harry even added that her giving up the sole Preheart to Lulu in the previous episode is a selfless act which makes Emiru worthy to be a Precure. (Emiru thanked Harry and called him "Ratty" -"Nezumi-san"-, which annoyed Harry off a bit)

I AM NOT A BLOODY RAT!!!

 Harry also says that Emiru is more than qualified to be a PreCure, and Hugtan agrees as well.

As Emiru joined them back, Harry questioned himself of why Hug-tan has not restored to normal despite all eight Future crystals having appeared...

Lulu and Emiru sing together

After that, Emiru goes back to Lulu to find her attempting to put together a song. It isn’t very good. No matter, as the two are back together and they enjoy singing together, though the results of this duet are far from stellar.

It’s time to fill that monster of the week quota once again, and Papple is the one who summons it from an angry park cleaner as the victim of the week.

 Lulu and Emiru are close to where the theender du jour appears, so they transform and take it on.

They have the upper hand at first, but then Papple powers up the theender when Gelos appears to belittle her.
 

 

Hey, I am the cadre of the week, you bitch. Stay out of this show. After all, this Standard Evil Organization Squad only has room for one Vamp/Baroness...

Cure Amour and Cure Ma Chérie

The fight continues, and Emiru’s guitar ends up getting caught in the battle. The theender breaks it when it tries to attack Amour, but Ma Chérie saves her in true diving-save style.

She can’t do the same for the guitar, though.

After Emiru and Lulu reconciled, Papple created a theender from a cleaner which forced the pair to transform. They were getting the upper hand when Papple increased the theender's power and the pair were caught off guard. (Jenos was watching from behind and came up with measures against the Cures).

Cure Amour tried to protect Emiru's Guitar from the theender's blows but Cure Ma Chérie pushed her away and the guitar was destroyed. The other three girls arrived to join the fight and finished off the theender together.

The others arrive, making this the first time that all five Cures have fought together. As you might expect, the theender doesn’t last much longer after that. 

 

Once it is defeated, both Gelos and Papple leave. Stage left, as usual.

Cure Amour blames herself for what happened to Emiru’s guitar

Amour feels that she is the one to blame for the guitar getting broken. However, Ma Chérie says that as long as she is able to protect Amour, that is all that really matters.

Ma Chérie than asks the other Cures to hand over their Melody Swords so it will be easier for her to protect those precious to her.

The others aren’t giving up their Melody Swords, but it seems that Hugtan has something in mind.

She doesn’t produce new Melody Swords out of thin air; no, instead, she somehow warps in two girls that long time PreCure fans will be very familiar with.

Although Emiru's guitar was destroyed, Cure Ma Chérie asked if they could lend the Melody sword for the next battle but the others claimed it is quite impossible. Hug-tan suddenly used her power to create a portal and out came...Cure Black and Cure White!?

Cure Black and Cure White

This is exactly where the episode ends, so we’ll have to wait until next time to see what the OG Futari wa Cures have in store for us.
You know, every week I watch Hugtto! PreCure and think that it has peaked. Every week, this show manages to prove me wrong. It can’t keep getting better all the time, but for the moment that is definitely the case.
We got more Emilu goodness from this episode, and that makes me very happy. I don’t know what PreCure fans like myself have done to deserve this, but I certainly won’t complain.
Hugtto! PreCure is already a massively strong contender for my favourite anime of this year, and it hasn’t even hit the halfway point yet.
Lulu going after Emiru when she went out on patrol was absolutely adorable, and we have more of Lulu coming to terms with various emotions. Lulu’s story has been one of the strongest PreCure has ever offered, I reckon.
That brings us to what happened at the end of the episode – something that Toei seemingly managed to actually keep quiet about for once. Twitter, not so much…
Maybe Toei were making noise about it, and I just happened to completely avoid it. No matter what the case is, it is absolutely incredible to see the original generation PreCures show up – Nagisa Misumi and Honoka Yukishiro, AKA Cure Black and Cure White, of Futari wa fame.
They are their Max Heart incarnations – you can tell because Cure Black’s midriff is covered up.
I knew that Cure Black and Cure White would be appearing in the upcoming Hugtto! PreCure film, but didn’t expect to see them in the TV series. I hope that they bring their opening theme along as well, as it is one of my favourites from within the entire franchised – rivaled only by Splash Star‘s opening theme.
The current plot of Hugtto! PreCure has been impressive, and now the hype levels shoot up with the arrival of the two characters that started it all.


Let this series focus on our main cast okay, that’s our latest two additions: Emiru and Lulu.

One of the main reasons why I am already stressed out just by their appearance is because ever since Lulu’s and Emiru’s arc as begun, the original trio has had virtually no air time, no time to further develop their characters and worst of all, there has been a severe lack of interaction between the five of them as whole. Since Lulu and Emiru are now part of the team, I want to see the group interact altogether, as oppose to being divided into what Lulu and Emiru could be described as “Sub Unit” (or West Coast Team) at the moment. In fact, this episode was the first time the five of them as a group were there to fight, and it will take one more episode before Emiru and Lulu receive their own respective “Melody Swords”, which will be a Guitar for the two of them (since Emiru’s guitar has been destroyed during the fight).… and that yet another thing that is troubling to me.

See, the two of them just became precures… Like yesterday. Today was their second fight, and their third fight will be against Puapple’s “Unleashed Form” or One-Winged Angel form. So this fight will effectively provide Emiru and Lulu their editions of the Melody Swords and defeat the second boss, and to proceed to the next level, Gelos and the others… and I am not exactly a fan of that. Of course one could argue they are a group of five now, naturally they should be able to be stronger altogether, but considering Emiru and Lulu had only undergone two major fights, I find it a little too convenient for them to get it this soon… But I suppose there’s no other way, or else they really will remain as a Sub Unit/West Coast Team…

With Papple getting a taste of her own medicine, be it one she inflicted on herself in desperate attempt to save face, or someone else caused her to become this way, it looks like this will be Papple’s last stand. She will be effectively replaced by Gelos, George’s latest recruit. This is of course Round 2 of the fight they had against Charalit when he was buffed up into this kind of monster.

Speaking of the devils, it turns out my suspicions were right. The dude in blue (Listol), has completely duped both Charalit and Papple into thinking the big shadowy face of Kurai above them is the CEO talking. Think "Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz." The truth is, he is the one controlling this feed of him, delivering the script and pulling the strings. It is likely this man is serving as George’s figurehead, which only makes it even crazier, when you realize that Papple probably has no idea her so-called “boyfriend” is the head of the organization. When she does fall, it will be interesting to see if we see any reaction from George at all, and what will become of her afterwards. Charalit has been seen to be doing his own thing, but doesn’t appear to be affiliated with the company anymore, and we haven’t seen him interact with them since they kicked him out.

Going back to Hugtan, Harry revealed to (only) the audience one of the secrets he is concerned about, and that is Hugtan’s condition. They already have eight future crystals, and yet Hugtan has yet to return to her original form. She is clearly absorbing its power, but she is using it in different means other than for herself. What’s crazy is that, even in this form she is insanely powerful, first blocking off attacks and now she can summon Precures from another time/realm?! It actually makes me wonder, even though the crystals help restore her power, it might not necessarily  mean she will be able to recover her original form. The price she had to pay for them to get away, or a curse that may have been inflicted onto her, could be preventing her from doing so. As result this would mean she has no choice but to grow up naturally, as fast as any other muggle human baby would. If they were to go this direction, it would be quite a dramatic revelation, since more often than not, we have seen instances where the powers help them grow up faster, a fine example would be with Mahou Tsukai’s Precure Kotoha (Ha-chan), who started off as a baby and rapidly grew up into a form of a young girl. Or Hotaru Tomoe, for that matter.

On the side note: Hugtan imitating: “Be Serious” to Harry was the cutest darn thing!

Overall this episode wasn’t the most exciting, but we still got a lot of things things out of it.. It didn’t surprise me to see Emiru going overboard with the whole “precure duties” thing. She is incredibly enthusiastic about helping others, and has a selfless heart, and part of her character to overdo everything, which is why Lulu needed to go with her to do errands. I am not entirely sure if she realized it herself this episode, but she definitely needs to think carefully of when she should actually use her power.

I also expected Emiru to struggle with having confidence in her role as a precure, because she can be a clumsy girl, and sometimes instead of being helpful, she make things more complicated. But she’s not dumb either. She knew she messed up on countless occasions, and as result, she like she was failing to live up to what is expected of her as a Precure. Thankfully the others were there to support her, trying to give her other means and ways to contribute her part. I loved how Harry gave her the errand and told her she was in charge of patrolling around town, I thought it was adorable. I also found it sweet with how he explained to her selflessness of wanting to give up the Preheart to Lulu is the same quality that the prehearts are made out of, and she has already proved herself she is absolutely qualified to be a Precure.

Before we get to what happened at the end, I felt this episode is a typical "Sixth Ranger introduction" scenario. What I mean is that when a new member joined halfway through the team, the new member will have doubts or worries if he or she could become part of the team.

Both Emiru and Lulu were wondering their purposes and reasons of becoming Precures and again it is repeating the same things in the previous episode in which the three senior Cures giving pep talk and encouragement for the pair to believe each other.

The battle was all right at least Cure Ma Chérie and Cure Amour didn't have to sing when they went to battle and their combination attacks are still spot on since they worked as one unit.

Harry's worries is also concerned since he did mentioned before that all eight Future Crystals are needed for Hug-tan to grow back to normal but nothing has happened which I am suspecting that there is probably one missing element that it was not hinted to Harry. (If Hug-tan is restored back to normal then the story will have end faster)

Jenos was a bit of a snob when she appeared in front of the generals and Papple is defintely desperate as she is worried that Jenos might replace her and seeing how Papple becomes a One-Winged Angel like Charalit did before in the next episode, this could be the end of Papple. Furthermore, Ristle's actions seem like he is controlling their leader, Kurai, but for what purpose? Perhaps is to keep the organization afloat until the real Kurai returns?

Of course, the big surpise which no one see this coming was Cure Black and Cure White's appearance! Hug-tan is probably one of the most amazing characters in Precure History as she was able to bring the two Legendary Cures into the present. It probably explain how the Hugtto Team will meet their Seniors Cures in the upcoming crossover movie this October with Hug-tan's powers.

I have a feeling that Cure Black and Cure White were pulled out from their timeline which explained why they looked the same fifteen years ago (ie each and every continuity is set in a different timeline --more or less, considering the existence of Ranko and Ranze Ichijo--). It also make sense to guest star as the two Senior Cures will be able to give advice to Cure Ma Chérie and Cure Amour who are paying homages to them. (But seriously, Toei, I want the senior Cures to grow up otherwise it doesn't make sense if they looked the same in their own series all these years)

But I am really happy to see Cure Black and Cure White again although where is Shining Luminous? She might not have combat abilities but she is also a part of the Max Heart team. (Maybe Rie Tanaka is busy with her married life?)

This is probably the first time when a senior Precure team guest star in a current Precure series aside from the movies' team-up.
 

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
Emiru's identity crisis - Breakup and makeup

The Emilu moments
The negative emotion of the week was the anger of a stressed park cleaner. Trust me, I am typing this after an exam that put a lot of pressure on me, with a pretty harsh lecturer who subtracts points for every single error, and this week I could not have been more tense.

Papple on the last leg - Papple vs. Gelos / The upcoming last stand

Renewed Shall Be the Strings that Were Broken / Emiru and Towa / When was the last time a red Precure had her signature string instrument, which meant the world to her, crushed by the enemy?



IN NEXT EPISODE (21):

 Hug-tan just summoned the original Futari wa Precures...

 

 A one-winged baroness rises...

 The vital space of legends is invaded by a fangirl...

A battle couple of lustrums ago passes the swords to their successors...

 RENEWED SHALL BE THE STRINGS THAT WERE BROKEN.