THE KIRAKIRA À LA MODE FILMS

The best things to see on this poster are Akira before the Arc de Triomphe and Yukari before the Tour Eiffel...

KiraKira ☆ à la Mode: Crisply! The Memory of Millefeuille! is the 23rd Pretty Cure film produced by Toei Animation. The director for the film is Yutaka Tsuchida, and the screenplay is by Isao Murayama.
Besides the main feature, there is an animated short called Petits ☆ Dream Stars! Let’s・La・Cookin’? Showtime! as well.
I’d recommend watching the film before reading this post, as I want to discuss some events that could be considered spoilers. Though some of these were featured when the TV series’ opening credits were previewing the film, but I figure sticking a spoiler warning here is probably appropriate.

Now for the main feature, KiraKira ☆ à la Mode: Crisply! The Memory of Millefeuille!
In this film, the pâtisserie Cures travel to Paris in order to participate in a famous sweets contest. However, Ciel ends up losing her ability to make sweets after an encounter with an evil whisk.
Meanwhile, Ciel’s mentor, Jean-Pierre Silberstein (that Germanic surname implies a Lorrainian background, from eastern France at the German border) is pursuing the creation of the Ultimate Sweet, together with the help of a ghost pixie (yousei), in the shape of a green-haired chef doll, named Cook. 

Cure Parfait is the star of the show here

As you may be able to guess, Ciel is pretty much the star of the show here, but the other Cures are more or less relegated to supporting roles. The pâtisserie Cures are already a fairly sizeable group, and then you have a cameo appearance as well. Not everyone is going to be able to get equal billing in the film’s runtime.

Let’s talk a little about a couple of important characters. Presumably anyone choosing to watch this film will already be familiar with the pâtisserie Cures, so I won’t really talk too much about them.

Jean-Pierre Silberstein

Jean-Pierre is Ciel’s mentor, and who had a brief appearance in the TV series from what I can recall. Here, we get to see exactly what he is like, and it turns out he is eccentric. He can also be quite harsh towards Ciel, especially with her cooking abilities being diminished.

The ghost yousei, Cook

Another important character in this film is Cook. She is a ghost pixie – because apparently we needed more than one of those. Though the Elder insists that he’s not a ghost…
She is very insistent on Jean-Pierre completing the Ultimate Sweet, though it seems she cares little for kira-kiraru.

Anyone else got a craving for lobster thermidor?

The pâtisserie Cures end up acquiring animal forms

As tends to be the case for the Pretty Cure films, there is a part where the antagonist is able to get one up on the heroines. That happens in this film, though that whole sequence might just be one of the silliest examples of a villain getting the upper hand.
It begins with the enemy analysing each of the Cures, and using magic to change their forms to make them easier to deal with. Well, they can’t quite get a handle on Yukari, which amused me quite a bit.
Actually, Yukari stole the show for me. She gets some of the best lines, and she just seems to take almost everything in her stride. Yukari was already my favourite character --alongside Akira-- to begin with, so perhaps I’m just biased here.

This is about the closest the film comes to any yuri

Though KiraKira ☆ à la Mode gave us the prominent pairing of Yukari and Akira (a LEGENDARY OTP), don’t expect to see any of that in this film. In fact, there’s maybe a couple of minor moments starring Ciel, but you’d have to stick to the TV series for the more prominent yuri.
I didn’t really expect all that much, to be honest. If if Yukari or Akira had been the central character, perhaps the case would have been different. But this is Ciel’s film, and Bilberry is nowhere to be seen (ditto Giulio, for that matter).

When it comes down to it, KiraKira ☆ à la Mode: Crisply! The Memory of Millefeuille! feels like just another good episode of the TV series, but just a bit longer. I enjoyed watching it, though it’s not my favourite PreCure film.
Of course, feeling like a feature-length episode of the TV series does mean that there’s not much in the way of physical combat.

I’ve already mentioned how some Cures only serve a supporting role in this film. Fans of Ciel will certainly find enjoyment here, but don’t expect too much from any of the others.
I will say that it might just be worth checking out for the hilarity of the animal Cures alone, though. And it will certainly leave you with a craving for lobster thermidor with millefeuille for dessert!

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 Pretty Cure Dream Stars! is the 22nd animated film in the Pretty Cure franchise, and the successor to the All Stars films. It was first released in Japanese theatres on March 18th 2017, not too long after KiraKira ☆ à la Mode had started airing. This is the first film in the PreCure franchise to feature the KiraKira à la Mode Cures.

If you’ve watched any other PreCure film before, you’ll probably be familiar with one of the Cures and/or yousei directly addressing the audience at the beginning (as if we were watching Henry V!). Dream Stars! takes those fourth wall shenanigans even further, and actually has characters appear “on stage” as it were to ask for the audience’s help. This happens right in the middle of a couple of scenes.
Whilst KiraKira ☆ à la Mode has toned down the fights, Dream Stars! actually sticks with the more typical physical fistfights. The inevitable fight against big bad Samidare might just be my favourite within the film, but the other fight scenes were pretty enjoyable as well.

Yui Nanase meets Akira Kenjo

During the course of the film Yukari and Akira go to Go! Princess‘s Noble Academy. As you might expect, some silliness ensues – the screenshots above providing an example of that.

Yukari has a pretty interesting reaction towards Akira’s approach.

I found that Dream Stars! doesn’t really manage to deliver the same hype as the first All Stars films did. Having the Cures join a fight accompanied by their theme tunes will probably never be topped.

When it comes down to it, though, it is just another PreCure film. Pretty much just an extended standalone episode,, and if you enjoyed the TV series than you’ll probably get some entertainment out of this film as well. I did highlight some things that I wasn’t keen on, but overall I did enjoy watching Dream Stars!.

PS. Our OTPs of last continuities are BACK for the next All Stars film, All Stars Memories!!! In the opening theme of today's Star*Twinkle episode, we got to see them getting up to shenanigans and boy, didn't they deliver!

Amour holding Ma Chérie in a bridal carry - like, OVER THE THRESHOLD style!

Amour and Ma Chérie attack, shoulder to shoulder

Saaya meets Akira

There is some silliness to be found with the three different teams meeting up. We get some Saaya x Akira kabedon – Akira did the same thing to Yui Nanase at Noble Academy in Dream Stars!, so perhaps Toei intend for it to be something of a running gag. And Yukari still doesn't give a hoot about her significant other's penchant for wall-pinning flirtation!

IN WHICH THE TAURUS COLOUR PEN IS FOUND

Star*Twinkle Pretty Cure - Episode 3
My Own Review
IN WHICH THE TAURUS COLOUR PEN IS FOUND

In the third episode of Star ☆ Twinkle, Hikaru and Lala find themselves butting heads in regards to their approach to their mission.

Hikaru swore she could hear a sound coming from her pendant but Lala refused to listen to her and preferred focusing on examining the data analysis instead.

(Lala's sleep deprivation may have played a part in this third-episode squabble)

Lala has Hikaru’s Star Colour Pendant analysed

Previously, the Star Colour Pendant made a noise. However, it has gone quiet since then, so Lala has it analysed in her AI. Prunce suggests that the noise is related to the PreCures' mission to retrieve the Star Princesses’ powers. Upon hearing that, Hikaru grabs the Pendant and goes off to search for it, despite the analysis not being finished.

Lala soon gets fed up with Hikaru

Lala follows after Hikaru, keeping in contact with her AI. The Pendant makes another sound, which Hikaru tries to tell Lala about. Lala is more concerned with the analysis, and she is also not a big fan of being treated as an adult by Hikaru. Add Lala's sleep deprivation to the mix - and what you get is a very high-strung Lala who flies off the handle at the drop of a hat!

I am a box!

Hikaru and a not very happy Lala
 

Hikaru ends up leading Lala to a place where there are loads of people. Fortunately, Lala easily blends in as a human (elven ears and all), whilst Prunce manages to pass as a helium balloon. Hikaru gets some doughnuts, and the shop owner tells her about a recent UFO sighting, as well as a giant pink firefly.

Hikaru and Lala continue to argue

After picking up her doughnuts, Hikaru goes back to Lala and tries to tell her about the firefly. Lala has no interest in that, and the two end up arguing about how they refer to each other.
It even got worse when Hikaru dragged Lala to the town centre as Hikaru tried to gather information from the various stores but failed to explain to Lala her motive and nearly got heated up if not for one Elena (Our Third Precure!) intervene with her warm demeanour.

Lala and Hikaru meet Elena Amamiya

Another girl steps in as the pair argue. The girl is Elena Amamiya, the sun of Mihoshi Secondary School. Elena tells Hikaru and Lala that to get along, they should listen to what each other has to say.

 Elena even gave a pep talk of how her siblings have disagreements but they need to talk to one other so they can understand each other (remember, she's the firstborn out of seven!). She even bid farewell to the two girls before heading back to her flower shop named "Sonrisa" which is "Smile" in Spanish. If Hikaru is the Brawn and Lala is the Brains then Elena is the Peacemaker as being the oldest among the girls.

After she departs, Hikaru and Lala still aren’t seeing eye-to-eye.

Meanwhile, as Kappard is nursing his wounds at the customary lake (this time, taking a waterfall shower), he gets an unexpected visit from... the tengu-themed, wattle-haired, crimson-skinned, leotard-rocking sexpot baroness of this continuity!

Meet Tenjou. She's kind of a big deal.

We were also introduce to our new general after Kappard named Tenjou who is based on the Tengu. Furthermore we also get to know the Big Bad named Gaoger (Gaoga?) who ordered Kappard to return. (Like with all these cadres, the fear of being cashiered by the overlord and replaced with someone else will put Kappard under pressure till the last stand and subsequently being purified/heel-face-turn, right?)

Fuwa’s crying brings Hikaru and Lala’s argument to a swift end

Hikaru goes to search for the pink firefly, with Lala following claiming that she is only interested in the Pendant. Hikaru is just about to say something she would regret, but quickly stops when Fuwa starts crying.

Fuwawawaaa

Of course Hikaru and Lala got carried away again due to disagreement and it had Fuwa in tears. (The cute alien can pull some heartstrings with its innocence)

Lala and Hikaru are finally able to put their differences aside

Thanks to Fuwa, Hikaru and Lala stop arguing. By working together, they are able to locate a Star Colour Pen. Most probably the Taurus pen.
The girls finally calm down to give each other to explain their reasons and also found the Taurus Princess Pen at the same time. 

However, a knotraider snatches it away before Hikaru or Lala can pick it up.

Tenjou

The knotraider hands the Pen to its leader, Tenjou. She came to Earth in pursuit of the Star Princesses’ powers, and is pleased to get one of the Star Colour Pens. Hikaru and Lala have no intention of just handing it over, though.

FAN FORMATION!! (Since tengus use airbending fans as their weapon of choice, this arrangement of the ranks is not surprising)
Tenjou is more scheming as she actually used her mooks to keep the girls at bay with her formation stances until Cure Milkyway figured out her weakness during the battle.

So it is clear that the Raiders are after the Star Princesses and Fuwa so they could eliminate all light in the universe and plunge everything into darkness as it was later explained by the Taurus Princess.

Cure Star asks Milkyway to analyse the situation

Hikaru and Lala transform, and Cure Star attacks. However, Tenjou is a better leader than Kappard, a real strategist, and Cure Star finds herself getting zapped with lasers.

Unable to get close to the enemy, Cure Star asks Milkyway to analyse the situation.

 Milkyway agrees, and finds the soft spot in Tenjou's mook formation; then the pair try a second attack together.

Cure Star gets the Taurus Star Colour Pen

Cure Star and Milkyway’s attack leaves an opening for Milkyway to snatch the Pen away from Tenjou. She throws it to Cure Star, who is able to use it to power up her Star Punch (the Taurus power-up lends super strength). Tenjou retreats before she can get hit by the attack.

Speaking of the Taurus Princess, Cure Star used her power to create a more powerful Star Punch that explode on impact just like a familiar Gold Saint's Taurus Power. The sequence where the girls activated the Taurus Princess Pen in the Twinkle Book was pretty cool and Fuwa wore a cute Taurus-like costume for the girls to enter the Star Palace.

Taurus Fuwa (AKA Moowa)

After the battle, Hikaru and Lala use the Star Colour Pent to grant Fuwa the power of the Taurus constellation, which temporarily changes her form.

Moowa!

The Princess of Taurus

Having reclaimed the Taurus Star Colour Pen, the Princess of Taurus is able to return to the Star Palace.

She tells PreCures to restore the remaining eleven constellations, so stars won’t fade. Hikaru and Lala swear to protect them.

She tells PreCures to restore the remaining eleven constellations, so stars won’t fade. Hikaru and Lala swear to protect them.

After they return from their visit to the Star Palace, Hikaru apologises, and everything ends on a happy note. Also worth noting that Hikaru and Lala start referring to each other with just their given names.

So one down, eleven more to go; as the search for the Star Princesses continues; which I hope they don't rush into things and hopefully get more character and plot development before the 1st half of the season ends.

Overall, an all right episode as it is a set up for things to come and Elena is going to join the girls as Cure Soleil in the next episode. Until then, see you in the next post!

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
1) Lala having a Pendant makes her finally able to communicate with all Earthlings. Just like having a Babelfish stuck up her ear canal.
2) Elena's debut: "My younger siblings all squabble quite often." Sometimes it makes one proud to be an only child.

Can’t forget to mention Elena. It was only a brief appearance, but she is going to be a much more important character from the next episode onwards. Very much looking forward to seeing her debut as a Cure.
2.5) Spanish, Latina, or Italian? For starters, the name of the family business being Sonrisa (instead of Sorriso) is canon. That rules one of the three possibilities out. However, the typeface in which the title was written could belong anywhere in the Hispanidad (the Spanish-speaking counterpart of the Anglosphere and Francophonie).
However, it won't be until next week that we get our first Elena focus episode and see our dark-skinned blonde become Soleil; then all of our doubts on her descent will be confirmed...
3) The arrival of the baroness cadre du jour: TENGU THEME CONFIRMED. And that combination of baroness leotards and plague doctor's mask with chicken wattles...
3.5) Tenjou making an entrance: Papple, Gelos, Mammo, EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT.
4) Stonewall Tenjou: she is far more of a strategist than her male foil Kappard.
We also got a new villain. Tenjou is clearly a tengu, so at this point the theme for the enemies is clearly youkai.
5) The Taurus pen and its Fuwa form and released Star Princess: HOLY COW -no pun intended-!!
Power-up: super strength
Fuwa mode: cow (Moowa)
(What we were all waiting for): REVIVAL OF THE TAURUS PRINCESS.
This episode was also our first proper glimpse of a Star Princess, and how their power affects PreCures. For now it only seems to strengthen their attacks, but I could see other constellations providing different benefits.

This was another great episode of Star ☆ Twinkle, that brings to mind a few of the older seasons where pairs of Cures didn’t exactly get along first – most notably Suite.
Still, by overcoming their differences, Hikaru and Lala have grown that much closer. It’s definitely a good step towards seeing more Hikaru x Lala in the future, potentially.

Lala and Hikaru were butting heads this week while they were off to search for the Star Princesses’ power. Their impatience and stubbornness with one another and lack of communication of what they were trying to do or knew blew up into a quite a messy fight. It took Fuwa to snap them out of it to stop Hikaru from saying something she would regret later on. They were finally able to get on the same page and listen to each other thanks to Elena’s advice. (Can we just take moment and appreciate how BEAUTIFUL she is?! I’ll stop here because I know I will be gushing about her next week).

Today, having successfully retrieved the power of the Taurus Star Princess, we learned more about the nature of the pen’s powers, and how they are connected to the Fuwa. It turns out it is essential for Fuwa to obtain the Star Princesses’ power, and once she does, Fuwa can actually change form. (And I thought her Taurus form "Moowa" to be the cutest thing ever, I almost wished she stayed that way. Maybe we’ll see her transform into it for future fights!) This explains a lot why the Knotraiders are determined to get a hold of both Fuwa and the pens.

We also got to see the demonstration of the pen’s power when its own its own. For starters, it doesn’t possess anything like I initially imagined it to be, instead it just glows. Hopefully they won’t all be as plain as that, since it kind of feelings like a little bit of a missed opportunity to see the power going out of control or possessing something that would have the precure need to hunt and capture it besides simply fighting against the Knotraiders. However when they do get ahold of it, they are able to use it for themselves. To my surprise, it wasn’t any flashy, but perhaps because of its nature being aligned to Hikaru’s “punch” styled attacked. All it did was buff up her Star Punch and changed its color to peachy pink, to match Taurus’ pen.

Another interesting tidbit were about the villains themselves and their different objectives. First we got a name drop of an individual who has authority to give orders (and could potentially be the one leading the Knotraiders) Garuohga. Then we learn while Kappard is on the mission to capture Fuwa, while his female colleague Tenjou has arrived not to compete with him, but to hunt down the Star Princesses’ power. Unfortunately her debut was kind of blah. I thought it was a bit of a shame that we couldn’t see her make use of the pen powers right away, especially since she actually had it in her hands thanks to a capable rank-and-file mook. But it’s understandable if it needs to be messed with first so it can become compatible with those otherPrecures. Perhaps it’s just her approach of the fight that made it lacklustre. She definitely seems to be more like a tactician than a fighter, considering the way Lala was responsible for figuring out how to overcome her formation.

Overall it was an solid episode, nothing particularly amazing, but it wasn’t boring either, even with the fight between the two. I actually liked seeing the two butting heads (fittingly for a Taurus focused episode). We were able to see another side of both of their characters, and put the spotlight on their flaws we can keep track of to see how both of them will evolve throughout the series. Hikaru was just as I expected her to be, impatient, whiny, and all about the adventure, while Lala was more grounded, calm and wanted to wait and obtain more data so they can make better use of their time and energy.

Next week, CURE SOLEIL! <3 OH I CAN’T WAIT FOR HER DEBUT!

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NEXT EPISODE (4):

 Sola ante el peligro, Elena enfrenta un ataque zerg bajo un cielo ominoso...

 Aunque entre las nubes más oscuras siempre terminará brillando y calentando el SOL...

POST SCRIPTUM:
Finally, I want to talk a little about the new visuals that were released for the PreCure Miracle Universe films that were released very recently.

Now, take a look at the characters featured here. Putting harihari Harry aside, we have the most prominent yuri couples (and my les OTPs) from the past two seasons of PreCure, AkiYuka / Yukakira (Macaron de Chocolat) and Emilu (Twin Love). However, we also have Elena Amamiya and Madoka Kaguya from Star ☆ Twinkle – the current season.
So perhaps this visual is a hint of things to come between Elena and Madoka. … (Possible OTPairing name: Soluna?) Or maybe it’s just a silly promotional image that I am reading too much into. Only time will tell.