Delicious Party Precure

Episodes 28-29

I'm not sure I ever saw myself saying this, but I hope we haven't seen the last of Narcistoru. Episode twenty-eight finally gave us a tantalizing glimpse of his backstory, and it looks to be one of the saddest elements of the series – the reason he steals people's food-based memories is because he appears to have only bad ones himself. In a twisted way, he may even see himself as helping others, because if they don't have memories of food, they can't be hurt like he clearly was. Alternatively, we could read it as him trying to take other people's positive food memories for himself, using others' warm feelings to try to heat his own heart. In either case, he was unsuccessful, but now that he's in the custody of the CooKingdom, he may have a shot at reformation. Or being kept in captivity will just make him even more angry at food, but I'd like to hope that his imprisonment is a chance for him to heal his soul. This is Pretty Cure, not real life, after all.

While Narcistoru's final battle is the true meat of these two episodes, the girls' trip to the CooKingdom is a lovely bit of fluff that manages to still have some serious plot points thrown in. Fennel and Mari let us know that rather than a naturally occurring substance (as I had assumed), Delicioustones are manufactured, specifically by someone called “the Master.” That makes the Bundoru Gang's possession of a Special Delicioustone more alarming, because it means that they've learned to make them for themselves; if they'd been somehow acquiring them, their source could have been hunted down and stopped, but if they have the means to make them, it's going to be that much harder to stop the production.

And Secretoru, who we finally see in action this week, is clearly the brains of the operation. Even if we put aside the fact that she's reprogrammed Spiritoru, she's the only Bundoru member we've seen try to actually infiltrate the CooKingdom, and the fact that she fools Mari and Fennel is not a great sign for either of them. Cerfeuil, the young knight trainee who gets to show the girls around, does spot her, but that feels less like his perspicacity and more the case of the child in The Emperor's New Clothes – the only person who knows to speak up when something's out of place. Cerfeuil is also a lovely example of facing your fears to overcome them, but I don't think we can forget that the top two fighters failed to spot the villain among them.

It's a shame Takumi didn't get to go with everyone, but it also makes sense, since he's still really leery of letting the Cures know that he's Black Pepper. It isn't entirely clear why (is it the tight pants?), but since it's likely to have to do with redeeming Cinnamon, it does make sense to hold back on that particular reveal for now – Mari only first mentions to Fennel that Cinnamon might have been framed this week. Black Pepper might also have taken away from Cerfeuil's moment, and since Cerfeuil could become a bigger piece of the puzzle, I can understand why they wouldn't want to jeopardize that. I can't help but notice that if Narcistoru is reformed, we'll have three boys (possibly boy fighters) to the four girls, so it feels worthwhile to see if a fourth is introduced.

The big Cure news of these episodes is that ※Kome-※Kome's girl transformation finally appears to have a use beyond cuteness. While I was sort of hoping that she'd get to be a fifth Cure, providing them with their powerup is still pretty great, and Party Candle TAKT looks really nice. Their new outfits are fancy without being fussy, and if Finale's veil is weirdly bridal, well, I feel like Precious' sleeves make up for that. (They don't, really; I just like them.) Between that and the glimpse of the past few seasons of Cures showing up in cameos at the end of episode twenty-eight, these are two really solid episodes, the fact that the CooKingdom looks like where the child of Willy Wonka and Strawberry Shortcake would live notwithstanding.

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Delicious Party♡Precure is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.