User blog:GlitterInformer/Doki Doki! Pretty Cure/Glitter Force Doki Doki SDC: Episode 42 (Sub)

Episode 41 (Sub) | Table of Contents '''Japanese title: “Let’s All Celebrate Together! My First Birthday!”'''



Including this episode, we only have 8 episodes left to go of ''Doki Doki! Pretty Cure''. Despite this, we don’t know all that much about Aguri. Why does she have amnesia? How did she meet Ai and become a Pretty Cure? Why is she even more determined than any of the other girls to defeat King Jikochuu, as shown by her aging up after transforming? In the dub, how does she know she comes from Splendorius? And why does she seem to have a connection with the queen?

From what I’ve read on the wiki, this episode and next episode (mostly next episode) will get into Aguri’s backstory. Even though this episode is going to focus on something as mundane as a birthday party, it seems like we’ll be getting more of a backstory for our main characters!

The episode starts with a flashback to the final battle of the Trump Kingdom, where Queen Ange is talking directly to King Jikochuu himself. Her mouth, by the way, is a bit too big for her face. Hopefully, we won’t be getting animation slip-ups like this throughout the episode.



Arisu can’t come up with an alibi, so she asks Sebastian to come up with one for her. Unfortunately, the lie is extremely nonsensical. Sebastian says that Arisu wanted to eat pancakes but ran out of honey, so she came to Mari to get some. He then repeats “no honey” (“hachimitsu nai”) over and over, shortens it to “mitsunai”, and then says, “Naimitsu!” (“Secrecy!”) If this episode were dubbed, Saban would have had to change Sebastian’s entire alibi, as not even the subtitles could properly translate the Japanese-dependent puns here.

After Arisu and Sebastian head out, Aguri asks Mari what that was all about and Mari says she has no idea.

Inside the house, Aguri is annoyed that everyone’s acting strangely and avoiding her. She unpacks her groceries, and as a nice callback to episode 42, we see that Aguri bought some carrots. Now that I think about it, it’s strange that a ten-year-old is being sent out to go shopping all by herself. Maybe things are different in Japan. But in America, if a ten-year-old was shopping by herself, she’d immediately be asked where her parents are and if she’s lost.

Anyway, even though Aguri just did shopping for dinner tonight, Mari says that they’re going to be eating out at the Piggy’s Tail at 6 P.M. Aguri’s suspicious, so she arrives early and sneaks around trying to find out what the others are planning. To her surprise, when she looks through the window, she sees that her friends are setting up a birthday party for her. Even Sharuru, Raquel, and Lance are joining in with their human forms! Also, it’s interesting to see that Makoto started the series completely inept at cooking and ended it being able to make a delicious birthday cake for Aguri.

Aguri wonders why the girls kept the birthday party a secret from her. Apparently, she’s never heard of a surprise party before. Fortunately, Mari guesses she’d be out here and tells Aguri to be thankful, as even though her friends didn’t know when her birthday was, they still threw a party for her. Aguri starts to tear up. Mari then invites Aguri inside and tells her to act like she’s surprised.

The party commences, and unlike her friends, who aren’t that great at acting, Aguri does a good job of acting surprised. Everyone celebrates with her as Aguri finally blows out her own birthday candles and gets to eat a birthday cake.

But all is not well, as the victim of the week has strolled on-screen. He’s upset that after he came all this way to the Piggy’s Tail, it’s reserved for a birthday party. Regina turns the guy’s Psyche into an ant Jikochu, which is pretty clever, as ants have a tendency to come after sweets. When the Jikochuu breaks into the restaurant, Mana’s parents and grandpa get turned to stone by its lasers when they try to protect the girls.

Regina then comes in. She tries to compare herself to the evil witch in “Sleeping Beauty” who got revenge after not being invited to a party, but Rikka has to remind her what the fairy tale is called. Then, as Aguri leads Mari to safety, the other four girls transform. Only the beginning of the transformation sequence is shown, but there’s still enough time for Cure Heart to do her catchphrase.

So far, the fight scene isn’t all that great. We get a little bit of interesting action (Heart kicking the Jikochuu, Regina swiping at Heart with the Miracle Dragon Glaive), but it’s so slowly animated that it’s quite lackluster.

Outside of the restaurant, we see that Aguri is hardly even trying to keep Pretty Cure a secret from Mari anymore. She outright tells Mari that she’s going to get rid of the Jikochuu with Mana and the others and insists on going back inside. Surprisingly, Mari is perfectly fine with letting her ten-year-old granddaughter run into a battle zone. She just hugs her and tells her not to push herself too hard. Then, Mari walks off and Ai flies to Aguri, allowing Aguri to transform into Cure Ace.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">We don’t get Ace’s self-introduction just yet, though. Instead, right after transforming, she kicks the Jikochuu through a wall. Only after Ace makes her dramatic entrance does she say her usual, “The trump card of love! Cure Ace!” She even does her catchphrase afterwards!

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Regina sees Aguri’s birthday cake on the ground and angrily stabs it. Then, Regina and Ace take the fight outside. Regina is jealous of Ace because she gets to have her birthday party with everyone. She tells her that the party is pointless and tells her to disappear.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Regina tries to kick Ace, but before Ace can dodge, Heart comes in and blocks the kick. Heart says that the birth of a new life is a miracle that should be celebrated. This is all it takes for Regina’s heart to clench up again. Since she hates this pain in her chest, she tries to fire a beam at Heart. Fortunately, Ace shoves Heart aside and prepares for a counterattack.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Ira finally makes his presence known and butts in, but Diamond quickly stops him with Diamond Swirkle. Then, the whole team uses Royal Lovely Straight Flush to finish off the Jikochuu. With that, everything returns to normal.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">This whole fight was pretty disappointing. Not because of the animation, though that was pretty lackluster, too, but because Ace hardly did anything. Last episode, Rosetta played a major role in getting through to Regina. The episode before that, Sword did the same. You’d think in Ace’s episode, she’d also do something major. But nope; Heart steals her thunder. When Regina belittles Ace for her birthday party, she doesn’t defend herself. It’s Heart who comes in and does the talking, ultimately stealing the spotlight that’s rightfully Ace’s. Hopefully, next episode will treat Heart better.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Also, Ira was an afterthought. It was kind of cute seeing him soaked by Diamond Swirkle, but he still felt shoehorned in, especially with his reformation arc still completely untouched.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">It turns out that during the fight, Mari called the police. However, to her puzzlement, when she brings a policeman over to the restaurant, the building is completely untouched. Mari asks Aguri where the monster went, and Aguri and Mana say that Pretty Cure took care of it. Before Mari can ask more questions, Aguri invites her back in to continue the party. And with that, the episode ends.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Overall: It’s nice seeing Aguri in the spotlight again. Disregarding her supplanting Regina for so long and her behavior back in episode 23->16, Aguri really is a cute character. She tries to be mature, but she’s ultimately a little kid at heart. It’s really nice seeing her interact with her grandma again. Mari’s a cool character, as she’s mature and perceptive and always seems to know what to do to help her granddaughter. I’m also glad that (in the sub, at least) we finally got to find out that Aguri is adopted.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">It was also really cool seeing Makoto’s past. We now know that she was Cure Sword probably ever since she was born. It’s a shame that this tidbit of information isn’t in the dub.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">That being said, this episode was clearly filler. Unlike episodes 40 and 41, there wasn’t any progression on the Regina arc at all. Ace didn’t even get to do anything meaningful with her. Still, since next episode focuses on Aguri as well, we might finally get to see Ace actively participate in the Regina arc.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Next time: Aguri/Natalie’s grandmother finds out that she’s Cure/Glitter Ace!