Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom

Episode 9

Bell has been saying it right along: time doesn't flow backward. The corollary statement is that you can't go back, and if the women's regressions and transformations have seemed to contradict that, it may have been in service of a larger plot point. This Saki-focused episode starts to explore what that might be, although, in all fairness, we've seen elements of it before, just not with the explicit statements that this one makes. That might sound like a storytelling cop-out at first – “Hey, viewers, if you didn't get what we were saying, here it is, all spelled out!” – but I don't think that's the case. Everything seems to finally come out into the open, and not just for us; for everyone.

Cures Bloom and Egret finally make their appearances this week, but there's something even more off about their transformations. As Splash Star viewers will remember, Saki and Mai needed their fairies to transform, like how the Delicious Party girls (among others) needed them to be physically present. That begged the question of how the show could pull this off – would Flappy and Choppy come out of the Sky Tree? The answer turns out to be something that feels much more sinister. Neither fairy shows up in person, instead what appears to be their images are simply present on the women's transformation wands. That means that the time flowers are cloning their powers (if not them). Let's consider that information alongside the fact that Nozomi collapses twice in this episode, the second time looking much more serious and coming as a petal dropped from her time flower. We have to wonder if Saki and Mai will feel the consequences of transforming much sooner. The preview has Karen noting that Nozomi is exhausted, which would seem to imply that the flowers use their targets' energy. And cloning fairies can't be a low-energy deal.

The focus on Saki this week allows the story to explore a different facet of what it means to grow up. Saki is essentially fulfilling people's expectations of her: she's going to take over the family bakery and she's getting married. The implication is that she's doing these things at least in part because she feels like she has to; they're the responsible, adult things to do. Her dad raised her, so now she ought to let him fulfill his dream of apprenticing at a confectionery. She will marry Takkun and not pursue her dreams of going to France to learn their bread-baking techniques. It's not that she's opposed to either taking over Panpaka Pan or marrying her fiancé, it's more that she's starting to fight the feeling that she doesn't want to do either right now.

That's a very relatable feeling. The myth that adults can do what they want to can sometimes make growing up a slap in the face, and even if that's not something you always assumed, responsibilities can feel like they get in the way - maybe you have kids or aging parents who need you, or maybe the money just isn't there to let you drop everything and move someplace new. It's also easy to get snowed under other people's expectations to the point where you can't bring yourself to say something, which seems to be the position Saki's in. She's coming to the same realization that Mai did in her episode, but from a different angle: Saki has to realize that she's still allowed to be herself and to put herself first. All she has to do is talk to the other people involved.

The fact that Takkun is perfectly okay with her fulfilling her dreams even after they marry feels like an important part of this. The stereotype of a married couple (and one that we've seen persist in anime) is that they will either function as a unit or that the wife will be at least a little subservient to the husband, putting his wants over hers. When Saki hears that her fiancé will even let her pursue her educational dreams after they're married, she's getting the message that she doesn't have to have her parents' marriage. That's an important lesson to get out there, because as Mai's story showed, there's no one “right” way to be a woman, and even if you choose the more traditional path of marriage, that doesn't immediately turn you into a 1950s housewife. If Michiru and Kaoru can change, why can't the expectations Saki has for her future?

I think that's something that Bell has lost sight of. Throughout her life, she's only perceived the bad things that humans have done to each other and their world. Her latest Shadows show that – the emergence of spikes on the humanoid ones speaks of her growing anger, and the tree-trunk legs and vines of the new form are the embodiment of her frustration, particularly with the way people treat the natural world. (Good for the locals for putting the kibosh on that development!) It's true, you can't go back, and time doesn't move backward. That doesn't make you helpless and it is worth trying to make a positive change.

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Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.