Witchy Precure! -MIRAI DAYS-

Episode 9

There's a reason why they say hindsight is 20/20. Usually, that means that when you look back at the past with the wisdom of the present, you understand what was happening with more maturity. But that hindsight can also be colored by rosy lenses, creating an idealized version of the past rather than a clearer one. It makes the present look grim by comparison, because the past version of you may have had hopes and dreams that ultimately didn't come true. It's that version of hindsight that Chronosto is banking on and exploiting. He's finding people's weaknesses in their pasts and using them to trap everyone in a static world where nothing is wrong and everything is delightful because the future never comes to pass. As a strategy, it's proving remarkably effective – he even managed to use the headmaster's love of Kushi to trap the Cures' most powerful ally. We've all got a past that looks better in hindsight, after all.

I feel like that's the theme that Mirai Days has been working towards haphazardly from the start. The Cures' separation is the basis of the story, after all. Yes, their reunion is the catalyst for the plot, but their separation has been driving them emotionally as they desperately try to reconnect and recapture what they had as middle schoolers. The fear that they won't is the emotional core here. That's bled over into their relationships with everyone else. Hi-chan became their Ha-chan substitute, and though they loved her, it was Ha-chan they wanted. Since she's been back, they haven't talked about Hi-chan, especially since discovering that she's now a part of Ha-chan neatly solved the problem. They're concerned about what's happening with Ire and Chronosto, but there's also a palpable sense of relief that the old gang is back together again, something reinforced by the return of Batty, Yamoh, and the others.

That makes the fact that Chronosto can do so much damage to everyone in their lives, including Dokuroxy's minions, significant. Although the monster is busy trying to convince everyone that they can return to a perfect moment in the past, a crystallization of their dreams, that's not possible. Even he acknowledges that time can't truly be stopped; its inexorable forward march is its defining feature. What he's forcing upon people is an illusion of what they can never go back to – and that comes with the awful thought about what it really means when someone's clock stops. If you're not moving forward through time, doesn't that suggest that you might be dead?

The original Witchy Precure! didn't fully shy away from that. Kushi, the person the headmaster loved (in whatever way you want to see it), didn't come back. He couldn't. He was dead. That suggests that, unlike some other anime, death is permanent in Witchy Precure!'s world, an idea backed up by the case of Ire's mother. Some second chances can never be granted. It's a true miracle that Mirai and Liko got to reunite, and the way that Chronosto's spells work reminds us that there's no guarantee for everyone. Ire's mother, Kushi, Sota's soccer dreams, Kay's youthful enthusiasm, and blind hope – they're gone. It's a bleak message for any magical girl series, but particularly one in the Precure franchise.

That doesn't mean that the world is devoid of hope, though. Chronosto may want to imply that, but we have to remember that Mirai and Liko did reunite, that Kay is following her dreams, that Mirai's grandmother may be getting older, but she's still there. The use of the Topaz transformation, the most joyous-looking of the four, helps to reinforce that. Chronosto wants people to look to the past and turn their backs on any idea of a future. That's a powerful suggestion and one that absolutely is working. But the future's still out there. You just need to recognize it for what it can be.

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