#i love aqua and aqua crystal apparently was just what splash needed to get my approval | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

precuredaily · 4 years

Text

Precure Day 178

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 30 - “Milk’s Resolve and Everyone’s Power!” Date watched: 5 April 2020 Original air date: 2 September 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/bzG8Kza Transformation Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/6k6SzS0 Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

when all their brooches glow you know you’re in trouble

You should know by now that episode 30 correlates to a fairy-driven powerup of sorts.

FWPC: Porun and the Rainbow Braces

Max Heart: Lulun and the Heartiel Brooch

Splash Star: Moop & Foop and the Crystal Communes

Well, this is no different. Sure, they technically already used Precure Five Explosion once, to defeat Girinma, but they didn’t fully understand their abilities at that time. In this episode, we get the first full combining sequence of the Symphony Set and Milk to create the giant saucer that they fly on.

The Plot

Nozomi and Milk are squabbling as usual, this time because Milk ate some chocolate that Nozomi bought for herself. Which is rude, by the way, don’t do that. Nuts has everyone sit down and try to work things out. While they’re there, the other girls ask Milk what being an apprentice caregiver entails, and she explains that she had to learn about the Palmier Kingdom’s politics, economics, culture, history, and everything else about the kingdom. After some potshots from Nozomi, Milk fires back by saying she doesn’t want to entrust the future of the Palmier Kingdom to someone with no dreams and therefore that Nozomi fails at being a Precure.

Nozomi is stunned by this.

Over in Nightmare, Arachnea confronts Kawarino and demands a black mask like he gave to Girinma. He warns her about the side effects of losing her free will but she insists, and he gives her one, commenting on her impressive resolve. After she leaves he has a horrifyingly evil grin on his face, and Bunbee, who saw the whole thing, looks on with concern.

The next day, at Natts House, the others explain to Coco that Nozomi went straight home from school and he confirms to them that Milk is still hiding in her room. Karen decides to go talk to her, and admits to Milk that Nozomi is able to allow people to be honest with themselves and inspire the best in them. She really admires Nozomi’s skills at bringing people together and is grateful to her for pulling her out of her loneliness. She goes on to explain that she herself has no dream for her future, and neither does Rin, and that she admires people like Urara and Komachi who have already figured out their dream, as well as Nozomi and Rin, who are living in the moment while they figure it out. She encourages Milk to be more honest with herself and make amends with Nozomi.

Meanwhile, Nozomi shuts herself in a room and takes off her Pinky Catch, thinking maybe she really does fail as a Precure.

On a rooftop overlooking Natts House, Arachnea is preparing for her attack when Bunbee shows up and asks her not to use the black mask. She ignores him and charges in with ferocity. When Rin, Urara, Komachi, and Karen realize Arachnea is outside, they confront her and transform. They try to fight her but she turns their attacks back on them, grabbing Rouge and Aqua as they try to charge her and throwing them into Lemonade and Mint, knocking them all over. She steals the Dream Collet from Nuts and brags about how simple this was. Milk latches onto her arm, like she did at Nightmare HQ in episode 24, but Arachnea just pulls her off and begins to lecture the Cures about their ineffectiveness against her. At that moment, Nozomi shows up, being alerted by the glow of her Pinky Catch. She quickly apologizes to Milk and then says that although she may be a failure as a Precure, she wants to keep fighting to make Coco, Nuts, and Milk’s dream come true and therefore she wants to continue being a Precure. In a powerful moment, she holds her Pinky Catch out in front of her, it turns back into a butterfly, and then it lands right back on her wrist, reaffirming her worth and her place in the team. She transforms and her mere presence is enough to reinvigorate her teammates, as they turn the tables on Arachnea and overpower her, proving they’re more than the sum of their parts as they recover the Dream Collet and pushing her into a corner.

Left with no other options, Arachnea finally pulls out the black mask and puts it on, mutating into a giant, monstrous version of herself.

Once again the tables turn in her favor and she throws the cures around, tossing them into buildings or the ground. The fairies stand between Arachnea and the fallen girls, who are too weak to move. Nozomi begs them to move but Milk gives a speech explaining how she trusts and is thankful for the girls’ hospitality and friendship, and that she loves Nozomi. She then says that Dream is a precious Precure to her and she wants to join her and the others. They stand up and their brooches start to glow as inspiring music starts to play. Milk latches onto Dream’s left arm and transforms into an armband, and then the glow from Dream’s brooch extends down her right arm and her Dream Torch appears. (note: when she summons it normally, it goes down her left arm) The others let the glow travel down their left arms but instead of summoning their weapons, instead they launch them into the air and they combine with the Dream Torch to form a larger baton. Dream places it on top of Milk as an armband, who infuses it with her power, and it shoots into the sky in giant size. From there, they perform Precure Five Explosion, flying straight into Arachnea and destroying her. The full sequence is below.

vimeo

Back inside Natts House, Nozomi and Milk apologize to each other. Nozomi proposes they split a chocolate bar that Milk brought to make up for yesterday’s incident, and Milk agrees, but then she quickly snatches it back at the last minute and leads Nozomi in a chase around the store. For some reason, nobody calls her out on her rudeness and instead they laugh it off as we close out on a still frame of Nozomi chasing Milk.

The Analysis

This is a fantastic episode, and despite similarities to previous Milk episodes, it actually does take her in a new direction. I had to go back and double-check. Her major character beats so far have been learning to adapt to this world, wanting to help out in battle, and now, actually wanting to be friends with all the girls (especially Nozomi). She does make progress at being sincere about her feelings.... although the ending shows she still has a lot of innate selfishness to overcome. She loves to torment Nozomi and it makes me sigh. But, she’s making progress. I gave crap to Porun and Lulun during their early days and I’m starting to think I was too hard on them relative to her, but, again, she’s getting better. When Milk is being sincere and earnest she’s nice to have around, and she forms an especially strong bond with Karen. We’ll see that explored in greater depth in a few episodes.

One aspect I think was CRUCIAL to both Milk’s development as a character and advancing the core theme of this show, which is dreams, is outright stating that several of the team actually do not have dreams they’re working towards right now. Really only Urara and Komachi know what they want to do. Milk says she can’t trust anyone who doesn’t have a dream to be a Precure, before Karen turns around and tells her that she herself has none, yet, and neither does Rin. Nozomi became a Precure to help Coco fulfill HIS dream, Rin joined to protect Nozomi, and Karen joined because she wanted to help. None of them have ambitions of their own, they’re still working that out, Not knowing what you want to do but doing your best at what you can do is a really important and powerful message for the audience, and it helps Milk resolve a conflict within herself about how much the girls fight for her wellbeing without having their own ambitions.

On the literal front, Milk turning into an armband for Dream is certainly an.... interesting way to incorporate her into the sequence. As far as alternate modes for fairies go so far, it beats the laptop computer that Porun turned into but it’s not as practical as the cell phones of yore, or the human forms that Coco and Nuts can take (but she’ll get there eventually). A toy of it exists so I assume this was Bandai’s idea first and the show’s staff had to figure out how to make it work in animation.

To their credit, it looks a LOT better in the show than as a toy. It’s still kind of silly looking but at least it directly incorporates the mascot into the attack in some way rather than simply dispensing the powerup.

Alas, poor Arachnea. She wasn’t my favorite villain in the show, but of the remaining crew, she wouldn’t have been my first choice for elimination (that would be Gamao). It’s unfortunate to see her go, but it was time to change things up. I like that Arachnea went to Kawarino rather than being given the black mask due to poor performance. Not that her job performance has been any better than Girinma’s was but it’s just an interesting direction. Ever since Girinma’s defeat she’s acted overconfident, like she sees this as an opportunity and has a plan. She hasn’t really acted on that idea until now, but being a go-getter and asking for the mask is a welcome change. What’s really interesting to me is that she almost doesn’t even need it. During the fight she pretty much has the girls on the ropes and considering she had the Dream Collet in her hands she could have just left right then and there, but her pride demands she defeat the girls, and that’s when Nozomi arrives and turns the tables, forcing Arachnea to put on the black mask and go full monster.

Interestingly, despite Kawarino’s apparent indifference to Arachnea’s plight, Bunbee seems genuinely concerned for her. He’s an okay boss who looks out for his employees sometimes, and having seen what the black mask did to Girinma, who he considered an old friend, he doesn’t want Arachnea to suffer the same fate. She ignores his concern but it’s a rare moment of honor among villains, and a seed for Bunbee’s eventual pseudo-redemption at the end of GoGo.

I love the genuine concern on his face.

The villains have actually had their hands on the Dream Collet several times in this series, and each time their arrogance results in it slipping through their grasp. This somewhat annoys me if I’m being honest, but on the other hand it shows how ill-managed Nightmare is. Even Kawarino himself has had it in his clutches but a couple of fairies are able to steal it back with a coordinated effort. There should be an administrative review about this, everyone is doing it and it really undercuts their company’s objective. However, it shows the resourcefulness and resilience of the girls and fairies to be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, as we’ve seen them do over and over.

On the animation and art side of things, this episode is great. I love this shot of the spider shadow darkening the shop sign, even though Arachnea doesn’t turn into an actual spider.

It’s a moment of ominous foreboding and it’s wonderful. Also, when she first makes her appearance in the fight, Arachnea’s eyes are glowing and she looks ready to kill. The fight is fluid and the action is well-choreographed, and has an important moment of mirroring before and after Nozomi’s arrival. Arachnea uses the same web attack on them both times, but before Nozmi shows up they get hit by it, while afterwards they effortlessly dodge it and run on the webs to knock the Dream Collet out of her hands. It’s the little things that make me smile.

Interestingly, I noticed a lot of Dutch angles in this episode.

A tilted camera is a film trick designed to make the audience uneasy, and it’s used very well here. I don’t often notice camerawork but this stuck out at me.

Now, on the other hand, there is a small animation error that I feel compelled to point out. It takes place during the stock animation for Precure Five Explosion, specifically the point at which the four supporting components are flying in to attach to the Dream Torch. For a few frames, the Lemonade Castanet is incorrectly colored green like the Mint Leaf, instead of the proper yellow. As it gets closer to the camera, this is fixed.

(These are subsequent frames, one right after the other.)

I’m surprised that this made it into the stock footage, and wasn’t fixed for the blu ray releases I’m using for my reviews. I’ll have to see if it gets fixed in future uses.

Of course there’s also some small moments of merchandise pushing in this episode. Aside from the obvious Symphony Set, the box to hold the Pinky Catch makes another appearance, and I had to point it out because it’s very detailed.

None of these points detract from the episode in any meaningful way, I just feel obligated to document them. This episode is fantastic from start to finish, it reinforces the strong bond the characters have and Nozomi’s role on the team, builds on Karen and Milk’s relationship, and moves us into the next stage of the show. It’s a great cap to the first 2/3 of the show and I can’t wait for more.

Next time, on Precure Daily: Coco is getting love letters and Nozomi doesn’t know how to feel about this. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 Kettei!

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 #YPC530 #PCD178

19 notes · View notes

ericahitshawaii · 4 years

Text

Mantas and dolphins and whales, oh my!

Today I start my adventure on the big island! The Big Island is probably most known for its active volcanoes and the recent eruption of Mount Kiluaea in 2018. Because of the tectonic plates on earth, the Hawaiian island are actually moving Northwest over over a “hot spot” of volcanic activity. Over 5 million years ago this hot spot formed the oldest of the Hawaiian islands, Kauai (at the north of the chain). As the islands shift north, the volcanic activity slows and eventually stops and the surface begins to erode, which is why Kauai is smaller than the southern most island. The Big Island, which is the most “southernly” island, is the youngest (One million years old) and the most volcanically active, due to its proximity to the hot spot. Currently, another Hawaiian island is formed under the Pacific called Loini and if any of us live to be 10,000, we might be able to visit it.

I flew into Kona on Wednesday evening. I am in love with the Kona airport. If I thought the Kahului airport was “open air” then this airport is basically outside. It is completely open air, with some roofage. So amazing.

Kona Airport (KOA)

I very excitingly went to pick up my rental car, so no more bus adventures for me. I forgot how luxurioius and freeing it is have a car. I never did it in Australia because I was scared t drive on the wrong side, but not a problem here. It’s also such a life upgrade to have a car that DOES NOT have a tape player. Modern technology is awesome. Thanks Kia Rio!

Ok, anyway, I checked into my hostel, aptly names “My Hawaii Hostel.” If I thought the last one was halfway decent, then I will need to severely downgrade it compared to this one. This hostel had furniture other than a bed, decorations on the walls, a rug and multiple pillows and blankets. I know that sounds like a given in a hotel room, but not in a hostel. Absolutely dreamy! The hostel itself is absolutely charming with a little garden and an open aiir living room and lots of outdoor seating, just a few minutes walk from the beach. I am living my best Hawaiian life, for real this time!

My Hawaii Hostel, Ali’i Road, Kona

Patio area outside my room.

My room.

Thursday morning I headed off for the next phase of the ocean part of my trip. I signed up for a morning “Ocean encounters” tour and a Night “Manta Ray Swim” trip.

Note: You are going to be disappointed again by the lack of photos, because I bought an underwater disposable camera for the trip, but some of you may remember, that you have to get those photos developed. (I actually am unsure of how I’m going to do that in this modern age, but that is a future me problem. Anyway, the tour company promises to post some photos in the next few days, so there will be another update post once I have those. But keep reading, it still is exciting and there is a sweet video I took that you should see!)

The morning snorkeling tour started out with swimming with spinner dolphins!! So, wild dolphins are the best. They are nocturnal, so we were visitng them during their daytime nap time. Hilariously, while they are sleeping they still swim on the bottom in a big pack. I have no idea how they do this. How fascinating. Anyway a few of them woke up and swam up ot the surface to say hi. When we got into the water they headed down towards the bottom again. It was amazing to snorkel right above big pods of dolphins. There must have been at least 20 in some of the bigger pods and there were several pods around us. Just as a few more of them were waking up and coming to the surface, our captain said we had to go. I’ll be honest, I was pissed. I had dreams of high-fiving a dolphin and Captain Taylor was ruining my dream. But I’m glad he did,because what happened next was SOOO worth it!

Next we headed out to a site where whales had recently been spotted. When we arrived, we discovered there were several large whales around and a BABY WHALE. This whale was only about a month old and still absolutely gigantic. The baby whale was splashing around in the water very close to us. Just like a human toddler, it seemed to be having a blast splashing aorund, trying to breach (jump out of the water) and stick its head up. It was still really floppy and uncoordinated in the water, which was absolutely adorable. It was so funny to see a whale just playing around. I don’t know how it had so much energy to do all that.

Eventually we saw the mam whale pop up around the whale, apparently keeping her eye on it and maybe helping from below with its practice breaches. While we were distracted by the baby whale someone yelled out that there was another whale further off that was breaching. (Whales often will breach several time in a row, because they are communicating with other whales and trying to get their attention.) I looked over just in time to see a huge whale breach completely out of the water. It was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen. It was like it was happening in slow motion. It’s entire body was up in the air and it seemed like it just hung there until it crashed back into the ocean with a huge splash. Just like on Animal Planet! I thought I had really seen it all until we looked back over at the playing baby whale and realized Mama had surfaced on our side.

All of s sudden I see her huge humpback surface like it is facing us. It is coming right for our boat. Right in fron of us, she lifts her tail and dives right under the boat. I was both incredible and a little scary! Seeing her SO CLOSE to us, it is astonishing how huge they are. Just her back was probably as tall as the deck of the boat and she was easily twice as long. It was shocking to see her giant tail come out of the water right in front of us. Despite my fear that she miht capsize the boat, the crew said that they are insanely spatially aware and can get within inches of a boat and not hit it. They have sonar like bats. When I say this was a bucket list activity, I would almost say this was better than what I imagined being on my bucket list. Even the crew was freaking out and taking video and photos. They said that never happens. I will remember that moment for as long as I live. I do have a video of the encounter. Honestly, it doesn’t do it justice, but you can kind of see what I’m talking about. Watch here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QTA9JieqQdEWPfag6

Now as if that wasn’t enough, we went to a third spot to find Manta Rays. We made a quick pit stop at an amazing place along the coast known as the Grotto. It’s the outlet to the sea for a large series of lava tubes that run miles underneath the island. The waters were the most incredible aqua color and crystal clear.

The Grotto

To add to the incredible day, we ran into two huge manta rays (In case you are worried they are not sting rays...who killed the crocodile hunter. They are harmless plankton eaters. One of our guides said we found his favorite manta named Amanda Ray. She is the friendliest and has one bent fin. Both mantas were about 10 feet long. They can actually grow to have a to 15 foot wingspan. They are beautiful to watch. We hoppped in the water and snorkeled with them. They looked like they were flying on the bottom of the ocean, completely gracefully. This was preview for that evening.

After the snorkel adventure I decided to head to the beach. I’m not really a beach person, but figured I should do it once. I went to what they call a dark gray sand beach, which is half white sand and half black volcanic sand. How do gray and black sand beaches form? Well, when the hot lava hits the cool water it basically explodes and shatters like glass, spewing small particles of lava rock, which eventually breakdown into small pebbles and sand like particles. The beach was very rough, but beautiful. Its incredible to see the lava rock solidify in the form it was when it flowed into the ocean. Very surreal.

Lava rocks at Kahalu’u Beach

After lunch and beach chill, I headed back to the marina for the night manta swim. For this one, they take you out onto big boogie board looking things with lights. Here’s a photo I did not take, that demonstrates this:

The lights on the bottom of the board attract plankton, which then attracts other fish and manta rays. This was both an awesome and miserable experience. The weather up to this point had been absolutely perfect. *0m degrees and sunny everyday. However, storms had come in that night and it was cold and raining. The water was freezing, but the experience was still pretty great. One of the coolest things that I didn't expect was that the lights also drew in tones of fish. There were a bunch of fish that looked kind of like big sardines that swarmed around us in big schools, it was really interesting to be that close to so many fish. The highlight of the trip was that a big manta swam right next to me and did a backflip to eat the plankton right under the board. They have awesome white bellies and gills and huge gaping mouths. Its really otherworldly.

After the manta show we headed back to the boat for the long and extremely rocky trip back to the marina. I generally have a pretty good stomach for boat rides, but this was a rough one. I had taken Dramamine earlier, just in case, and still feeling like I might lose my lunch. It was close to a repeat of the Great Barrier Reef puke episode but disaster was avoided, thank goodness!

All in all, a dream of a day. I am officially hooked on snorkeling and boating, in general. Who knew I’d be such a water baby. I spent most of my life avoiding getting my hair wet.

Next stop: Farm tour day in Southern Kona.

1 note · View note