straightforwardly | 0066 | in which Go! Princess Precure converts me to a pairing I'd previously felt negatively about

► The last episode of Go! Princess Precure was really good, surprisingly enough. I think it might be my favorite episode yet.

My interest in Kanata/Haruka went from zero to 100% in this episode. I was really, really ambivalent, leaning towards dislike, towards this pairing in the first episode. I can't quite put my finger on why— something about the way they met, and their interactions/Haruka's reaction towards learning more about him from Aroma and Puff just didn't work for me. (Which is pretty much par for the course with magical girl series— I love them, but most of the time, I am definitely not watching them for the romance.)

But this episode completely sold me on it. From the moment he first looked at her, I was just GONE. The way he looked at her— when he noticed her, his eyes went from being calm to being so full of affection— I swear, they were pretty much sparkling, and I don't know how they made it look sweet instead of ridiculous— and the hopeless romantic in me just melted.

I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this. It's like... instead of being told that there are feelings there, they made me feel like there were feelings there, and that made all the difference.

(Unfortunately, I could not find any gifs for this scene, so there goes my plans for including that in this entry.)

It's funny, though— I didn't really expect for this to happen. The three girls' relationship can be super femslash-y at times— the end of episode 5 especially drew my attention— and I have a vague fondness for that, but I didn't think I'd feel any genuine shippy feelings in this series.

Outside of the surprise!shippy feelings, I also genuinely liked the plot of the episode. We got to learn more about what's going on, and got to see the (presumably main) villain of the series. And let me say, I definitely liked her design— something about it reminded me of Maleficent. Her eyes, though kind of looked like the eyes of the as-of-yet unseen girl in the opening, so I can't help but wonder if the two will be connected in some sort of way.

An interesting note: I changed which site I watched this series on, and a few things were translated differently on this one. The main one I noticed is that instead of "strength, kindness and beauty", the three traits that a princess should have were "strength, grace, and beauty." Also, my theory about each of the characters representing one of those traits seems to be correct, as there was a bit where each of the traits were named and the corresponding girl was shown.

Some things I would like to see in future episodes:

Haruka practicing ballet with Minami! Episode 5 really pleased me in that it showed me that they hadn't completely abandoned that plot thread, so it'd be great to see more of it in future episodes.
More of Haruka's roommate! I liked that her roommate wasn't conveniently a Precure as well, but we haven't seen her in a couple of episodes, and I'd like to see more of her, especially since Haruka's living with her and all.
Kanata/Haruka interactions that hit the tone it did in this episode, rather than how it felt in the first episode.

► In regards to my last post on Shall We Date? Wizardess: HA. I was right!

That being said, I did not see that bit with Luca coming. I was already planning on playing his route next, but now I definitely have to do that.