Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom

Episode 8

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You might have heard a variation of George Santayana's observation that those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. That's been a particularly relevant philosophy in recent years, and even without getting political, it's something we have to remember every time a generation begins to die out. After all, who better to learn history from than those who lived through it? This week's episode takes that lesson and puts it into action when Nozomi takes Komachi's research about the history of their town and realizes that there may still be people alive whom they could talk to. That lands Komachi, Nozomi, and Coco on the doorstep of a familiar face from the original Futari wa Pretty Cure: Honoka's grandmother.

Apart from confirming that the first three groups of Cures live in the same universe, it also delves into the show's titular theme: the power of hope. Honoka's grandmother has lived in the city for a very long time. She remembers the air raids of World War Two and the destruction that they wrought. Most importantly, she remembers that the one building that survived was the clock tower, which stood as a beacon of hope to residents in a particularly dark time. It was battered but it didn't fall, and a new city slowly grew around it, one filled with the flower gardens that Komachi now faithfully tends. That links Komachi directly to the town's past; she's carrying on a ritual, continuing to care for the flowers planted in the war's aftermath. The flowers also represent the city's resilience and its people. Komachi cares deeply about it, even as she struggles to find the words to express it.

As for why the clock tower remained standing, it may not have just been a fluke of the bombs or substantial construction and architecture. Honoka's grandmother comments that there is an angel embossed on the bell, and notes that “Bell” may function as the city's guardian. This gives us our first solid piece of information about the show's villain and what her motivation is. I've said that I thought Bell was sad, as the broken hearts on the Shadows' chests seem to indicate, and now we can infer that her sorrow is due to watching the people of her town change over time. In the aftermath of the air raids, we saw people come together to find hope and joy where they could, working with each other to put their world back together. But in the modern age, people are isolated, absorbed in their online worlds, and busy shuttling from place to place without interacting with each other or the world around them. That Komachi and Nozomi, who have lived in the town their entire lives, didn't know about Bell being a guardian angel says a lot about how things have changed. While guardians aren't always acknowledged or thanked, it has to be dispiriting to be ignored and forgotten. Bell's Shadows may be the physical manifestation of her sadness and anger as she decides that maybe her people aren't worth protecting anymore.

Bell herself probably isn't bad. If she was, there's a good chance Coco would have sensed it when he went with the women to the clock tower. That works within the larger scheme of Pretty Cure villains, many of whom are just sad and driven to act against the world because of it. That's why it's so interesting that Bunbee is part of this series because he shows that antagonists can change, while Rin and Urara have demonstrated that we can be our own worst enemies if we get too stuck inside our heads. Komachi has felt stuck as well, crushed by the pressure of her writing award and facing down a blank notebook page ever since. Her transformation into Cure Mint is symbolic of her recapturing her childhood enthusiasm and finding the joy of her imagination again as she tries to understand Bell's actions and the town's past.

Bell has said many times that the forward march of the clock cannot be stopped or reversed. For a while, it seemed like the time flowers were going to disprove that, but with Nozomi's faint this week, it looks like the dark angel and Natts were right – you really can't go back, at least not without consequences. Honoka's grandmother demonstrates that you can discuss the past and learn from it, gaining new insights that will help your present and future. Maybe that's really what the transformations are about; reclaiming a little bit of the hope that everyone still had as middle schoolers before the adult world tried to crush them. Maybe it can give them what they need to help Bell find that, too.

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