Plot: Aoyama continues to have the same nightmare about Mew Ichigo crying, only now the dreams are becoming slightly more detailed. There is a person lying on the ground in front of her in silhouette and she is yelling something inaudible before he wakes up.
Later, the Mew team enjoys some rare relaxation time in the woods. They have a nice barbecue and down some tasty shish kabobs for a while before Shirogane and Akasaka reveal the true reason why they brought them to this location – there was a signal from the last bit of Mew Aqua in the region. They’re now tasked with searching a perilous nearby mountain to find and retrieve the Mew Aqua before the aliens do.
The strange mountain feels more like a maze as the girls and Aoyama search. The sky turns an ominous green color, and Masha pops up detecting a nearby alien. Everyone transforms to prep themselves for the oncoming battle, but right as they finish, the ground splits beneath them and separates them all. The Blue Knight saves Ichigo from falling off the rock on which she was standing, but he falls into the abyss below as a result.
Now de-transformed, Aoyama finds himself face to face with Kisshu – alone – and Kisshu wants nothing more than to exact revenge against the one who ruined everything for him; his plans, his trust with Deep Blue and, most importantly, his chances with Ichigo. This whole excursion to the mountain was a trap of his design – he sent a fake Mew Aqua signal out to trap Aoyama and have a true one-on-one fight.
However, it’s not so much a fight as it is a brutal beating. Aoyama is unable to transform without Ichigo around to protect, so Kisshu just gleefully shocks the daylights out of Aoyama and blasts him around like a ragdoll.
Meanwhile, the girls, now separated, barring Lettuce and Pudding, are trapped within the rocky confines of the mountain. Their power has been nullified by the strange force-field that has encompassed the mountain – a force-field that is linking them to an alternate dimension. When Kisshu has a sudden mad burst of power, sending electricity surging around the entire mountain, he inadvertently shocks Ichigo, prompting her to call out for Aoyama.
Somehow hearing her plea, Aoyama gets up, realizing that he’s always been able to hear Ichigo’s voice calling out to him. When he hears her, he gets incredible powers. His becoming The Blue Knight is all because of Ichigo.
Kisshu readies his final strike against Aoyama, which prompts him to quietly call out for Ichigo. She is able to hear his call, and she’s suddenly teleported to Aoyama’s side, her power deflecting Kisshu’s attack.
He continues his assault, this time on both of them. He knocks Aoyama out and pins Ichigo to the ground, believing he’s finally claimed his prize as Aoyama is certainly beyond saving by now. Ichigo vehemently refuses his advances, however, because she insists that she’ll always love Aoyama, even if he dies – she’ll never love Kisshu or go with him.
Angered by her words, he opts to kill her instead. His threat against Ichigo’s life triggers Aoyama to transform back into the Blue Knight. He and Kisshu clash, and Kisshu mockingly talks about how he’ll make Ichigo suffer and break before the Blue Knight’s eyes.
Enraged at Kisshu’s taunts and threats at Ichigo’s life, the Blue Knight goes insane. He loses himself in a massive glow of his own power and he’s liable to explode at any moment.
The other Mews also teleport into the scene and create a shield around Ichigo, fearing the incoming explosion of power.
The Blue Knight unleashes the full brunt of his energy, much to Kisshu’s utter delight as this had also been part of his plan all along. Kisshu vanishes, and the surrounding area, including the mountain, is completely decimated by the sheer force of the Blue Knight’s power. At the center of the event is a tremendously deep crater.
Aoyama comes to, though he is clearly feeling guilty and concerned about what happened.
Meanwhile, Pai and Taruto reunite with Kisshu, having detected the massive surge of energy. He had risked his life on a gamble to test out a theory involving the Blue Knight’s power, and he was proven right. Now he believes the Blue Knight is their one true savior.
Breakdown:
– Okay, I don’t understand a lick of what Shirogane and Akasaka were doing with this barbecue. There’s no need to trick the girls to come out to the location, if that was the reason. They’re responsible girls who are more than set in their mission at this point.
If that wasn’t the purpose, then putting on a barbecue for a while when the last of the Mew Aqua, quite possibly the most important macguffin in the world at the moment, is sitting nearby, and you know it’s a race against time to get it before the aliens do, is just reckless. It would have been better to tell them ‘Hey girls, the last of the Mew Aqua was detected here. Find it, and, as a reward, we’ll have a celebratory barbecue!’
It just seems mean to put on a relaxing barbecue to give the girls a well-deserved break and then stop about an hour in and go ‘Lol JK! Go to this scary-ass mountain and find Mew Aqua!’
– So Aoyama’s back to his silly Windows 98 background transformation again.
– Why are the girls just slamming themselves against the rockfaces as if they have the power to Kool-Aid Man their way through them? Is that a power they’re meant to have? I don’t remember them being that physically strong.
– If this alternate dimension nullifies the girls powers, 1) Why didn’t Kisshu use this alternate dimension trap sooner? Seems like it’d be easier to lure them there, get rid of their powers and then kill them.
2) How are the girls still in Mew form if their powers are null here?
– I just realized how ironic it is that these aliens have such amazing abilities, particularly those that control plants and the weather, and yet they somehow couldn’t stop their planet from incurring such apocalyptic natural disasters.
– So…how did Ichigo teleport? I’m not going to get angry at this one, I’m just confused. I know Aoyama’s voice calling to her triggered it, but was it his powers, his Mew Aqua or Ichigo’s power that allowed her to do that?
– See, another reason why it wasn’t smart to never really question or investigate how and why Aoyama had these powers and what he actually was is because, for all they knew, he was dangerous to himself or others – intentionally or otherwise.
– Now all of the girls can teleport? What?…That makes even less sense. At least with Ichigo, she had her link with Aoyama to somewhat explain it. There’s nothing to explain this.
– Wait, Ichigo has shield-making abilities too, right? Why are the other girls gathering around her and making a shield to protect her from BK’s power instead of her participating too? Maybe I wouldn’t be as irked by this if they weren’t kneeling down as if she was royalty (They don’t need to kneel to make the shield. They’ve done it while standing numerous times. In fact, this is probably the first time they’ve done it while kneeling), but even if they were standing I’d be asking why she’s not helping or why she’s the most important to protect.
Also, wouldn’t it make more sense to try and make a containment shield or something instead of just protecting Ichigo under a small bubble? I know they don’t know how much power is being expelled (It’s basically a nuke) but that makes it all the more vital that they at least try to contain the blast instead of just letting it happen and killing the local flora, fauna and….Oh yeah, Shirogane and Akasaka standing nearby the mountain….
———————————————-
This episode has a lot of good about it and some bad.
First of all, this concept is very solid. Kisshu and the Blue Knight finally having a face off without Ichigo and the other Mews around is a great idea. Granted, we didn’t get to see much of this fight because most of it was Kisshu blasting a defenseless Aoyama until he was nearly dead. However, the idea was very good and we did get to see some action between them.
I really liked the barbecue part, even if it’s seemingly a pointless ploy to get the girls to do Mew work that I still don’t understand. Still, I like when they’re just having fun hanging out together and all the girls are bouncing off of each other. I would have much more preferred the barbecue be some fun downtime for a full episode, though – yes this means I’m asking for filler – before we got to the heavy stuff. I don’t dislike what we got, but I was disappointed that it was cut short.
Kisshu is just a delight in this episode. I still don’t care for him treating Ichigo as a prize and property, but when he’s being just the right level of frightening and crazy, he makes for a great villain. It’s especially impressive considering every part of this was planned by him. He got his cake and ate it too because he got to beat the snot out of Aoyama for being such a pain in his ass and being with Ichigo while also proving that Aoyama has the power to help the aliens achieve their goals.
The Blue Knight’s literal explosion at the end was awesome. The coloring, the direction, the expression on his face, the voice acting, the aftermath – all of it was incredible and really drove the point home that Aoyama is a source of unfathomable power, even if he’s not aware of it and doesn’t understand it.
The two main downsides I had with this episode were the following:
1) I feel it’s redundant to even bring this up anymore, but the girls were sidelined again – and even Ichigo suffered from being totally useless this time around. The only thing she did besides get rescued three times (Once from falling, another from being attacked by Kisshu and finally from the Blue Knight blast) was act as a shield against Kisshu’s attack on Aoyama, which was either her consciously protecting Aoyama or it was convenience via the Blue Knight’s power and hers.
The other girls were fully sidelined the entire episode, only miraculously popping up in the end to protect Ichigo from the Blue Knight blast, even if I still don’t understand why Ichigo wasn’t also creating a shield nor were they trying to contain the blast instead of shield themselves from it. I’m not going to harp too much on the latter because maybe they thought their shield could do nothing to contain it, but it’s not exactly the heroic option. For all they knew, there were people in the area (even besides Akasaka and Shirogane) who could’ve been injured or killed in that blast and their priority was to bubble up Ichigo.
2) I’m sorry, I’m still getting irritated at the boys fighting over Ichigo and all the prattling on about protecting Ichigo. I feel like it’s been forever since any of the girls have really done anything impressive on their own two feet, but the more they lean into this idea that Ichigo needs to be protected by her boyfriend and her boyfriend lives to protect her, the more my nerves get plucked.
I do give them props for having Ichigo stay firm in her resolve to not be treated as a prize – she’s certainly not resigning herself to going with Kisshu anytime just because things look dire – but it’s a continuing trend that has annoyed me for a while and keeps getting worse. I know this will end soon, but I still feel the need to bring it up when I see it.
I did enjoy this episode a lot, but those two problems were enough to distract me during my watch. The plot is coming down to the wire, however, so I expect my irritation will wane even further episode by episode as we approach the end.
Next episode, the city is being overrun by Chimera Animals, but Aoyama is nowhere to be found. He’s been confronted by the aliens, but something’s wrong with him. A new figure emerges….
If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥
The Anime Madhouse 
For the shield thing, I think it was that they all had to be together in order for it to work properly (like with them attacking the cherry trees in episode 12). Ichigo can make shields by herself but they don’t seem to last long. At least, that’s what I thought was going on.
The Mew Mews’ powers, especially the Mew Power Extension technique, were pretty random at times in the anime. In fact, I think this is the only time they did teleporting like that in the show XD. At least the manga and games established that the combining of powers can produce different results depending on the situation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aw, if that’s true then that’s kinda disappointing because it’s another instance of Ichigo getting an ability over the other girls. 😦
(Do all of the other girls need to be together to make the shield or can they make them with one or two members missing (but it’s a lot weaker)?)
I think there was one instance where Ichigo helped them make a shield (to make it stronger), though. I can’t remember which episode it was (I think it was the second half of the Christmas episodes) but I’m fairly certain that happened. If so, I still don’t get why she’s not doing anything during the massive explosion. For the sake of keeping the shield inward, she should be helping in order to protect the other Mews.
That’s true lol You bringing up the random powers thing reminded me that Zakuro, at one point, had the ability to tear through dimensional gateways, so she really shouldn’t have gotten trapped like this. That actually would have made more sense than the teleporting.
LikeLike
On the next episode of Tokyo Mew Mew, we’ll find out why exactly three is a magic number.
LikeLiked by 1 person
On the next episode of Tokyo Mew Mew, we’ll find out why exactly three is a magic number.
LikeLike