Plot: Ichigo’s on cloud nine now that she realizes Aoyama and her mysterious savior, the Blue Knight, are one and the same. While Aoyama is happy too, he continues to be plagued by nightmares of Mew Ichigo crying uncontrollably on the floor.
Ichigo decides to invite Aoyama to the café since he’s now a member of the Mew Mews. The Mews gladly welcome him, but Shirogane provides a less-than-warm welcome as he worries about their cohesion as a group with a new member. He tells Aoyama that their mission is dire and the fate of the world might be at risk if Aoyama isn’t serious about his duties. Aoyama strongly confirms his conviction, and just in time too, because Akasaka has news that requires the Mews’ attention.
A nearby river is shining brightly for some inexplicable reason. Right around when the river started shining, they detected a Mew Aqua signal, so they believe the two to be connected. The Mews, with their new recruit in tow, head out to investigate.
The water in what is supposed to be a fairly polluted river is, strangely, extremely pure. When the light shines again, Pai and Taruto show up and prepare themselves for battle against the Mews for the Mew Aqua that both sides assume is in the water somewhere. Taruto dives in the water to get it.
Everyone, including Aoyama, transform. Pudding takes a pill that allows her to breathe underwater and dives in the water to start the pursuit. Pai counters by causing a massive tidal wave and directing it towards the group. Everyone but Ichigo manages to get away in time, however, she’s quickly saved from the rushing waters by Aoyama.
A train nearly falls into the water due to broken tracks, but, even though it’s stopped, the water is rising to such extreme levels that it will be completely submerged if they don’t do something.
Meanwhile, the Mews are getting overrun by Chimera Animal stingrays, and Taruto and Pudding are duking it out underwater for the Mew Aqua. Things get heated as Ichigo gets trapped under a pile of Chimera Animal stingrays and Pai uses a new more powerful attack that summons a lightning storm. As the electricity collects in the sky, ready to unleash a powerful bolt of lightning, Lettuce attacks Pai and tries to ask him telepathically why two groups of beings born on the same planet have to fight. Pai responds that it’s simply fate.
Meanwhile, underwater, Taruto and Pudding find that the Mew Aqua wasn’t Mew Aqua at all – it was just a light. Pudding points out that their fighting was pointless and it would be better if they just became friends. Taruto refuses, however, and decides to leave since there is no Mew Aqua. Pudding grabs onto him as he surfaces to try to get him to stop.
Pai directs his lightning towards the Blue Knight and Ichigo, but the other girls are able to protect them by creating a shield with their collective attacks. When Pudding surfaces with Taruto, she sees what’s happening and uses her Pudding Ring Inferno to soak up the lightning and render it useless.
Ichigo and the Blue Knight team up to take care of the rest of the Chimera Animals. Using her Ribbon Strawberry Surprise, Ichigo powers up the Blue Knight’s sword into a massive trident-like sword made of light. With one swing, he’s able to soundly defeat all of the Chimera Animal stingrays.
With no Mew Aqua, the aliens decide to retreat. The team, with their new powerful recruit, have saved the day again, but even though the storm clouds are fading away, things are about to get darker for the Mew Mews.
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– I really never fully understood Aoyama’s situation. He definitely doesn’t remember he’s Deep Blue, but he’s also never showed signs that he remembers he can turn into the Blue Knight nor what happens when he’s BK. Now, not only is he aware of his transformation, accepts it without any difficulty, and can transform at will, but he also seems to remember what happens when he’s BK now too. Is it just because he became aware of his transformation that he can do these things now? Or does his drive to protect Ichigo and the knowledge of this transformation allow his Aoyama and BK selves to work together and accept each other? Why did BK not realize who he was either?
– That opener was weird. Why cut from a scene at school to the dream without proper transition? Is the scene at school part of the dream? Was he having a dream within a dream?
– There are way too many instances of Ichigo talking about possibly having sex with Aoyama in this show. It’s only a few times, but it’s a few times too much.
– Okay so the initial scene at school was part of his dream. I guess dreams are odd either way, but that editing was just so strange.
– I can’t put off mentioning this anymore, the animation in this episode is terrible and for some reason it’s particularly bad on the eye designs. It’s like this entire episode was animated and they suddenly remembered they never drew eyes on any of the characters so they hastily put them in.
And look at this shot of Miwa. Her eyes are way too big and her entire face is collapsing into her head.
– I always thought it was really cool that Aoyama got his own transformation sequence…..it’s very short and a little on the boring side (and what the hell is that stock sky footage when they group up at the end? Did someone leave their Windows 98 screensaver as a placeholder but then forgot to make a real background?) but it’s cool that he was given one so late in the series.
– Let me get this straight: Lettuce’s animal powers are really only prevalent in bodies of water, which means she rarely gets times to shine. They’re on a river right now, so obviously…Pudding is the right choice to barge in here.
Okie.
Also, Pudding claims she can breathe underwater with those pills that helped them with over-oxygenation a few episodes ago? What the what?!
– I’m a bit annoyed that Ichigo got caught up in that tidal wave because she’s supposed to have cat-like reflexes yet she’s the only one who couldn’t react quick enough to avoid it. Let me also note that not only was everyone else fast enough to jump away in time, but Zakuro had the time to think to grab Akasaka before she jumped, and Lettuce actually had time to run about 20 feet and grab Shirogane before she jumped. The reason this annoys me isn’t the logic of the jumps, though, that’d be really nitpicky – it’s because the only reason I can see for them doing this….is to have another scene where her boyfriend saves her…
– I’m not even gonna ask how and why the Mews’ attacks collectively suddenly create a shield because at least they’re given a whole lot to do. Plus, Pudding’s attack was the most useful today (Outside of a certain someone I’ll mention in a minute…..*deep sigh*), and that hasn’t happened in ages.
– These expressions bother me for some reason. They’re in the middle of a big battle, trying to convey to each other that they need to both attack together and they’re either looking insanely bored or like they’re about to pose for a romantic novel cover.
– Oh go to the deepest recesses of hell…So Aoyama’s been part of the Mews all of 15 minutes, and he already has a brand-new superpowered attack (his sword drawing power from Ichigo’s attack and becoming a massive beam trident-like sword that wipes out all of the enemies in one fell swoop) while the other girls still….have….nothing. And let’s not even talk about this maybe making him the most powerful one of the group (Ichigo might be more powerful, but I’d think that’s only with the help of Mew Aqua), thus making the most powerful protagonist in this shoujo show….a guy….with his girlfriend, the main protagonist….being his assistant. 😐
At least the next episode preview shows that Ichigo’s going to be his protector next time.
– Also, what exactly was that mysterious light if not Mew Aqua? It super purified the gross river water and shined so brightly it was lighting the whole area up. I’ve watched this series going on three times now, and I still struggle remembering if they explain the fake Mew Aqua signals. I assume Deep Blue has something to do with it, but I really don’t remember. Do they ever explain it?
And what was the point of the train nearly derailing? They show it once, act like they have to do something about it…..then they never bring I up again.
– Oooh they use the tense music for the next episode preview and have Pai part of it. Tension’s amping up!
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Overall, I liked this episode, but it was a bit sloppy in its overall structure. I get why Shirogane and Zakuro are suspicious of Aoyama, but I’m really wondering why no one’s asking the obvious questions – When did he discover he was BK? How does he transform without a pendant (they’re assuming he’s a fellow Mew afterall, right?) What animal is he melded with (if they assume he’s a Mew)? Why does he strangely have ears that look exactly like those of the aliens? Why is there seemingly another Mew if Shirogane and Akasaka said they were the only ones? If he’s not a fellow Mew, what is he? Where did he come from?
They just kinda accept and welcome him with open arms. Ichigo thinks Shirogane is unreasonable being distrusting of him, even if he doesn’t ask any of the above questions, and I guess that’s okay because she’s being protective of someone she cares about, but it’s not unreasonable to be wary of a guy who is shrouded in so much mystery.
The only thing that really got on my nerves was BK. I get irritated enough by Ichigo stealing the spotlight all the time and getting all the best new stuff while the others collect dust. However, now not only does BK have a brand new attack (and weapon kinda) that is way more powerful than anything the Mews can do without Mew Aqua (Or with it, to be honest, barring Ichigo, and that’s still up in the air), fresh out of the ‘new Mew Mew member’ box, mind you, but it’s made by using Ichigo’s attack as a powerup (Turning her into essentially what the other Mews keep being whenever they use their attacks to power her bell, which is nothing because we can’t prove that even does anything) and basically makes a dude the most powerful member of a magical girl group. I’m sorry if that last bit sounds a wee bit sexist, but it’s a legit problem I have. (And can you imagine the shit storm that would arise if you took any shounen show and made a woman the most powerful character? Yikes.)
At the very least, to the best of my recollection, he doesn’t remain this way for long for reasons that will soon become obvious, but it’s still a thing, it’s still there, it’s still a problem. I have no issue with Aoyama as a character, in fact I quite like him, and outside of the annoying Tuxedo Mask effect, I had no problem with BK before this either. They just went a little too far.
The animation was certainly bad throughout about half of the episode (I still can’t stop laughing about that stock sky animation.) The other half, particularly the battle, was decent enough even if it usually seemed like the Chimera Animal stingrays were paper cutouts.
Next time, BK is targeted specifically by Deep Blue and the aliens. Can Ichigo turn the tables and be his guardian this time?
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The Anime Madhouse 