The forty-first episode of Star ☆ Twinkle PreCure turns its attention to the Moon of Mihoshi Middle School, Madoka Kaguya. Madoka’s future is a key point that is brought up in this episode.

Madoka steps down as student council president
Madoka’s time as student council president has come to an end, and as such her father wants her to focus on preparing to study abroad. Madoka isn’t so keen to pursue a future that her father has set out for her, though. After talking with Elena and a clash with an enemy, she comes to a decision.

Elena realises that something is bothering Madoka
The first half of this episode is pretty much spent on Madoka, as she struggles with what she wants to do with her future. It does lead to some lovely interactions between Elena and Madoka.
This follows on from an earlier episode when Elena told Madoka that she could rely on the others, and I am glad to see that that didn’t go forgotten. More Elena x Madoka stuff is certainly not going to go unappreciated by me.

Garuouga appears
The enemy for this episode is Garuouga, and just Garuouga alone. Garuouga may have only fought the Cures on a couple of occasions, but they are certainly memorable. This time around is no exception to that rule.
For a start, this fight looks great.I really love that shot of Cure Selene ready to attack Garuouga from behind – perhaps because it invokes Bleach, or any other shonen anime. Star, Milky, Soleil and Cosmo all get knocked out rather early into the fight, leaving it up to Selene.
When the fight ends up being this level of quality, I kind of wish that we’d see more one-on-one fights.

Selene responds to Garuouga’s attack
I know that the PreCure’s finishing attack is a once an episode thing, but it really feels like padding this time around. I feel like there would have been a greater impact if Selene had defeated Garuouga on her own, but PreCure is gonna PreCure, I suppose.
This wonderful episode ends with Madoka figuring out what she wants to do, and a fair bit of focus on her bare feet. You know, just because.
This episode was superb. Elena and Madoka bonding is always nice to see, the fight against Garuouga look great and PreCure have moved one step closer to achieving their goal.
These character-focused episodes which leads to PreCure powering up have been fantastic. Yuni, Lala and Madoka have had their turns, and I’m confident that Elena and Hikaru will do the same.
Talking of Elena, it is her turn to worry about her future in the next episode.