The forty-fourth episode of Healin’ Good ♡ PreCure is presumably the penultimate one. I’m happy about that, as I definitely wanted to talk about it. After all, we have the final battle in this episode.
PreCure prepare to fight Neo King Byo-gen
In this episode, Cure Grace and her allies do battle with Neo King Byo-gen. With Cure Earth’s plan, they are able to surpass his barrier. However, he still proves to be incredible powerful and overwhelms the girls.
Still, they remain determined to purify their foe, even when it looks like they have been stripped of their powers. Nodoka’s courage to stand up serves as an inspiration, and they are soon back into battling.
Cure Earth uses Shindoine’s power
As far as final battles go in the PreCure franchises, this is a very solid effort. Personally, I consider Splash Star‘s final battle to be the best, and that has yet to be surpassed. Impressive considering how much animation has improved since that season aired.
I could go on about Splash Star for a long while, but we’re here to talk about Healin’ Good.
Neo King Byo-gen absorbs PreCure and the Healing Animals
I will say that this final battle is pretty typical for PreCure, or even the magical girl genre in general. Which is absolutely fine, because I do like that a lot. We have the heroes overcoming the villain at first, then the villain turning the tables before one final heroic spurt turns things around again. All that matters is that it plays out in an entertaining way, and that is exactly what we get.
Nodoka confronts Neo King Byo-gen
Nodoka has been absolutely amazing over these past few episodes. Honestly, her actions recently have easily rocketed her into first place as my favourite Healin’ Good Cure, whereas before I would have said I couldn’t pick a favourite.
The end of that whole Daruizen arc and Nodoka acknowledging Neo King Byo-gen saying that everyone has to fight to live are things about her that I find to be very admirable. Add to that being voiced by Aoi Yuuki, and she definitely hits my top three Cures overall.
Nodoka and company prepare for the second round
This episode gives us a Dragon Ball Z moment (as opposed to Splash Star, which gave us an entire Dragon Ball Z style fight – oh, I’m talking about Splash Star again…). No fancy new outfits or anything for PreCure this time around. Instead, they’re granted the power of flight (something that only a select few Cures can do on their own).
The stock footage we get is abridged in this episode, which does give us a bit more to focus on the battle against Neo King Byo-gen. Nice to see that streamlined, for the most part.
This part brought to mind the train scene from Spider-Man 2
Sometimes the Cures keep their identities secret, and others they choose to reveal them. This time around, they are unknowingly revealed, but their friends and family respect their right to privacy (even that one journalist idiot). Spider-Man 2 springs to mind, of all things.
Nodoka sees off Asumi and the Healing Animals
We end with Asumi and the Healing Animals going to the Healing Garden. We still have one more episode to go, though. It’ll be interesting to see if Healin’ Good will keep up the more modern tradition of having a time skip at the end.
Since next time is probably the final episode, expect a review for the whole season. That will be followed by my annual PreCure ranking.
We’re so close to the new season of PreCure, of which I know very little. That’s been on purpose, of course; I want to go into that as blind as I can. Still excited for it, though.
Rory Muses 