Delicious Party Precure

Episode 34

Although Kosuke may be a bit young to learn the lesson and really appreciate it, it's true that you never know when it will be too late to spend time with someone. Speaking as a person whose mother had two near-death experiences in the past year (a freak accident leading to traumatic brain injury and then Covid), things really do happen faster than you can possibly imagine sometimes, and while my mom has come out all right, that's not always the case. Yui learned that lesson five years ago, when her grandmother died, and now watching Kosuke and his grandfather fail to connect, she's determined not to let the same thing happen to them.

What's interesting about this episode's take on the topic is that it makes it clear that both grandfather and grandson are at fault for not connecting as fully as they'd like. Where Yui has always been into food and was just reaching the age where she could be trusted in the kitchen when Yone died, Kosuke's grown up resenting the expectations he sees his grandfather as laying out for him. He doesn't see amazing opportunities to travel and sample different dishes; he sees an old guy insisting that he do something that isn't playing baseball with his friends. Heck, he sees a man insisting that baseball isn't as important as cooking and eating, and since Kosuke's at the age where he insists that he's going to be a pro player when he grows up, that feels mean to him, like his grandfather is saying that his ambitions aren't important. Even more simply put, Kosuke's trying to be his own person, and his grandfather wants him to be a mini grandpa. That's setting both of them up for disappointment.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that this episode handled the situation with the care and depth that it's used in some of its other lesson-based plotlines. It certainly does cover the subject matter and help both guys learn to respect each other, but when we compare it to episodes devoted to Kokone, Ran, or Amane, it lacks major character development for Yui. We do get a better sense of how much she misses her grandmother and her regrets at not having her still in her life, but it feels much more surface-level than, for example, Amane's internal struggles about her past. I like Yui – and she badly needed the ranged attack she gets this week – but she's also the least developed of the Cures, and that feels like a problem. “Nice” and “perpetually hungry” aren't quite enough personality traits to base her entire character on. I feel like that was an issue with Manatsu in Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure as well, and I really would like to see more of a Nodoka (from Healin' Good Pretty Cure) as the pink Cure, with more interiority to her character.

We could be on the way to Yui becoming that, of course. While we've heard a lot about Yone, this episode covers her as more than just Yui's pleasant memory; she was a person with friends and a job of her own. When her friend refuses to just teach Yui their special oden recipe, that's because he's possessive of it as something that reminds him of a Yone he knew and Yui didn't; when he relents, it's because he recognizes something of Yone in Yui and how she helps Kosuke. We also seem to get confirmation that Yone is the narrator, which is a nice detail, and it's the memory of Yone that makes Yui ignore Mari and just flat-out charge the Ubau-zo. Whatever else she was, Yone was a person who inspired fierce loyalty and love from those who knew her.

Perhaps that means that Yui is more like her grandmother than I'm giving her credit for. Her astounding romantic density aside, she's a good person who gathers people around her. I'd still love to see her have more character development, but it's also hard to deny that she's got her own strengths, and that being warm and nice are definitely chief among them.

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Delicious Party♡Precure is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.