Witchy Precure! -MIRAI DAYS-

Episode 12

I think I've quoted this before, but in his novel Johnny and the Dead, the late Terry Pratchett explained the past as the town you just drove through still being there in the rearview mirror. It's a metaphor for the way that you can't ignore what's come before if you want to move forward – the past still exists in hindsight. But you also can't drive while looking behind you; the rearview mirror is meant to be checked periodically while you're going forward. It perhaps sounds trite, but that doesn't make it less true: you can't get where you're going if you don't know where you've been.

That's been the heart of Mirai Days. Ire deliberately stopped himself from progressing to live in a past that only exists in his memories, and that was his choice – one that still stands at the end of this final episode. But Mirai, Liko, Mofurun, and Ha-chan ultimately decide to reject that option for themselves. Yes, the past is warm and rosy, but if they stay there, nothing will ever change. Liko's decision at the end to become a “guest lecturer” in the Nonmagic World for those whose parents came from the Magic World, like Ire, exemplifies this idea: she's not giving up her present as a magic teacher, but she's also choosing a future that will not only prevent more Ires from coming around, she's also finding a way to reconcile her past with her future. It won't be exactly the same as when she and Mirai were thirteen, but it will allow her to recapture that experience in a new way. She's looked at the past and found a way to move forward without regret.

Although Liko is the best example of how the series' themes are distilled, everyone embodies the melding of past, present, and future in the end, even in Ire's ambiguous ending, where he's implied to have chosen to stay in the past. It's his choice, and one he ends up having made only for himself; what was selfish about his actions earlier in the show was that he tried to impose his wishes on everyone. Mofurun may be the most trapped, because she can only take on her Cure Mofurun form briefly and spends most of her time as a teddy bear, but she's still able to be with the people she loves, so to her it doesn't feel like a punishment. Ha-chan frees herself from being Mother RaPaPa not by rejecting that role, but by finding a way to fulfill it while still having a happy present; essentially, she's working remotely, ensuring the future by living in the present moment.

And Mirai? I think she's the happiest of the bunch. Her glimpses of the past and present throughout the series positioned her as the one who lost the most when the worlds were separated. Unlike Liko, she's still a student working towards a future she doesn't know yet. She felt tied to the past because it was unresolved, and the years she spent alone, without even Mofurun, could easily have set her on the same path as Ire. But unlike Ire, Mirai maintained hope. She didn't let her nostalgia poison her, and even when life kept her and Liko apart, she found ways to cope by becoming Maho Girl. She worked diligently towards a future that would make her happy, and she achieved it. That's the real power of hope in action.

This hasn't been a perfect series. I don't think it worked as well as the previous adult Precure show, Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom, but it did pull it mostly together in the end. The two little girls who meet in the park are a reminder that life goes on and that more friendships like Mirai and Liko's form everyday. I wish this had had twenty-four episodes instead of twelve, because I think it needed more time to better tell its story (maybe Hi-chan wouldn't have felt like such an under-utilized afterthought), but I do like the ultimate message: don't give up. Keep moving forward. And every so often, glance in that rearview mirror to remind yourself of where you've been.

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