Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime 22
Altessa tends to her flower garden, happy to finally have a quiet day alone with her brother. Or so she thought... Fine, Rain, Sophie, and Auraa have all come to have tea since Bright invited them last time. I had no idea Pumo was such a flower lover.. though that doesn't keep Altessa from wringing his neck. Textbook tsundere behavior.. Naginyo is there to seranade everybody in his own special way as they sit down for tea. Prince Auraa and Price Bright look to have gotten to be good friends after what happened during the balloon race, and Sophie and Altessa. Well, still some work to be done there... And besides tea there's also Fine's favorite food, cake, which she happily gobbles up and almost chokes on. Altessa makes the usual snide remark about Fine and Rain and Bright scolds her. She angrily stomps off... Meanwhile, two of the chancellor's henchman plan their next move..
Bright shows everyone around the garden and explains how the jewels are mined. Fine can't think about anything besides food, of course. Altessa made the cake after practicing so much for the sweets Princess Party... Fine and Rain remember how badly they treated her there. They get Bright to tell them where Altessa might be at. They find Altessa in a secret basement room practicing quite hard for the upcoming princess party (the theme being flowers this time). She's not pleased that Fine and Rain interrupted her practice and saw what she was planning to do.. before every Princess Party she's practiced here only to lose every time...
After seeing all the effot Altessa puts into winning the princess parties Fine and Rain realize they don't quite measure up. But Bright says that they have something that Altessa doesn't... The two henchman have infiltrated the castle and set off some smoke, not intending to cause a fire... but a fire starts and spreads rapidly, and Altessa's trapped in her training room. So it's time for the Prominence.. but the henchman have their Prominence-stealing gun pointed at Fine and Rain. Eclipse is there to stop them, thankfully, so Fine and Rain complete their transformation... and a giant mole robot flies out from a nearby mine on a mountain. Huh? (^^;;)
The mole requires good ol' fashioned elbow grease to run so Fine and Rain hop aboard and start pedaling, but it's not enough. Everyone else jumps on (very sentai-ish split screen here) and starts pedaling, but they're still one person short. Eclipse jumps aboard and starts pedaling, and even though everyone gets tired they eventually get the mole machine started and dig through to rescue Altessa. So everybody's safe now... but Altessa' flower garden is ruined so she'll have to plant it all again. Perhaps she'll plant some flowers that would suit Fine and Rain. Still, she won't lose at the next Princess Party. Sophie jumps in: "Let's all win!"....... it doesn't work that way, Sophie-chan. The conversation starts repeating itself as Sophie says "Let's all win!" again (^^;;) But they all seem to be getting along better than before :) Prince Bright looks at Fine laughing: "Fine, I'll protect your smile with my own hands".
So it's back to the Sun Kingdom for the usual EXP check. The Star Vial fills up, but Fine and Rain don't gain a level. That's quite odd, so....
なぜ？なぜなぜなぜなぜな～ぜ？
Naze? Naze naze naze naze naze? ("Why? Why why why why why?")
Fine and Rain do the nazenaze dance. And Pumo joins in for once.
And that was rather unexpected given how he usually reacts when they dance. I laughed :) Anyways, I liked this ep more than I thought I would given my dislike of Altessa. My opinion of her might have gone up just a bit this time. But even if she is such a hard worker she still needs to fix that attitude :P If she'd smile more like Kono-san drew her (thanks again for the wonderful drawings!) I'd like her much more :) Fine and Rain were in good form as usual, as well as Sophie. She's definitely the princess that makes me laugh the most :) And Bright... he's set on Fine, ain't he? Poor Rain-chan's gonna be the big loser here....
リオーネちゃんクル━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━！！！
Leonne-chan kuru--! (Leonne-chan's coming!)
Been a few episodes since we've seen Leonne-chan so I'm definitely looking forward to next time :) The Seed Kingdom princesses will be there as well as they get their green thumbs up to snuff for the next Princess Party.
I think Fine is kinda weirded out by Bright XD
The fire idea might have come from the Windsor Castle fire incident in 1998. The way the fire started in the episode was approximately the same way the fire started in the Windsor Castle. However, that incident wasn't an intention since the curtains came too close to the torches...