I'm torn on whether I like the new direction the fighting portions of the show is seeming like it wants to take. It's been a long, long time since the Precure have simply physically beaten down opponents before finishing them off with a special attack coup de grace, let alone fought Generals directly, and I've come to terms with that, but lately they're taking it even further. After the beatdowns were gone, opponents would at least demand a single solid strike to stumble them, before a finisher would have any effect. Now, though, they sometimes just dispense with it all entirely and pull out finishers out of nowhere to one-hit KO an otherwise healthy monster.
As replacement for stumbling them, they've taken to occasionally having the Cures use some sort of episode-specific trickery, directly related to the contents of the episode itself, to hinder them before pulling out the finishers. For example, instead of just beating up the bulwark (what are those things actually even called?) monster last episode, Manatsu and the gang piled sand upon it, dumped water all over it to drastically increase the weight and slow its movement, then special attacked. As the episode revolved around the beach and doing sand art, it was pretty cool and intuitive. I actually kind of like those sort of shenanigans, but at the same time I really, really like it when they just go apeshit on a monster too.
Maybe I'm just imagining this. Maybe it happens often and I'm just noticing it like a dumby, or it could be specific to Tropri even. I'll have to keep this all in mind over the upcoming years and see if it starts becoming the new trend.
Also Laura seems like she's getting fed up with being sidelined in the daily activities. Legs soon?