Doki Doki Precure Ep 14: Card Battles (Sort of!)

When Rika was younger, her parents asked what she want to be when she grow up. She answered she want to be a doctor like her mother when she grow up.

No, Mana...Miyuki is the Queen of Funny Expressions!

Today, Rika discovered she got second in the Mid Terms exams and was sulking in one corner at Joe's shop. Makoto tried to recall what the yellow piece is until Dabi remembered it is the Royal Crystals from the Trump Kingdom.

Dabi explained there are five of them and once all five are assembled, something incredible will happened. Rika declined Mana's offer to stay for dinner and later, the other three girls met Rika's mother, Ryoko at her restaurant.

Rika as a Yankee. (Awesome and Hilarious!)

Ryoko told Mana that Rika has been acting strangely like shouting in the room and in a trance during meals. The next day, Rika left school in a hurry which Raquel and Dabi speculate that Rika might be going astray.

However Lance told them that Alice spotted Rika going to a building and they found out she is  playing Karuta. She explained she got interested in the game after reading a book about the Romance of Karuta and decided to try it out.

Rika also want to test herself against the current Karuta champion, Queen to see how far she can go. The others supported her and aid her in her training. Meanwhile, Bel served Regina without question as Mammo grumbled and found out Irk has ran to the human world.

The girls saw Queen in the contest and her skills were amazing. However she wished for a equally skilled man to be her boyfriend and complained about it. Irk used that to create a Jikochu and merge with it.

The girls transformed and the Jikochu challenged them to a Karuta game. The girls got beaten left and right until Cure Heart encouraged Cure Diamond not to give up. She then managed to got the card before the Jikochu which led an opening for Cure Heart to purify it.

When everything went back to normal, Queen had a match with Rika. Although Rika lose, Queen enjoyed the match and gave her a set of cards as a gift. Ai-Chan touched the cards and a blue Royal crystal appeared not knowing the strange blue bird is spying on them.

You are still our little girl, Rika!

Ryoko appeared and she want Rika to enjoy herself rather than focusing on studies alone. Her father also arrived and teased Rika that she can always choose to be a photographer instead of a doctor. The three then walked home happily together...

Like what Kokoda Koji mentioned in his review, I can't understand whether are they making a episode about Rika's pressures over her studies or about Karuta. Toei should just focused on one plot instead but because of the Royal crystals plot, they need to include a Karuta game just to keep the story going.

Rika in this episode was weak in character development, I was expecting her to go and become a delinquent after her results (Wouldn't that be more interesting to see that?) but no, we have her doing something which is nothing illegal but rather getting her friends all paranoid just because she didn't join them in their outings.

Now we have another quest for our girls which is basically another treasure hunt for the remaining Royal Crystals which thank god, there are only three more left! (Unlike Smile Precure which the girls have to search for their sixteen decors three times!)

So it is no brainier in the next episode, Makoto is playing Snow White in a TV program and for god's sake, let someone else other than Cure Heart to deal with the final blow! Until then, see you next week!