Shugo Chara Doki 57 - The Path to MANHOOD

This episode was so useless, but I laughed so hard. Being a man's man is hard work. Ikuto and Yoru are searching for his violin, but they don't have any luck. Yoru is concerned because the violin is very important to Ikuto, but Ikuto says it's not that big of a deal. At school, a group of dojo students request that everyone hide their cute things because the dojo senpai is coming to school and he hates cute things. Some of the girls don't get the memo, and the senpai appears and looks quite angry that he has to deal with seeing cute things. Amu stands up to him and everyone is amazed at how cool she is. Later, Amu, Rima, and Yaya find a cute keychain of a fawn and wonder who it belongs to. Senpai shows up and looks angry, so the girls take off. Kukai stops by to brief Nagihiko on some of his Jack-ly duties, including taking care of the spoiled King. He notices that Nagihiko is a lot more masculine than he was as Nadeshiko and thinks it's an interesting change. He then asks what it was like to wear a skirt, which brings up bad memories in Nagihiko, who proceeds to say that if Kukai is really curious, he should try it himself. The girls appear at this immensely awkward moment, but Amu finds herself sparkling with happiness at the sight of Tadase in a skirt.

Senpai confronts Amu later and confesses that he has a huge weakness for cute things and that the keychain she found belongs to him. He says one day he'll have to give it up in order to become a MANLY MAN. Unsurprisingly, Lulu targets him and he transforms into "Fancy Dream," in order to "cutify" the entire world. He turns things into pink hearts and sparkles, and one of his cuteness rays hits Kukai, Tadase, and Nagihiko. Amu and Miki are enthralled by Tadase and Kiseki dressed as princess maids, but Rima snaps them out of it and reminds them they're in a fight. Yaya hopes to become cutified as well and wants to get hit by one of the cute beams, but Amu stops it before Yaya gets hit. The usual self-searching happens and eventually Senpai reverts back to his normal self, confident that he can be a man and like cute things. Lulu is angry that Amu keeps interrupting her plans. In the meantime, Easter is infusing X-Egg energy into Ikuto's violin for some evil plans.


This episode is overflowing with MANLY POWER. There's probably something wrong when the manliest man of them all is the former crossdresser. He seems very displeased with his past self and how he was raised, probably largely in part because of his feelings for Amu. It explains why Temari went back into her egg, though. Since his would-be self is no longer the female he was raised as, he has to find another true character. Hence his new egg. Can't wait for it to hatch. : ) Anyway, this episode was pretty terrible and Kukai looks horrible dressed as a girl. Amu sure has some weird tastes, going for Tadase in a skirt like that. And there's something bizarre about Yaya wanting to be struck by "cuteness beams." The Ikuto subplot is a lot more interesting, and I hope we'll get to hear more violin stylings by him soon. Next episode looks like a complete throwaway episode. Blah.

--Ou-bento