Oh, Akina. That quilt you're rolled up in at the end of the chapter represents the hug I would like to give you and your incredibly awkward repressed adorable self.

The water park chapter was adorable - I think my single favourite moment was when Akina gets so excited she yells 'GO FOR IT' to Pure Green and gets a 'THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!' I think what I need now, for the story not to start feeling stagnant/repetitious, is for Akina to really put it into words for herself and face the truth: this is a whole big lesbian love thing and she needs to get comfortable with that and work up the guts to tell Kaede how she feels. She's having a heck of a year in terms of coming out as stuff, isn't she? Which will be more nerve-racking, telling people 'I'm an otaku' or telling them 'I'm gay'?
Of course, if she has a group of friends (AND I HOPE A GIRLFRIEND) who understand and accept her, it should be survivable. And even if Kaede can't reciprocate (THAT WOULD BE SO SAD), I think she'd still want to be a good friend to her.
One imagines Makoto realising: My sister is in love with her adorable best friend. MY CREEPER FRIENDS MUST NEVER KNOW. I WILL DO WHATEVER IS NECESSARY TO KEEP THEIR GROSS FANTASY-IMPOSING PRIVACY-INVADING SELVES AWAY FROM TWO REAL GIRLS IN LOVE.
and in that moment a flower of pure valour bloomed in his sweaty otaku heart

I loved this chapter! Best parts: Akina's friends being so much more understanding than she realised, and Makoto being firmly on the RIGHT SIDE of the creep border re: lolicon and sistercon. His friends are terrible, but he seems to have his head screwed on.

If Akina now sees that she can balance both her new interest in Precure and her existing interest in fashion, and that she can share both with Kaede and Micchy - and can probably share both with her old-school friends, too, because it seems like they'd be accepting and take an interest too - hopefully she can RELAX a bit and enjoy life more.

She has such iron-clad and inflexible ideas about people's social roles, herself included, and flips the heck out when anyone isn't what they appear to be, or acts counter to the reputation they've established. It's okay to grow and change, kiddo! Think of what a terrified scaredy-cat Cure Peace was to start with, afraid of her own attacks, and how brave she became by the end of the season. And it never made her any less cute and lovable.

Plus, in a way she was already sharing fashion talk with Kaede and Micchy, just about dressing their game avatars instead of their real bodies. Virtual fashion counts too!

Cavils: Aaaargh why does this guy keep drawing Akina sitting on the toilet seat with her skirt on! If she isn't using the toilet (which, yeah, no need to show us that) and just wanted to sit down in a private place, she would close the lid and sit on that! Gross.
Also Konatsu REALLY needs to stop grabbing people's boobs without consent. Not cool.

Best gag: 'I feel like all I've been doing is reacting to bad jokes.'

Sweetest part: Akina's 'a woman's love' fantasy. Awwwww. All romance and roses! And naked cuddling.

Final thought: I want a ☆9 rare toilet cat strap.

Now there needs to be an extra chapter or something where someone tells her how easy it is to find this stuff on the Internet.

Or ask one of her friends. Or steal it from her brother...

I don't think she'd want to ask her (new) friends, because that could mean revealing that she hasn't seen every series at least once through, and I'm pretty sure she wants them to think that. Remember how embarrassed and confused she was when she almost revealed that she didn't realise there were more seasons after the original?
Makoto might be an acceptable robbery victim, though. He hangs out with gross creeps and is borderline gross himself; it's quick-acting karma.

I'm so enjoying this series, as a big recent Precure fan. (Can you tell who my favourite Cure is?) It does have the occasional clunky moment that makes me think 'Yeah, that's a dude's view of girls, nothing to do with how girls actually think or act' but for the most part it's super cute and funny and honours the fandom while affectionately parodying it.

I'm also hoping for True Yuri Love, although I have the feeling that even if Akina soon acknowledges to herself that she's really attracted to Kaede, Kaede will remain cutely oblivious for a long time.

Finally, I so wish that there was a high-quality 'Design your own Precure!' Flash game like the Sailor Senshi one based on Drachea Rannak's fanart. The only ones I've been able to find are distinctly rinky-dink.