Sailor Moon Crystal Act 9, Serenity – Princess, went online yesterday, November 1st, on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This episode is full of revelations as Princess Serenity, Prince Endymion, the Silver Crystal and tons of details about the past are finally revealed!
Did anyone really think Minako was the Moon Princess? That was all a bit silly with the last episode. Minako was the ruse and now we are finally shown the worst kept secret in Sailor Moon history, the true identity of Princess Serenity. But not content to have super obvious things finally revealed we are now being really secretive about the true identity of the woman from the past who killed Prince Endymion. Boy I wonder who the evil woman might be? Her face is obscured so I have no idea who this is.
Indeed, the big thing in this episode is this great flashback to Silver Millennium, the kingdom on the Moon from some time in the distant past. The English dub mentioned this time to be 1000 years ago which seems about right but an exact timeline is not ever given. Looking at the technology and architecture of Earth at the time it would seem that a Midlevel setting is what we’re seeing. This isn’t a flashback to when Prince Endymion was on Earth in the 1950s. The places on Earth also appear to be European rather than Asian, despite the people clearly speaking Japanese.
Usagi is revealed to be the Princess and so the proper pecking order is well established. The other girls are her guardians, and this is shown both in their willingness to protect her in battle but also in the way they all come together to support her as friend now that she’s pretty down thinking Mamoru is kidnapped and likely dead. One concern she expresses is that they need to get him before his body deteriorates. No wonder she wants to return to a worry free teenage life.
The Shitennou are all still around which didn’t really go anywhere. In the manga version of this story we get a nice flashback showing they were Endymion’s generals back in the day and we see Jadeite’s body undo decomposition but all of this is skipped. Changes are expected to this story seeing as they are all still alive, rather than having been killed like in the manga, but I expected more rather than less to occur this week. For now we will continue to wait to see what is in store for those characters in the coming episodes. Kunzite recognized the name Endymion when it was mentioned so it looks like it’s only a matter of time until everything is on the table.
Next time we go to the Moon! Everyone is kind of waiting around but the girls want some answers and Luna suggests they may be found on the Moon. November 15th episode is Act 10, Moon. We’ll see more flash backs and a look at Queen Serenity, Princess Serenity’s mother from back in the day.
Check out more screenshots from this week’s episode and the next episode preview below.
well the secret in Crystal wasn’t as clear as it was in DiC(k) dub (the Silver Millenium flashback right before episode 1 with Serenity clearly shown going in bubble with the hairstyle you won’t mistake anywhere and a girl with the same hairstyle shown in few mins and they spent whole series by looking for princess who was right in front of their eyes)
the TotallyNotBeryl mysterious woman might have scrapped face for 2 reasons: Serenity’s memories are still foggy so she doesn’t every random citizen’s face and she never saw Beryl in person before so she doesn’t know/remember her face
and I read somewhere that the Silver Millenium existed sometime around Mesopotamia. If it really was in medieval Europe there would still be left some writings about the “malicious kingdom on Moon that can attack the peaceful Earth people at any time” and “the powerful silver Crystal that can destroy our planet”
and for the lenguage, every anime character that is not Japanese in it’s own country speaks Japanese. That’s anime so everyone speak only Japanese
Good point. I hadn’t considered that it may simply have been Sailor Moon who didn’t realize who Queen Beryl was yet.
Considering that the legend of Selene and Endymion is Greek, I would assume (lacking other evidence) that the Earth Kingdom was based closer to Greece than Mesopotamia. Perhaps a bit further east, such as Turkey.
Ah yes. Good point. The architecture and technology would fit with that.
Well, looks like I was wrong, this anime isn’t going in a totally different direction than the manga. I’d kind of hoped with 26 episodes it would (and considering the minor changes they’ve done with this anime, there’s still a slim chance of that happening), but I’ll accept that we’re likely going to go the route of the manga and meet Chibiusa around episode 13 or so. Should be interesting.
You still could be right. This shittenou thing may still go somewhere (I really, really hope it does) and until the final battle begins, there’s still a chance of change.
Well, we’ll have a better idea in two weeks. I’m certainly looking forward to it.
Minako as the Princess wasn’t meant to fool the audience, it was meant to fool the Dark Kingdom and tie the Sailor V manga into the storyline.
I have one big problem with this episode… Why animation is sooo bad? In one scene Usagi is normal and then she’s really scary. I was like WTF?! Crystal was taken from her and she is changing in Youma!! Call Sailor Moon!! Wait…Damn!… Ghostbusters? Exorcist? Someone!!
Princess Serenity has blond hair? >_<