The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon S are now available to stream on Hulu and Neon Alley. Now that Chibiusa has arrived the series takes a bit of a different direction, mixing episodes focusing on her and episodes focusing on other characters. First up we have an all Chibiusa episode and then we look at Makoto who is training to improve herself which the other girls use as an excuse to have a little vacation.
Episode 104, Making New Friends: Chibi Moon’s Adventure, gives us a bit of an explanation as to why Chibiusa is back. In the manga she returns immediately after leaving but in the anime there was a bit of a gap. Chibiusa has a letter from her mother, Neo Queen Serenity, which is terribly written without any Kanji. We see Luna P briefly in this episode for one of the last times. This episode is full of a lot of Japanese references that I was completely confused by when I first saw it. Chibiusa is trying to make friends and in doing so has an odd confrontation with a boy at the park. He becomes somewhat verbally and then physically abusive to her before taking his pants off and flashing her. This bizarre encounter is a reference to another anime Crayon Shin-Chan as the young boy Shinnosuke shares a name and voice actor with Shin Chan. The boy does not physically resemble Crayon Shin-Chan but he does have a Shin-Chan toy. Finally Chibiusa meets and befriends Tamasaburou, a young boy who impresses her with a tea ceremony. Throughout this Usagi and Chibiusa grieve each other by trying to break their perfect sitting position, which seems to be important at a tea ceremony. Tamasaburou is targeted by the enemy. Chibiusa comes to the rescue and we actually see her transform, though Chibiusa does not have an actual transformation sequence in this season apart from what we see in the Sailor Moon S movie. Chibiusa isn’t the only one to transform! At the end of the episode Chibiusa is shocked to see Sailor Tamasaburou, a cross dressing Tamasaburou. It seems a bit odd that so many characters, including Haruka, seem put off by this. Cross dressing is nothing new to this season. Perhaps it’s simply the fact that he’s dressing as a Sailor Guardian that is off putting. Tamasaburou is most definitely a male in this uncut subtitled version of the episode despite having been portrayed as female in the Cloverway dub back in the day.
Episode 105, I Want Power: Mako Lost in Doubt, is a Sailor Jupiter episode which reminds us that even though Chibiusa is going to be a big part of the series from now on we can still spend some time focusing on other characters. Makoto feels bad about a fight with a monster which is not tied to a specific episode and decides to go train! The rest of the girls are happy to come along to crash the party and generally sit around and relax. Yes indeed, this is another swimsuit episode as I know at least one of our readers is a big fan of. This episode also shows us Mamoru’s part time job at the resort they spend time at. Mamoru lives alone and is a full time student so it’s not really clear where he gets enough money for his lavish lifestyle but this part time job, which his girlfriend didn’t even know about, seems to be part of that answer. He’s seen rushing around clearing a bunch of plates likely as some sort of bus boy. He’s never shown having this job again.
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Yeah, I’ve wondered about that. It’s established in the first season that Mamoru is rich, and we’ve seen him in a fancy car and on a motorcycle in the 2nd season. What is he doing at a job in the 3rd season? Maybe he does it to fill out his resume when he applies to colleges, but I don’t know if Japanese colleges factor that sort of stuff in (every portrayal of students getting into Japanese schools I’ve ever seen seem to focus only on test scores). Maybe he’s doing it for a friend, or for the experience, or he has some sort of trust fund and he only gets so much money per month, so he’s trying to supplement it. Maybe he wants get Usagi something nice since her birthday gift tried to take her pure heart? We may never know.
This reminds me of how the DiC dub at one point claimed Darien used to be a model to help pay his way through college.
Indeed from my understanding it is even somewhat frowned upon to hold a part time job while in periods of intense studying, such as the high school entrance exams. Mamoru is past this but still is shown to be required to spend quite a bit of time on his studies. Part time jobs are well and good but they don’t leave a ton of time for dating middle school girls while trying to keep up with your studies like Mamoru likes to do.
He amassed a large fortune stealing jewels while looking for the Silver Crystal in the first season and is finally now starting to run out of cash needing to turn to other sources of revenue!
Oh, so that’s how he got that money! I thought he was being sponsored or had a huge inheritance!
I suppose it could have been from his parents. We know so little about them though.
In the live action series I believe he gets money from Hina’s father.
And after their engagement is broken…scholarship?
Maybe Sailor Moon makes him a pile of money when she reboots life on earth.
It should also be pointed out that episode 105 is one of the few episodes where a Sailor Soldier other than Sailor Moon is the one that defeats the MOTD. In the manga, the Sailor Soldiers are a lot more powerful and defeat the monsters more frequently on their own. The anime downplayed their powers and had the Sailor Soldiers rely more heavily on Usagi to defeat the MOTD. I quite like this episode for this reason and the anime needed more Makoto-focused episodes. At the same time, it seems a bit strange that Makoto was so upset that she couldn’t defeat the monster at the beginning of the episode when she had never been shown to defeat the monsters before this episode. Yet none of those other times where Makoto relied on Usagi spurned Makoto to go off on some training camp thing. I”m also not sure why Makoto believes practicing karate will somehow increase her power.
She’s considered the powerhouse of the group. Being outmatched in strength might’ve upset her and eaten at her pride. And martial arts is supposedly good for physical and mental strength, so maybe that’s got something to do with it.
I suppose that could be the case but Sailor Moon has always shown before that your power level is increased by how much you believe in the power of love as opposed to your actual caliphs strength, otherwise Usagi would be the weakest of the Sailor Soldiers. And while Makoto’s situation is special, it should also probably be told for the sake of any teenage kids reading this blog, that while the monk Makoto hanged out with turned out to be a pretty nice guy and not a pervert like how most anime seems to stereotype monks, it’s probably not a good idea to go spend a weekend alone with a guy you just barely met and not even tell your friends before you’re already on the train heading there. Sailor Moon Says!
Ha! Forgot they used to do those during the DiC dub days.
That should read physical strength but for some reason it turned out weird.
Her best bet to increase her power would be to steal the future Silver Crystal from Chibiusa. Having one seems to be the best way to defeat monsters.