The latest and final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 26, Replay – Never Ending, is now available on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. For now this is the final episode. No next episode preview exists and a message stating “À bientôt” or “See you soon” appears at the end of the episode. I’ve already written another blog post about this and will discuss it later in this post. An obvious interpretation of this is that there will be more episodes some time in the future, but nothing of the sort has been confirmed to date. With that, there is a lot to discuss about this episode, so let’s focus on the present, or rather the 30th century, for one last time.
I never really noticed this in the past but Chibiusa is really small! In one particular shot she seems especially small. She usually seems to be about half the size of most adults in the show, which would put her under 3′, something closer to 2’6″ in this shot where she doesn’t even reach the bottom of Sailor Jupiter’s skirt. This is typical of a 3 or 4 year old. Her age isn’t really known with her actually being 900 but given her level of language, maturity and schooling she really shouldn’t be this short. This sort of reminded me of Shippo from Inuyasha who’s size varied wildly from shot to shot.
Neo Queen Serenity awakes and everything is cool between her and Chibiusa. She seems proud of the Sailor Guardian she’s become and sends her off to help her friends. But wait doesn’t she already know this because she fought alongside her for years when she was a teenager?
Sailor Chibi Moon is given Neo Queen Serenity’s sceptre which becomes the Cutie Moon Rod. The idea seems to be that Sailor Moon of the past has the Cutie Moon Rod. In the future it becomes Neo Queen Serenity’s sceptre, and then it is given back to Sailor Chibi Moon. This is why both Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon have matching rods. Like with the two Silver Crystals, they are the same items from different times. They fight Death Phantom, use a double Moon Princess Halation and then Sailor Moon’s Cutie Moon Rod is destroyed. So where does Neo Queen Serenity’s sceptre come from? How does Sailor Chibi Moon’s future version continue to exist? The future as seen in this story arc is the future of this arc, because later in the mange there are item, uniform and cast changes which are not reflected in the future but as the Cutie Moon Rod is replaced even within this same arc, the timeline is already in question.
The time travel is really a mess. So the Death Phamtom is beaten, yay, and everything is great again. Sailor Moon and Neo Queen Serenity want to meet but it’s forgiven because, as Neo Queen Serenity states, it is not a part of history. Well is any of this a part of history? Does Neo Queen Serenity remember spending years of time with her future daughter as a kid, and traveling through time, and saving the future or any of this crazy stuff? If she does, then it’s all a predestination paradox. If she doesn’t, then what fundamental difference does it make if two people actually meet each other? Tuxedo Mask and the ghost of King Endymion are BFFs at this point, but their physical bodies didn’t occupy the same space so it doesn’t matter? Influence can happen through any sort of transmission of information. Simply being able to see the future would have the ability to drastically change the course of history, yet somehow a lot of importance is put on the actual meeting of people.
So what do we do? Oh forget the timeline I want to meet you so they just go see each other. Is this really wise? I mean I know we completely ignore all rules of time travel as we’ve seen by Sailor Pluto never doing her job but what are the implications here? If we actually did somehow change the flow of time by having Sailor Moon and Neo Queen Serenity meeting the main thing that would happen is that Chibiusa would never be born, which is kind of serious business. But nothing seems to happen and so everyone from the future thinks it’s a great idea to just go meet their past selves as the Queen, King, all of the Sailor Guardians and even the cats come and say hi to their past selves. Only Diana is not guilty of tainting her timeline and she may never be born if this is allowed!
There’s so much kissing in this episode. Neo Queen Serenity wakes up King Endymion with a kiss. Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask kiss while wandering in space. Usagi and Mamoru kiss back and earth and of course Chibiusa and Mamoru kiss when she returns! It should make a lot of the fans of romance happy seeing so much smooching.
Sailor Moon gets her brooch updated. Now she has the Cosmic Heart Compact. Oddly though Chibiusa is also seen with a Cosmic Heart Compact. In the anime the transformation item she has for Sailor Moon S is the Prism Heart Compact, though it is unnamed in the manga. It is not usually drawn in details but it does not seem like it was ever meant to closely resemble Sailor Moon’s brooch as it does here.
Chibiusa leaves, somewhat. The clock says 7:20am. How early to be time traveling, but Chibiusa is doing this on a morning before school so that makes some sense. After a teary farewell she leaves only to return moments afterwards. Classic time travel! It’s not clear how long she was gone for but obviously more than a few seconds passed in the future for Chibiusa to be sent back for training. The letter Neo Queen Serenity sends references Usagi having offered to train Chibiusa, though no such agreement ever seems to have taken place. But then Neo Queen Serenity is from the future so perhaps she knows that Usagi was fine with it, having been her in the past, assuming this isn’t part of some abandoned timeline since she met herself and ruined the universe. It seems that Neo Queen Serenity is being a bit lazy here by sending Chibiusa away in order to be rid of her for a while, but this makes no real sense. If time travel is at play she could just have sent her to the future. Chibiusa may very well return to the time she left once her training is complete. There’s no reason to look at this as a normal non time traveler’s sending a child to boarding school. Let’s not forget that Chibiusa is 900 years old so Neo Queen Serenity has had her around for quite a while and does not appear to have tried to sent her to time travel boarding school before.
So Chibiusa is back. Sailor Moon has a new brooch and attack item. Why do all this if this is the last episode? Because that’s what happens in the manga. Sailor Moon Crystal has not simply been a somewhat faithful manga adaptation. It has been a nearly exact retelling of the manga story. New episodes or not they wouldn’t have removed these scenes.
Will the show return for season 2? The final scene of the episodes carries a message, “À bientôt”. This is French and is accurately translated as “See you soon”. We do not know with any certainly what this means. The default assumption here, which I believe is the intended meaning, is that there will be more episodes. This is the closest thing we’ve had to any official confirmation. There are no details and it’s hard to get any specifics. We are, as far as I interpret this statement, being led to believe that the series will continue at some time. When, we can’t say. Will something happen between now and then that will interfere with this plan to bring us new episodes? That is certainly possible and so even if this message is meant to tell us new episodes are coming, these plans may not come to fruition.
There are other possibilities for the meaning of these statements. The live action series ended with the words “See you again”, a less accurate translation of “À bientôt”, which was only meant as a reference to the at the time already announced Special Act, a single episode straight to video special which was itself followed up with a prequel. With other things happening in the Sailor Moon world it could simply be a reference to some other project which fans may care about to varying degrees.
Sailor Moon Crystal was originally announced in summer 2012 for the summer of 2013, but it was delayed a full year before it finally began in July 2014. Episodes were obviously animated at the last minute as next episode previews often had changes by the time the episodes came around, and the next episode preview for Act 26 was all reused clips from earlier episodes. There were also all of the changes done for the Blu-Ray releases. If some time is needed to catch up on the backlog and get a bit of a buffer for new episodes, that is great. There may be a ton of other financial and planning decisions being made in Japan right now that we aren’t and won’t be made aware of. With the series now airing on TV in Japan there may be some desire to have new episodes released either on TV first or simulcast on TV and online. We really don’t know any details. Now is the time to be patient, and hope that new episodes will come at some point. The sooner the better, but in this case late is always better than never.
Like with the premier of Sailor Moon Crystal we must be weary of rumours and pay attention to official sources. There was a ton of speculation based on international sources or subtle mentions which had us assuming all sorts of premiere dates for Sailor Moon Crystal which didn’t pan out until the official release date finally came from an official source, a live event. There were also delays to timelines layed out by official sources, and news with specifics of those delays again came from similar places. A lot of rumours continue as dates such as Winter 2016 are now being spoken of with regards to new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal, but the only official news we’ve had is “À bientôt”. We will be keeping an eye on the official web site and Twitter account, reporting any promising rumours as they come up but always keeping in mind the strength of various evidence. We will be sharing anything we find to be relevant on this site as we learn it.
Be patient friends. We waited a long time for this series. For a lot of us that wait paid off. Do not mistake my snarky negativity for a dislike of the series. I’ve greatly enjoyed Sailor Moon Crystal and sincerely hope there is more in store for us some day.
Keep reading for more screenshots from what we hope is not the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal.
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Hi
i was just reading your review on this act, i’ve seen comments here and there about Sailor moon Crystal’s plot that really make me wonder if these people have actually read the manga, i wonder the same here. Besides that i think you are really confused with the time traveling issue. See Neo Queen Serenity didn’t live the same things as Sailor Moon, Neo Queen Serenity, King Endymion and the guardians on the 30th century had a different life without chibiusa. Remember that there is always one original timeline that passed without someone from the future interfering. The moment Chibiusa went back to the 20th century she completely modified the lives of everyone, thus starting a new timeline that Neo Queen Serenity and all the others never knew and that is the series that we see.
I liked a lot Sailor Moon Crystal, it’s great to see the manga storyline come to the animation, i sort of wished they had done a little balance between the manga and the 90’s anime since in the end all those funny bits at the anime helped build the characters and is also a very imprtant part of Sailor Moon. The character designs could have been more like the original, it could have had a better animation true, but it was nice. The one thing i seriously disliked was the poor attention they gave to details like the transformation and attack items, neither of them were properly made, the Cosmic Heart Compact looks bad and the Spiral Heart moon Rod certainly is done in an awful way, what is Chibiusa doing with another Cosmic Heart compact? those pink tones shouldn’t be, etc. Overall i hope that there is another season and that they learn from their mistakes.
By the way thanks a lot for keeping the site up and always posting awesome things <3
“Remember that there is always one original timeline that passed without someone from the future interfering. ”
That’d not necessarily the case (though I think it is in this instance). It’s entirely possible for a future to have come about BECAUSE someone travelled back in time to make it happen, creating a stable time loop.
It is like in dbz, different timelines, in chibiusas timeline neo queen never fought against the infinity arc or others . thats why she had still the cutie rod instead of the eternal sailor moon rod,
So when Pluto shows up in the next arc, is she from a different timeline?
I can’t remember how the manga went, but if she has memories of stopping time, that means her reincarnation has taken her to a different timeline.
I’m agreeing with Dano and morri above, it’s a matter of separate timelines. NQS never fought the Black Moon clan in the 20th century, only in the 30th. When Chibiusa traveled back in time, she caused a timeline split, allowing for a timeline where Sailor Moon not only got a glimpse of her future, but fought and defeated the Black Moon clan and could take measures to prevent them and Death Phantom from becoming threats in the future and maybe even help Chibiusa awaken earlier without having to go through time and all that. This timeline also contained subtle changes from NQS’s timeline, which is why so much might not make sense.
Interestingly enough, while there are only two timelines the people from each can interact with each other. Chibiusa travels back and forth pretty easily between timelines. However when Sailor Cosmos goes back to warn Sailor Moon about Sailor Chaos and asks her to destroy the Galaxy Cauldron, the resulting events cause Sailor Moon to go down a third timeline. Sailor Cosmos is Sailor Moon of the second timeline, where she fought Sailor Chaos and went back in time to prevent the rise of her enemy. Our Sailor Moon however, once armed with this knowledge, creates a third timeline where she most likely is able to prepare for the Black Moon clan, Death Phantom, AND Sailor Chaos. This is why Chibiusa, who appeared for the final battle, is forced to return to her original timeline: with the second timeline branching in two, she can’t continue to be with Sailor Moon because she’s going down an unconnected timeline, meaning the next time Usagi sees her daughter will be when she gives birth to her and later ascends the throne.
Any questions?
Now that I’ve said that, I’m really hoping SMC comes back for the next three arcs. And maybe a movie showing the events of how Sailor Moon became NQS! I’d certainly like that. Fingers crossed.
If I’m not mistaken, and I think I’ve discussed this before, in the original anime (maybe it was the dub?) there was a miniature ice age or the Earth froze over and when Sailor Moon defeated the cause, she was made queen of the Earth.
My fan theory has been that Sailor Moon was never faced with the Black Moon Clan and since Chibi Usa never came to the past in timeline 1, there was never an Infinity Arc (or there was, but it wasn’t such a big deal) Pluto was not reincarnated, of course in this timeline and maybe Neptune and Uranus never showed up and then Saturn never did either, of course.
This also would have possibly kept the Dead Moon events from happening, and without Chibi Usa and Pegasus being involved it would have changed a lot.
It’s possible that Death Phantom is a form of Chaos beyond Pharaoh 90 and Nehelenia, since he actually appears much, much later in time than those two, even if he does appear first in the story.
He was also the form Chaos took to seduce Galaxia to do what she did.
I believe all of this was connected.
If the ice age theory is true, then there is one enemy in both anime and manga who could have made it happen: Kaguya.
She was not as far as we know an agent of Chaos. When she attacked after the Death Busters, by then, Sailor Moon and her allies were powerful enough to defeat her.
But in the timeline where Sailor Moon never faced Black Moon or Death Busters, she would have been unprepared and Kaguya would have frozen the Earth. But her powers probably awakened anyways and she eventually defeated her, and was then made NQS.
I thought all of Sailor Moon’s enemies in one form or another were avatars or incarnations of Chaos.
yes, they are
I’m not sure about Kaguya, though it’s possible.
I’d prefer to have either a movie or an OVA adaptation of the Casablanca Memories special chapter.
It’s easy to explain the timeline mess…
1. First timeline: Sailor Moon becomes a Queen and everything runs normal until the Black Moon invades in the future. This timeline it’s the first. Neo Queen Serenity does not remember any of ChibiUsa going to the past because that never happens in the first place.
2. Second Timeline: When the past Sailor Moon becomes queen she will remember ChibiUsa going to fight with her in the past. She recieves a new brooch so she becomes stronger faster than anticipated thanks to the help of herself being queen in another timeline.
3.The timeline it’s constantly changing because they broke all these rules.
4. Problably when she becomes a queen she recieved a new cosmic power or she already had it. But the outter senshies did not appeared in the future, this explains that the battle against the Infinity arc never happenend.
it is not know whether the other outter senshi besides Pluto appear in the future or not, outter senshi are not Queen´s bodyguards and does not live with her in te castle
if pluto wasn’t reincarnated she couldnt have left the time door, so nep and uranus wouldnt have been able to locate her, so the talisman would have never joined together to awaken saturn. right?
Does Sailor Moon ever actually become queen in the changed timeline? I don’t think we’re ever told this.
As for the outer guardians not appearing in the future… they might just be off in their personal castles. (At least Uranus and Neptune. Saturn probably isn’t awakened, and Pluto of course guards the door.)
Back to the Future is my source of truth for all things time travel related. This reminds me of the whole alternate 1985 because of actions taken in 1955 when Marty traveled back.
It’s a paradox, and will never make sense, so I just go with it
The time travel in Back to the Future makes no sense whatsoever, so using it as a reference for all things time travel is pretty bad.
It was a joke.
i didnt read any comments yet so if these points have been made already my apologies. obviously what happens in the past alters the future. hence when sailor moons rod shattered, neo queen selenitys was upgraded. and i think it is fair game to assume chibiusa had her heart set on staying in the past a little longer that she schemed up usagi offering to train her, to her mother, so she could come back. we dont see the sailor senshi in their super fuku because that change from the past, didnt happen yet to alter the future. i vaguely remember wiseman also brainwashed galaxia in a *flash back* in stars, i am not sure at which point this falls into the story line but i believe it was before or as he was recruiting the black moon clan, which established the time key to alter the future for his own future through summoning past selves of the sailor senshi and defeating him, so you are right, it can be confusing and i respect your dissection of the series
Usagi in this timeline grows up knowing her future daughter may suffer from self-esteem issues so she trains Chibiusa on how to handle herself around bullies. Chibiusa never develops a complex as Neo-Queen Serenity cuts that off at the pass and also keeps the Silver Crystal in a more secure location so Chibiusa can’t get her little hands on it. Chibiusa never goes back in the past so Usagi never meets her so doesn’t lock up the Crystal and remains sadly ignorant of Chibiusa’s issues so Chibiusa goes back in the past and so on for all eternity.
Does anyone else have a headache?