The first two episodes of Sailor Moon SuperS, episodes 128 and 129, are now available on Hulu

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 128 - Chibiusa and Pegasus

This morning the two latest episodes of Sailor Moon which were added to Hulu and Neon Alley were the first two episodes of Sailor Moon SuperS. This is the 4th season of the original Sailor Moon anime loosely based on the Dream arc of the Manga. This introduces us to the Dead Moon Circus which at this point is Zirconia and the Amazon Trio. Hulu updated their banner now that the new season is available. This new banner shows the Sailor Guardians in their powered up Super forms, including an image of Chibiusa and Usagi in their Princess dresses with Pegasus wings from the final episode of the season. What a spoiler! Many fans don’t seem to like this season that much given the amount of focus that is given to Chibiusa. My feelings are mixed. While most of the season spends a lot of time with filler without focusing on the main story I find that those episode are still quite well done, giving us some very interesting well fleshed out villains and hilarious monsters in the form of the circus inspired Lemures as well as providing very good character development for Usagi and Chibiusa, though this is done at some expense as there is of less development amongst the other Sailor Guardians present and Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru don’t appear in the season at all.

Note that Sailor Moon SuperS is pronounced “Sailor Moon Supers” in Japan. The previous season, written as Sailor Moon S, was itself pronounced “Sailor Moon Super”. This can cause some confusion when hearing the names of the seasons spoken, rather than written, in Japanese. English speaking fans still have a habit of stating the title as “Super S”. As this site is written, I have no requirement of pronouncing it one way or the other as you aren’t hearing what I’m saying out loud anyway.

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 128 - Super Sailor Chibi Moon, Super Sailor Moon and the Kaleidomoon Scope

Episode 128, Meeting of Destiny: The Night Pegasus Dances, starts out with Chibiusa’s dream. This dream, which is a mix of dream and reality, has her encountering the winged horse Pegasus. Pegasus is the proper name of an individual, much like the Pegasus of Greek Mythology. I’ve had many debates about whether or nothing there is such a thing as “A pegasus”, a species, as is used in such places as the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, or whether it is a proper name as it is here. For Sailor Moon purposes, Pegasus is not “A pegasus” but rather a winged horse with a golden horn who is named Pegasus. This means he is also a unicorn, which is not a typical way to portray a standard pegasus. Pegasus exists in Chibiusa’s dream but he is not a figment of her imagination, as we learn later in the episode when he appears to save the day during combat. Pegasus uses his powers to transform Sailor Moon into Super Sailor Moon, which she can’t do without the Holy Grail which she should still have but doesn’t use, and also transforms Sailor Chibi Moon into Super Sailor Chibi Moon for the first time. Pegasus will not be using his powers to power up the rest of the Sailor Guardians for about another half season. He also gives Sailor Moon the Kaleidomoon Scope, which is a weapon named after a kaleidoscope, a toy used by children to use mirrors in order to make a cool design when you look into a tube.

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 128 - The Dead Moon Circus's Big Top

This episode introduces us to the Dead Moon Circus who’s big top appears during a solar eclipse where the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth. Though a flying big top appears over Tokyo no one seems to question it. The in story reason for this that is given is that people do not question things that change, assuming it happens for a reason. This is an appealing thought, and one used by promoters of pseudoscience to explain why sheeple don’t see evidence for UFOs or other conspiracy theories, though the opposite is generally true. Humans are wired to detect patterns and we often see some that aren’t there. The flip side of this is that we don’t often miss patterns that are there and that we are more likely to assign meaning to the meaningless than to assign no meaning to something meaningful. For the purposes of this fiction though, the idea that no one notices the big top is an effective plot device and a funny idea. It does somewhat resemble the idea of bystander apathy, where everyone assumes something is someone else’s problem, so no one does anything, but that doesn’t really work in the way the big top goes unnoticed. The target for this episode is Unazuki, Motoki’s sister. The targets for this season are pursed by the Amazon Trio which is comprised of Hawk’s Eye, Tiger’s Eye and Fish Eye. Since Unazuki is a young girl, she is pursued by Tiger’s Eye. Once captured Hawk’s Eye makes Unazuki’s Mirror of Dreams appear before her. When looking through it the victim screams as if the violation of having their dream probed was a serious assault. Fairly creepy.

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 128 - Tigers' Eye looks for Pegasus in Unazuki's Mirror of Dreams

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 129 - The Amazon Trio - Hawks' Eye, Tigers' Eye and Fish Eye

Episode 129, Super Transformation Once Again: Pegasus’s Power, is a title as ridiculous as the hyped second transformation it refers to. OMG Pegasus showed up again! OMG we transformed for a second time! This will happen repeatedly throughout the season as Pegasus is (almost) always required for Moon Crisis Makeup (although Sailor Moon did it without any aid in order to save Sailor Saturn last season) so we will constantly have him show up as part of the lengthy transformation and attack sequence of this season. This week’s target is Reika, Motoki’s girlfriend. Hawk’s Eye targets older women, so Reika falls under his domain. Apparently older doesn’t mean much older, as Reika is college aged. Tiger’s Eye’s upper age limit seems to be pretty low. While Reika is the focus this is also a Chibiusa episode. There will be a lot of these in Sailor Moon SuperS. Reika’s horse reminds Chibiusa of Pegasus and so she asks her, by using a carrot to indicate his horn, if she’d ever seen a horse like him. Reika recalls such a horse from the world of dreams. This comes back later in the season as all of the Sailor Guardians have a revaluation of “Oh that’s right I used to dream of Pegasus, I guess I just forgot”. We still have a lot to learn about the mysterious Pegasus and because of how Sailor Moon SuperS plays out, it will be a really long time until we get answers to any of the questions we have about him.

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 129 - Chibiusa describes Pegasus

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Sailor Moon SuperS episode 129 - Reika and her horse

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12 thoughts on “The first two episodes of Sailor Moon SuperS, episodes 128 and 129, are now available on Hulu

  1. This season was fun to watch with my little cousins back when it first aired in America, but it’s my least favorite season.
    It does have some really good episodes and that creepy scene where Nehelenia’s inner self comes out in Zirconia form to strangle Usagi is pretty awesome and scary.
    I just wish they’d spent more time developing the inner senshi…and had some time for the outers. (They do appear in that puppet special, and it was pretty good)

  2. I used to really love this season, and parts of it were pretty creepy at times. But mostly I remember this being the season where everything got goofy. As Sailor Moon said in one episode of the Cloverway dub: “Is it just me or are the monsters getting weirder?” Indeed, Sailor Moon, indeed.

  3. I never understood why this season got so much hatred from the fandom over the years. I personally always enjoyed it. It reminds me a lot of Utena for some reason. Fans complained about SuperS having too much filler-in but if you do an episode count, the first season actually has more filler-in yet season one is still pretty popular with the fans. Other fans complained about it deviating too much from the manga but 99% of the original anime was completely different from the manga too so that seems a bit unfair to SuperS. I can understand wanting more of the Outers and I can understand how the sudden shift to comedy after the dark ending of S. But then S had plenty of comedic episodes in it too and it didn’t get really dark until the last arc of S, which is the same thing that happened with SuperS. The lack of the Outers is disappointing but I don’t think it’s fair to trash the rest of the season because of it. And I love Chibi-usa so I personally don’t mind SuperS is more focused on her. I wonder if Hulu will be uploading the SuperS specials after episode three or will they have the specials at a later point?

    • thats actually an amazing episode! i think they should definitely release and dub the specials, id prefer that over the movies! back in the day of dial up it was always a rare gen to find a horrible quality half an episode in japanese to watch but those specials were GOLDEN if you got your hands on them. its so easy to watch sailormoon now but i think i fell in love and held onto it for 16 years BECAUSE i couldnt binge watch every episode. i remember signing up to mario knights aol mailing list and finally getting a hold of the stars season, it was a Dream for fans to just see the last episode (200) in particular because of the taboo that “sailormoon was naked the entire episode”. soooo much nostalgia! idc what they say about crystal, i loved it, so neat to witness a version of sailormoon as its released in japan. i remember having to wait a week for pgsm episodes to be translated and the. another hundred years for my dial up to download the episodes. i feel like i am at a good age for that because me and the actress the played sailormoon are the same age :-)

    • I used to absolutely despise Chibi-Usa, because all my exposure to her had been in the dub, and she was just completely awful there. A spoiled little brat, totally rude. The first time i watched the whole series in Japanese, I was expecting to hate it because of Chibi-Usa, but I grew to enjoy her (still one of my least favorites) over the series and SuperS was actually very enjoyable.

      I’d say Stars is the one that feels like it wastes the most time.

      • In the comic book Chibi-Usa is different from the way she is in the cartoon, and that’s one of the reasons people tend to dislike “SuperS” (even if they don’t know it). They also butchered the storyline worse than any of the others. It was definitely not their “best work” – for cripes’ sake, they “forgot” that the girls were supposed to be in high school despite the fact that the entire third series was based around them preparing for the entrance exams…..

        • Indeed, manga Chibi-Usa was much different, more sympathetic and not as annoying. But that character didn’t suit the need for filler as much as the anime version of her did.

          SuperS has a lot of problems indeed, but it has its enjoyable moments, too.

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