The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon SuperS were added to Hulu and Neon Alley this morning. With the addition of episodes 142 and 143 we are introduced to what seem to be the oldest and youngest targets in the series. First we learn why Mamoru goes after school girls as he and Hawk’s Eye fail to seduce an elderly woman and next Fish Eye goes after a young boy who has his eye on Chibiusa. Also some new outfits.
Episode 142, The Secret Mansion: a Menu of Love for You, reminds me of a fake movie in Married With Children called “Old Man, Older Woman”. We so rarely see love stories about older people so this episode was a nice change. Early in the episode we are introduced to an elderly woman Mayako. She fights to get a deal at the grocery store and then Mamoru offers to help her cross the street, but she rejects his advances. Mamoru’s charm works quite well on Usagi and Rei or even, as we saw early this season, on fellow University aged girls, but it looks like he’s powerless against an older woman! No wonder his preferences skew more towards what Tiger’s Eye is in to. Diana, mad that Mamoru was shot down, investigates and is fed some delicious stew by Mayako. Do the cats in the Sailor Moon world prefer people food or cat food? We see them eat cat food and other foods which usually appeal to cats, like fish, a number of times, but Luna also has more sophisticated taste such as when she eats Star Candies in the Sailor Moon S movie. So complex. Anyway it turns out this grouchy old lady is just miffed because her lover, Ichirou Ohno, who happens to have just returned to town, left to become the best French cook instead of opening a restaurant with her. Naturally all of this works out by the end of the episode and everything will probably be fine, except for the fact that they both wasted their youth being stubborn. That’s cool though because they open up a restaurant where they can serve great stew and other French food made by a Japanese guy. Hawk’s Eye is naturally the one to target Mayako, as he always has a preference for older women. Though no specific ages are generally given Mayako seems to be the oldest woman ever targeted in the SuperS series. For some reason he wears a shirt which looks like the flag of Turkey in this episode, though Turkey’s flag is a white moon and star, and his shirt has a yellow moon and star on a red background. What’s what about?
This episode is somewhat of a retelling of the story of *batteries not included. In this film, which also has robots, Jessica Tandy’s character and the rest of the main cast live in an apartment block which needs to be sold in order to build some fancy new building. Thugery is used to try to kick them out. Similarly in this episode Mayako’s mansion is wanted by many but she refuses to sell. Thugs show up trying to force her out! For more on the hit film *batteries not included watch this video I made about the robots in the movie. It includes some fun props I made in the style of those robots.
Episode 143, Believe in Pegasus: The Four Guardians’ Super Transformation, is about a lot of things that are more interesting that the Super Transformations. Yes there’s a thing with Pegasus and he does a thing to Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus to give them little transparent shoulder things which doesn’t have much significance other that further complicating the view of the future we saw in Sailor Moon R. They will all later have individual episodes where we see them “power up” again so this is really a non issue. Speaking of powering up, is Chibiusa’s friend the Green Power Ranger? In a scene early in this episode we see a young girl, Aki, teasing Chibiusa. She has a logo on her shirt which looks a lot like the the Green Power Ranger’s Power Coin, the symbol of the Dragonzord. This week’s target is Robert, a young boy who has a crush on Chibiusa. Most kids don’t do anything about their crushes but Robert is, as the narrative of the story tries to tell us, a very appealing boy who can get anyone. He aggressively pursues Chibiusa but as we’re starting to figure out, she only has room in her heart for Pegasus. Fish Eye targets Robert. To date Fish Eye has targeted adult men but here he is targeting a child, something similar to what Tiger’s Eye did with the samurai girl Hiharu. It’s not clearly indicated but Robert could be even younger than her. Regardless of gender, this just seems inappropriate. Fish Eye, dressed as a woman as he does when targeting straight men and boys, is quickly turned down by Robert who sees her as an old lady. Good for your Robert!
In a joke at the end of the episode we learn that Usagi has stood up Mamoru in order to spy on her daughter. The movie he’s waiting to see is Godzilla. This is the second time we’ve seen this movie showcased, the last being only 3 episodes ago with episode 141 when Minako went to see a movie with Hawk’s Eye. In both cases this poster for Godzilla was clearly shown. So what is going on here? Can this be a reference to any real movie out at the time? The two sightings of this poster, in episodes 141 and 143, had air dates of July 8th and July 22nd 1995. There were no Godzilla movies in theatres at the time. Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla was released on November 10th 1994, too early to still be in theatres the next summer, while Godzilla vs. Destroyer would come out later that year on December 9th 1995. Surely some smaller theatres could conceivably have run a rerelease of Godzilla in some limited capacity, but to have them run two weeks apart like this and be chosen to be seen by multiple characters in the series seems somewhat unlikely. Of course the real reason this is here is likely simply that somehow who made these episodes was a fan.
Episode 143
Episode 141
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Naoko Takeuchi originally conceived of Sailor Moon as a shoujo version of Super Sentai so it’s not entirely surprising someone might have sneaked in a reference to it in an episode, especially given Sailor Moon and Super Sentai are made by the same studio. It’s actually more surprising we didn’t have even more of these types of references sprinkled throughout the show.
Red Man the Power Ranger spoof is the most obvious example but yeah not a ton of others. The live action series was a lot like a Sentai series though.
From what I can see from this, Robert may be roughly 2 years older than Chibusa. He must be an English exchange student.
Even though they were mostly after the Dream Mirrors and Pegasus…it’s still unsettling how Tiger’s Eye and especially Fish Eye target children like this. I remember Fish being particularly flirty with the kid. Stranger Danger!
Then again, I can’t remember much about Tiger’s creepy child predator episode…which do you think was creepiest?
Manga and anime.
At least Hawk goes after women of legal age…
Fish is still my favorite though.
Wait, that kid’s name was actually Robert in the original anime? I thought that was just what Cloverway decided to call him for the dub and that his real name was Shinji or Toshinori or Hikaru or something. Does the episode mention him being the son of an American living in Japan or something?
Also, my memory of the manga is pretty bad at times, but wasn’t Hawk’s Eye the one who went dressed in drag in the manga? He had some sort of shop that Makoto was lured to, didn’t he?
He was was indeed. Hawk’s Eye was definitely very feminine in the manga, while Fish (seemed to?) tried to seduce Mercury.
Robert was the kid’s name in the original Japanese. I’d guess he’s an exchange student.
it’s Roberto the pronouncation is heard clearly. Maybe they decided to give him italian name because he was playing soccer at school