The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal premiered on Japanese TV on Monday June 6th at 11pm Japan Standard Time. Shortly afterwards, starting at around 10:30am, it was available to stream first on Crunchyroll and later on Neon Alley and Hulu. Act 35, Infinity 9 – Infinite Labyrinth, mostly takes place inside of Mistress 9 and in an elevator.
Mistress 9 ate the Silver Crystal of the future. This is the one Chibiusa stole from her mother in the 30th century and has been using to fight as Sailor Chibi Moon. More importantly, Chibiusa’s soul is now fundamentally tied to this Crystal which causes all sort of problems, mainly that she’ll die if it’s apart from her body and consumed by an evil entity. How exactly does this work? Sailor Moon’s Silver Crystal of the present is similarly tied to her soul. It’s her Star Seed and all that fun stuff. What’s Neo Queen Serenity doing in the future? In the last story arc Neo Queen Serenity still seems bound to the Silver Crystal of the future so what happened to her when her daughter went gallivanting around time with it? Sure she was dormant for most of the last season but now that her daughter is gone on her training is Crystal Tokyo defenseless? Did Neo Queen Serenity need to somehow disassociate herself from the Crystal? If I take a powerful Crystal and keep it in my pocket for too long will my soul get tied to it like Golum being bound to the one ring?
My favourite part of this episode takes place within Mistress 9. Chibiusa, bound to her Crystal, is lost inside of Mistress 9 who basically ate her. Hotaru goes out of her way to protect her and her Crystal. These are two sort of ghosts or spirits stuck inside of this body which has been controlled by this evil entity. Hotaru hasn’t known Chibiusa that long, but she has strong feelings for her and is protecting her with everything she has. It seems like Mistress 9 won’t be getting full access to that Crystal just yet, which is unfortunate since she immediately destroys the Taioron Crystal once she gets something better. This is kind of like getting a new phone, deciding you don’t need your older out of date phone, and destroying it only to realise there’s some software problem with the new one and you can’t use it but oops I obliterated the iPhone 4s. Too bad so sad.
A lot of this episode takes place in an elevator which somehow leads to a bunch of weird mistakes. Let’s see what we know. The gang starts on the 56th floor, obvious from the sign we see and what is mentioned, and Sailor Venus decides to take one group and go down floor by floor while Sailor Moon and the people who want to kill Hotaru are going to take the elevator to the basement. Look at this chart. How terrible is this thing? It has a column with floor numbers, a column with descriptions, a second column with floor numbers and … that’s it. There are no descriptions for the second column! What’s on floors 31 to 60? The manga equivalent pages show an extra column there with descriptions of what’s on those floors, but there’s nothing here. Minor nitpick but that’s how it is.
Sailor Moon gets in an elevator with Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and in doing so they go down. All indications from shots in the elevator shaft seem to indicate that it is going down at incredible speeds. A line in the manga, omitted from this version, speaks about the effect of the acceleration that Sailor Moon is feeling. Watching the floor numbers we seem to go from 50 to 40 in a number of seconds. Then we go from 30 to 20 in nearly a minute. It’s a few minutes more until we get to 6. Following this things get weird, we go into this weird other dimension, and then we arrive at floor zero. Or is it? There is clearly space for two digits on the display however when we are in single digit floors, like 6, we don’t have a preceding zero. It’s “6” not “06”. Also the numbers take up the full height of the display while the display on the final floor takes up half. The manga chapter has the gang travel down to floor negative infinity. With the infinity symbol, ∞, being like a horizontal 8. The manga has them mostly travel through basement floors to get there though. Here the floor indicator, which looks like “oo” could be taken to mean infinity. There is no negative floor indicator on the display. The reason for which those two os aren’t touching could be an artifact of the display. The show have easily avoided ambiguity by just putting another row of dots between the two numbers and having oo display as ∞. Also notable is that there are 60 buttons shown and 60 floors in the directory, so any basement floors don’t seem to be listed. If there really are on the minus infinity floor what does this even mean? If they go down infinity floors they would go through the earth, outside of our solar system and galaxy and beyond the reaches of the known universe.
There is a flashback to when the Death Busters arrived. We see the accident once again and Hotaru’s face is real messed up in one shot! Koalinite is called Kaori, as she appears to have been a normal human woman working for Professor Tomoe before this incident. She was infected by an egg and then Professor Tomoe decided to infect himself with one. We also learn that Mistress 9, who was placed inside of Hotaru, was once Pharaoh 90’s partner. This seems to be new to Sailor Moon Crystal. The other Witches 5 however were created artificially.
For the second time we see Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto on their home planets. Uranus seems tiny. We can actually see the curvature of the planet. Uranus has a diameter of about 4 times that of the Earth. That means its surface is much flatter than the Earth’s surface. Do you ever find yourself gazing out at the horizon and actually noticing the curvature of the Earth? Probably not. Based on the curve we see here Uranus should be roughly the size of The Little Prince’s asteroid. Just imagine tracing out a circle from that thumbnail image and it wouldn’t even be larger than your computer screen. Alternatively if Uranus is the right size Sailor Uranus could be huge. She’d probably be about the size of the Earth’s Moon for this to work. Sailor Pluto appears to actually be on Pluto. Previously we saw her guarding the Space-Time Door but it wasn’t clear exactly where it was. What’s the deal with this thing? In Crystal Tokyo when there was this door at the end of a long hall which led to the Space-Time Corridor, were people traveling to Pluto as an intermediate before going back in time? Did the door itself move at some point? Who’s even protecting this door in the 30th century now that Sailor Pluto is dead, Diana went back in time and Neo Queen Serenity has no Crystal? Maybe it’s that pink haired kid who isn’t Chibiusa. How rare would children be in a world where humans live 1000 years? Pretty rare.
We learn that when they were bored and alone Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would look at Queen Serenity and Princess Serenity. For some reason Princess Serenity is pointing to her bracelet in this image. It must have been new at the time.
Bad news for Professor Tomoe, who turns into this big monster thing. Sailor Moon hesitates to kill him because he was Hotaru’s father a few minutes earlier. Realistically he hasn’t been Hotaru’s father for some time, though I wonder if Kaolinite and Professor Tomoe have little spirits of themselves wrapped up in thorns inside their minds somewhere. Oh well. He gets killed.
Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are attacked and Super Sailor Moon transforms back into normal Sailor Moon. She seems to think this is because something happened to her friends. Not a great omen.
Next week is Act 36, Infinity 10 – Infinite – Upper Atmosphere. There’s more of Hotaru’s ghost resisting Mistress 9 and being all bad ass. With only three more episodes the story arc will be done soon. These next three episodes were originally one massive manga chapter!
Keep reading for more screenshots from this episode and the next episode preview for Act 36.
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Maybe Sailor Moon should have gone without Mars, Jupiter, Mercury or Venus. And I am definitely getting that Pokemon/Sailor Moon anime special. It’s a crossover, and there’s 3 episodes left.
I fucking hate you more then words can say.
It’s hard to hate people we don’t even know in real life…
No, it’s very easy. If all you know of a person is their inane repetitive drivel and self delusion it is easy to hate them, real life or on line.
Shut up! :'(
*Chases you with a wooden spoon*
Seriously dude, I’m asking out of concern. Why do you keep posting this stuff? Impossibility aside, every time you post about this, you get attacked. Why? It’s not if you keep posting on a fan site–great site though it is–you’ll influence the decisions of board room executives in Japan.
I keep saying, Uranus and Neptune are likely on one of the moons of the their respective planets. Otherwise they’d be choking on toxic gases.
By the way, I wasn’t much for the opening this season, but the Momoiro Clover Z version is growing on me.
I think it’s hard to know if Uranus and Neptune are on their planets or on one of their moons.
Because, look at this picture of planet Uranus : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#/media/File:Uranus-intern-en.png. From the picture taken by Adam, we could draw the conclusion that Sailor Uranus is standing on the mantle of her planet. Above her head, are floating the vapors of the atmosphere and outer atmosphere. Of course, supposing that she is really standing on Uranus, only a mistake from Toei could explain why the curvatures of the mantle and atmosphere are so tiny, because Uranus is a giant planet. If I’m not wrong, the smallest moon of Uranus is Trinculo, which radius is about 9/10 km. But supposing Sailor Uranus is rather standing on Trinculo (which is one of the furthest moon from Uranus, so this has no meaning. She would better stay on the moon Miranda ! And Miranda is also the name of her castle…), could the curvature of this moon be that tiny ? Wherever is standing S. Uranus, I guess the curvature is an inconsistency from Toei. One more.
As for the toxic gases, I like to think that all the Senshi have the ability to breath those of their respective planets and moons, and that they are not toxic for them. For instance, there is almost no atmosphere on the Moon and despite this, the Silver Millenium was a great civilization
.
Wasn’t there a magic shield over Silver Millennium though?
I don’t remember, or I should say I never really knew if this story of a magic shield around the SM was a fan stuff or canon.
Hm. For something as small as 9/10k you might be able to see the curvature. Probably not quite that pronounced but looking in the distance most likely.
Yes, I see what you mean and I agree with you.
My final conclusion is that Toei did shit with the planets/moons on which Sailor Uranus and Pluto stands.
The Pokemon/Sailor Moon anime crossover will probably be announced after the last 3 episodes of the 3rd season of Sailor Moon Crystal. It has to be announced, it just has to.
Luke, in my country there is a word for these situations: “Yav he he…”
Aren’t their castles on their planets?
Actually, there’s three silver crystals. Neo Queen Serenity’s which is the future version of Usagi’s, and Chibiusa has her own silver crystal. In the episode that she transforms into ChibiMoon, Venus is holding the queen’s crystal while Usagi has her own. Chibiusa’s tear turns into her own crystal.
But other that that, I joined this review (and the past ones).
Perhaps I’m thinking too much of the original anime where her tear manifests into the Crystal she stole which was lost until then. So hard to keep parallel nearly identical continuities straight and Crystal doesn’t make it easier!
You’ve got your crystals mixed up. This is Chibusa’s Silver Crystal, the one that transformed from her tear as Black Lady. The future Silver Crystal was assumedly returned to Neo Queen Serenity.
Its a bit confusing, but in the manga/Crystal there’s three Silver Crystals. The present one that Usagi has, the future one that Chibiusa stole and thirdly Chibiusa’s personal one, which transforms into the Pink Moon Crystal during the Dream Arc.
I’m pretty sure that’s the same Silver Crystal as the one Neo Queen Serenity used to use. It’s just been passed on.
I think thats what happened in the og anime, in the manga each sailor has their own crystal.
Absolutely correct!
On your question about the silver crystals. From watching crystal season 1 and 2, it seems chibiusa has her own crystal that was created which is how she transformed in season 2 near the end if I am correct. I assume neo queen serenity retrieved her crystal, although I’m not sure that it was clearly stated in the episodes.
This episode is a little bit better, but still bad in terms of character model and animation quality. Boy did they reuse footage. The third time they’ve used professor and daimon in the lab. The over use of flashbacks that are not necessary and two times showing rainbow moon heart ache that were also unneccessary. The battle scene was decent, but it really shows how Toei and the animators really messed up Pluto’s attacks. First Chronos Typhoon looks like her fanning aside some smoke. Looks very terrible and Pluto is one of my favorite characters so that is a huge let down. Then garnet ball’s animation was off model. Compared to Uranus’ space sword blaster and neptune’s submarine reflection which both look good and actually looks like a real attack. Pluto’s chronos typhoon looks like when Mercury masks her mist. Very disappointing to see a second time I thought they would make it work better against the monsters, but it looks terrible. What a letdown. Pluto doesn’t have another offensive attack in the manga sadly unlike Neptune and Uranus who have 3. They didn’t bother to add a transformation or speech animation so I guess all we get is this bad Chronos Typhoon.
Other than that this episode was decent nothing too exciting seeing as how it was mostly a back story for the professor. I would have liked to have them clear up a few things. In the manga he professor said he created the perfect daimons. Those creations are the witches 5, but it never said if they were created from being a controlled by a daimon egg or from were they made in the lab. Also they cut some good scenes in the manga like when Sailor moon is feeling sick in the elevator and Pluto asks if she is okay or when Hotaru says when the professor dies that she she misses him, but that he hasn’t been the same father for a while now. I was hoping for a more exciting fight, but since they don’t stray too far from the manga this was probably never going to happen.
When I read the manga, I assumed that the Witches 5 were made of “clay” or something, like golems. But I’m not so sure now.
Perhaps that was based on what happened in the last act when Kaolinite rebuilt them.
I think you’re right.
Was that a Super Sentai reference?
Hadn’t considered that. So there would have been 3 crystals in the future at some point if this was true.
I knew the scene with kaori wasn’t in the manga…not a bad addition but they didn’t clearly explain hotarus accident did they? or was it in a previous chapter and i forgot?
I don’t remember exactly but I thought Hotaru’s accident gets revealed a bit after this but before her awakening….it’s been a white since I’ve read the manga so I can’t say for sure
Yes, Hotaru’s accident is explained before (for instance in the act/episode “Transformation – Super Sailor Moon”), but not very clearly indeed. You can check this page for more informations : http://wikimoon.org/index.php?title=Hotaru_Tomoe .
Any news on when the OST with the background music is coming out?
Haven’t heard anything about background music for this season.
Me neither but I was hoping I’d missed it. Thanks
I don’t understand why the only character is Moon Princess Serenity who has civilization and people. What about the other planets and their princess, what about their family and their people? They are sailor guardians, princesses of course, but of what, whom? Just a couple dusty planets, that’s all… And of course they are protecting the Moon and Earth from a far far far far… away distances, like millions of kilometers. If an enemy are closing to destroy to the Solar System he/she/it first must face off the Outer Senshies, because, you know, the universe is just flat, not circle…
And the Outer Senshies have just a television in their lonely planets is made of just their imagination which is showing them a single mother and her stupid daughter. I think the Outer Senshies should be thankful to Sailor Saturn who ended their suffering loneliness and bring them to Earth so they could play violin, ride cars, do scientific research, drink a cup of coffee or tea with some of friends, finding a lesbian girl friend etc. 
(Sorry for my bad English, but I think you could understand what I am trying to tell you.)
Yeah, being reborn on Earth seems like a major upgrade to me.
Who decided they needed to have these posts at the end of the Solar System anyway? Maybe Queen Serenity was a psycho if she decided to stick people in places where they did no good, as far as we know, when she could have had the outer senshi in the Moon Kingdom and on Earth fighting Metalia.
Queen Serenity to Outer Senshies: I hate you bitchez, because you’re more beautiful and smarter than us, so you mustn’t be around here because just fuck you, lol. Here, your fucking useless stupid talisman toys, get them and never call again us. I will never have to see you again, but I can’t say the same thing for you, lol, you will have to see me and my stupid daughter every time, because fuck you, lol.
chibi usa has her own crystal (from her tear over plutos death.)also hotarus spirit survived because of saturn in here, the other would have been digested.