Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 Review

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Princess Sailor Guardians

Sailor Moon Eternal Parts 1 and 2 are both currently streaming on Netflix. This is my review for the second film. You can also read my Part 1 review which was posted last month. I always used to put episode reviews for Sailor Moon Crystal up within a few days of their release but the nature of these movies means that reviewing them is a bit more work! I call this a review even though it’s really more of a vague recap with random commentary and a sprinkling of what might be considered a review.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Haruka and Michiru with baby Hotaru

Part 1 ended on a cliffhanger. Not literally. If it followed the manga more closely it would have ended on a literal cliffhanger as Minako was hanging off of a cliff but stories were moved around to make things fit into movies a bit better. The conclusion to the whole Minako and Human Artemis thing was moved into Part 1 instead of taking place after we get a look at what’s going on with Hotaru and her three moms, which is really where this movie starts off. For the most part, like all of Sailor Moon Crystal, this movie is fairly faithful to the manga source material which it was based on.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Haruka and Michiru

Last time we saw Hotaru she was a baby being whisked away by Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. We finally see what they’ve been up to, starting with Haruka and Michiru. If I can take issue with the dub for a moment! There’s a character which, referencing Haruka, says that “He’s such a hottie”. Now I know Japanese doesn’t tend to use gender specific pronouns so this is likely not a terribly literal translation. I also understand that there being some confusion over Haruka’s gender makes sense and is a common theme in the series but are we really going to just pretend that Haruka is not very clearly dressed unambiguously as a woman in this scene? I’m not sure what this was all about.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Setsuna's left hand

Left handed mouse

Back at the house Setsuna is using a left handed mouse. What’s this? Is she actually left handed? I didn’t know this! While looking into this I found an article from Tuxedo Unmasked which mentions that Sailor Pluto may be left handed as she usually holds her Garnet Rod in her left hand. This article also goes into some detail about whether or not Rei is left handed, something I mentioned in my Part 1 review. So she’s left handed? Not likely. The only reason we see her left hand on the mouse is because the movie wants to show us her ring which is on her left hand and this is a convenient way to do so. Have you ever tried to use a mouse with your off hand? It’s very awkward. What’s my evidence suggesting that Setsuna isn’t actually left handed? In a scene a bit later in the film she’s back to using a mouse with her right hand. Ambidextrous? Seems like her handedness is whatever suits the needs of the shot!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Setsuna is now right handed

Right handed mouse

While Setsuna is browsing an article about the eclipse we see a date! 2016-03-28 or March 28th 2016. I will assume this isn’t the actual date of the eclipse but rather the date on which the article was published. This fits with the date seen in Part 1 where Chibiusa circles April 1st as her date to return to the 30th century. An article about the April 1st eclipse coming out some four days before makes perfect sense. Any problems with this? Well April 1st 2016 was a Friday in the real world and according to Chibiusa’s calendar it was a Thursday. There was also no solar eclipse on April 1st 2016. There was a total solar eclipse on March 9th of 2016 and Japan wasn’t the best place to see it from. So why would the story take place five years in the past? This would probably be because the last new episode of Sailor Moon Crystal we got was on June 27th 2016. Since the series started airing on July 5th 2014 this makes the first few seasons take place within a few years. A six month passage of time since the eclipse is suggested at one point during this film so most of it takes place in late 2016. Most manga arcs seem to take place over about year which could put the Dream arc around 2017 if the events of the first season really are to take place in 2014. If they take place in 2013, when the show was originally meant to start, things line up pretty well. So much to say with a five year gap between Sailor Moon Crystal season 3 and the Sailor Moon Eternal films we can hardly just say it’s 2021 and expect it to make sense that everyone’s just starting high school so the 2016 date seems to work.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Haruka, Michiru and Hotaru

The big thing for the start of the film is fast aging Hotaru. This is something we see at the start of SailorStars in the original Sailor Moon anime. All of this growth occurred over a six month period and we get a sense of how quick it has been when Haruka mistakenly thinks they need diapers for their fast aging daughter. Hotaru is spouting out odd poetry and making faithful models of the solar system where events up to those taking place in the present play out in super speed. This makes me wonder just how accurate these are. If individual people are recreated in this model do those people experience joy and pain? Does Hotaru recreate every act of suffering in the history of our planet on a whim in her living room? Does this include the death of her mother as well as her father’s painful memories of it? Alternatively if the exact same information patterns of someone’s life are run over and over again are those actual new experiences or just the one experience? Is there a subjective feeling experienced more than once? The whole thing might be very unethical depending on one’s perspective on these issues.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Saturn transforms

So! Hotaru gets old and gives everyone their Sailor Crystals avoiding the requirement of a handful more individual stories in which they learn something about themselves and get their shoulder pad upgrades. Hotaru basically gives them all the upgrades herself. How convenient. Most importantly… a Sailor Saturn transformation sequence! Sailor Saturn had a transformation sequence in season 3 of Sailor Moon Crystal but it was a bit different. This one is shorter but a bit more consistent with other transformations. Since Sailor Saturn never did transform in the original Sailor Moon anime it’s always nice to see a transformation sequence. She did have an original anime style transformation sequence as part of a Sailor Saturn game but this was never seen in the TV series or movies.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Two glass shards

Two shards

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Zirconia picks up one glass shard

One shard

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Zirconia with two glass shards

Two shards again

Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn show up to save the day and everyone is back together again! This doesn’t last long, sadly. Later Zirconia dispatches the Amazoness Quartet and then traps Sailor Chibi Moon and Saturn into shards of a mirror. She then picks up one piece of the mirror and then somehow has two in her hands. What’s going on here? Infuriating! This scene is brief but it’s great seeing Sailor Saturn in action since she’s so neglected in the original Sailor Moon anime. The scene of her and Chibi Moon in the circus tent is similar to their scenes in the early part of Sailor Stars when they fight Nehelenia. In a way the first six episodes of Sailor Stars are a more faithful adaptation of the dream arc than all of Sailor Moon SuperS.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Young Usagi and Mamoru

We see a young Usagi and Mamoru, which is odd since we sort of already got a fairly extensive look at young Usagi earlier. They turn young in real life and then have a dream where they’re both young which makes me wonder why their real selves needed to even be made young in the first place. How do their dream selves know that their bodies are young? Shouldn’t there be some dysmorphia going on? Regardless, seeing young Usagi and Mamoru in domestic bliss is incredibly cute. What I enjoy about this scene is how similar it is to a major plot point in the Sailor Moon SuperS film. Usagi is in a dream world with Mamoru and questions his unwavering devotion to her. While in the SuperS film this is what she uses to break out of The Matrix, here it’s just a curiosity. Basically Mamoru states that his dream is to live with Usagi and she questions his other dreams like being a doctor. It’s worth noting that many other elements from this arc, like the young versions of so many characters, are also seen in the Sailor Moon SuperS film at many points. While on the surface the movie has nearly nothing to do with the Dream arc of the manga and the SuperS season of the original anime, there are in fact many similarities. These are not likely all intended. Unless some advanced knowledge of one work or another was planned the timelines simply don’t add up. This particular manga story with young Usagi and Mamoru came out in Nakayoshi in December of 1995, the same month in which the SuperS film was released. Since both a manga and animated film take months or longer to go from story to release, these particular similarities seem to be coincidence.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Elysion

Usagi and Mamoru are now with Helios in Elysion and the whole being young thing wasn’t any sort of lasting problem. What is this place? In mythology the similarly named Elysium is the afterlife. Here Elysion, which is a unique name in Sailor Moon, is another world that seems to be somewhat parallel to the Earth. An analog to it as Helios is himself tied to the Earth and the Golden Crystal. More specifically I wonder just where it is. It is suggested that Elysium is within the Earth somehow and there are references to “the surface”. I wonder if Elysium is compatible with the idea of The Hollow Earth. This is an idea of a world deep beneath the surface of the Earth. Though specifics vary the concept is that the Earth itself is a hollow shell and that within that shell there is a whole other ecosystem where “down” is actually towards the outside of the Earth. I tried hard to see indications that Elysion had a normal sky. We don’t see any stars from it. We don’t see the sun even though late in the story there is light coming from the sky. The Hollow Earth is often described as having a small sun at the center of the Earth. The Moon is seen in the sky in that we can see the eclipse from Elysion, but it isn’t clear if the Moon itself is actually visible. Keep in mind this is one of my own pet theories about Elysion and isn’t necessarily intended in either the manga or Sailor Moon Eternal films, but I wonder if this is a kind of pseudoscientific belief that Naoko Takeuchi was into along with all the weird stuff from the Black Moon arc.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Princess Small Lady Serenity

We do this weird thing where we pretend that the maiden that Helios is looking for isn’t Chibiusa and it’s all very silly. He sees this image of a clearly pink haired woman who looks more or less like an older Chibiusa who asks him to find the Golden Crystal. She’s called “Princess Lady Serenity”. He acts as if this is Sailor Moon which makes Chibiusa quite upset, even though she clearly still has Helios’s affection.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Elysion

All this time Mamoru is just walking around in his dress shirt. Why do we pretend these dress shirts are the most comfortable thing? He gives them out to all the ladies who sleep over. Chibiusa sleeps in one during Part 1 and when he’s sick in bed this seems to be his sleepwear of choice. I often wear shirts of this type for work but I’ll generally put a t-shirt on when I’m at home relaxing, especially if I’m sick and bedridden. This would be a believable “I was out doing stuff and then I came home and untucked my shirt so it’s my after hours casual mode” but he’s been bedridden for a while now and the last time he was out was for the eclipse, as far as we can tell, when he wasn’t wearing his tuxedo (which has a ruffled shirt) but a grey dress shirt and vest. Am I to believe that he took off his grey dress shirt and put on a white dress shirt to climb into bed? This really makes no sense and is probably the biggest plot whole in the movie.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Maenads

The shrine in Elysion is guarded by the Maenads who have hair just like Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon which back in the day would have been like both Queen and Princess Serenity. I guess this really was the style at the time? What a strange coincidence that reincarnated Usagi happened to chose a very similar yet impractical and almost never seen hair style.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Nehelenia and Zirconia

So there’s some fighting which is actually the bulk of the movie. I don’t have a ton to say about this. Almost all of the attacks are so similar to the original Sailor Moon anime that I wonder if they were traced. Helios dies in a non permanent death which is actually fairly common for Sailor Moon but I don’t for a moment think it’s a real thing. Does anyone cry for Helios? Of course he’ll be fine.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Queen Serenity and baby Princess Serenity

We then see an interesting scene which is the birth of Princess Serenity. This scene reminds me a lot of the birth of Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. In Sleeping Beauty we have Maleficent, the only one not invited, showing up to celebrate the Princess’s birth only to end up cursing the child to eternal sleep after pricking herself on a spinning wheel needle. Similarly Nehelenia was the only one not invited after Princess Serenity’s birth. Once she shows up an uncharacteristically unkind Queen Serenity, along with the Sailor Guardians, disparage her and tell her she isn’t welcome. She ends up cursing Silver Millennium saying it will fall. This of course does end up happening in the distant past. I wonder if any inspiration occurred between these. One noticeable thing here is that Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are all significantly older than the newborn Princess Serenity. Though their ages aren’t specified they speak well, are fairly tall for children and seem ready to fight. I’d guess they are about 6 or 7 here. Princess Serenity appears to be an adolescent in the first story arc. She is arguably slightly older than the 14 year old Usagi who notices physical changes in herself when turning into the Princess. This would put the other Sailor Guardians at over 20 in those flashbacks, though they all appear to be more or less the same age. In the Amour Eternal musical when we see the birth of Princess Serenity the age difference is even greater as the Sailor Guardians are shown to be their fully adolescent ages at that point, similar to their ages in the modern times story of that musical. We know that in Crystal Tokyo adults done age, which include Sailor Moon eternally being in her early 20s, but is there a reason to have people frozen in adolescence in Silver Millennium?

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Queen Serenity defeats Queen Nehelenia

I think if original anime Sailor Moon had been in her mother’s place when Nehelenia showed up she could have found a way to make peace or may even have invited her in the first place. The manga version of Sailor Moon does more killing of villains and less winning them over. Remember that anime Sailor Moon ended up having compassion for Nehelenia after all of the harm she did to her and her friends! Queen Serenity with her blank reflectionless eyes doesn’t seem to have any of that attitude when she seals away Queen Nehelenia.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Kissing is the cure to whatever weird lung black rose thing was going on

Once the Moon Effect character song kicks in the movie is really reaching the climax! A lot of this was released in a very spoiler filled music video! This song features vocals by the actors playing all ten of the Sailor Guardians and is included on the “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Character Song Collection Eternal Collection” album. Though Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon are still afflicted with the disease which has black roses on their lungs it seems the resolution to this is… to kiss! Everything is fine now! Great!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Human Artemis, Diana and Luna

Did you like Human Artemis? Did you enjoy Human Luna (in the first season)? Well how about human version of the whole cat family including Diana! This is a big deal as this is the first time we see all of the cats in human form in any anime series!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss

Next up is Eternal everybody! There’s a new Holy Grail and then Sailor Moon becomes Eternal Sailor Moon, hence the name of the movies, but beyond that all of the other Sailor Guardians also get upgraded to their Eternal forms which means those little bubble shoulder pad things which is something we never saw in the original Sailor Moon anime! Sailor Moon finally does her Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss and saves the day! The eclipse, which we can kind of see even though we’re kind of inside the earth, is finally over which is arguably the end of a very long period which only took place over the course of a few minutes, the length of time an eclipse usually lasts for. There isn’t any clear agreement of this but by that timeline the events of this film actually take place within the same day.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Chibi Moon kisses Helios

Turns out Helios isn’t dead and Sailor Chibi Moon (Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon) kisses him while he sleeps. Do we want to dig up the whole kissing a sleeping person lacks consent discourse again? In this particular case since Helios had previously expressed his interest in Chibiusa when he kissed her in the first film I think that makes this whole situation less of a concern than when Tuxedo Mask did it in the first story arc. The best kept secret of the films, that Chibiusa is actually the one Helios has been looking for, is revealed! She becomes Princess Lady Serenity and gets her Pink Moon Crystal!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion

Eternal Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask now becomes Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion for the first time without some influence from the future. Everyone gets their lovely princess dresses back and there was much rejoicing.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Sailor Quartet

Sailor Saturn still has the Amazoness Quartet balls. When these four are revived they are the Sailor Quartet! Sailor Cere, Sailor Palas, Sailor Juno and Sailor Vesta are all named after the same celestial objects they had identified with originally but now it makes a bit more sense why! They are Sailor Guardians who’s duty it is to protect Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon or rather Princess Lady Serenity and not related directly to Sailor Moon or Neo Queen Serenity. It’s really fun to see the Sailor Quartet! Sadly they aren’t around for long as they claim that they should be asleep in the jungle so they take off. Why does this matter? You’re here! Let’s get the gang together! Chibiusa should only be a twinkle in Mamoru’s eye but she’s around and actively involved in the fight so who’s to say that the Amazoness Quartet are better off chilling in a jungle somewhere? My two dream concepts for new Sailor Moon series would be a Codename: Sailor V series and some sort of future Sailor Guardian series with Chibi Moon, the Sailor Quartet and maybe Helios fighting some evil and perhaps traveling through time to do it! I won’t hold my breath for that.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Pegasus and Helios

Now Helios is there with Pegasus which makes me wonder how this is even possible! Aren’t they kind of the same being? In the original Sailor Moon anime they certainly were, with Pegasus being his name rather than a descriptor of the kind of horse he is, but it seems they are different entities. Kind of weird!

Well the movie pretty much wraps up with a bunch of people going on their way. What we don’t see in the Netflix version is a message saying “To be continued” but this is on the Japanese Blu-ray and it seems like it was in the version shown in theatres in Japan. Why remove this from the Netflix version? No idea! I hope we don’t have to wait quite as many years to get a Stars arc of Sailor Moon Crystal as we did for Sailor Moon Eternal!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Helios and Pegasus

The credits are fairly unremarkable. I can’t read any of that! We have a couple of songs here. The first is Moon Color Chainon, the theme song for the Sailor Moon Eternal films. This is actually the first time we hear it in this movie since it doesn’t have an intro like the 90s films did! After this we have the new version of “Rashiku” Ikumasho (I’ll Go As Myself) by Anza! Anza was the first actress to portray Sailor Moon in the Sailor Moon musicals and continued to do so for five years. This song was originally the second ending theme for Sailor Moon SuperS, the original adaptation of the Dreams arc of the Sailor Moon manga, which makes it a fitting song to end the final movie with.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Nehelenia is defeated

All in all I found Part 2 to be a good movie. It wasn’t as obviously episodic as Part 1 where you could easily see the breaks between manga chapters. That said there isn’t really as much going on with this film which mostly centers on the big battles with Zirconia and Nehelenia.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Haruka, Setsuna, Michiru, Hotaru, Chibiusa, Rei, Makoto, Ami and Minako

More generally the Sailor Moon Eternal films just look fantastic. The designs are great and since these movies are shorter than full seasons the animation is better and there seems to have been more time and money dedicated to every minute of this film compared to earlier seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal. We can only hope the Stars arc will look as good, though I’m hoping for a return to a series for that season or that if it will be movies that they make three of them! We shall see.

What did you think of this second film? Let us know in the comments!

Keep reading for more screenshots of the film.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Haruka and Michiru

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Hotaru and Pegasus

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Hotaru

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Neptune, Uranus and Pluto

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Saturn and Hotaru

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Chibi Moon transforms

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Saturn

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Saturn's silence glaive

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Saturn

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Amazoness Quartet and Sailor Saturn

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Amazoness Quartet

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Young Mamoru and Usagi

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Silver Millennium

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Young Mamoru kisses Usagi

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Young Mamoru serving breakfast

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Young Usagi

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Helios kisses Chibi Moon

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Mamoru slaps Usagi

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Nehelenia

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Queen Serenity and baby Princess Serenity

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Moon turns to coal

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Sailor Saturn saves the Amazoness Quartet

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The cats at the computer

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Baby Princess Serenity

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Queen Serenity defeats Queen Nehelenia

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Queen Serenity with the Sailor Guardians

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Young Sailor Mars, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Elysion

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon is Princess Small Lady Serenity

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Human Luna, Diana and Artemis

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Nehelenia is defeated

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Golden Crystal

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Young Princess Serenity

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Young Princess Serenity

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Human Luna and Artemis

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The royal family

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The Sailor Quartet

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - The whole gang

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Princess Serenity and Endymion

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54 thoughts on “Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 Review

  1. The movies have the same issues the manga has in terms of plot and writing, but I’ve made peace with that a long time ago and just let myself enjoy the ride. And gosh was it a beautiful ride! Part of me still wish this could’ve been a series instead of two movies so we could get all the moments and maybe a little bit of extra new stuff that way, but it is what it is.

    About Pegasus actually being Helios’s horse, I think they were always two separate entities. Helios took the form of Pegasus due to Nehelienia’s curse but that isn’t to say the original Pegasus wasn’t in Elysian somewhere the whole time. IMO Nehelenia cursed Helios into that form to suit her twisted sense of humor, much like how she decided she would curse Mamoru and Usagi to shrink to child size, a state where they were physically completely helpless.

  2. It’s good to read your thoughts on it.
    I was a bit disheartened when I saw “To be continued” was missing on Netflix, but it’s good to hear it is still on the blu-ray.

      • I’m not sure, as far as I know, neither Toei nor Netflix has made a statement about it.
        It could be as simple as Netflix not wanting to a risk-free advertisement for a future project they may not get or it could be Toei had scrapped plans for a follow-up by this point.

        For now, I’m not reading too much into it.

        • I see. Maybe Netflix would have no interest on getting more Sailor Moon content. Or Toei is still trying to figure out what kind of format will the Stars arc be like an OVA or another 2-part film adaptation or something else that isn’t on TV since the final arc is very short.

          • The Stars arc is the opposite of short, but you wouldn’t know that unless you’ve read the manga–which obviously you haven’t.

            After this year’s amazing box office record for Eternal, I’m sure Toei would love to do the exact same thing for the Stars arc. Just think of all the money it’s made from those jewelry and wedding dress collabs! Totally worth!

          • Why does everyone think that Stars is longer than SuperS? SuperS had four volumes, while Stars has only three. Three is shorter than four.

          • I looked this up after thinking it would take more than 2 films and you’re right. The story seems to take longer but it’s less volumes. Haven’t counted the pages. I suppose it could work as two movies but three is closer to the length of one 23.5 minute episode per Act.

    • Even if it were included, “to be continued” means nothing if Toei chooses not to commission another series.

      Eternal couldn’t even net a tenth of what Sailor Moon R made in inflation-adjusted box office revenues, and 後編 earned considerably less than what 前篇 made. It’s easy to blame everything on a certain pandemic, but look at how well Evangelion 3.0 and Detective Conan fared domestically in theaters in spite of corona restrictions. I can’t imagine that Toei broke even on Eternal, even with whatever pittance Netflix paid for streaming rights. If there is a Stars arc, it’s just going to be another studio passion project that bleeds money.

      • Basically, unless Toei do something for the Stars arc of Sailor Moon then redoing this series from the start was utterly pointless, right? Do you think that reintroducing Sailor Moon means nothing compare to recent magical girls let alone bigger more popular franchises like Demon Slayer and Evangelion?

        • The Crystal reboot was botched from season 1, but the shojo genre has always had narrower appeal compared to its shounen/seinen counterparts to begin with.

        • As much as we love Sailor Moon as fans, it’s not the best-written thing.
          Naoko controls it with an iron-fist now and Toei won’t give it a proper budget unless it can draw money.
          If Naoko had allowed the story to be handled similar to the old anime, just with less filler, maybe do some of the things they did with PGSM, and expand on the manga, it would have fared better.

          Following the manga so close it came out bland but making changes to the plot points that angered fans was a horrible combo.

          I say this as someone who loves Crystal.

          For Sailor Moon to ever get big again, Naoko and Toei are going to have to accept that it needs a rewrite by a good writer.
          The manga is special to me, but it is so dry and dated at this point. Shonen does so well because it doesn’t always take itself so seriously (something the original anime knew.)
          Naoko treats it like it’s sacred and it has made Crystal feel inflexible.

          • I do think Crystal takes itself quite seriously, but there’s probably a good reason for that: the nineties anime took WAY too many creative liberties and diverged so much from the manga that future adaptations like the musicals and PGSM diverged even more to the point of being unrecognizable.

            I imagine Naoko isn’t too thrilled with commercialized, compromised, candy-coated travesties of her life’s work as her legacy. So in a way, the reboots are more for her than they are for us. She learned the first time around what giving up creative control was like and now she knows better.

            The other likely explanation is that her Sailor Moon royalties are running low, and wringing milk out of an old cash cow is easier than writing a new series.

            In a sense, Crystal and Eternal are righting the wrongs committed by their forebearers, or at least trying to on a limited budget. The nineties anime was more about monetizing a predictable formula, and the reboots now are more about art and honoring the source material (while still being a money grab), though I think it’s safe to say that Toei will be relying on luxury collabs for a while.

          • Yeah, I do love the dark and serious tones in the manga. Casual fans who only ever saw the old anime dub think Sailor Moon is lighthearted and cute.

            I love showing them the flesh-melting nightmares and horror from the manga.
            But I think the story needs more room to grow.
            I definitely don’t want a Precure-ified Sailor Moon, I just want an anime where there is time to grow, get to see some actual battles, and build up some stakes.

            As much hate as s1 and 2 of Crystal get, the battles were way better than anything in Eternal with the stock footage. (And don’t get me wrong, I love good stock footage here and there, too.)
            Even season 3 with it’s stock footage overload had some fighting.
            But the senshi went from flying through the air, launching unnamed attacks on the fly, doing somersaults and physical attacks, taking actual damage…
            to breaking mirrors with stock footage.

  3. Your fixation on left/right dominance is HILARIOUS. especially since there are so many other instances besides the ones you’ve pointed out. Not even Naoko Takeuchi put this much thought into it.

    And the movies were never meant to address the continuity errors from the manga. You’re supposed to ignore those and be awe-struck by how much work went into animating Silence Glaive Surprise! Surprise!

    • What are you saying? That you know a lot on how Takeuchi writes her stories? And I DID read the manga from start to finish, what do you know how I see this series? Like I’m not really new to it, I’m an old fan of Sailor Moon.

      • Just try to ignore whatever Linh rambles in about. It’s nothing but personal attacks and negativity with that one.

        • I had no idea this blog was your own personal safe space, and I apologize for infringing on whatever woke sense of outrage empowers you to be backseat mod on a Sailor Moon website.

          It takes a special kind of snowflake to interpret anything and everything as a personal attack. I hope you one day find another snowflake who is equally special so that the two of you can be special together.

          • I don’t understand why some people use “snowflake” as an insult. I suppose some people would take great offense to the word. But the word is so pretty to be threatening! Shucks, it’d be like if I was called a “butterfly”. Ooh, butterflies! :D

          • But what if I called you a “dandelion”?

            I have a new theory that Linh is just a tsundere who pretends to be tsungire.
            (Look, I learned a new word!)

          • Have no fear! “Tiger-Lillies love the Dandelions in the golden afternoon!”

            Haha, I like that theory!

          • *Appears like the Josephshire Cat*

            June?! But we are almost in August already! So you are as late as the White Rabbit, my dear Josephshire Cat ;) .

            *Disappears like the Josephshire Cat, leaving only a wide grin as a remembrance of her passage, as well as a bunches of flowers from all seasons and all parts of the Earth*

            (Have you ever eaten dandelion jelly? It’s wonderful!)

          • I haven’t had dandelion jelly, but I have eaten dandelions, and they were quite bitter.
            I’ve heard dandelion wine is good, too.

          • Oh yes, dandelion has a bitter taste, that’s why we need to add tons of sugar into dandelion jelly. Not good for diabetes lol, but then the flavor is amazing. It just tastes like honey, and yet it is still more subtle, délicate and lighter than honey. I ignored that dandelion wine existed! Amazing all the great things you can do with such an ugly flower.

          • Indeed! But you can turn them into salads, soups, jelly, wine… There are a lot of recipes. Remember, kids: do not kill the weeds in your courtyard: instead eat them, drink them… smoke them!

          • Thank you, Aurélia Cat, for your guidance. But, weeds?? Weeds?! I don’t want weeds in *my* bed!

            Actually, a dandelion jelly does sound neat. :D

          • Some interesting facts about our beloved yellow flower/weed (*pedantic outburst in 4-3-2-1*):
            1) apparently it’s not really a flower, but an inflorescence (don’t ask me to explain, for even I don’t understand what that means);
            2) its English name “dandelion” derives from French “dent-de-lion” (“lion’s tooth”, but your English “dandelion” sounds much more poetic, if your want my opinion); because the flower indeed looks like a lion’s tooth (yeah well, thank you Captain Obvious :D!);
            3) it has indeed a reputation for causing bed wetting due to its diuretic properties;
            4) that’s why we call it a “pissenlit” in French, which means pissing in a bed, literally;
            5) “pissenlit” has its literal equivalent in English that is “pissabed”.

            Oh God, so much thing I didn’t know and I just ask why I never found out before… I think I lost the few innocence that was left in me today. Especially with all that “gentle uteruses” trend that’s been going on here for a few months now ;) .

            “Dandelion Flower power! Make up!”

          • I’m going to test the diuretic properties of some of the dandelions growing in my vegetable garden now. I wonder if uteruses are edible.

          • @Fransisca: Well, you’ll tell us how it turned out with the dandelions in your garden! As for your question regarding the uteruses, er… I dare say you’re scaring me. But mine is not edible at all, in case you want to know ;) .

            (I have the feeling that this website is slowly becoming NSFW :D .)

  4. My understanding of the manga was always that the “pegasus” form was only from Nehelenia’s curse and was never part of Helios’ true identity. He’s not a shapeshifter, even though he initially self-identifies as a Pegasus and then arbitrarily alternates between both human and animal forms for no apparent reason until Nehelenia dies. The “pegasus” that he summons at the end is most likely an actual horse (and not a teenage boy disguised as one). Safe to chalk this one up to bad writing.

    Also, a winged unicorn is NOT actually a “Pegasus”, which has wings but no horns. More accurate names would include alicorn, pegacorn, and unisus–which are the results of crossbreeding between unicorns and winged horses. This again is another vestige of poor research and editorial oversight during a largely pre-internet era.

    • How dare you correct Naoka-Sama! That’s unforgivable!

      Moon Gorgeous Meditation!

      But I had honestly never heard of a Pegasus with a horn being called an alicorn (an alicorn is just a name given to a horn from a unicorn. I used to study these things for reasons.)
      I looked it up and maybe Alicorn wasn’t used until more recently. I could only find reference to it on MLP pages.

      I think she chose Pegasus specifically because of Greek mythology in that arc (Elysium, Helios, Maenads.) It seems to be specifically named Pegasus, as well.
      I would also say it’s a bit of bad writing as well as she just wanted an excuse to draw Chibi Usa on a horned pterripus.

      • Everyone knows that gorgeous meditations are no match for gentle uteruses!

        Unpopular opinion: the entire manga series needs to be rewritten and redrawn from scratch.

        The source material is terribly dated, like you said, and will most likely stay that way until it dies with Naoko and is relegated to a museum. Maybe then those cheap acrylic cutouts will finally be worth something.

    • My beef is that Pegasus was just a name for one winged horse in ancient mythology and in Sailor Moon (the anime at least) so when people (like D&D) use Pegasus as a species name it seems odd to me.

  5. The only way to remedy the situation would be to get Studio Deen to re-do the first 3 seasons including the second half of the Dark Kingdom Arc which veered off course and to also have them do Stars in a season format as well as a Codename: Sailor V prequel. This is all fantasy of course and definitely won’t happen. Except possibly for them doing the animation for Stars as a season of episodes.

    Sailor Saturn having no transformation or a rather short one seems to be a chronic habit. Her transformations are brief in the Sega game and Eternal. In the end of the SuperS fuwa fuwa puzzle game for the Super Famicom when they introduce the main characters, an announcer in English announces the character names and a brief animation of them transforming is shown. Except for Saturn. When she appears, she’s already transformed and the announcer is silent. This also happens for Tuxedo Mask but still. Though Saturn does have the phrase “Saturn Planet Power! Make Up!” in Sailor Moon: Another Story.

    They also tend to use her Silence Glaive to represent her whenever they make merch depicting the Star Rods and Lip Rods of the other main characters instead of just creating a Lip Rod for her. She may not use one in S but they’ve got Sailor Neptune’s voice actress shouting “Neptune Crystal Power! Make Up!” on an official anime CD even though Crystal Change Rods and transformation sequences for the Outers are never shown in the original Stars anime either. I’m convinced they either hate Sailor Saturn or don’t think of her as a very memorable or popular character when the exact opposite is true.

    P.S. I’m left-handed and can only use a mouse with my right hand. Though Sailor Pluto being left-handed does seem a definite possibility.

    • Saturn only ever transforms once with a transformation phrase in the manga, so there is no justification for a more detailed transformation sequence.

      I have fond memories of Sailor Moon: Another Story, especially of all the link techs!

      Dead World Submerge!
      Fire Thunder Shaking!
      Pink Sugar Illusion (revives all dead allies)!

  6. Saturn only ever transforms once with a transformation phrase in the manga, so there is no justification for a more detailed transformation sequence.

    I have fond memories of Sailor Moon: Another Story, especially of all the link techs!

    Dead World Submerge!
    Fire Thunder Shaking!
    Pink Sugar Illusion (revives all dead allies)!

  7. After finishing the movies I appreciate what they were able to do with the time and staff they were able to do. However I do believe being a TV series would have been a better idea. Overall the movie is never a wow in terms of quality. However I am shocked that they were able to fit most of the manga elements. I do believe they would have been able to dive a little bit more or at least not have to cut out most things if they did it as a TV series. The main things I do like in the second movie is mainly Sailor Uranus’s World Shaking although for the most part disappointing it was a copy of the old attack they really added to the original and made it feel more powerful. The other attacks from the outer soldiers needed that upgrade. Unfortunately they were not given the same treatment. Deep Submerge was the most disappointing. I really could have made it more powerful, but it felt like a cheap imitation. Dead Scream could have been done to be more powerful as well it looked bad too. I wish they had Chronos Typhoon, but the manga did not have that I believe. Saturn’s attack I was expecting something more interesting and connected with the outers attacks sending out a planet, but it was real time so I guess it is what it is. The transformations for the outers was the worst part of this movie. They did not bother to redo backgrounds for Uranus or Neptune and the actual art quality did not seem to look better than Season 3’s version of the transformation. Pluto is as expected a copy of her old one, but they did not even make it look better and they did not keep it consistent with the tiara and symbol thing. Saturn’s was the one I was most excited for and while it was okay it was mostly disappointing. I also do not know why they made Queen Serenity have those eyes. I do not think that is how she looked in the manga, but it made her look like the villain. Overall I like how they were able to adapt most of manga. I do not know if I would say this was better than the first movie as the first movie also had a lot of the same issues in terms of certain characters getting better designs and animation over others.

    • Thanks! This collection is really cool, but I love Banpresto in general. I hope they will propose the Outer Senshi as well. Not that I will buy any of them, but just for the pleasure of watching them through a screen :D .

    • I saw both parts in all available Netflix audio tracks, including audio description track and tracks in languages I don’t know. I actually learned quite a bit from the audio description track and highly recommend it even if you don’t need it.

      I don’t have the BR/DVD, so my next mission is finding a bootleg of the audio commentary with Fukuen/Nojima/Matsuoka.

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