Sailor Moon Crystal Deluxe Limited Edition Blu-Ray vol. 12 Review

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Adam

The last volume of Sailor Moon Crystal was released on Blu-Ray last month, on September 9th. I’ve dragged my feet on this review so much that the next disk, volume 13, is released today in Japan. Volume 12 can be purchased from sites such as Amazon Japan for 5194 yen, about $43 US. The next and final volume can also be ordered from Amazon Japan for 5994 yen, about $50 US. As always this release contains only two episodes, in this case Act 23 and 24, in Japanese only and the cover art included is of Black Lady, Chibiusa’s older and eviler self.

The charm included with this release is Sailor Moon’s Crystal Star, her transformation broach for this story arc.

Two episodes are included on this disk. Act 23 – Covert Maneuvers – Wiseman, and Act 24 – Attack – Black Lady. The video quality as always is great. As with other DVD and Blu-Ray releases some minor changes to the animation have taken place since the streaming version. Nothing of significance is included with these particular episodes. Nothing changes any of the scenes in any major way. The biggest change with Act 24 is the colour and brightness for certain scenes. As always you can check out Crystal Comparisons for screenshots which show the changes for any particular episode, including Acts 23 and 24.

A 20 page full colour booklet is included once again. Unfortunately I am unable to identify the subjects of the first interview. The names are Nozomi Matsuura and Yukiko Kariya. This web site indicates that they work for Bandai, but no other details are given. The second interview is with the voice actors playing the Black Moon Clan. This includes Mamoru Miyano, the voice of Prince Demande, Hiroki Takahashi, the voice of Rubeus, Tsubasa Yonaga, the voice of Saphir, and Houko Kawashima, the voice of Esmeraude. Also included in the booklet are the usual episode summaries for Act 23 and 24, character designs for Black Lady, Prince Demande and Saphir, backgrounds and screenshots from the episodes and a page for Fumio Osano, Osabu.

These episodes include an audio commentary featuring cast and crew from the show. This includes Munehisa Sakai, director of the first 26 episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal, Hisako Kanemoto, the voice of Sailor Mercury, Rina Sato, the voice of Sailor Mars, Ami Koshimizu, the voice of Sailor Jupiter, and Shizuka Ito, the voice of Sailor Venus.

Should you get this? Should you pay over $50 to buy and ship this set with only two episodes in a language you can’t speak when an English and Japanese version will eventually be released for much less and you can watch the series for free online in the mean time? That’s your call!

Keep reading for more images of this set’s packaging including images of all pages of the included special booklet.

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Sailor Moon SuperS episodes 142 and 143 are now available on Hulu

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Adam

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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Sailor Moon SuperS episodes 138 and 139 are now available on Hulu

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Adam

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon SuperS have been added to Hulu and Neon Alley. Episodes 138 and 139 are full of sadness as a widow tries to fix her husband’s old car and a young swordswoman is beat up repeatedly by her mother.

Episode 138, Drive to the Heavens: The Dream Car Fueled with Love, once again tries to make us think Mamoru is being unfaithful! Usagi and the audience should learn by now. Ami sees a woman give him a set of keys. What is this? Her house keys? A hotel key? No. They’re just keys to a car which she is trying to fix up. Natsumi is a widow and before his death her husband was trying to fix up this old car. She wants to fix it now but needs some help, which is where everyone comes in. There is no reason to suspect Mamoru of wrongdoing but of course Usagi gets jealous because that’s what she does. He’d need to die for her to stop constantly doubting him. Natsumi’s husband had a beard so Hawk’s Eye has the perfect plan to win her heart! A beard! This fails naturally and Chibiusa gives him a piece of her mind.

Episode 139, Aiming for the Top: the Pretty Swordswoman’s Dilemma, is about a young girl who is trying to be the best in the world with a sword! Miharu hangs around in the park fighting challengers which seems to go well until someone comes by and gives her a serious whooping. To complicate things further this is actually her mother! What a family. This seems to be her tough love sort of approach to get her to come back home. Miharu pretends to be strong but is quite upset by all this, masking her tears by chopping onions and blaming them. Whenever I’m chopping onions I think of this scene and, in the opposite way, pretend to tell a tragic story to make my tears seem genuine. Tiger’s Eye, always one to target younger women, goes after Miharu in this episode. Though her age is not outright stated she appears to be younger than any of his previous targets. Ultimately Miharu confronts her mother again but instead of beating her straight out in combat she leaves a small trap for her and beats her that way. Somehow this seems to have solved all of the family’s problems.

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Sailor Moon SuperS episodes 134 and 135 are now available on Hulu

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Adam

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon SuperS, episodes 134 and 135, have been added to Hulu and Neon Alley this morning. This week we get a couple of episodes focusing on some artists first as Makoto’s friend writes a novel about Pegasus and next as Chibiusa deals with a teacher who’s lost her groove.

Episode 134, Makoto’s Friendship: The Girl Who Admired Pegasus, has the Sailor Guardians excited about a new book release by a local writer. As the gang are ready to get autographs we once again see that Rei takes her autographs seriously, bringing three copies of the book to get signed. We previously learned about this obsession way back in episode 21 when she brought a bunch of autograph paper to the animation studio working on the Sailor V movie. The book, which is all about Pegasus, was written by author Tomoko Takase who turns out to be Makoto’s friend. Who knew the Sailor Guardians had friends who weren’t each other? The girls have always been presented as having been lonely prior to encountering Usagi. In a flashback we see that Makoto and Tomoko befriended each other while Makoto was at her old school so this is prior to us seeing her in the series. Her relationship with Tomoko began somewhat like her relationship with Usagi had, as she help protect her from a bunch of bullies, which leads her to read the story she’s writing. I guess Makoto didn’t remember having dreamed of Pegasus as a child at this point, something we later learn all of the Sailor Guardians did but mostly forgot. Tomoko has lost her motivation after seeing a boy she likes with a girlfriend. Chibiusa is shocked at the book, as it’s all about Pegasus who comes and fights with her and sometimes shows up by her bedside, and tells Tomoko about it. Tomoko is targeted and in the ensuing fight sees Pegasus which helps her get her groove back.

Episode 135, Connecting Hearts: Chibi-Usa and Pegasus, is not the most feminist episode. Chibiusa and her friends are painting in a park, and Chibiusa is all about doing crazy crap. She has a moustache, because she thinks artists should have moustaches, which doesn’t say much for female artists! She also draws Pegasus into the landscape because she’s a free thinking hippie who can’t follow the assignment. Her teacher, Morino Sensei, is not happy about this one bit and threatens to fail her for it. Kyuusuke gives Morino a bit of trouble mocking her singleness and blaming her stubbornness for not having a man. Harsh criticism from a little runt. Momoko also appears here and we see that her hair colour has somehow changed from a natural brown to a less normal looking purple. She still has normal looking hair when compared to her friend! When Usagi and Chibiusa run into Morino this triggers and unusual parental reaction in Usagi, who otherwise usually does no such thing. This whole exchange is quite humorous. Ultimately Morino is targeted by Tiger’s Eye, which would make her his oldest target to date. In the final scene of the episode we get a sort of weird scene in which Chibiusa changes in front of Pegasus which makes him blush, insinuating there is some sort of attraction there not typical of a human/horse relationship. There seems to be more to this winged horse than meets the eye!

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Sailor Moon SuperS episodes 132 and 133 are now available on Hulu

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Adam

This morning Sailor Moon SuperS episodes 132 and 133 were added to Hulu and Neon Alley. With that we get a couple of hilarious episodes focusing on the fragile nature of rock solid relationships which it turns out aren’t actually fragile at all. First Mamoru and Usagi’s relationship is put to the test and then Luna must deal with Artemis’s illegitimate kitten he seems to have had with some random stray! As expected we did not get the Sailor Moon SuperS Special which takes place between episodes 131 and 132. You can read more about that special in last week’s write up. There is currently no indication as to when, if at all, the Sailor Moon movies and specials will be released.

Episode 132, The Perfect Couple: Usagi and Mamoru’s Love, is not an episode about how Usagi and Mamoru are the perfect couple. It’s about the relationship, or lack thereof, between Saori and Kobayashi, two of Mamoru’s friends. Kobayashi loves Saori. Saori loves Mamoru. Mamoru loves Usagi. Usagi loves Mamoru. Chibiusa loves Mamoru. Tiger’s Eye targets Saori. It’s a whole intricate web of attraction! When Saori and Kobayashi are having a chat at Mamoru’s the conversation is a bit awkward, and it just gets worse when Usagi and Chibiusa show up. Chibiusa does nothing to reduce the tension when she flat out asks Saori what her intentions with her Mamoru are! Chibiusa is rightfully concerned that Mamoru may end up with Saori because if he does she may never be born in the first place! This concern is passed on to Usagi who can’t help but imagine Mamoru straying with this more mature woman. Does anyone actually ship these two together? This relationship reminds me of Hina and Mamoru in the live action series. They are the same age and theoretically compatible but tragically Mamoru has no interest because he loves Usagi. Tiger’s Eye targets Saori in this episode. This is a bit odd as I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out where him and Hawk’s Eye draw the line between young woman and older woman. Hawk’s Eye, who prefers older women, went after Reika, Motoki’s girlfriend who appears to be roughly Mamoru’s age. Saori is Mamoru’s school mate and appears to be roughly the same age but is targeted by Tiger’s Eye who generally pursues younger women. Ultimately during the inevitable combat Saori sees Mamoru call Sailor Moon Usagi and so she sees that she can’t possibly come between the two. Does this leave Kobayashi the winner of the covered silver medal, the runner up consolation prize of the woman who can’t have the man she wants? We will never know as they are never seen again.

Episode 133, Artemis Is Cheating? Enter the Mysterious Kitten, is an interesting follow up to the Sailor Moon S movie. This episode features one of the most hilarious scenes of the series. When asking for help with her homework Chibiusa tries to convince Mamoru that if he doesn’t help her she’ll do poorly in school, be mocked by her friends, never get married and end up old and alone. Her imagination of this shows a white haired old lady Chibiusa sitting with her cat watching the Sailor Moon anime on a TV. Does the Sailor Moon anime exist in the world of Sailor Moon? We’ve only ever seen the Sailor V series to date, but this seems possible. Artemis gets busted in this episode staring lovingly at a Nun. He later confesses he was just in awe because he dreams of getting married in a church some day. Is this a feasible goal for a cat? The Catholic Church does not consider animals to have souls, so I think they would have a bit of trouble reconciling the love between a couple of alien cats from another solar system. Suddenly a cute grey kitten with a crescent moon on her head shows up calling Artemis father, and Luna assumes the worst. Clearly the only logical explanation, given the causal nature of the universe, and that Luna has never given birth to a talking kitten with a crescent moon on her forehead, is that Artemis impregnated a real cat at some point fathering this kitten. The insinuation is simple. Artemis, having sexual needs, has been having sex with one or more cats. There is some room for a non cheating relationship to have caused this prior to the events of the Sailor Moon S movie when Luna and Artemis’s relationship became formalized. Prior to that Artemis was free to do as he pleased while Luna was being pursued by Rhett Butler and transforming into a human to make out with her space man. Luna is understandably upset, but so is Minako! She is not upset for Luna but for herself! Minako and Artemis have a strong relationship! Well it turns out it was just a misunderstanding. Diana is simply Luna and Artemis’s daughter from the future, and now everyone is back to being happy. Artemis laughs it off but sympathizes with Mamoru’s situation, having his future daughter around cramping his relationship with his girlfriend and future wife.

Why bring Diana in now and not two seasons ago? In the Sailor Moon Manga Diana shows up in Crystal Tokyo, like she did in Sailor Moon Crystal, in what is the equivalent of Sailor Moon R in the anime. We never see her at this point and when Chibiusa returns in Sailor Moon S, she returns alone. It’s not really clear why the anime writers chose not to include her but at this point they manage to throw her in for a very brief appearance before she is to be swept under the same rug Chibiusa disappears under during SailorStars.

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Sailor Moon SuperS episodes 130 and 131 are now available on Hulu

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Adam

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon SuperS are now available on Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we get episodes 130 and 131 and everyone in Usagi’s entourage are targeted by the PUAs that are the Amazon Trio. First it’s her mother and then it’s her best friend, but will either stray from their committed relationships? Once you’ve watched these episodes you’ll want to watch the Sailor Moon SuperS Special as well. You can read more about that later in this post.

Episode 130, Protect Mom’s Dream: Double Moon’s New Attack, is all about Usagi’s mother Ikuko Tsukino who is generally referred to as Ikuko Mama. In over three seasons we’ve somehow never had an episode focus on either of the Tsukino parents, so this one is a nice change. Usagi gets really mad that she didn’t get to eat a piece of her mother’s pie, which is a classic Usagi reason to get upset, and she storms off. This leads to a nice moment between Ikuko Mama and Chibiusa. What a lovely yet tragic relationship these two share. Chibiusa is stranded in the past and while Usagi does offer some sort of a parental figure to her, what with her being her actual mother, their relationship is much closer to that of sisters. Ikuko Mama believes herself to be Chibiusa’s aunt though as she lives with the Tsukinos she is more of a parent to her. Too bad all of her memories of Chibiusa are destined to disappear whenever she returns to the future. Will she still be alive when Usagi ascends to be Queen of Crystal Tokyo and Chibiusa is born? Will she ever be able to reclaim her lost memories? It’s hard not be a bit sad whenever I see these two interact. Ikuko Mama shows Chibiusa a series of photos of Usagi when she was growing up. This reminds me of the intro to the Sailor Moon SuperS movie where we see clips of all of the Sailor Guardians growing up. More importantly we see a calendar in the background of this scene which states 1995. The timeline for Sailor Moon makes no sense, as the episodes all seem to take place during the actual seasons and years they aired in over a five year period, though Usagi ages only two years over that time. Here Usagi, 14 years old throughout the first season, is 15 years old as determined by her birthday last season and her age being stated in episode 132 which is only two episodes and a short special away. A calendar in the first season showed 1992 while one in this episode shows 1995. Something doesn’t add up!

Ikuko Mama is targeted by Hawk’s Eye, because she is older than the teenaged girls Tiger’s Eye goes after. This doesn’t seem to work very well, as she is quite happily married to Kenji Papa! Hawk’s Eye creates an elaborate lie about his own mother who looks just like her making pies. He really lays it on thick! When the fighting ensues Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon and finally powered up permanently to Super Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Chibi Moon with the weapons we’ve sort of already seen a couple of times. Not sure why this needed to be dragged out this much.

Episode 131, Catch Pegasus: The Amazon’s Trap, is a great humour filled episode. Last episode Hawk’s Eye tried to seduce a married woman and this week Tiger’s Eye has about as much trouble trying to seduce Naru despite her relationship with Umino. This relationship is rock solid, not likely to be broken up by a slick peacocking PUA or some message from the future as we’ve seen with others in the series. Hawk’s Eye is hilariously shattered at the idea that a young lady could pass on his advances but be interested in such a seemingly low class guy as Umino, but he will not be deterred. He comes up with a great tactic, to fake a terminal illness! It somewhat works, as Naru decides it is the right thing to do to be at his side. Umino is broken up by this, going into a depression and drinking a ton of McDonald’s milkshakes which are MoG shakes but the similarity is no coincidence. All of this doesn’t work though. Naru’s love for Umino is too strong! They truly are the strongest couple in the series!

Next, you should really watch the Sailor Moon SuperS Special which originally aired on April 8th 1995, two weeks after episode 131, which aired March 25th, and a week before episode 132, which aired April 15th. Although this episode aired on TV and fits chronologically within the Sailor Moon SuperS season it has never been released in English to date and is unlikely to appear on Hulu next week. If you look around the Internet you should be able to find a copy of this special.

The special is broken into three parts which are each a sort of mini episode. The total length is about that of two episodes, so each episode is somewhat shorter than usual. The first part is a series of flashback clips which is generally uninteresting. The other two parts are much more better.

In the second part, The Return of Haruka and Michiru! The Ghostly Puppet Show, We get a look at what Haruka and Michiru are up to this season as they fight an evil ventriloquist’s dummy. The dummy being the evil one. Haruka is sick throughout. A fight naturally ensues at which point we learn that Michiru would gladly sacrifice many lives just to save Haruka, which is funny but completely contradicting all of Sailor Moon S. As an indicator that we won’t be seeing them later in the season, the two agree that the core group of Sailor Guardians can handle the new threat. At this point in the manga Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn would not have joined the story of the dream arc yet, but in the anime they never do.

Next is the third part, Chibiusa’s Adventure! The Dreaded Vampire Castle, which is an adaptation of the first Chibiusa’s picture diary manga side story. It focuses on a young girl named Lilica who joins Chibiusa’s class. She seems like a nice enough girl until some of the boys in her class start disappearing. It turns out Lilica is actually a vampire, so it’s a good thing the girls had a garlic filled lunch allowing them to use Sailor Special Garlic Attack which is naturally never used in any other episode.

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Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 10 review

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Adam

The latest volume of Sailor Moon Crystal was released on Blu-Ray July 8th. As always my review is so late that the next volume, volume 11, is about to be released on August 12th. Regardless, let’s talk about volume 10. This set, like many others, includes two episodes on Blu-Ray in Japanese only. You can order it from sites such as Amazon Japan for 5194 yen, which is about $42 US plus shipping.

The art for this release features the often neglected but never forgotten Sailor Pluto! This is fitting since her character is featured prominently on the disk. We have Act 19, Time Warp – Sailor Pluto, and Act 20, Crystal Tokyo – King Endymion.

The charm is Sailor Jupiter’s Star Power Stick. This fits with the trend we’d been seeing.

Included as always is a 20 page full colour special book. This includes summaries for Act 19 and 20, art, character designs for Sailor Pluto and some of the Black Moon Clan, a page for Fumio Osano, Osabu, as well as two interviews. The first interview is with Akiko Kosaka, a composer who provided many songs for the original anime as well as Gekkou, the ending theme for Sailor Moon Crystal. The second is with Ai Maeda, the voice of Sailor Pluto.

Quality for this release is great, as always. The video is 1080p and looks better than the streaming releases. There are a lot of minor changes to the animation from the original version. Nothing from these episodes in particular jumped out as me as being significant. You can always check out Crystal Comparisons to see changes for any episodes, includes the acts 19 and 20 which are provided in this set.

The disk is Japanese only and also include a commentary track featuring Munehisa Sakai, the series director, as well as Shizuka Ito, the voice of Sailor Venus, and Misato Fukuen, the voice of Chibiusa. I can’t really comment on the content of these commentaries, as I don’t actually speak Japanese.

I can’t tell you whether or not it’s worth it to buy this set. Do what you did with the last 9. The video quality is great and it’s worth having for a hardcore collector but North American fans who like their money may find it makes sense to wait for the English dubbed and subbed release we will be getting at some point in the future.

Keep reading for more photos of this set including pictures of all pages of the included special book.

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All of Sailor Moon S is now available on Hulu

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Adam

This week with the two latest additions of Sailor Moon to Hulu we get episodes 126 and 127. This completes the Sailor Moon S season, so fans can now watch all of the first 3 seasons of Sailor Moon for free on Hulu and Neon Alley. We actually wrapped up the main story of Sailor Moon S last week with episode 125 so now we have a couple of sort of terrible episodes focusing on other things which happen following the main altercation with Mistress 9, Pharaon 90 and Sailor Saturn which no one ever asked for but that we are getting anyway.

Episode 126, A New Life: Parting of the Stars of Destiny, seemingly immediately follows episode 125. We don’t actually follow up with what Super Sailor Moon and Baby Hotaru will do but instead we start by seeing Chibiusa asleep. We eventually do see where Baby Hotaru ended up. She is with her father, Professor Tomoe, who is obviously still recuperating from his injuries. Chibiusa is happy to see that Hotaru is healthy and safe, though it seems like it might be a while until they can hang out again. It’s important to note that Professor Tomoe is relatively innocent in this whole affair. He was controlled by an evil entity all this time. The only thing he did which was wrong was that he agreed to allow some unseen unknown power to bring his daughter back to life while still suffering from the trauma of seeing her die. Almost anyone would have made that same decision. At this point it seems like there is a happy ending for Professor Tomoe and Hotaru. It would certainly be bad if in not too much time some girls who previously tried to murder this baby came by and forcefully took her from her father. All that is well and good but now the episode gets really awful. Everyone should have been totally cool with Usagi being great but instead Sailor Uranus and Neptune randomly start to fight Sailor Moon because they want her to prove that she’s really worthy. She doesn’t really do anything to prove this worth, and just fights for a bit, and maybe because they respect that she’s kind of scrappy they have a complete change of heart, kneel to her and we’re all friends again. What an awful waste of time that leaves a sour taste in our mouths for characters that were otherwise so well handled for the rest of the season. Too bad we won’t be seeing them at all next season.

Episode 127, A Guardian’s Realization: Strength Lies Within a Pure Heart, may seem a bit familiar to fans. Didn’t we just see this in Sailor Moon Crystal? It’s time for Chibiusa to leave, again, but she’s quite sad about it. The real failure of this episode is that Chibiusa gave a better and more emotionally touching goodbye at the end of episode 88, after she left at the end of Sailor Moon R. Here we sort of do a weaker version of that sadness and Chibiusa once again leaves. She returns almost immediately though, which is reminiscent of the manga. When Chibiusa leaves after the Black Moon story arc of the manga, as seen in Sailor Moon Crystal episode 26, she immediately returns. This doesn’t happen the first time around in the anime as Chibiusa remains gone for a number of episodes. Perhaps the writers would have kept her away had the plot of Sailor Moon S, based on the Infinity arc of the Manga, not required her to be linked to Hotaru’s story. I feel this episode should simply not have happened and instead we should have seen this in Sailor Stars. By the time Chibiusa finally leaves for the future she’s fake left three times before finally leaving anti climactically between episodes. Chibiusa isn’t being forgotten any time soon though. She’s about to dominate the screen for the entire next season as Sailor Moon SuperS, which will begin streaming on Hulu next Monday, is all about Chibiusa!

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A review of the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 26, Replay – Never Ending

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Adam

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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Watch the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 26, Replay – Neverending, July 18th at 6am Eastern Time

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Adam

This weekend is the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 26, Replay – Neverending. Though fans continue to hope for more episodes, we still have not had any confirmation of any episodes following the initial 26 episode run. This next episode will be available on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico starting this Saturday, July 18th, at 7pm Japan Standard Time which is 6am Eastern Time, 3am Pacific Time. This will be the final episode of the Dark Moon story arc as we wrap up the story of Crystal Tokyo and Nemesis.

This is it. Chibiusa has become Sailor Chibi Moon and Nemesis has been blasted away, but with it we also lost Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask! We will finally get to see Neo Queen Serenity return as the final battle with Death Phantom takes place. It’s unclear where exactly things will leave off with this being a finale. Will Chibiusa leave for the future and wrap things up perfectly? Will they still bother upgrading Sailor Moon’s transformation broach and giving her the Heart Moon Rod which she won’t ever get around to using? If another season is ever planned they probably will. Finally will we see the “À Suivre” (to be continued) message at the end of this one as we have with every other episode to date? If we don’t that will certainly be an indicator that there are no new episodes planned.

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Tag Archives: Chibiusa

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