Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27, Infinity 1 – Premonition – First Part, review

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - Haruka and Michiru

Sailor Moon Crystal is finally back! Act 27, Infinity 1 – Premonition – First Part, aired on Japanese TV April 4th at 11pm Japan Standard Time. Shortly after this, around 10:45am Eastern Time, the show was available to stream for free on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Neon Alley. It seems that the show was only available to Hulu Plus users at first but could be viewed right away with commercials on the Viz web site Neon Alley. Keep this in mind in the future if you for whatever reason don’t like watching it on Crunchryroll.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - Infinity 1 - Premonition - First Part

I guess we finally know what the episode title will be. Act 27 is split into two parts, aptly named “First Part” and “The 2nd Part”. Yes the subtitles do indeed inconsistently spell out first but write 2nd with a number. Hulu calls the episode “Part 1″ but the subtitle for the title is consistently “First Part”. As mentioned previously the season will have 13 episodes. Sailor Moon Crystal follows the later chapter break up of the manga which has the Infinity arc covering 12 manga chapters, meaning this is likely going to be the only episode which is split in two.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - The Sailor Team

The first thing which strikes me about this episode is the change in animation. Like it or not, it’s different. This seems like a totally different show. I personally think this new animation is fantastic as I’m going to appreciate anything that’s novel at this point. Not only is the style different but I all around get a sense that there has been a significant improvement in the quality of the animation. Perhaps more time and money have gone into these episodes. We should be happy for the delay if it means getting something that looks this good. There is also a lot of funny animation, which we’ve seen off and on earlier in the series. I hope this kind of thing keeps up. As always the show continues to be a faithful adaptation of the manga, so no big change there.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - Haruka

Act 27 starts the new Infinity story arc which is all about Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and the Death Busters. We see only a glimpse of Hotaru and Kaolinite this week, but we do see quite a bit of Haruka and Michiru. Haruka is such a fascinating character. She is described using male gender specific pronouns in the subtitles. This is a bit of a complicated issue. Haruka is female, but at this point in the manga all characters, including the reader, are meant to assume that she is male. She’s not trans but is probably more accurately described as gender fluid. I have mentioned before that I don’t speak Japanese, but my understanding is simply that gender specific pronouns aren’t commonly used in the Japanese language. This leads to common situations in Japanese fiction, like anime and manga, where a character’s identity is confused but the person can still be openly spoken of without it leading to confusion like it might in English when a gender specific pronoun like he or she would come up to clear things up. And so Haruka wears men’s clothes and is fawned after by girls, including Usagi, Minako and Makoto who assume she is a man. Some of them of course will continue to be attracted to her when they learn she is a woman, which is just part of what makes this series great.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - Diana on the table

Diana returns! She came to the present with Chibiusa from the 30th century, something which occurs in the manga but does not happen in the original Sailor Moon anime until late in the next story arc. Diana has a red collar in the original anime but her collar is grey in Sailor Moon Crystal. I only noticed this watching this episode but her collar was grey in the last story arc as well. Chibiusa seems to have no problems letting Diana sit on the dining room table. This isn’t something that bothers me much but I keep expecting my girlfriend to pop on to the screen and push her down.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - Artemis and Luna

Speaking of cats, check out how much Luna and Artemis have changed. Their faces are shaped a lot differently that what we’re used to. One of the many changes in character designs.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - Racing

The gang play a fake video game called Battle Lap. Or is it Speed Racer? It says Speed Racer on the side of the machine but it is clearly referred to as Battle Lap in conversation, which is the name of the game in the manga. I don’t know much about car racing but apparently in the Sailor Moon world being good at real car racing translates to being good at video game car racing! I am personally a terrible driver and I am also very bad at Mario Kart, so perhaps this is legit! Usagi mentions that she can’t tell how fast she’s going because of her helmet which Haruka seems to think is the sign of a good racer. I guess I will have to wear a helmet when I play Mario Kart from now on. This helmet peripheral doesn’t actually seem to have any in game functionality, unless it beats you up when you virtually crash.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - Daimon

Fighting ensues! A Daimon comes out of a girl from Mugen Acamdemy, the school where all the scary stuff is going on, and this fight is much more than the few pages we get in the manga. This is probably why the chapter is split in two. We needed to reintroduce all characters and give everyone a full transformation sequence. These new transformation sequences look great, and are nearly identical to those from the original Sailor Moon anime.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - Sailor Mars

We get some cool attacks. Sailor Venus uses her Wink Chain Sword which now features an actual sword! How cool is that? I mean she doesn’t actually hit the enemy with her sword but there is a sword in there. You know like the one she used to kill Queen Beryl. Oh that’s right…

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 27 - Venus Chain Wink Sword

Next week is Act 28, Infinity 1 – Premonition – The 2nd Part. No really, we’re not calling it Infinity 2? How confusing. At least we will be able to easily follow the manga titles even though the Act numbers will change. The preview has a border around it so I can’t be lazy and use these screenshots when the new episode comes out. Next week Usagi will disguise herself as a Mugen Academy student and try to sneak in. Looking forward to seeing if they draw all of Chibiusa’s friends like small version of the men of the series. Kyuusuke looks like a tiny Mamoru but in this coming story we have a tiny version of Asanuma and Umino. Or is it Amano? I guess Naoko Takeuchi got lazy! More importantly we will see Sailor Uranus and Neptune for the first time. Keep an eye out for Act 28 on Monday April 11th some time around 10:45am Eastern Time on Crunchyroll, Neon Alley and Hulu.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 28 Preview - Hotaru

Keep reading for more screenshots from this episode and the next episode preview.

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The Infinity Arc of Sailor Moon Crystal will have more than one episode per manga chapter

Sailor Moon Crystal Infinity Arc trailer - Sailor Chibi Moon and Sailor Moon

March 6th was the sneak preview of the first episode of the upcoming Infinity Arc of Sailor Moon Crystal, which will be aired on Japanese TV on April 4th. This was, we are supposing, Act 27, Infinity 1 – Premonition. Every episode to date has lined up with the chapter titles from the manga but it seems this trend will not continue. Two people who attended the premiere episode have confirmed that it only covered half of the manga equivalent of Act 27. Twitter user @uiyoe16 first mentioned that this only covered part of the story but later a user Andy added a comment to one of our posts with a lot of details.

Sailor Moon Crystal Infinity Arc trailer - Students from Mugen Academy

According to her the episode concluded after Sailor Jupiter and Venus defeated the Daimon which had come from the Infinity Academy Students’ backs. This means that the first episode would only include appearances by Haruka and Michiru, but not their Sailor Guardian counterparts Sailor Uranus and Neptune or Hotaru, all of whom show up towards the end of Act 27. By my count this means the episode covers pages 4 to 43 of the manga chapter, which goes up to page 73. This is a bit more than half, but close enough that the next episode would likely conclude Act 27.

Many users have also wondered if this could mean that, unlike the first two seasons, we could be having more extra scenes and character development not in the manga. Part of what set the original Sailor Moon anime apart from the manga was that, over a longer period of time, we got extra content exclusive to that series. Andy goes on to say that they did not change anything or add new scenes not present in the manga. This would mean that, even though we may not be doing the 1:1 ratio of manga chapters to Sailor Moon Crystal episodes, we might not necessarily be adding anything completely new. This just gives us the same story animated at a different pace. Many comments have pointed out that the stories in the Infinity arc are often longer, so this kind of approach makes sense rather than trying to cram more story into a short episode. How this will factor in throughout the season is not clear at this point, and we will only get an idea as the story goes on, though we can imagine longer stories may have more than one episode while shorter ones may keep the 1:1 ratio.

Here’s the complete Tweet from user @uiyoe16:

Here’s the full comment left by Andy on our post about the Sailor Moon/Pokémon crossover:

greetings to all Sailor Moon Crystal fans! I was one of the fans who had a chance to see the limited premiere of the third season and I want to share some news with you, although I know some news have already leaked out. So first at all – at that time there were no new opening and ending credits, they said they are still working on it, same with the new soundtrack – what we could hear were just unfinished samples. The transformations and attacks have brand new animation – and it is stunning, much more better than in the first two seasons, Guardians also have new Planet Power make-up pens! The episode was simply a half of “Act 27 – Infinity 1, Premonition”, they did not change anything and there was not any new scene which is not in manga, it was 100% faithful to the manga and ended after Jupiter and Venus destroyed on the street the monster which emerged from one of the Infinity Academy student’s back. There were not present Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune (their civilian form Michiru and Haruka were present of course), Professor Tomoe, Hotaru, nor Witches 5 and only a brief appearance of Kaolinite and Pharaoh 90.

How many episodes will we have? There are actually different numberings for Manga chapters in different editions. Sailor Moon Crystal had broken up episodes according to the new version of the manga which were reprinted in 2003. These are the chapters used in the latest English release of the manga. According to this numbering the first two arcs spanned 26 episodes and there are 11 chapters in the Infinity arc. It looks like the Infinity arc would at least cover 12 chapters if they only broke up the first Act but more likely would be closer to 20 or 26 for this story arc alone if they kept up this pace throughout the Infinity story arc. While it was originally expected that another batch of 26 episodes could cover both the Infinity and Dream arcs of the manga, this may no longer be the case. At this point I’m considering that the next Act will be Act 27, Infinity 1 – Premonition, but what will Act 28 be called if it doesn’t span Act 28, Infinity 2 – Ripples, of the Manga? We may not have specifics until April 4th when the episode airs, or some short time after that as we still have no details about international streaming options.

Sailor Moon Crystal Infinity Arc trailer - Sailor Neptune and Uranus

Source: @ukiyoe16 and the comments at Sailor Moon News