As of this morning, July 21st 2014, episodes 21 and 22 of the original Sailor Moon anime have been added to Hulu and Neon Alley. These subbed episodes by Viz will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 11th along with their new English dub. For now two new episodes are released every Monday.
Episode 21, Protect the Children’s Dreams: Friendship Through Anime, takes place at an animation studio working on the Sailor V anime. This episodes provides a meta look at the making of Sailor Moon, as many characters included are based on those who worked on the Sailor Moon anime. The two main characters Hiromi and Kazuko are themselves inspired by two of Sailor Moon’s animation directors Hiromi Matsushita and Kazuko Tadano. Though both characters are female, Hiromi Matushita is actually a man. I had the priveledge of meeting these two at Otakon 2008 and they had fond memories of this episode and mentioned that the designs of those characters were loosely based on themselves. When Nephrite targets Hiromi it tears her and Kazuko apart. Their friendship is put to the test as they are both tempted by the power of magic pencils!
Episode 22, Romance Under the Moon: Usagi’s First Kiss, has everyone who’s anyone crashing a ball to try to steal what they think is the Silver Crystal. Princess Diamond is holding an event to show off her jewels and that attracts everyone including Nephrite, Naru, Usagi and Tuxedo Mask. It turns out Princess Diamond is a dead ringer for Naru, which Nephrite takes advantage of in order to try to steal the jewel. This episode furthers Naru and Nephrite’s completely dysfunctional relationship, but that’s not the only terrible behaviour that happens between future lovers! Usagi, who crashes the party more to have a good time than to do her duty in searching for the crystal, gets drunk and is found passed out by Tuxedo Mask who takes advantage of the situation to kiss her. Is this romantic, assault or a little of both? Ultimately the jewel was only pricessless, so everyone went home empty handed. This episode follows an act of the manga fairly closely, which has become pretty rare at this point in the series.
Episode 1 through 23 had previously been released for digital download. Next week with episodes 23 and 24 we’ll start to get into new episodes which are not currently available.