Is this CG image a look at what’s in store for the Universal Studios Japan’s Sailor Moon The Miracle 4-D attraction?

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Adam

The Sailor Moon The Miracle 4-D attraction is coming to Universal Studios Japan in March of this year. The latest update on the Sailor Moon official site, as well as the attraction’s official site, includes details on merchandise available at the event but also has some CG art to go along with the announcement. Could this be the kind of visuals we could be expecting from the event? The original announcement was accompanied with some unique looking art which seemed quite similar to the original Sailor Moon anime but had designs including details unique to the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal. With this being a 4-D event, meaning that it will be in 3D with some added effects, it would seem fitting if the animation was done in CG which lends itself well to 3D video. We certainly haven’t gotten any confirmation about what the footage will look like but if these visuals in the banner are any indication we could be looking forward to 1990s quality computer animation for this event.

We also have a bit of detail about the story of the footage. Apparently, now brace yourself for this, there are monsters targeting people’s energy and the Sailor Guardians need to stop them! Seems pretty standard but we are assured that this is actually going to be an original story, so it’s unlikely we will be seeing existing footage augmented to make use of 4-D technology.

We also have some details about merchandise which will be available at the event, including an Instagram page dedicated solely to posting pictures of merchandise that will be sold at the attraction. The main draw seems to be the Cutie – Universal – Rod, a Universal branded version of Sailor Moon’s Cutie Moon Rod which she uses in the second story arc of the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal which corresponds to the Sailor Moon R season of the original anime. Also available are a pin set of Sailor Moon’s attack items, a Luna P container and more. The photos you can get at the event will include one of 7 backgrounds with one available each day of the week. Will some fans be willing to go every day to get a complete set? I would assume so!

There is also going to be a chance to meet “Tuxedo Mask”. This sounds a bit like the chances to meet Disney Princesses and such at Disney theme parks and cruises. You won’t be meeting any actor or actress who’s ever portrayed Tuxedo Mask in any fiction you care about but more likely just someone who’s wearing the costume. Good for kids who have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality but hardly compelling to adult fans who have different kinds of complex relationships with the line between fantasy and reality.

All of this starts on March 16th in Japan! If you’re planning to attend I suggest checking out some of the links above for details on how to get tickets. Will any of you be in Japan to see this show? Let us know in the comments!

Keep reading for more pictures of the merchandise.

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Premium Bandai exclusives for Sailor V and Black Lady Pullip Dolls are Artemis and Luna P

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Adam

The Bandai exclusives for the Sailor V and Black Lady Pullip Dolls have been revealed! Sailor V will come with Artemis and Black Lady will come with Evil Luna P, which is just like Luna P only with a symbol of the Black Moon Clan on her forehead instead of a Crescent Moon. Bandai exclusives for Pullip Dolls are usually alternate costumes. In the case of most Sailor Guardians, this meant a civilian form school uniform. As Sailor Venus already came with Minako’s school uniform it makes sense that it not be included with this release. Black Lady couldn’t very well have had a school uniform since she never goes to school!

We had previously announced these two Pullip Dolls, high quality very expensive dolls with huge heads and eyes. Sailor V will be available later this month and Black Lady will be available in January. To get the Bandai exclusives the dolls must be preordered from the Premium Bandai site (Sailor V, Black Lady) for the price of 18,000 yen (about $150 US).

More images of the dolls were released along with this news. The above image shows Sailor V along with Artemis for scale.

Source: The Sailor Moon Official Site (Sailor V, Black Lady) & Premium Bandai (Sailor V, Black Lady)

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Sailor Moon Crystal Act 23, Covert Maneuvers – Wiseman, Review

Posted on June 7, 2015 by Adam

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 23, Covert Maneuvers – Wiseman, is now available on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This week we are finally introduced to Black Lady, who is Chibiusa aged and made somewhat evil by Wise Man. Black Lady is all about being evil and making out with her younger father from the past, Tuxedo Mask.

The episode starts out with Sailor Pluto warning the Sailor Guardians about not wandering around in the limbo and getting lost in the storm in the Space Time Corridor. Sailor Moon wants to go anyway, and Sailor Pluto caves. Then they find Luna-p and nothing really changed about the severity of the situation, but Sailor Pluto tells them they can’t go on and since Sailor Moon passes out, they give up.

We get a better look at Nemesis this week. Previously I postulated about the state of the surface of Nemesis, which is never very clearly described. Here we see that there are a large number of volcanic eruptions on the surface, so it does at least have a solid rock like surface. Most of the time there seems to be spent somewhere underground. Traveling deep into its core there is a kind of alternate dimension. Black Lady talks about this Castle of Darkness at the bottom, but it’s really just a slab of rock. Supposedly someone would build a castle here but there’s really nothing going on. Nemesis is kind of lame, all things considered. No wonder they want to conquer Earth!

This episode marks the first real introduction of Black Lady. Seems like this was a long time coming. Chibiusa is taken away by Wise Man during Act 21. We see Black Lady a number of times throughout Act 22 be we never get a clear look at her. Finally seeing her it doesn’t feel like a huge surprise, especially since she’s been shown in the anime and manga for some 20 years. As always her appearance here matches that of the manga more than the original anime were she had very little exposition. Physically she seems about the same, though I can’t help but notice she has disproportionately large breasts. Compared to the rest of the Sailor Guardians the proportions seems a bit off. This establishes a contrast between Black Lady and child Chibiusa, though it seems innapropriate to sexualize such a character.

Black Lady’s first order of business is to capture and brainwash Tuxedo Mask in order to seduce him. Naturally this a bit odd as she is his daughter. While a lot of her bad behaviour is motivated by Wise Man’s corruption, there’s no indication that this is. This incestuous relationship will not help Wise Man achieve his goals. Chibiusa is a young girl who is infatuated with her father. This in itself is not that odd for a child. She gets thrown into an adult’s body and she deals with her conflicting feelings as it makes sense to her, by trying to hook up with her father. Let’s remember of course that Chibiusa is over 900 years old while Mamoru is about 19 years old at this point. It may seem creepy for such a young girl to be with such an old guy, but she’s much older than the teenagers he’s usually hanging around with, she just lacks the maturity which comes with a regular transition through adolescence and adulthood. This relationship is a result of a young girl’s emotions expressing themselves through the actions of someone who seems to be in adult, but in many ways is not.

We first see Chibiusa kissing Tuxedo Mask while he is in his full Tuxedo. In the scene immediately afterwards Mamoru is seen only wearing his white shirt. These are the shirts usually reserved for the girls that sleep over at his place. Are we to believe something happened between this original kiss and the time where Mamoru is somewhat dressed down?

The gang travels back to the present day. Why do we keep doing this? Naturally this stay does not last very long but while there we learn that they used Luna-P to erase Usagi’s mother’s memories. This seems a bit drastic. I realize Chibiusa put some of those memories there but she’s been gone for what, a day? Maybe a few hours? Oh well the time storm thingy was too much let’s forget about ever getting Mamoru and Chibiusa back. Should we also go around brainwashing Motoki, Asanuma and anyone else Mamoru knows to avoid any hard questions about his disappearance? We didn’t do so last arc when he died or in this arc when the other girls were kidnapped for much longer times! Usagi mentions that she’s happy to be home but then is sad because her boyfriend and future daughter are lost to time. She feels guilty for being upset about this and everyone finds her impossible to please. In the grand scheme of problems this seems like a pretty huge one and regardless of the relative comfort of sleeping in one’s own bed this kind of problem seems like a legitimate reason to be a bit bummed. All considered, Usagi takes it quite well!

Back in the future King Endymion has a chat with Diana the kitten. He then pets her. Wait a minute! How is this possible? We don’t know much about King Endymion’s ghost like maybe a hologram maybe a sort of astral projection type representation but we do know that he does not have an actual physical form. Chibiusa walks right through him in Act 20 but now that a kitten needs petting he’s able to muster some sort of ability to be solid which he was not able to do to hug his own daughter who’s been traveling through time to save him and his family. No wonder this girl has daddy issues.

Finally Black Lady confronts her actual father in the Crystal Palace. She seems to want to make out with him too but since she’s not a kitten that doesn’t seem possible. She gets kicked out of the Crystal Palace by Neo Queen Serenity. I know she’s being kind of evil here and kicking her out makes some sense but still this is being done by her own mother. It was probably the making out with Tuxedo Mask part that set her off.

Next time, on June 20th is Act 24, Attack – Black Lady. The battle continues as everyone sees more of Black Lady and she introduces everyone to her new boyfriend, Endymion, which naturally turns some heads. We’ll get to see Endymion wielding the Cutie Moon Rod.

With Act 24 coming in a couple of weeks there has still not been any confirmation of any episodes past Act 26. The first episode of the third story arc, should such a thing be announced, should be playing the first Saturday of August but for now we have had no official confirmation that this will happen. As always if we learn any news about the new series and new episodes we’ll post it to the site right away.

Keep reading for more screenshots from Act 23 and the next episode preview for Act 24.

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Sailor Moon S episodes 104 and 105 have been added to Hulu

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Adam

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon S are now available to stream on Hulu and Neon Alley. Now that Chibiusa has arrived the series takes a bit of a different direction, mixing episodes focusing on her and episodes focusing on other characters. First up we have an all Chibiusa episode and then we look at Makoto who is training to improve herself which the other girls use as an excuse to have a little vacation.

Episode 104, Making New Friends: Chibi Moon’s Adventure, gives us a bit of an explanation as to why Chibiusa is back. In the manga she returns immediately after leaving but in the anime there was a bit of a gap. Chibiusa has a letter from her mother, Neo Queen Serenity, which is terribly written without any Kanji. We see Luna P briefly in this episode for one of the last times. This episode is full of a lot of Japanese references that I was completely confused by when I first saw it. Chibiusa is trying to make friends and in doing so has an odd confrontation with a boy at the park. He becomes somewhat verbally and then physically abusive to her before taking his pants off and flashing her. This bizarre encounter is a reference to another anime Crayon Shin-Chan as the young boy Shinnosuke shares a name and voice actor with Shin Chan. The boy does not physically resemble Crayon Shin-Chan but he does have a Shin-Chan toy. Finally Chibiusa meets and befriends Tamasaburou, a young boy who impresses her with a tea ceremony. Throughout this Usagi and Chibiusa grieve each other by trying to break their perfect sitting position, which seems to be important at a tea ceremony. Tamasaburou is targeted by the enemy. Chibiusa comes to the rescue and we actually see her transform, though Chibiusa does not have an actual transformation sequence in this season apart from what we see in the Sailor Moon S movie. Chibiusa isn’t the only one to transform! At the end of the episode Chibiusa is shocked to see Sailor Tamasaburou, a cross dressing Tamasaburou. It seems a bit odd that so many characters, including Haruka, seem put off by this. Cross dressing is nothing new to this season. Perhaps it’s simply the fact that he’s dressing as a Sailor Guardian that is off putting. Tamasaburou is most definitely a male in this uncut subtitled version of the episode despite having been portrayed as female in the Cloverway dub back in the day.

Episode 105, I Want Power: Mako Lost in Doubt, is a Sailor Jupiter episode which reminds us that even though Chibiusa is going to be a big part of the series from now on we can still spend some time focusing on other characters. Makoto feels bad about a fight with a monster which is not tied to a specific episode and decides to go train! The rest of the girls are happy to come along to crash the party and generally sit around and relax. Yes indeed, this is another swimsuit episode as I know at least one of our readers is a big fan of. This episode also shows us Mamoru’s part time job at the resort they spend time at. Mamoru lives alone and is a full time student so it’s not really clear where he gets enough money for his lavish lifestyle but this part time job, which his girlfriend didn’t even know about, seems to be part of that answer. He’s seen rushing around clearing a bunch of plates likely as some sort of bus boy. He’s never shown having this job again.

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Source: WikiMoon

Sailor Moon S episodes 102 and 103 are now available on Hulu

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Adam

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon S are now available on Hulu and Neon Alley. With this week’s addition of episodes 102 and 103 we wrap up one story and start a new chapter. This is the sort of end of Kaolinite but then we see the return of Chibiusa, who we haven’t seen at all this season!

Episode 102, The Stolen Pure Heart: Usagi’s Crisis, is the continuation of the cliffhanger we were left with last week. Usagi can’t transform into Sailor Moon because Kaolinite has taken her broach. She asks for a ride from Haruka and Michiru, who are now convinced, along with Kaolinite, that Usagi is Sailor Moon. How does one get out of such a pinch? Dress up Minako as Sailor Moon! Minako does a decent job with the disguise as she manages to convince everyone that Usagi is nothing more than a fan, which gets Kaolinite to give up the broach as if it was worthless. A fight ensues in which Kaolinite takes the full brunt of Sailor Planet attack and then has her own attack reflected at her with Sailor Uranus’s World Shaking because apparently that’s how it works. She is frozen and then falls in the rubble of Tokyo Tower. She is assumed dead! This episode features the second time we hear “Ai No Senshi”, a song which we first heard during Sailor Moon R when the Sailor Guardians faced off against the Ayakashi Sisters.

Episode 103, The Arrival of a Small Pretty Guardian, is the beginning of a whole new part of Sailor Moon S, but the beginning of the episode doesn’t hint at it that much. The target is a drummer friend of Rei’s and the rest of the girls assume that this is actually a date. This causes a humorous confrontation in a restaurant where they are trying to spy on Rei and her friend, which ends in a mess, as expected. At a fair Usagi sees something in the reflection in the water which looks like Luna P, but it can’t be! Luna P doesn’t get seen much after this. I believe we don’t see her again until the Sailor Moon S finale and then never again. During the fight a familiar voice is heard. It’s Chibiusa transformed into Sailor Chibi Moon wielding the Pink Moon Stick, which she is not very adept with. Sailor Chibi Moon is not useful for pretty much the entire season so her appearance in fights is a bit of a joke. With that Chibiusa has returned! This episode also features the introduction of Eudial of the Witches 5. There are 5 of them but Eudial is the one that hangs around for the longest.

To date the story has focused on Usagi and the rest of the Sailor Guardians but the series is about to get really focused on Chibiusa once again. Many fans dislike the way Chibiusa takes the focus away from other characters, but in reality she’s in the anime a whole lot less than she is in the manga. When Chibiusa leaves at the end of the Black Moon story arc in the manga she returns immediately and remains until the end. In the anime she’s gone for some time, returning only in this episode and staying only until the beginning of SailorStars. The anime gains and discards characters throughout the series, keeping nothing but the core 5 girls while in the manga when a new Sailor Guardians comes on board they mostly stay for good.

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Sailor Moon Crystal Act 19, Time Warp – Sailor Pluto, Review

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Adam

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal is now available to stream on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This week is Act 19, Time Warp – Sailor Pluto. The gang travels to the future and are confronted by Sailor Pluto, but not after Mamoru and Usagi spend the night together.

As the episode opens Chibiusa is pleading for Sailor Moon to come to the future to help her mother. Artemis doesn’t care much about that, but has the idea that if the Black Moon Clan is the one that attacked her future city, that might be where Sailor Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are waiting. It would be nice to think that the gang goes to the future to rescue Chibiusa’s family, but in reality they have the ulterior motive of rescuing their friends. Regardless they decide to go, but not before a sleepover!

Chibiusa wants to sleep at Mamoru’s, but she’s not alone! Mamoru tucks her into bed with Luna-P which is kind of funny because it looks like Luna-P is a full sized human and that the ball is just a head. Following this Usagi and Mamoru share a tender moment in which Usagi expresses her jealousy for Chibiusa and then they have sex. This happens in the manga as well. It’s fairly obvious what happens but here it’s even less ambiguous. They kiss, they lie down, they hold each other’s hands and they sleep together. We later see them the morning after where Mamoru puts a white shirt on Usagi. He’s wearing one, Chibiusa is wearing one and Usagi is wearing one. It looks like Mamoru has nothing but white dress shirts in his closet and that he loves putting them on women. I’m not sure why anyone finds this comfortable. These aren’t the shirts that Mamoru wears under his tuxedo. Those have little folds on the collar and frills along the front. These are white dress shirts Mamoru keeps seemingly exclusively for putting on women who don’t fit in them. Not sure I see the appeal of this comfort but it seems to work for him.

In the pre-sex conversation Mamoru sees Usagi almost disappear. What is this? Is Usagi meant to be disappearing because of all this time travel? This is really not how time travel works. If past Usagi was affected I can understand the time travel plot of having future Usagi disappear, as silly as this concept is. But here it’s future Usagi that is in danger while past Usagi is fading a bit. How odd. Perhaps that’s not what this is meant to be at all though. Perhaps this is an omen Mamoru has about the future dangers to Usagi.

We decide to go to the future! Everyone has one job and one job only to ensure this is a success! Hold on to Chibiusa’s hand and don’t let go! They do this and as soon as the time travel starts everyone lets go! Well done folks. This leads to some confusion in the future.

Sailor Moon, Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Venus, Luna and Artemis are the first to arrive at the Space-Time Door. Sailor Pluto is there and she doesn’t seem to care that they are Sailor Guardians! She uses her lethal Dead Scream attack on the whole lot of them. Time travel is sort of frowned upon and Sailor Pluto’s job is to kill people that do this. She’s pretty soft on Chibiusa though as she does nothing to punish her for traveling through time to save her mother. Sailor Pluto makes a comment which I’ve seen translated differently so it’s hard to interpret. In the English translation of the manga and of Sailor Moon Crystal she mentions that “You guys” have always caused trouble for her, which one would assume means Chibiusa and Sailor Moon. This insinuates that she knows fully well who Sailor Moon is and who she has become in the future but is still willing to kill her! The other translation I’ve seen in the French version of the comic simply says that Chibiusa is causing her trouble, or in another French translation that Sailor Moon treats Chibiusa like Sailor Pluto has. If Sailor Pluto really does know who Sailor Moon is murdering her seems like a pretty extreme reaction to running into her in the Space-Time Corridor. While the true identity of Sailor Moon is a mystery to the viewers and inhabitants of the 20th century it doesn’t seem like it’s something she keeps secret from the future inhabitants of Crystal Tokyo.

We learn that Chibiusa is a Princess! Boy I wonder who her parents are then? We see an image of her in a princess dress that is very similar to the one Princess Serenity and the young Queen Serenity wore. Perhaps this is simply the style in the future.

The villains this week are Chiral and Achiral of the Black Moon Clan. In the original anime they were Droids but in the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal they are human. In the manga Chiral is white and Achiral has darker skin. In Sailor Moon Crystal they are white and whiter. What’s next. A white Sailor Pluto? In the manga Sailor Pluto has darker skin. She isn’t black but she is certainly more tanned than the other Sailor Guardians. In Sailor Moon Crystal she’s not much darker than most of the other characters.

While being attacked Sailor Moon tries to use her Cutie Moon Rod but is unable to. We see it partially in black and white but it’s handle is still in colour. An obvious animation error which I expect to be fixed in the Blu-Ray release.

We get to Crystal Tokyo. It’s really bad here. We get a look at what it was like before the “explosion” and it looked quite nice but we also see an image of Chibiusa amongst a lot of bodies of what appear to be normal inhabitants of the city. Their clothes are completely ancient looking. They seem to match closely to what we saw in Silver Millennium on the Moon back in the day or even on Earth during this undetermined time period. Surely it’s not that far fetched that society would revert to some classic looking styles in the distant future. Some formal wear resemble very old clothing in many ways, such as the Tuxedo that King Endymion wears or the dress that Neo Queen Serenity wears. Why then does Chibiusa have a 20th century style school uniform? Her 20th century clothes stick out amongst these other examples of clothes which appear to some 1000 years older, all of this being set 1000 years in our future. But what do I know about style?

We get a nice look at Neo Queen Serenity. She’s lying on what looks like a tomb. It has an inscription on it that says “< <>>”. What’s that about? It looks like Roman Numerals to me, but what do they mean? I wondered at first if perhaps this was Neo Queen Serenity’s birth and death dates. She would be born around 1978 and would have died some time in the 30th Century, that being the year 2900 to 2999. MDC is 1600. CXXXIII is 133. I can’t make any sense of this. Anyone have any thoughts on that? One notable thing is that Neo Queen Serenity’s hair appears to be white, not the blonde that it should be. This could just be an artifact of the Crystal which is enveloping her.

Next up is Diana the cat! We learned earlier this week that she would be voiced by Shoko Nakagawa but we don’t actually hear her say anything in this episode. Her presence is overshadowed by the appearance of a familiar face. Sailor Moon immediately recognizes him as being the future version of Tuxedo Mask. Only this man is not dressed in a black Tuxedo but instead all in white. Why not lavendar? King Endymion in the original anime has a lavendar Tuxedo but is this not the case in the manga? Indeed he is almost always seen in black and white and wearing a very light coloured outfit but it is mentioned as being lavender and is shown in the opening colour pages of Act 20 as being of a lavender colour.

A cool effect exists for this episode. Whenever a character had an extreme emotional reaction, surprise, anger, shock, they showed a funny expression with a comical border. Fans can’t help but notice the similarity between these borders and those used in the original English dub by DiC. These borders were used at the beginning in the episode previews and again at the end during the “Sailor Says” segments. The one included below for comparison is from the episode preview for the second episode.

Next up is Act 20, Crystal Tokyo – King Endymion. The next episode preview drops of bit of a spoiler. It’s already been stated that King Endymion is the future version of Tuxedo Mask. The preview has Chibiusa calling him “Papa”. We now know, as if we couldn’t guess it, that Mamoru is Chibiusa’s father. It’s not much of a stretch to figure that her mother, Neo Queen Serenity, is actually Usagi. The series has not done a terribly good job of trying to hide this from us but I feel like by now we are expected to have figured this out a while ago.

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

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Sailor Moon Crystal Act 17, Secret – Sailor Jupiter, Review

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Adam

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 17, Secret – Sailor Jupiter, is now available on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This week we get introduced to Petz as she faces off with Sailor Jupiter. This gives us a chance to delve into Makoto’s tragic past.

This episode has been changed from the next episode preview. As I mentioned in the review of the last episode, Chibiusa was seen wearing a short sleeve dark blue uniform which does not match what is usually seen in the manga or original anime. Chibiusa has two main outfits. This new short sleeved uniform is from her new school and has a white top. Her original blue uniform which she brings with her from the future has long sleeves. Whenever the blue uniform is seen with short sleeves this is a mistake. This has been updated in this episode to reflect the correct colours. I feel like this must have been a last minute correction as can be seen in these comparison shots between the original blue inform from the episode preview at the end of Act 16 and the updated white uniform from Act 17.

There is still one instance of the incorrect colours that comes through in this episode. When Chibiusa is walking through the street she is seen wearing a white top at first and as she leaves the frame her top turns blue. No doubt all of this confusion is because the animators sometimes see blue as white, as occurred during dressgate.

Chibiusa is seen using Luna P for all sorts of trivial purposes such as cheating at the crane game or making an umbrella with a bunch of birds. She also excels at the Sailor V game. Makes sense since she’s from the future and has more experience with games than people who were, by the original ages shown in the manga, born in the late 70s. We get to see a Tuxedo Mask doll in the opening scene, the puppet from last week’s episode, as well as a couple of Sailor V dolls. How odd it must be for these people to live in a world full of merchandise made after themselves.

A URL is seen on a poster for the Sailor V video game. The complete URL is not seen but we can see the partial URL “orV.gamecenter_news.jp”. This is either part of a URL along the lines of http://sailorv.gamecenter_news.jp or an e-mail address ending with a similar domain name. Whatever it might be this is an invalid URL or e-mail address. An underscore is not a valid character in a domain name. These must include only letters, numbers or dashes.

We unfortunately do not see a glimpse of Sailor Pluto in this episode. The manga shows a very brief look at her as Chibiusa thinks back to Abracadabra, the words which activated Luna P. We will have to wait until Act 19 to get a proper look at her. Another character who does not appear once again is Motoki’s sister Unazuki. Although she appeared in a cameo in Act 3 all of her subsequent appearances in the manga have been omitted from Sailor Moon Crystal.

We do get to see Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion who look just like Usagi and Mamoru. There seems to be less of an attempt to mask their identity here than there was in the original Sailor Moon anime. It can easily be inferred from this episode that Chibiusa is in fact Mamoru and Usagi’s daughter.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 17 - Makoto's father was Brock from Pokémon

Makoto brings Ittou Asanuma back to her apartment and tells him about how her parents died in a plane crash. We get to see a picture of her parents. Her father bears a striking resemblance to Brock from Pokémon. Included above is a drawing of Brock I made back in the 90s. One difference from the manga is that Ittou Asanuma doesn’t mention Mamoru’s super powers, as he overhears him talk about sensing Chibiusa’s thoughts and feelings through touch. He did catch Luna talking, which was only a matter of time since she doesn’t do a great job of hiding the fact that she can talk! Makoto seems to very easily share her secret about being a super hero to him, then gives him a fairly innocent kiss on the forehead.

This episode’s enemy is Petz, the third of the Ayakashi Sisters. The pseudoscience this time around is crop circles. For whatever reason this story arc is riddled with pseudoscience, previously covering fortune telling and dowsing, now touching on crop circles. The paranormal explanations, and the one given in this series, is that crop circles are the result of alien crafts. In reality no such elaborate explanation is necessary as crop circles have been quite definitely proven to be man made.

As with other episodes we wrap up with a Sailor Guardian being kidnapped and an Ayakashi Sister being killed. Sailor Jupiter is now a prisoner of the Black Moon Clan and Petz is now dead.

Coming up next, on March 21st, is Act 18, Invasion – Sailor Venus. This episode will introduce us to Chibiusa’s class mate Momoko. The enemy will be Calaveras who is channeling Rubeus, following in the tradition of the Black Moon Clan practicing things which are no supported by science. Unlike previous episodes however it seems like her channeling of Rubeus is nothing more than an elaborate scam to con the general public. This is consistent with the real world where channeling is not real and used exclusively by charlatans and delusional people.

Keep reading for more screenshots from this episode and the next episode preview for Act 18.

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Watch Sailor Moon R episodes 85 and 86 on Hulu

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Adam

The latest episodes of Sailor Moon R are now available on Hulu and Neon Alley. This week with episodes 85 and 86 we finally get to see Black Lady, the evil version of Chibiusa. We also get a brief look at Saphir and Petz’s relationship.

Episode 85, The Dark Queen: Birth of Black Lady, introduces us to the older incarnation of Chibiusa. Wise Man is all about exploiting people to serve his purposes and Chibiusa is a prime candidate. You see at one point everyone forgot her birthday, so that’s a good reason to make her evil. Wise Man perverts her memories not by directly fabricating them but simply by being selective about what he allows her to remember. The twisted version of the past that he shows her paints her parents and the other Sailor Guardians are mean careless people who don’t care about her birthday. In these scenes we get a nice look at the future versions of the Sailor Guardians. Here they appear to go about their daily business in their transformed state, referring to each other by their planet names. Is this their true forms in the future? In a world where they don’t need to pretend to be normal girls, do they simply act as Sailor Guardians 24/7? Do they sleep in these outfits? Anyway, Black Lady. She is an evil and older version of Chibiusa. She even makes Luna P evil! But this doesn’t last all that long as within an episode Sailor Moon uses the Silver Crystal to restore Chibiusa’s original memories. It turns out it was a surprise party after all! This reminds me of that episode of My Pet Monster where Monzie returned to Monster Land thinking his friends forgot his birthday. If TV has taught me anything it’s that if your friends pretend to forget about your birthday it’s actually because they are planning a wicked surprise party for you! Anyway Black Lady is on her way to being healed when Wise Man makes her evil again. What a jerk! At least now she might have a chance to make out with her dad.

Episode 86, Saphir Dies: Wiseman’s Trap, continues the Japanese tradition of not caring even a little about spoilers in their titles. Yes, Saphir dies in this episode. Saphir is a bit sneaky and overhears Wise Man sloppily talking to himself about how he’s evil and wants to destroy the world and doesn’t really care about the plight of the oppressed Black Moon Clan like he’s been pretending. Saphir takes a piece of technology that the Evil Black Crystal needs and runs off to the past, getting injured by Wise Man in the process. It turns out he used to have a relationship with Petz, so he goes to see her. Demande is starting to suspect and so Saphir is determined to clear things up which doesn’t work out as Wise Man kills him. This leaves Demande quite suspicious and heartbroken at the death of his brother. Petz is also heartbroken as is Usagi who has just recently learned of Saphir’s existence. Black Lady doesn’t do all that much in this episode but she is hanging around in the background still not making out with her father.

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Sailor Moon Crystal Act 16, Abduction – Sailor Mercury, Review

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Adam

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 16, Abduction – Sailor Mercury, is now available to view for free on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This week’s episode is tons of fun with the Tuxedo Mask puppet, some fan service in the form of swimsuits, young Ami and her daddy issues and of course Berthier who may or may not have been an inspiration for Elsa from Frozen.

This episode had a number of differences from it’s original manga version, in changes, omitted scenes and in added content. That said, it also had a lot in common and like the rest of Sailor Moon Crystal is a very faithful adaptation.

In the opening scene of the episode Usagi gets upset at Chibiusa but what she doesn’t do is raise her hand threatening to hit her as she did in the manga. This sort of changes the tone of the next scene where Usagi feels a sense of guilt but not about raising a hand at Chibiusa but instead about not protecting Sailor Mars who is now kidnapped.

Chibiusa runs off and, as usual, hides in the park. Mamoru takes her home and talks to her with his Tuxedo Mask puppet. This puppet has been in the original manga, original anime and even in the latest musical, Petite Étrangère. All of a sudden I wonder just where he go that thing. Is Mamoru such a megalomaniac that he built a puppet of himself? Maybe he found it in a store and finds it so bizarre that products of his alter ego exist that he had to buy one. He uses his ventriloquism to make the puppet talk and also makes the excuse that this is why Luna seems to talk. But why doesn’t Chibiusa expect Luna to talk? We will later learn that one of Chibiusa’s good friends in the future is Diana, a talking cat herself and daughter of Luna and Artemis. Chibiusa also travels with Luna P which looks just like Luna who she must surely know in the future. While Chibiusa has trouble recognizing her mother and father why would she also have trouble with this cat that looks so much like her ball and why would she be at all surprised to hear one talk?

Enter Berthier! She uses dowsing to find water and help with her chess game. Dowsing is not real. This whole arc is riddled with pseudoscience. I understand that within the context of the story these people can use magic but just like UFOs and to a greater fortune telling were the nonsense in the last show dowsing is the nonsense this week. Historically it’s just something that used to be used to find water or minerals underground using items such as a divining rod but when there are modern dowsing products which claim to do things like detect bombs, directly contributing to a loss of lives in war zones, I feel people can do with being reminded that dowsing has no basis in reality.

Those who read the comments on this blog will note that one particular commenter has been asking since the beginning just when we will be getting a beach episode, particularly desiring that we see some of the characters in two piece suits. Well his day has come. This week we see Ami, Naru and Usagi in swimsuits at the pool. In the original manga version we see these three only wearing simple one piece suits but they have been updated a bit for the show. Ami’s suit as seen from the pool seems like a simple one piece, though when seen from behind the design doesn’t appear to be that consistent. This is fitting with how she is usually portrayed in the original anime as well. Naru’s suit is the most interesting as it looks quite a bit like the bikini she wore in episode 23 of the original anime. While Sailor Moon Crystal is frequently manga based it only occasionally takes cues from the original 1992 Sailor Moon anime. This suit also bears a bit of a resemblance to the dress that Naru wears to the ball. Finally we have Usagi’s suit which goes from a one piece in the manga to a two piece bikini here in Sailor Moon Crystal. This seems like blatant fan service as Usagi wears her towel on her head. An awkward thing to do when your goal is anything but exposing your bare midriff to your fans. Apologies for speaking entirely too much about such a silly thing, but if the comments are any indication there are people who consider such things to be quite important.

Another anime original thing which makes it into this episode is Usagi’s inappropriate cheering at a chess tournament. In both the original anime and Sailor Moon Crystal she makes a spectacle while cheering for Ami and is told to be quiet. One background character in this scene looks a bit like Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho, written by the husband of Sailor Moon’s creator Naoko Takeuchi.

Berthier is shown to be the the 3rd ranked chess player in the world. Later in the episode Ami beats her. Does this make Ami the 3rd ranked chess player in the world? You would think someone with such a skill would do more than just occasionally play on their iPad! I guess she does have world saving to do. Berthier’s clothing is ridiculous. It’s a full on super villain costume. That’s cool for fighting the forces of good and all but the way she just wears these clothes to a chess tournament like it was nothing is a bit silly.

Speaking of the way Berthier dresses, some have mentioned similarities between her and Elsa from Frozen. See the image included above that explains the parallels between the two. This seems a bit far fetched to me. The controlling of the power and similarities in her relationship to Koan aren’t really the same. She does not encase herself in an ice tower. The similarities are mostly cosmetic and even that could be a coincidence. Elsa and Berthier both have ice powers, and so they dress in blue, a colour associated with cold. They also have white hair or light hair which is also natural for someone with ice powers. The braid is really the biggest similarity going on here. All considered I think Elsa bares more of a passing resemblance to Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy. Why not just get the Elsa Disney Infinity figure instead of the Rosalina Amiibo which has been so hard to find?

This is a fairly Ami centric episode, as she is the one to get kidnapped this time around. One big addition to the story not in the manga was the inclusion of young Ami and showing more of her father. Young Ami is quite cute and shown being abandoned by her father who is a painter. She is also shown having an interest in playing chess. Sailor Mercury uses a new ability Shine Snow Illusion. This isn’t enough to save her from getting kidnapped. Who will be next?

The next episode is Act 17, Secret – Sailor Jupiter. The episode preview shows some shipping between Makoto and Ittou Asanuma. His scenes were cut from episode 16 but we’ll be seeing more of him next time.

A couple of visually interesting things are seen in the next episode preview. Usagi has no nose in one shot and Chibiusa is wearing a short sleeved version of her blue school uniform. This seemed off to me and a post on the moonsisters.org Facebook page made me realize what is what. Chibiusa’s white school uniform is normally the one that has short sleeves while her blue school uniform has long sleeves.

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

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Sailor R episodes 75 and 76 are now available on Hulu

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Adam

As with every Monday two more episodes of Sailor Moon R have been added to Hulu and Neon Alley. The episodes are in Japanese with English subtitles by Viz. This week we get a glimpse of things to come and then dive right into some filler with episodes 75 and 76. Having previously seen mostly Rubeus and the Ayakashi sisters we’re now getting a look at Esmeraude, Diamond and Saphir of the Black Moon Clan.

Episode 75, The Mysterious New Guardian: Sailor Pluto Appears, gives us a better look at Sailor Pluto and Crystal Tokyo. We still don’t see her in the flesh but she communicates with the Sailor Guardians through Luna P. Previously Chibiusa had been seen communicating with her through Luna P’s eye but the image we saw of her was heavily pixelated to the point where her identity remained hidden. Chibiusa has fallen ill and so the gang must travel into her mind to fight off this manifestation of the Dark Crystal. Although they are in Chibiusa’s mind, it looks like 30th century Crystal Tokyo. Shocked at how terrible it looks Rei reassures them that it just looks bad because it’s a nightmare in Chibiusa’s mind. Um… actually that’s pretty much exactly how Crystal Tokyo looks in the future. It’s a real mess. Chibiusa is actually pretty spot on. Sailor Moon fights off the monster that really isn’t a monster and in the process is able to make Chibiusa fly. So is this a real move or something she can just do because she’s in a crazy dream world where anything goes? Not really clear. In a most ridiculous scene the girls see Chibiusa’s mom lying asleep. They are quite aware that it’s Chibiusa’s mother but Sailor Moon is completely incapable of noticing that she is wearing a dress that’s nearly identical to the one that she wears. The whole gang generally shrug off everything important about this dream as being irrelevant because it’s simply too early, plot wise, for them to have been exposed to this information at this time.

Episode 76, Magic of Darkness: Esmeraude’s Invasion, finally gives us a proper look at Esmeraude as the new villain. She’s been kicking around for a handful of episodes but hasn’t actually done anything. Now that we’ve gotten a few plot episodes out of the way we can get right back into the habit of filler for a while! Esmeraude is great for that as she randomly targets spots to stick these Dark Henges into in order to make the future more vulnerable. This week’s plot is all about yummy deserts! The monster attacks people and covers them in various foods like donuts, cakes and frosting. When I was younger I had no idea what the monster’s name “Magipan” meant but it’s actually marzipan, a sweet confectionary. Not to be confused with marzipan castle from the Sailor Moon SuperS movie. Esmeraude laughs loudly and bickers with all of the girls, getting called old and making fun of their lack of hips and breasts. A good time was had by all.

If you’re looking for the difference between this version and the dub which was released back in the 90s you should check out my reviews of episodes 75 (cached version) and episode 76 (cached version) from 1997 on the Sailor Moon Page of Funk!

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