Sailor Moon Monopoly game review

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Adam

The Sailor Moon Monopoly game is now out in stores and online. I got my copy from an EB Games store in Ottawa (the Canadian equivalent to GameStop) a while back and it seems like many fans have done the same. With the game in hand we can get a good look at exactly what’s going on with the various pieces! As we’d discussed earlier this seems to be Sailor Moon S the game for reasons which I can’t really fathom. The various characters are mostly all from Sailor Moon S, mainly the villains being the Witches 5, Professor Tomoe and Mistress 9 as well as the inclusion of all Sailor Guardians including Sailor Moon S’s new additional Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. With the Viz video releases now having reached the end of Sailor Moon SuperS this seems an odd way to do it. Perhaps the game was simply in development for too long or this may have been an intentional choice as many of the Sailor Guardians introduced in this season would not appear in Sailor Moon SuperS and a Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Monopoly game would not be as recognisable to fans. For whatever the reasons, it’s Sailor Moon S Monopoly!

As with many other versions of Monopoly this really is the same old game we’ve seen time and time again with a different esthetic. This was immediately obvious to me as I’ve played countless hours of the game in my youth and I even spent quite some time programming a Monopoly computer game in Turbo Pascal when I was a child (the game mostly worked well but lacked houses, hotels, Chance and Community Chest cards). This is good for purists who want to have the same game experience as normal Monopoly. One thing which I think is fairly odd however is the completely random grouping of characters for most of the properties. Allow me to rant a bit about each one.

First we have Luna and Artemis, as a single property, bundled with Mimette of the Witches 5. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just use this, one of the only two pairs of properties, as Luna and Artemis? Mimette does not fit with Luna and Artemis at all. The characters don’t ever actually interact.

Next we have Eudial, Viluy and Tellu. This actually works! They are 3 of the Witches 5 and since there are no sets of five properties (most are groups of three) this sort of works!

Then there’s Cyprene/Ptilol with Kaolinite and … Sailor Chibi Moon! Kaolinite does have a brief interaction with Chibiusa at some point and the two characters do show up together in succession in the later versions of the Sailor Moon S credits. Cyprene and Ptilol fit only with Kaolinite. It would have made more sense to have put Mimette with her fellow Witches and then put Chibiusa with either her parents or maybe with Sailor Saturn!

Next is Sailor Mercury, Mars and Jupiter. There are all Sailor Guardians so this works decently. Aside from Sailor Moon they do spend some time together before Sailor Venus joins the show so I’ll say this is one of the three less terrible one.

Next is Sailor Venus, Professor Tomoe and Sailor Pluto. None of these characters have much to do with each other, except perhaps for a brief interaction between Sailor Venus and Pluto in one episode of Sailor Stars. Sailor Venus belongs with the Sailor Guardians from the first season while Sailor Pluto fits in better with Sailor Uranus and Neptune or even with Sailor Chibi Moon. I would personally have put her with King Endymion but that’s because I like trolling people. Professor Tomoe is a villain and if he’s going to be paired with anyone but his fellow villains from the season it should probably be his daughter, and not the Sailor Guardians who steals his baby from him in Sailor Stars.

Next is Sailor Uranus and Neptune with … Tuxedo Mask! Naturally Sailor Pluto would have worked better here. There’s nothing these two lesbians love more than the show’s male love interest! At least Sailor Uranus and Neptune are together where they belong.

On the last side we have Sailor Moon with Sailor Saturn and Mistress 9. This sort of works since Sailor Moon fights Mistress 9 and sort of saves Sailor Saturn but these characters would fit so much better elsewhere. Saturn should be with her father or her friend Chibiusa and Mistress 9 could easily fit with the villains! It does of course work that two versions of Hotaru be grouped together.

Finally we have the only grouping that works well, and that is Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion. The only issue here is that they don’t really appear in Sailor Moon S so they don’t fit with the game at all.

Other groupings make some sense! The railroads are all items, either Talismans or Sailor Saturn’s Silence Glaive. The utilities are replaced by Sailor Moon’s items, that being her broach and rod. Jail and Free Parking are unchanged. It seems like there’s an opportunity here to use something a bit more Sailor Moon themed for these. Maybe Pharaon 90 sends you to the Tau Star System or something like that. A missed opportunity which leaves art which ultimately clashes with the rest of the game.

When it comes to the game pieces they are nice! These are the three Talismans, Sailor Moon’s Cosmic Heart Compact and Spiral Heart Moon Rod, and the Holy Grail. They’re all things and not characters but then aside from the dog most Monopoly game pieces are just things anyway.

The money is a bit odd. The colours and values are more or less kept from real Monopoly with different characters appearing on each bill. The money is all shown with an M with a slash through it. Moon dollars or something of the sort. It’s not like Sailor Moon takes place in a universe they don’t use normal currency. We frequently see prices and money in the series being yen. Is there some rule that a themed Monopoly came have some weird non existent currency?

Finally we have the Love and Friendship Cards. These seem to basically be Chance and Community Chest cards with the flavour language changed and the same dollar amounts and consequences. The descriptions of what is occurring are just random events occurring during Sailor Moon S.

Should you buy this game? If you wanted to I imagine you already would have! It’s just one of a very, very, very long series of Monopoly games with images based on many franchises. The specific decisions made in adapting this game seem to be pretty poor as someone with a minor amount of effort would likely have been able to put together property groupings and other aspects of the game which work much better. It seems like someone with next to no knowledge of the franchise was given a list of characters, art and perhaps episode summaries of Sailor Moon S and that they threw together a version of Monopoly that superficially seemed to have made sense. For my money the Sailor Moon games by Dyskami Publishing are a much better way to play a Sailor Moon game.

Keep reading for more photos of this game.

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Sailor Moon Crystal Act 29, Infinity 3 – Two New Soldiers, Review

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Adam

The latest episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal aired on Japanese television on April 25th at 11pm Japan Standard Time and was available to stream on Crunchyroll, Neon Alley and Hulu following that around 10:30am Eastern Time that same morning. I watch the show on Crunchyroll due to the quality of their feed and the fact that as a Canadian it’s my legal option. This week’s episode, Act 29, Infinity 3 – Two New Soldiers, has Usagi struggling with the kiss she shared with Haruka.

The kiss is meant to occur early in Act 29 of the manga but, like most of this story arc’s episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal, the last episode ended with a scene from the next act. The clip before the bumper however shows us the kiss again and we see this time that Sailor Moon has a blushing reaction to it. This insinuates that she liked it and Usagi will be dealing with these feelings throughout this episode and the rest of the season. Is Usagi gay? Classifying her as such doesn’t seem to be terribly helpful. Sexuality is fairly fluid amongst the characters in Sailor Moon, which reflects real people’s feelings quite well. Usagi loves Mamoru and her dedication to him doesn’t really waver. She has also been shown to find other girls in the series attractive, most prominently Rei when she first showed up, and here she is clearly attracted to Haruka as well. Beyond this other girls in the series have feelings of attraction to other girls. Haruka seems to exclusively like girls. Michiru loves Haruka but also seems attracted to other men. While many of the women in the series are attracted to men, they are comfortable in also being attracted to women. This really is a great way to portray characters as they aren’t terribly bogged down by labels or preconceptions. No doubt viewers and readers dealing with similar feelings appreciate seeing such things portrayed in a series they watch.

Everyone is sharing the same dream in this episode. Last week we had a few people having a shared dream, voiced by Hotaru, but it was somewhat limited. Here all of the main Sailor Guardians are getting the same dream this time voiced by Haruka. Things are so different in an anime series than in a manga. If we see a statement made on the pages of a comic we don’t really know who is saying them. In a series with voice actors there’s a bit more revealed. The dreams are all about talismans, and no one seems to know if they are good or bad, or what they should do about them. Not really useful. The real prophetic dream which we see is Usagi’s vision of Haruka. She’s dreaming about her kiss and seems to have a good idea that Haruka is the Sailor Guardian who kissed her. She sees here as male and female but the female version she sees has a scarf and vest which aren’t actually seen until later in the episode. Sounds like some magic dreaming prediction! Of course in a series full of magic with dreams already predicting the future in this episode, this explanation doesn’t seem to be terribly out of place.

While discussing Mugen Academy the cats mention the Tokyo Bay reclamation project. I didn’t really understand what this term meant at first so I looked it up and in this context it’s referring to filling up the Bay with some sort of fill to make new land and building that up. This certainly makes sense in the context of what is going on. We’re in downtown Tokyo which is space which has been inhabited in some form or another for hundreds of years. It doesn’t make sense that there would be room for all of these new constructions but if Tokyo Bay was filled in to do this, we understand where all of these buildings are coming from. There is a lot of precedent for this in the real world as a lot of Tokyo Bay is reclaimed land, which has changed the shape of the shore line over time. About 250 square km (100 square miles) have been reclaimed from Tokyo Bay.

Chibiusa is all about secrets this week! Hotaru totally knows her secret and then Hotaru basically tells her that her father is making monsters. This should be a big deal and if Chibiusa acts on this it’s game over for the season but she doesn’t. When she seals the promise with Hotaru they lock their pinkies. This reminds me of Kazuko and Hiromi from episode 21 of the original anime, Protect the Children’s Dreams: Friendship Through Anime. When Chibiusa goes on a helicopter ride she promises not to divulge what she discusses with Haruka or Michiru. Why are these two even taking this gamble? We will see next week how well she hides this. Chibiusa seems really impressed with flying in a helicopter. Normally I would agree that this is a big deal but let’s not forget that Chibiusa literally flies through time, so I’m thinking a helicopter ride to her would be like me going for a horse pulled wagon ride through an overgrown pumpkin patch. The helicopter drops Chibiusa off in the middle of the street and the townspeople are rightfully disturbed by this.

There’s a concert. Actually there are two concerts. These are in the same building on different floors at the same time. How practical is this? You know when you’re in a movie theatre watching a quiet drama and in the next theatre there are a bunch of Autobots killing Decepticons and you can hear the vibrations from the explosions coming through? I imagine Mimete’s loud pop music in a massive auditorium might have some bleeding out onto the classical violin performance that Michiru is doing. Anyway there’s a bunch of drama over tickets here! Haruka gives Usagi a bunch, which she shares with her friends, but in comes Mamoru who got tickets from Michiru. He was going to share them with his girlfriend, but she’s already going so he takes Chibiusa. Rather than communicate, which good couples should do in order to avoid misunderstandings and conflict, he just doesn’t say anything and runs into her at the event. Good plan bro! There are all sorts of concerns going on now with Usagi having been kissed by a girl and Mamoru maybe doing something with Michiru.

While everyone but the cats seemed covered with tickets for Michiru’s concert, the real show that Minako wants to see if Mimete’s. This is a concert which is offered free to Mugen Academy students and in order to prove your attendance to that school you seem to only be required to wear a school uniform. Minako has a plan which involves using her old compact from her Sailor V days. The Sailor Moon manga follows the Sailor V manga, but Sailor Moon Crystal hasn’t really touched on this much. In Codename: Sailor V Minako would use this to transform into various things much like Usagi does with her transformation pen. In the original Sailor Moon anime Minako does not have access to such an item as when she disguises herself as Sailor Moon in Sailor Moon S she states that she borrowed Usagi’s pen to do so, which she should not need to do if she had the ability to do so with her compact. This makes one wonder where old transformation items end up. The ones that aren’t hurled into masses of evil energy or dropped in alternate dimensions before the world is recreated I mean.

Anyway Minako decides to transform into a boy. An odd decision since there are a lot of female fans at the concert, but this is something she choses to do. It was nice to see this scene actually remain in Sailor Moon Crystal. Back in Act 5, when Sailor Jupiter first appeared, the manga had Usagi transforming into a man at the bridal shop. For whatever reason this transformation was not included in Sailor Moon Crystal and some fans speculated that it was because it had a character changing their gender. Whether or not this was truly the reason this does not seem to have been a problem with this episode. While posing as a boy Minako is clearly attracted to Mimete, complete with the hearts all around. Mimete of course is evil and part of the Witches 5. They don’t mention her power level but it’s 40. Why are we sending the weakest one second? This is a messed up RPG strategy.

Finally the two new Sailor Guardians reveal themselves to be Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. Did anyone not know these names at this point? They also use their attacks which is cool enough.

Next week is Act 30, Infinity 4 – Sailor Uranus – Haruka Tenoh – Sailor Neptune – Michiru Kaioh. In it Sailor Mercury faces off against Viluy of the Witches 5. She’s power level 202 if that seemed important to you.

Keep reading for more screenshots from this episode and the next episode preview for Act 30.

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Watch Sailor Moon Crystal Act 29, Infinity 3 – Two New Soldiers, April 25th at 10:30am

Posted on April 23, 2016 by Adam

The next new episode of Sailor Moon Crystal will air in Japan on Monday April 25th at 11pm Japan Standard Time. It will be available to stream on Crunchyroll, Neon Alley and Hulu immediately afterwards starting Monday morning at 10:30am Eastern Time, 7am Pacific Time. Act 29, Infinity 3 – Two New Soldiers, has Sailor Uranus kissing Sailor Moon and these two are definitely not cousins! The villain this week is Mimete of the Witches 5 5 and she’ll be facing off against Minako.

Readers may notice the lack of screenshots despite the fact that a preview for Act 29 was no doubt included with Act 28. Since I’m traveling this week I scheduled this post ahead of time, prior to the release of Act 28, and used some images from the equivalent manga chapter as teasers. I’ll try to get updated with all of my reviews soon enough.

Sailor Moon Crystal’s voice actors for Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and more revealed at this morning’s live event

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Adam

There was a live streaming event this morning in Japan, related to the upcoming Infinity arc of Sailor Moon Crystal. Art was shown, but since we’d seen that earlier this week this was not a big revelation. We did not get any details about a schedule for the series but we did get cast information for the upcoming season. Junko Minagawa, the voice of Sailor Uranus and Sayaka Ohara, the voice of Sailor Neptune, joined the event. The actress voicing Sailor Saturn, Fujii Yukiyo, showed up momentarily via a separate video.

In addition to this the actors playing the Death Busters, including the Witches 5, were announced. A full cast list, with IMDB links, is included below.

Sailor Uranus – Junko Minagawa
Sailor Neptune – Sayaka Ohara
Sailor Saturn – Yukiyo Fujii

Professor Tomoe – Takuya Kirimoto
Kaolinite – Hikari Yono
Pharaon 90 – Takaya Hashi

Eudial – Chiaki Takahashi
Mimete – Yuki Nagaku
Viluy – Rina Honizumi
Tellu – Naomi Ohzora
Cyprine – Umeka Shouji

I don’t watch much newer anime but a lot of these voice actors have a great deal of experience from recent years. MoonSisters.org posted a nice summary of all of their works on their Facebook Page. Most noteable is Takaya Hashi, who will be voicing Pharaon 90, who played a few small characters in the original Sailor Moon anime. He played Astronomer Dr. Sergai Ajimov in episode 120 of Sailor Moon S and the ventriloquist in the Sailor Moon SuperS Special.

Another odd thing was the inclusion of Cyprene but not Ptilol. In the recent musical Un Nouveau Voyage only Cyprene appeared, though Cyprene and Ptilol, twins, appeared together in the manga and original Sailor Moon anime. Assuming Sailor Moon Crystal will continue to be faithful to the manga it seems only logical that Ptilol will also be making an appearance. If this is the case she will likely also be voiced by Umeka Shouji.

Also announced at the event this morning was “The Exhibition of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon” in Tokyo from April 16th to June 19th. This exhibit will have stuff from the Sailor Moon comics and anime as well as merchandise for sale.

An image of the Infinity arc’s art was revealed, but as this was the same we’d seen earlier this week this wasn’t really anything new. We continue to wait for some confirmation of a timeline for the new episodes. At this point we can only speculate as to when it will be released.

Thanks to Twitter user @aers00 for streaming the event. I was unable to view the feed on Niconico and so I was happy to have an option to watch it while showering and getting ready this morning. I hope others who were looking to do the same found the feed as well.

Sailor Moon Crystal’s English dub is coming to Hulu in November and Blu-Ray in 2016 plus the English voices for the Witches 5 have been announced

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Adam

This past weekend Viz Media held their Sailor Moon Panel at New York Comic Con. We got a lot of news about Sailor Moon Crystal. First and most importantly, the dub of Sailor Moon Crystal will be coming to Hulu and Viz.com next month, some time in November. We previously learned that the dub cast would be the same cast which was used for Viz’s new dub of the original Sailor Moon anime.

We have also learned, via a flyer of their upcoming releases, that Sailor Moon Crystal would be released on DVD and Blu-Ray in 2016. The first release is “Sailor Moon Crystal Set 1: The Dark Kingdom Arc” and will include Sailor Moon Crystal Acts 1 to 13. This Blu-Ray set will no doubt include the original Japanese and English dubbed versions of Sailor Moon Crystal, including optional subtitles. We’ve previously learned that Viz’s version of Sailor Moon Crystal will be the updated version used for the Japanese Blu-Ray releases, which had minor changes to the animation from the original streaming version.

In casting news we have also learned the voice actors who will be playing the Witches 5, who are 6 of the new villains from the upcoming dub of Sailor Moon S. Now that the Infinity story arc of Sailor Moon Crystal has been announced in Japan, it stands to reason that this same cast will be around to voice these characters once those episodes are dubbed into English. The new cast includes some returning actors who have done other voices in the series. Erin Fitzgerald will voice Eudial. Kira Buckland will voice Mimete. Laura Post, who previously voiced a kindergarden teacher in Sailor Moon R episode 52 and the monster Amaderasu in episode 53, will voice Tellu. Cricket Brown, who previously voiced Usagi’s teacher Haruna, will play Viluy. Johanna Luis, who previously voiced An the Alien also known as Natsumi in Sailor Moon R, will play both Cyprine and Ptilol who somehow count as one of the Witches 5.

Source: @TheMatthewPaul on Twitter, @sailor_moon_na on Twitter.

Sailor Moon S episodes 120 and 121 are now available on Hulu

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Adam

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon S have been added to Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we have a bunch of the Witches 5 dying as we explore the mysterious Mugen Academy and get some backstory on Hotaru and Professor Tomoe’s tragic past. Why does so much happen in such a short time? Well there are not many episodes of Sailor Moon S left and there’s a lot of story related to the Infinity Arc which we haven’t touched on at this rate so the solution is just to go through characters and plot points at neck break speed. A bit of a change from the first season where each of the Shitennou were given roughly equal billing and now we have a very uneven distribution of episodes for each of the Witches 5.

Episode 120, An Invasion from Another Dimension: Mystery of Mugen Academy, goes into Hotaru and Professor Tomoe’s history a bit. Now that Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are sort of trying to kill Hotaru, her and her family have skipped town. Chibiusa tries to see her but is unable to. A little research into Professor Tomoe shows that he has a tragic past. In a flashback scene we see him in a lab accident which seems to kill Hotaru. An entity from another dimension, Pharaon 90, appears to offer to save her life but in exchange he enters Professor Tomoe’s eye, essentially taking over his body. While Professor Tomoe is this season’s villain, he actually cares a lot for his family and is powerless to stop the enemy. We learn that Professor Tomoe owns Mugen Academy, the school that Hotaru, Haruka and Michiru attend. Mugen is the Japanese word for Infinity. When this manga arc is referred to as the Infinity Arc, the word is Mugen, which is also the name of the school. At Mugen Academy Mimete uploads herself into a monitor, which seems like a great plan until Tellu shows up. In the style of all of the Witches 5, she pulls the plug and Mimete dies! We are tempted to cry for Mimete as she begs for her life with her cutesy little voice, but let’s not forget that she killed Eudial in cold blood not long ago.

Episode 121, A Bewitching Flower That Steals Hearts: Tellu, the Third Witch, further develops the very short lived Tellu. When at episodes 120 you’ve only shown two of the six Witches 5 you have a problem which can only be solved by killing a bunch of them in short time. Last episode Tellu killed Mimete and we need to off her too if we want to move on! Tellu’s short lived single episode plan involves using evil plants to steal people’s Pure Hearts. This all goes decently but not really well for her and she ends up getting killed by her own plant monster. Oops! Now we only have three more of the Witches 5 to get through with 6 episodes left in the season. Also Kaolinite is still around and being the villain so we’ll have to take care of her at some point. With Tellu defeated she leaves behind a student ID from Mugen Academy. That place again, two episodes in a row? Well we didn’t talk about it for the rest of the season but something definitely seems up with it now!

First images of Professor Tomoe, Kaolinite and the Witches 5 from the Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage musical have been revealed

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Adam

A pamphlet for the upcoming Sailor Moon Musical Un Nouveau Voyage or A New Journey has been posted to the official Sailor Moon site. This update includes images of the previously unseen Professor Tomoe and Kaolinite. We also found a picture of 5 of the Witches 5, Mimete, Eudial, Viluy, Tellu and Cyprine. There are actually 6 members in the Witches 5. Did we leave one out on the assumption that Japanese children can count? Ptilol is has not been revealed at this time though since she’s just a mirror image of Cyprene with red instead of blue hair and clothes I’ve put together this approximation of what she might look like. This is absolutely not a real image of Ptilol, just a silly image edit I made.

The newly revealed cast members are the following:

Yuki Kaon as Professor Tomoe
Kei Ohgi as Kaolinite
Ayaka Ida as Mimete
Saya Chinen as Eudial
Yui Hasegawa as Viluy
Momoko Sadachi as Tellu
Maana as Cyprine

Since this musical continues to use an all female cast Professor Tomoe is portrayed by a woman.

Image source: Vietnamese Sailor Moon Fan Club

Sailor Moon S episode 114 and 115 are now available on Hulu

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Adam

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon S have been added to Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we focus a lot on boy crazy Mimete and her crazy antics, as well as getting a good look at Hotaru and her mysterious past.

Episode 114, I Love Idols: Mimete’s Dilemma, has Mimete and Minako facing off against each other in a contest to find the lead in an idol’s next movie. Jinta Araki is a heartthrob that both Minako and Mimete are infatuated with. Minako has long had a dream of being an idol, and this fits right in with that. As with many other times in the series, this creates a situation where one of our heroes befriends one of the enemies without realising what is really going on. The contest goes well for Minako, who is quite surprised by her success. She passes the swimsuit part of the contest, which will please a certain reader who is a big fan of episodes with swimsuits. She makes it to the final five before being cut, though she will do much better in a later episode. Mimete loses and, as always, freaks out and attacks the target who she was previously infatuated with. Mimete is like Kirk from the original Star Trek series who would frequently kiss a girl and then hit her all in the same episode.

Episode 115, Shadow of Silence: The Pale Glimmer of a Firefly, is all about Hotaru. The title is a pun in Japanese, as the word “Hotaru” means firefly. The episode starts out with a nice conversation between Setsuna and Chibiusa. Even though they were BFFs in the future, they don’t get to interact much in the present time. There’s little question at this point as to whether or not Hotaru is the Messiah of Silence who her father, Professor Tomoe, is talking to. When she has pain during their conversation we immediately cut to Hotaru in pain on her bed. When Chibiusa visits Hotaru she is turned away, but Hotaru pursues and reveals the full extent of her health problems when she falls ill and needs to be hospitalised. In some flashback scenes we see a lot of what has been going on with this girl. She has some sort of dangerous ability which first manifested itself when she was a child and killed a fish. Later we see her in school when she unknowingly hurt a boy in her class. Her school uniform in this scene is from the Mugen Academy, which Haruka and Michiru also attend.

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Sailor Moon S episode 112 and 113 are now available on Hulu

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Adam

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon S were added to Hulu and Neon Alley this morning. This week we get episodes 112 and 113 which focus on a new character, Hotaru Tomoe, and her mysterious family.

Episode 112, Who Is the True Messiah? Chaos of Light and Darkness, doesn’t really deal with who the true Messiash is. The new villain, who we saw last week, is Mimete of the Witches 5. We also get a look at her in the Death Busters’ HQ with Cyprine in the background. Mimete is kind of insane. She killed Eudial in the last episode and is all over the map this week, first falling in love with an actor and then attacking him and ripping out his Pure Heart. The main thing which occurs in this episode is the first appearance of Hotaru. We saw her briefly in the last episode but we get a proper look at her here. Chibiusa loses her hat and Hotaru helps her retrieve in. The two are instant friends. This is the special encounter that Neo Queen Serenity told Chibiusa she would be making in the 20th century. We’ll be learning much more about her as the season goes on.

Episode 113, A House Filled With Evil Presence: The Beautiful Hotaru’s Secret, does not actually explain much about Hotaru’s secret. This episode features a very exposition filled interaction between the Sailor Guardians of the outer solar system and Tuxedo Mask. Everyone transforms for the sake of transforming without a villain in sight, which is a bit of a waste. We learn that Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto protect the solar system from outside invaders while the Sailor Guardians that appeared previously protect against things from inside the solar system, like we had in the first two seasons. They aren’t too fond of Sailor Moon. Chibiusa and Usagi pay Hotaru a visit at her home. There they run into Kaolinite, who is somehow not dead. Usagi is shocked by this, as she encountered her in battle many times. Chibiusa arrived after Kaolinite’s supposed death so she doesn’t see this as odd. Somehow Kaolinite does not recognize Usagi, who she encountered in civilian form on her birthday, and Usagi just shrugs the whole thing off thinking it’s just a similarity. We see Professor Tomoe, Hotaru’s father, and here it is revealed who he is. Not much sense hiding it as we know his last name already. We also see him talking to a weird zonked out Hotaru who seems to be the Messiah of Silence. Will Hotaru destroy the world? She seems like a nice innocent girl, but when she comes face to face with Usagi’s broach, which contains the Silver Crystal, she sort of freaks out and seems to want to eat it. Surely this is not the last we’ll see of Hotaru as there is more going on with this girl and her creepy family who are clearly associated with the season’s villains.