Animation Domination High-Def have put together a parody video of Sailor Moon Crystal. In this video Sailor Pluto is essentially fired as a Sailor Scout because Neil deGrasse Tyson, the host of Cosmos which plays on Fox along with Animation Domination shows, decided that Pluto wasn’t a planet any more. Watch this hilarious video below and then keep reading for a nitpicky breakdown of everything wrong with it.
I wrote an article back in 2006 that similarly asked the question of what would happen to Sailor Pluto as a result of the downgrade of Pluto’s planetary status. It was not animated and not nearly as funny. The Moon Stick web comic also tackled the issue a few years ago with this comic.
Many commenters are saying that this video is wrong because Pluto is a planet again. This is quite incorrect. An irresponsible and downright dishonest University publication made statements about Pluto being a planet following an informal survey after an internal debate and the press reprinted and tweaked this story to lead people to believe something had changed. There is no agreement amongst the scientific community that Pluto has being reinstated as a planet. For more on that check out episode 318 of the Reality Check podcast in which I discuss Pluto’s status as a planet and drop more than a few Sailor Moon references.
Okay now that all that is out of the way let’s take all of the fun out of this video by pointing out the many inaccuracies, as hardcore Sailor Moon fans. Feel free to mention any other problems you notice in the comments!
The video mentions it as Sailor Moon 2015, though Sailor Moon Crystal premiered on July 5th 2014
The costumes are all wrong. Not even sure where to start here. Pretty much all of the colours are wrong. They actually look more like school uniforms than their Sailor Scout uniforms with the scarves closer to Minako’s uniform than the bows they usually have, they are wearing socks, there are no tiaras, there are no broaches. They’re just all wrong.
The border around much of the video is similar to one used by DiC for episode previews, which isn’t used by Sailor Moon Crystal
Minako says that Pluto is “like a fucking asteroid or something now”. It’s not quite an asteroid, but a Dwarf Planet. This isn’t really something the video got wrong as they could simply be insinuating that Minako just doesn’t know much about Astronomy.
The basic idea of this video is that the Sailor Scouts get their power from planets. This is not correct, as is mentioned Sailor Moon is a Sailor Scout and only represents a Moon. Sailor Chibi Moon also isn’t tied to any planet. The Amazon Quartet, Phobos and Deimos, the Starlights and tons more get their power from astral bodies which are not defined as planets.
Sailor Mercury mocks Sailor Pluto for being old enough to drive yet hanging out with 8th graders. It’s hard to make an equivalent here because the Japanese school system is totally different but at the beginning of the Sailor Moon series the characters are 14 years old putting them in roughly 9th grade. As the manga progresses, which is what Sailor Moon Crystal is more closely based on, a year passes for each story arc. Sailor Pluto appears in the second story arc making the characters at least 15 at the time of these events. Factoring in that Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn aren’t around until the third year and they could easily be as old as 16 at this point. All this said Sailor Uranus is shown to have a driver’s license, not to mention the fact that old man Mamoru is in a full on relationship with Usagi and also has his driver’s license. Of course Sailor Mercury says this while texting a college guy.
Sailor Pluto claims to be 41 years old. Since she is originally from the future this is hard to properly quantify, as she could be quite old and living outside of time near the Space-Time Door could have her age at a different rate or be considered to be essentially ageless. All said, she’s portrayed in the manga and anime as being a few years older than the rest of the girls but nothing close to 41.
Minako says she’ll kill herself before being 41 yet she is alive and well in the 30th century. Of course Minako has literally died a number of times in all continuities and come back from it without issues, so this is entirely possible, but she’ll likely be pushing 1000 in Crystal Tokyo so no need to judge.
Luna has a British voice, similar to that portrayed by Jill Frappier. This is unlikely to be how Luna sounds in the new dub of Sailor Moon Crystal. The new dub of the original anime has Luna voiced by Michelle Ruff who doesn’t sound anything like Jill Frappier did.
Luna tells Pluto get a job. Sailor Pluto has a job. She protects the Space-Time Door.
When asked to find a husband Sailor Pluto says that she’s divorced. Divorced people can still find love! The greater problem is that Sailor Pluto is clearly in love with King Endymion who’s still married to Neo Queen Serenity.
Finally, this whole video is nonsense since Sailor Pluto has already been confirmed as appearing in Sailor Moon Crystal during it’s second season which is set to start next Saturday.
Source: The Animation Domination High-Def Facebook Page.
Keep reading for more screenshots from this video.
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