We’re almost done with the Infinity arc of Sailor Moon Crystal. The latest episode aired on Japanese TV on Monday June 20th at 11pm Japan Standard Time and was available to stream immediately afterwards starting at 10:30am Eastern Time on Crunchyroll, Neon Alley and Hulu. Act 37, Infinity 11 – Infinite – Judge, is all about the appearance of Sailor Saturn! This was a long time coming. More on that later in the review!
The episode starts out with a ton of repeated footage. This happens occasionally as the first scene repeats the last few seconds of the last episode but it was for two and a half minutes this week! This is a build up to a new attack, the Rainbow Double Moon Heart Ache, performed simultaneously by Super Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Chibi Moon. Another new attack! Too bad it doesn’t do much but feed Mistress 9!
Mistress 9 merges with Pharaoh 90 which is kinky and sort of terrible. It’s not really clear what this does instead of just making the gang fight Pharaoh 90 now. We didn’t really see what he was capable of before this. The two grow and grow with power the more they get attacked. It absorbs power so we need to really give it a lot more power to kill it! I guess that makes some kind of sense. Sailor Moon doesn’t often distinguish between energy helping and nourishing something and destroying it. A source of electricity can power a building but if you stick your tongue on it you might end up electrocuted! So everyone joins in and attacks. We even get Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber which is always fun.
This isn’t working, and Sailor Moon decides she needs to take the Holy Grail right into the belly of the beast and release it. She smiles to her friends and dives in. There’s something so inspiring and tragic about this look she gives. She knows what she has to do and doesn’t hesitate. As far as we can tell she dies in there.
Sailor Saturn. At long last. I don’t hide that Sailor Mars has always been my favourite but I also have a fondness for Sailor Saturn. Unfortunately we see so little of her in the original anime that we are always left wanting to see more of her! No transformation sequence, very few attacks. Now is the time for that to change! Finally Sailor Saturn in Sailor Moon Crystal! We don’t really get a transformation sequence, but what we see is like the tail end of one. This was more than I expected so I’m happy to see it! Sailor Saturn looks so bad ass and I love her attitude. She’s come to destroy the world and doesn’t seem to be concerned with the mild inconvenience this may cause for everyone around!
Sailor Saturn makes an interesting comment. She says that history is twisted. She insinuates that Hotaru should have died during her accident, but was allowed to survive as a cyborg which somehow seems to have been a fundamental change to the timeline. What is that about? Did something happen here that went against the causal fabric of the universe? I’m a determinist so as far as I see it things are playing out the way they always would have and always will. The one thing which could interfere with this of course is time travel, as we had last season, but that does not apply here. What order of events led to the lab accident which would have lead to Hotaru’s death but did not lead to Professor Tomoe resurrecting his daughter as a cyborg? These two events are linked. The Death Busters showed up afterwards. Is that some sort of unaccounted for outside influence? Saturn states that Professor Tomoe attracted the Death Busters. Why does Professor Tomoe go against the causal fabric of the universe? Does he and only he have free will, while the rest of the inhabitants of the Earth do not?
Sailor Saturn mentions that what drew the Death Busters to this area was also that it was the chosen land. This area would be where the Crystal Palace would be in the future. During the Black Moon story arc I mentioned how it was interesting that images of Tokyo Bay seemed to show the palace on reclaimed land that seemed to be a new island in the bay. Since Mugen Academy and the surrounding area was built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay, this seems to add up! This specific placement of the Crystal Palace was not originally included in the manga version of Crystal Tokyo but it actually aligned itself well with what was mentioned here, a tie which I did not think of until rereading this chapter recently.
Another new attack with a questionable name! Sailor Saturn uses Death Reborn Revolution but it is referred to as Death Ribbon Revolution. The two names sound so alike that one can easily see how they might get confused. Additionally this attack uses a bunch of ribbons to destroy the world! A SuperS fighting game has an attack Death Ribbon Revolution. Is this meant to be the same attack or something different with an almost identical name? I tend to think this all has to do with inconsistent interpretations of this move and how it should be spelled in Japanese kana and then translated back into English. That said I do believe that the correct name should be Death Reborn Revolution.
And so Sailor Saturn destroys the world. What a great way to end the episode! Sailor Moon is lost, probably dead, and Sailor Saturn just used her attack which destroys the planet. Fade to white, just like Total Recall. Series finale! Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this program you should watch 48 and a half episodes of the live action series now!
I kid of course. Next week is Act 38, Infinity 12 – Infinite – Journey. How to survive an attack which really should destroy the world without destroying the world! Next week’s episode will be the last for a while but hopefully not the last ever!
