A couple of new Black Lady products have been revealed. Black Lady is the evil grown up version of Chibiusa who likes to make out with her father. The Black Lady Pullip doll was revealed on the official Sailor Moon site. The doll will be coming this December and will cost 18,000 yen, about $150 US. Pullip Dolls are high quality creepy looking ultra expensive dolls with huge eyes and heads. They usually cost around $150 to $180 US when released in North America.

This weekend at the Tamashii Nation 2015 Event a Black Lady S. H. Figuarts figure was also revealed. Not a lot of detail is known about this figure. At the event a Wise Man figure can be seen behind it but there was not label for this. It is not posable so it is not part of the S. H. Figuarts line and it seems too small to be part of the Figuarts Zero line. Is this to be included with the Black Lady figure? If it is this is much bigger than anything else which accompanied any other S. H. Figuarts toys. We’ll have more details on this as we learn them, assuming this will be for sale and not just a prop for the display.

Also revealed at this event was one of the most uninteresting S. H. Figuarts figures to date. A Sailor Moon R version of Sailor Moon! How completely similar to the version we’ve already gotten! She has a Cutie Moon Rod and slightly different Brooch. S. H. Figuarts dolls are very details and posable figures with swappable parts. They usually cost about $50 when released in North America.

Source: The Sailor Moon Official Site, Sailor Moon Collectibles, Amiami on Facebook, @hobby_maniax on Twitter

Another guest has joined the Toronto Sailor Moon Celebration taking place at the Ontario Science Centre this Sunday. Tony Daniels, the voice of Jadeite and Wise Man, also played a lot of smaller roles in the series. This one day convention will also include Roland Parliament, voice director of the first 65 episodes and the voice of Melvin, Ron Rubin, the voice of Artemis, and Jill Frappier, the voice of Luna and Susan Roman, the voice of Sailor Jupiter.

A tentative schedule has also been released which includes a number of panels, two of which I will be participating in. I will be on the Sailor Moon and Mythology panel at 11:30am and the Gender & Sociology Related to Sailor Moon panel at 5pm. Find a full schedule quoted below:

Main Room
11:00 am Opening Ceremonies
12:00 pm Screening: episode 1
12:30 pm Sailor Moon Merchandise Presentation (Emily)
1:30 pm Screening: episode 25
2:00 pm Cast Reunion
3:00 pm Screening: episode 34
3:30 pm Screening: episode 44
4:00 pm Panel: Sailor Moon Classic vs. Sailor Moon Crystal
5:00 pm Sailor Moon Singalong
6:00 pm Closing Ceremonies

Panel Zone
11:30 am Panel: Sailor Moon & Mythology
1:00 pm Ammie’s Bow Workshop Demo
1:30 pm Ammie’s Sailor Collar Workshop Demo
3:00 pm Ammie’s Boot Covers Workshop Demo
4:00 pm So You Want To Be a Voice Actor? Advice for Aspiring Actors.
5:00 pm Panel: Gender & Sociology Related to Sailor Moon

Game Center
11:30 am Sailor Moon RPG with Lindsey Ginou
2:30 pm Sailor Moon RPG with Lindsey Ginou

Voice Actor Tables
12:30 pm Autographs with the Cast
2:00 pm All actors unavailable
3:00 pm Autographs with the Cast
4:00 pm Roland Unavailable

This event is looking to be a lot of fun and I hope to see some of you there. For more information check out Moon Chase! and the Facebook page for the event.

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 22, Hidden Agenda – Nemesis, is now available to stream on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This week we get teased a bit more with Black Lady but we still don’t get a really good look at her. Instead we focus on more exposition and freeing Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter who are trapped on Nemesis.

Why does it take us so long to finally get around to showing Black Lady? The flow of the past few episodes seems a bit weird but this is partly due to the fact that the manga was originally broken up differently. This was changed when the manga was reprinted around the time the live action Sailor Moon series was out. Originally the last episode, Act 21, and this episode were part of one manga chapter, Act 20 Complication – Nemesis. This happened once in the first arc and will happen once again with the final Act of the Black Moon story arc. All in all we will have 26 episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal for what was originally 23 chapters of the manga. The original story that covered these two episodes was very long, almost 100 pages, so it makes sense to break it up into two episodes but the pacing seems a bit odd as it takes us forever to tease out the appearance of Black Lady. Sailor Moon Crystal is a 23 minute show but a manga chapter had no such restriction which is why there were some very long stories some months.

Next episode preview at the end of Act 21

Intro for Act 22

Shirt gate continues! This show can’t seem to make up it’s mind on this thing. I know I’ve mentioned this time and time again but as long as they keep screwing it up I will keep harping on them for it. As you can see above, the next episode preview that played at the end of Act 21 showed Chibiusa with her long sleeved blue uniform which she should absolutely not be wearing at this point. This is the uniform she wore when she came from the future which she traded for a short sleeve white uniform when she started going to school. She wore this on her trip back to the future and did not bring a change of clothes. The animators consistently mess up the colour of Chibiusa’s shirt in next episode previews, fixing it before the next one comes out. We can clearly see in this how last minute this show is prepared. Another change that can be seen is that Chibiusa, pre transformation, is seen with the symbol of the Black Moon Clan on her forehead. This is new to Sailor Moon Crystal. In the manga and anime Chibiusa doesn’t get this symbol until she transforms into Black Lady.

A new location featured this week is the library which houses many books. Funny when you actually get a nice look at them it looks like there are just a bunch of copies of the same book. So many volume 19s of some kind of book all over these shelves! The original Sailor Moon manga was collected in 18 volumes. Perhaps the most precious thing collected in this library is more Sailor Moon manga! These books are so important that Venus is tasked with just watching them. Tuxedo Mask runs off to find Chibusa and she is stuck there to protect a bunch of books!

If you’ve ever wondered what Sailor Moon characters look like with lips we now have an answer! With another funny face frame this week we get to see Sailor Venus with lips and she looks a bit like a frog!

We get another look at the Death Phantom, the Earth criminal who became Wise Man. It’s mentioned that he has Beast Hand and Evil Eye, though there is no indication of what that is. He seems to have used some sort of supernatural power to kill a bunch of people, but he is said to be a human. Indeed Sailor Moon is full of these kinds of magical people but there really isn’t much in the way of detail about Death Phantom. It seems this could be a whole side story on it’s own which never really gets investigated.

Nemesis is such an odd planet. When we see it from space it’s surface seems volatile. It does not appear to have a solid surface but perhaps one of molten lava or some sort of gas or energy. It’s mentioned that the reactor is the only place which opens to the outside, yet we clearly see buildings with the reactor’s energy coming out of it. What exactly is going on here? Is this a building on the surface of Nemesis? Is this an underground cavern with buildings in it? This doesn’t seem all that efficient when a cavern isn’t really exposed to the elements. Perhaps this is the surface but above them is a thick cloud or energy layer that can’t be penetrated? This brings up a ton of questions. Who are the labourers of the Black Moon Clan who make these buildings? What is the size of their population? Where do they get their food? The manga never shows actual structures so some of this doesn’t really come up but an anime series like this needs to have proper backgrounds and a level of detail that isn’t shown in a manga series.

Finally Sailor Moon is able to transform. This isn’t really explained but the key is that the reactor connects to the outside. As another suggestion that they are underground, Sailor Moon’s powers are blocked where she is. Being close to the reactor allows her to get her power and in turn transfer that to her friends. How gross is the room Sailor Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are in? It’s just full of dead bodies.

Next episode preview at the end of Act 21

Act 22

As another change from the next episode preview once the Sailor Guardians show up the reactor’s energy is shown in the background more prominently and shining through a bit. This is a fairly minor change but yet another reminder that these episodes are tweaked right up to the last minute.

Next episode preview at the end of Act 21

Act 22

Yet another change is this shot of Black Lady’s eyes. Originally all we see are Black Lady’s eyes in the next episode preview but here in the episode proper they are using the sort of blurring effect to hide her identity instead. It seems that the method of obscuring Black Lady’s identity was still being worked out after a couple of weeks ago’s airing.

Black Lady is seen but not really seen throughout. In the manga she appears as a sort of ghostly whisp but here she’s just sort of blurry. Perhaps she has that same problem Bigfoot has where you can’t take a clear picture of him. We can see her clothes in Sailor Moon Crystal which is a first, this is something that normally wouldn’t show up until the next episode. She doesn’t do a ton but does manage to kill Rubeus which tells us she isn’t really on board with the Black Moon Clan but instead has some other agenda.

Wise Man has the most ridiculous eyes in this episode. Every time Black Lady does something amusing he gets these emoticon type eyes which look like something out of those letters that scroll across a Niconico feed. OMG! #kawaii ^_^; @_@;

Next in 3 weeks on June 6th is Act 23, Covert Maneuvers – Wiseman. This time we’ll get a proper look at Black Lady without any blurriness.

Keep reading to see more screenshots from Act 22 and the next episode preview for Act 23.

The next episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 22, Hidden Agenda – Nemesis, will be available this coming Saturday May 16th. The episode will be available to stream on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico starting at 7pm Japan Standard Time which is 6am Eastern Time and 3am Pacific Time. Chibiusa has disappeared but we won’t be seeing what has happened to her this week as we focus on what’s happening on Nemesis with various kidnapped people.

Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter are still prisoners on Nemesis. With this we will get a bit of backstory about the Death Phantom also known as Wise Man. With Chibiusa gone Tuxedo Mask chases after her leaving Sailor Venus to hold down the fort and the kidnapped Sailor Guardians to save themselves! The end of the last episode teases us with Black Lady but we won’t be seeing her this week. We will only be seeing a sort of proto Black Lady without her iconic black and pink dress.

In the next episode preview shown at the end of Act 21 we once again see Chibiusa wearing the wrong school uniform! Chibiusa has two school uniforms. She came from the future wearing a long sleeved blue uniform but once she started school in the past she switched to a short sleeve white uniform. That is what she is wearing when she takes Wise Man’s hand at the end of Act 21 so why is she wearing her older long sleeved uniform in the next episode preview? Earlier mistakes with the uniform colour have been corrected between the next episode preview and the actual episode. It is expected that the same will occur here though we won’t know for sure until Saturday.

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 21, Complication – Nemesis, is now available to stream on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This week Sailor Moon is kidnapped by Prince Demande and we get tons of exposition from him about the Black Moon Clan and from Chibiusa.

One of the first images of the episode has Sailor Moon seeing what appears to be Chibiusa, but a bit older. This is a glimpse of a character we will be seeing a lot more of in a couple of episodes. The episode touches on how old Chibiusa is and it turns out she’s 900! This is not something that was ever dealt with in the Anime but that happens in the Manga. Chibiusa is born when Usagi is relatively young, she just never ages. This is an odd plot point which takes away some of the sympathy the viewers may have for her. She still outwardly appears to be a child but then how much of our ways of thinking are determined by the amount of life experiences we’ve had and how much are based on the biological state of our brains, which change quite a bit throughout life. A true 900 year old child would likely be extremely mature and intelligent in some ways but still frustratingly immature in others. Chibiusa doesn’t seem to be a well thought out and well researched example of how such a person would turn out, but rather she is simply portrayed as a child.

Prince Demande kidnapped Sailor Moon, but why? It seems this is a good strategic move on his part, but it turns out it’s quite personal. Demande is completely infatuated with the future Neo Queen Serenity but since she’s unobtainable (surrounded by a Crystal) he’s settling for going back in time and getting her younger self! Prince Demande is completely terrible and uses mind control to rape kiss Usagi. Usagi seems to have bad luck since this is pretty much what Mamoru did for their first kiss at the masquerade dance party. In that case she was asleep, not being mind controlled, but she was unable to consent in both cases. When she thinks about Mamoru the image that comes to her mind is of him naked and hovering above her. This is likely from when they had sex a few episodes ago.

We learn a lot more about the Black Moon Clan’s backstory. They seem to not like that people aren’t able to die, so they agree with a lot of sci fi movies and people who aren’t that old in feeling that people shouldn’t live really long. It’s a bit of the naturalistic fallacy. Since we never see much about the day to day lives of the people of Crystal Tokyo it’s a bit hard for us to really determine whether or not there has been any negative impact to living for 1000 years. We can imagine perhaps some level of complacency setting in or perhaps some problems with population growth but none of this is demonstrated so it’s very hard for us to have any sort of sympathy for Prince Demande and his cohorts.

We get a better look at the future city of Crystal Tokyo as we see images of the Evil Black Crystal landing in Tokyo. First when seen from the side we see that the edges of the main island that the Crystal Palace is on get thinner towards the bottom, which is the opposite of how a real island would form. It looks from this point of view that this island is perhaps not naturally forming or even moved as a chunk of earth from elsewhere. When seen from above we see an image of the city in which is clearly Tokyo Bay. When comparing it to current satellite photos of Tokyo the shape of the coast somewhat matches to the point where we can make out some landmarks. The location of the island does not match that of Azuba Juban from present day Tokyo where most of the series takes place. It’s unclear whether the main island is completely new here or somewhat carved out of existing land. It exists in a part of the bay which is largely built up over the water. One reader suggested global warming melted ice caps causing some of Tokyo to sink and that this build up was the result. I would suggest that perhaps a chunk of the Moon which housed the Crystal Palace was moved to the Earth to create this island, though no specific evidence of this is given.

We see where Ami, Makoto and Rei have been, though we don’t see much in the way of detail. They’re in this room that unlike its manga equivalent is not filled with a bunch of decaying bodies. That would probably have been a bit gross. We’ll see more of what they’re up to next time.

Chibiusa goes through the events we didn’t see of her adventure to date. This reveals to us that she took the Silver Crystal in a smash and grab and seems to believe that this is why the Black Moon Clan attacked. We see some nice scenes of her with her father, King Endymion. There is this recurring theme that she is somehow overshadowed by her parents and that no one really cares about Chibiusa. Of course, because people generally don’t have any interest when royalty has children. Children make fun of Chibiusa because she doesn’t look like her parents. Is that why she copies her mother’s hair style? Who’s her pink haired mother? Jem? Pinkie Pie?

Apparently pink hair isn’t unique in Crystal Tokyo as we see Prince Demande try to kill a young Chibiusa clone who herself has pink hair. Who is this girl? In the manga she doesn’t look much like Chibiusa and is quickly killed. Here it almost seems as if either Prince Demande or Neo Queen Serenity mistakes this girl for Chibiusa, causing them to come into contact with each other.

Chibiusa flashes back to seeing Usagi getting scolded by her mother for getting a 30 on her test. Wait what? That was the first episode which was a long time before Chibiusa appeared. Does she just consistently get grades of 30% on her tests? Did Ami’s influence do nothing to improve her grades? Upon close examination the test is not actually the same one. Compare the test images below to see the differences. Her original Act 1 test is on the left and her new test is on the right.

When Chibiusa is seen on her first visits to Sailor Pluto she is completely cool with it because all members of Silver Millennium are welcome at the Space-Time Door! So why exactly did she try to kill Sailor Moon a few episodes ago? Perhaps it’s because she’s in love with King Endymion and is trying to eliminate the competition! Chibiusa seems somewhat traumatized to see Sailor Pluto showing affection for him. No she isn’t upset because of what this means for King Endymion and her mother, but because she is jealous of Sailor Pluto’s affections.

Finally, Chibiusa loses her Key of Space-Time and ends up in Wise Man’s hands! We see Chibiusa with a Black Moon Clan symbol on her forehead, which is usually something we only ever see on her head once she’s transformed into Black Lady. In the manga when she meets Wise Man she has the symbol of the White Moon on her forehead. Chibiusa is wearing her white school uniform with short sleeves when she takes Wise Man’s hand. This makes perfect sense!

Next time is Act 22, Hidden Agenda – Nemesis. Somehow now Chibiusa is back in her dark blue school uniform! This show can’t seem to keep these uniform colours straight! It’s very simple. Chibiusa has a dark blue long sleeved uniform which she wears in the future and when she first arrives in the past. Once Chibiusa enrols in school she gets a white short sleeved uniform which, multiple animation mistakes aside, she wears from then on. She has the short sleeved uniform on when she meets Wise Man but now we see her taking his hand, a scene we just saw in the episode we were watching minutes ago, but somehow she has her long sleeved blue uniform on again. Will this be corrected before the next episode? We hope so!

The next episode will be available on May 16th. We won’t actually get to see what happens with Chibiusa in this episode as it will instead focus on what Sailor Moon and the rest of the Sailor Guardians are up to. We will get a good look at Black Lady next month!

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

The two final real episodes of Sailor Moon R are now available on Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we wrap up the story of the Black Moon Clan, Chibiusa and Crystal Tokyo with episodes 87 and 88. There is in fact one more episode left in Sailor Moon R but next week episode 89 is just a clip show which is a complete waste of time. The important thing is that you can now watch the whole Sailor Moon R season on Hulu.

Episode 87, Believing in Love and the Future: Usagi’s Decision, wraps up the Black Moon Clan’s story. First we get a rare look at Naru. Remember her? She’s still around! Though she doesn’t give any specifics it seems from what she says in this episode that she has an idea that Usagi is Sailor Moon or at least somehow involved in the various crazy things that are happening to her city. The gang transform and Sailor Moon faces off against Prince Demande who proceeds to use his mind control to try to rape kiss her. This is pretty much completely terrible but he quickly redeems himself when Wise Man tries to kill Sailor Moon and he takes the lethal blow for her, seemingly killing Wise Man as well. As Demande dies in Sailor Moon’s arms she promises to free the rest of the people of Nemesis. I wonder if Neo Queen Serenity followed through with this promise when all was done. Does she actually remember having promised this or did that occur in a new timeline 30th century Neo Queen Serenity has no memory of? You would think a Neo Queen Serenity with full knowledge of what happened in present day Tokyo could have simply prevented all of this from happening in the first place, but I don’t think time travel works that way in this show. Well Wise Man isn’t actually dead as he puts himself back together in a flash! Ready to fight in the final battle in the next episode!

Episode 88, The Final Battle Between Light and Dark: Pledge of Love for the Future, is the final real episode of Sailor Moon R. First we have to deal with the Black Lady situation. The cure for this is love, as the Silver Crystal is used on her to give her positive memories bringing her back to reality and her normal young self. The family is back together but Wise Man is still making trouble. That’s okay because we have the Silver Crystal and… what’s that? A second Silver Crystal? Chibiusa finally remembers what happened. She took the Silver Crystal which disappeared inside her body and now she’s able to use it to get a cool princess dress and fight Wise Man! This is where she would be turning into Sailor Chibi Moon in the manga but they don’t do that at this point in the anime. Wise Man is easily defeated. What follows the next day is a tearful farewell between Chibiusa and her friends. Usagi and Chibiusa cry while holding each other at which point Chibiusa calls Usagi mamma and departs to the future. Back in the 30th century everything is fine. I guess the sun finally came back up! Peace is restored as is Neo Queen Serenity. What does a proud mother have to say to her young daughter who traveled through time to fight evil and literally save the world in two timelines? “Welcome home.”

Episode 88 features the song “La Soldier” during the fight with Wise Man. This is the main song from the Sailor Moon Musicals. I wondered why I couldn’t find it on any anime soundtrack for years until I realized it was simply on Musical soundtracks.

This wraps up Sailor Moon R! Chibiusa sure did seem like a brat at first but given all she’s been through it’s hard not to have some sympathy and respect for what she endured and accomplished. We won’t be seeing her for a while. In the manga she came back nearly as soon as she left, cementing herself as a permanent character in the show. This is not the case in the anime as she will be gone for some time and won’t actually be staying until the end. Chibiusa haters think she dominates the story too much but in reality her appearance in the anime is much less than what it is in the manga. She does not have a considerable role in anything but Sailor Moon SuperS from now on, but this is a while away.

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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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The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon R have been added to Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we have episodes 83 and 84 which take place entirely in 30th century Crystal Tokyo! It takes a long time for the story to finally make it to the future but here we are. A lot of stuff that we mostly already figured gets revealed.

Episode 83, The Shocking Future: Demande’s Dark Ambition, introduces us to a world we have previously only seen in dreams and flashbacks. All of the girls assumed it couldn’t really be that bad when they saw this destroyed city in Chibiusa’s mind but this was obviously spot on. Things are very bad. The gang runs into a familiar face, the holographic projection of King Endymion who is the future version of Mamoru. His voice, which sounds nearly identical to Mamoru’s, sounds familiar! Does Toru Furuya as King Endymion sound that much different than Toru Furuya as Mamoru? Anyway, his voice is the one from the dreams that foretold a great calamity if Mamoru didn’t dump Usagi. Just what was the reason for this silly fabricated friction between characters which didn’t really last? Oh he just wanted to test their relationship to make sure it was strong. Sorry but I just don’t see the logic of this and there is no indication that it helped at all. It didn’t change the future, so it seems like it was meant to strengthen their relationship in the past so that… Tuxedo Mask didn’t let Prince Demande kiss Usagi? Well I’m getting ahead with myself. We learn all of the things we kind of already knew. Usagi is Neo Queen Serenity, oh wow! Chibiusa is Usagi and Mamoru’s daughter. Who knew? This surprises everyone and even makes Rei a little mad. Maybe Rei would be the queen of Crystal Tokyo if Usagi hadn’t stolen her boyfriend last season! In a somewhat rushed end of the episode Usagi is kidnapped by Prince Demande who dresses her up a bit like Neo Queen Serenity and tries to use his hypnotic powers to kiss her without consent. It’s a very uncomfortable scene that deals with a pretty serious issue, but Tuxedo Mask comes in to save the day.

Episode 84, Wiseman’s Evil Hand: Chibi-Usa Disappears, has Chibiusa running off while the gang deals with Esmeraude. Esmeraude has been doing a pretty crappy job as villain but it’s okay, she can do more good as a dragon! This way she doesn’t need to be directly killed by the Sailor Guardians. Instead a dragon is killed who they didn’t really know was her. Prince Demande who was trying to sexually assault Usagi in the last episode seems only somewhat put off by Esmeraude’s death, tragically not returning her affections. Meanwhile Chibiusa is traumatized and runs off … to the park. In the past (our present) when Chibiusa runs away she always finds herself in the park. It’s not really clear why this is. But Chibiusa is not in some foreign city. She’s simply in another time. The park may be very familiar to her as it may be the same place she always run to, just from another time. Many landmarks from the future park seem to indicate that it is indeed the same once we often see in the past. Wiseman proceeds to mess with her memory of things. She remembers looking at the Silver Crystal, but not what happened to it. Her views of her family and friends is corrupted to make her think they are all against her. In the final moments of the episode we hear a laugh which sounds somewhat like that of Chibiusa but a bit different. We will see who this is in the next episode.

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If you’re a fan of My Little Pony be sure to check out our sister site The Ponyville Gazette on which this article was also posted.

This past Saturday was the season premiere of season 3 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The story of this first episode centred around a location called The Crystal Empire. A while back when clips of this episode first appeared online someone made this image suggesting a link. While I certainly believe there are visual similarities there I think that now that the full episode has aired we can look at them objectively and see just what does and doesn’t add up.

The similarity in the image above is hard to ignore. These are both cities made of crystal with one large tower in the middle. The Crystal Empire has a road formation made of stars. Crystal Tokyo does not but from this angle we see a diagonal road leading to the tower which makes the two cities seem similar. The structure of the two cities is somewhat similar with the way other buildings are spread out with some grassy areas, but this is not atypical of any city. It should be noted that a view of Crystal Tokyo during the day is somewhat rare. More often than not we saw Crystal Tokyo during a perpetual night as it was all but completely destroyed and occupied by the Black Moon Clan.

But let’s ignore the visual similarities and look at the similarities to the story for a moment. The image which suggests the parallel calls both an “Ancient Empire Revitalized”. In My Little Pony this is partially true. The Crystal Empire is old but has been around the whole time, just dominated by King Sombra. Crystal Tokyo itself is not old or ancient, it exists only in the future, from the near future (before Usagi’s 22nd birthday in the Manga and after the Earth is frozen in the 21st century in the anime) until the 30th century at least. It is the reestablishment of an ancient empire on the Moon, Silver Millennium. These aren’t really the same at all…

Next the image mentions an “Old enemy (previously banished far, far away by Royal Embodiments of Good) returns”. King Sombra and Wise Man look, act and are nothing alike. Both are banished by some form of royalty. King Sombra is banished by Princesses Celestia and Luna. Wise Man was a prisoner on planet Nemesis placed there by Neo Queen Serenity. We’re really just establishing similarities between the two series as a whole here in that there are royal main characters, but the characters themselves are nothing alike.

There is also a similarity mentioned between the “dark crystals”. This similarity seems somewhat warranted. The Black Moon Clan’s plans to take over modern day Tokyo involved infusing it with dark energy with the help of Crystal Points, Dark Henges and things like that. Ultimately a large Evil Black Crystal is erected in the center of Tokyo. Similarly Crystal Tokyo is covered in these kind of crystals when it’s attacked. The Crystal Empire in My Little Pony is similarly filled with black crystal shards that King Sombra places everywhere. The placement and purpose of these aren’t really the same, but their appearance is certainly similar.

Another similarity mentioned is that “It’s up to the heroine and her friends (who represent elements/planets) to go there and save the day”. Well yes, the main characters have to solve the week’s problem, aside from that we’re just talking about similarities between the basic idea of My Little Pony and Sailor Moon. They don’t use the elements of Harmony, they don’t really do anything Sailor Moon like. This comparison seems pretty superficial.

It then mentions “Oh yeah, these two are waiting to help when you get there” showing pictures on the left of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence, who are waiting there to help, and on the right Sailor Pluto and Sailor Chibi Moon, who aren’t. Sailor Pluto is not waiting in Crystal Tokyo, she’s guarding the door of time. She doesn’t really do anything to help. She protects the door, but the Black Moon Clan are able to come and go as they please. She’s actually does nothing but deter the group. In the manga she does a bit to help, but this isn’t really what we’re talking about here. Sailor Chibi Moon doesn’t factor into it. She is not involved in the story. Chibiusa is. She’s not waiting to help. She’s in the past with Sailor Moon asking them for help and ultimately she just turns evil. She helps in the end but she was never waiting in Crystal Tokyo to do so. These final points are of no relevance and fail to establish any similarity.

We can also look at other aspects seen in these episodes to see if there are similarities. Both the palace in Crystal Tokyo and the Crystal Empire are protected by a crystal. In Sailor Moon it’s the Silver Crystal. When it is removed by Chibiusa this causes the palace’s defenses to fall. In My Little Pony it is the Crystal Heart which King Sombra removes. These two items don’t really look alike at all. Later in the series Chibiusa’s Silver Crystal does change to be heart shaped, but this doesn’t seem terribly relevant.

Another only vaguely similar plot point is the shield that’s generated to protect the city from evil. In Sailor Moon we see the Sailor Soldiers bring up a force field around the palace, staying ever vigilant in keeping it up to protect Neo Queen Serenity. In My Little Pony it’s Princess Cadence who puts up a dome shaped force field around the entire city with a very different purpose and a much larger scope. The shapes of these shields aren’t very similar.

The central chambers in both palaces also bear a passing resemblance to each other.

There is also an illusion of disappointment by a parental figure that comes into both stories. In Sailor Moon Wise Man uses an illusion to make Chibiusa think that her parents and friends don’t love her. He shows her images of her parents Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion scolding her and refusing to help her when she falls. Similarly Twilight Sparkle is shown an illusion Princess Celestia disappointed in her failure and scolding her which is caused by King Sombra’s dark magic. The specifics differ as Wise Man shows the truth, manipulated by hiding specifics, while King Sombra’s magic shows an outright lie.

Ultimately a lot of this seems to just be a case of looking for similarities where there are none. The Crystal Tokyo story of Sailor Moon R spans a large number of episodes so there are a lot of events we can look to for passing similarities. When we look at the 200 episode Sailor Moon series as a whole it doesn’t take long to find other similarities. When the ponies show up in this snow filled place that’s quite cold I immediately thought of the Sailor Team arriving near the D-Point in the North Pole without the wardrobe to back it up.

Then there’s the scene where Spike throws himself off of a building trying to catch the Crystal Heart when Princess Cadence, the winged unicorn, flies in to rescue him. This reminded me of Sailor Moon diving to catch Chibiusa getting rescued by Pegasus, the winged unicorn, in Sailor Moon SuperS.

I am not mentioning these additional similarities to suggest a connection, quite the contrary I’m just trying to illustrate that especially when dealing with a series with hundreds of episodes it’s fairly easy to be able to pick and chose vaguely similar things when no real inspiration needs to be made. Was The Crystal Empire inspired by Crystal Tokyo? It’s certainly possible, but who exactly are we saying would have done this? If it’s the writer, then why the visual similarities? It if was one of the artists, then wouldn’t that make any story similarities a coincidence? While there are certainly people who work on the show who have mentioned they are fans of Sailor Moon and some minor inspiration is possible, to try to draw significant parallels between the two series’s stories does not hold up to scrutiny as the differences are more numerous than the handful of cherry picked similarities we can find. These are shows for young girls. They have colours, crystals, royalty and other such things that at times may overlap but it’s likely not much more than a coincidence.