Bartimaeus

That makes way more sense for Minako than Rei. I thought it was really strange at the time that it was Rei with the singing part. Guess now I know why.

Yeah, it stinks, especially since every time she does get her moments (or, in this case, an entire episode dedicated to her!), it reinforces that she's my favorite. I said early into R that I think she would've made just as good or even better of a protagonist as Usagi, and I continue to stand by it! I think Usagi was meant to be a little more of the every-man (well, girl) that unites everyone else, though...but I would've been perfectly good with a little different protagonist type, too. Also, Minako is similar enough that she probably could've fulfilled that role anyways. I've also heard that Crystal is so much worse - apparently, the show revolves around Usagi and Mamoru like 100% of the time, which just sounds miserable to me. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with those two, but in a cast full of fun colorful characters representing a number of different personality types, strengths, and weaknesses, it's a huge waste to not have fun with them. And also, Mamoru, speaking personally, was at his best early into the show when he was that odd and mysterious mix of sarcastic and suave (as opposed to increasingly solemn as well as flat...when he decides to show up at all), so that doesn't exactly excite me. The team is a big part of the show's strength - it's literally what it makes it so fun for me, at least.

How'd you like Chibi-Usa's introduction? It just about killed me. I certainly don't hate her, but I did find her a little wearing in some of the episodes where the majority of the episode was told from her perspective.

I'm really looking forward to meeting that pegasus. For sure. Yeah. ...Remind me to read these posts again when I actually get to these episodes. I'll be able to more properly respond to them when I've actually seen them, . My hope is that I'm not quite as creeped out by some of this as you are...but uhh, probably a fat chance of that, huh? (e): Also a sufferer of astigmatism (and the double-vision phenomenon you just described is exactly what I get), I always thought it was completely normal and never told anyone, but it apparently isn't. On the other hand, I've always had good hand-to-eye coordination and depth perception even with it (no myopia, though), so I don't know how that works out.

Steven Universe: It probably won't be, licensing with Cartoon Network shows is almost always terrible, I'm genuinely surprised the first season is somehow on Netflix (99.9% sure it's not in the U.S.). I jumped in while the fifth season was just starting, and used a combination of re-runs, live-airing, and illegitimate* sources to watch it. I don't know how you'd want to solve that. It's a shame, too - the second season is when I became fully convinced it was my favorite show due to a particularly great stretch of episodes. *Gabe Newell once said that piracy is usually the result of service problems. Well...he wasn't wrong.

Unrelated to Sailor Moon: I'm gonna have to try out this show sometime.

that guy: dig ditches, dig more ditches, ditches in ditches, ditches on ditches, ditches before the ditches, ditches beyond the ditches, ditches ditches ditches it seems like ditches were important.

lmao

It is a very different time. Also, when you watched it, the episodes were still new (and presumably you couldn't obtain the manga or read Japanese), so that would have kind of prevented you from looking up anything either, . One thing I've noticed is that this show goes a lot farther with Usagi's expressions than with anyone else's. She has so many different "meme"-ish expressions that nobody else really does. The two closest things I can think of are Rei and Chibi-Usa sticking their tongues out (at Usagi no less), as well as a commonly shared between everyone (including even the cats) exasperated expression. But Usagi's had so much more than that. I guess it's a benefit of being the protagonist...and being the most expressive character with the most screen time. (e): One positive thing I'll say about the generated villains, is that even if their designs aren't particularly memorable, I do appreciate that they are very often humorously built off of their situation/surroundings. It's not always enough to make them notable, but at least they were trying to do something.

Yeah, consider what I say to me be thinking out loud and fan-theorying, not actually asking for any genuine information/spoilers, .

lmao that could've been the worst, glad it wasn't I've only ever read one manga before, and that was the original Dragon Ball (I discovered that simply reading the manga was a lot less painful compared to actually watching the show, ). That was an experience. (e):

I read your entire post, and the good news is that I had my brain in don't-remember mode and already forgot 95% of what you said, so one of the actually good episodes of SuperS remains unspoiled, . Actually, I was also going to ask about how close SuperS follows the manga - thought there might be a Game of Thrones situation where the writers are good at adapting material, but not so good at coming up with brand new material...but it seems like from what you've said, SuperS doesn't deviate *that* far from the manga, though you'd probably actually have to read it at length to know for sure. @KaineParker R stays pretty normal in that sense, I think. It's S where it starts getting a little wackier, and then it's SuperS where it blasts off to the moon, . The good news is S is possibly the best season of the show so it's forgivable - FORGIVABLE! - whereas in SuperS...well...

I assume you meant to say "dislike"? I'm the same way - even for some of my biggest media loyalties, I've never adopted a particular label from them to describe myself as, .

Moonie is a really bad term. I can't think of anything better that fits, though, which is probably why it stuck.

The Makai Tree arc was really funny (but actually has even worse minions than season 1 that I actually complained about at the time when I was watching early R - I do not like Pokemon-style monsters that just shout their own names over and over...thankfully, that particular type does pass). I'll no doubt find it even funnier knowing how everything works out when I re-watch the show years in the future.

Queen Beryl is indeed a terrible villain. Incompetent and impotent, frequently wastes resources and minions, and is constantly taking out the anger of her own failures on her minions. Also, completely clueless. Pretty much completely contemptible without any redeeming values (in terms of likability and entertainment value) besides the fact her visual design and voice are pretty memorable. You may find the first arc of Sailor Moon R to have more likable villains (at least, I thought they were - still dumb like everyone else in this show, but they actually exist in the show alongside all the other characters rather than occupying an ethereal and secluded 'zone' where they never do anything and do attempt to do things themselves). @majestic lmao, I forgot about that Ami picture, but to be honest, while that is definitely a thing, we the audience don't really see anything from it except that it's supposed to be embarrassing and hilarious, especially since it's framed to specifically have attention drawn towards it (and I do thinking framing matters a lot for these things). So I actually have less of a problem with that versus just casual exploitation that no note is made of at all.

Yeah. I won't be happy to see it. Just watched episode 8, the Ami episode. It was a really good one, and spent almost all of the episode on good character stuff...and then the monster that appeared at the last second was hilarious and a little more characterized than normal (and also dealt with very quickly to give the episode a nice ending). (e): I actually tried to watch Redline some time back. I, uh, don't think male-focused (i.e. power fantasy) anime racing stuff is for me, suffice to say, .

Heh, it can be interesting to pay attention to who writes what in a series like this. Sometimes things are completely seamless and you wouldn't even think to check who did what, much less be able to recognize one writer's work from the next...and then other shows, there are such mountainous drops and climbs in quality between consecutive episodes that it surely cannot be coincidence. What's amazing is if for a show like Adventure Time, that I, a relatively casual watcher and nothing approaching like a superfan or anything of that nature, can recognize that there's something seriously wrong with the quality output of a few specific writers, how the heck don't the people in charge of a show? There are episodes in that show where I *hate* my favorite characters because of how utterly bizarre and out-of-character they're acting. You'd think there'd be someone down the line during production that would tell somebody else, "Hey, uh...I don't think main character X should really be acting like a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic for no real explainable reason, maybe we should rethink this?". Nah, it's all cool, just roll with it. Get these hack fraud bozos off of my show, please, and pay the other people who aren't cheats and swindlers more money to write more, please.

I always associate terrible things with Initial D because over a decade ago, I was an admin on a specific-game related forum where one of the moderators had the name "initialD", and he ending up going completely nuts over something really silly (don't remember exactly what, something pride-related), and we spent like a month trying to repair things, eventually gave up and removed him from the staff team, which only made him even more mad and we ended up banning him after non-stop infractions. I tell this story anytime anybody brings up Initial D. No, I don't have any idea what Initial D actually is, and I'm not going to find out.

Definitely agree that a variety of different methods would've been much better. Somehow, the Sailor Guardians are just as dumb in the same exact way. Superhero costumes, man - somehow, they work (almost) every time.