majestic

Nothing looks as bad as early Crystal. Nothing. Convinced yet? That's Usagi seeing Rei for the first time, by the way. I don't really want to say anything that praises Sailor Moon Eternal, but the overall package of the films looked a good deal better than I thought it would. It also had a movie budget, so that comparison is a bit lame and unfair, but there are moments in Eternal that looked almost good. Never the character models, but the backgrounds were, at times, really good. I'm not sure why that was, but maybe they actually really painted some of the backgrounds with real colors and then only added the scanned and computer-colored character models on a separate layer. But that is just speculation. It could also have been a pre-rendered backgrounds with a really good filter effect. The problem with Cardcaptor Sakura - Clear Card isn't only in the way it looks in stills. There are scenes that look almost fine, and then there are scenes that strike way too far into the uncanny valley that they feel wrong, particularily when you see something that's been clearly brushed up by pure CGI in post production, like a lot of the special effects when Sakura captures one of the Clear cards, or when her magic circle appears. Some scenes also suffer from what looks like way too high contrast or brightness. It feels soft and washed out. Well, no, it looks like that too. The entire anime looks a little like others would design their dream scenes so you know you're seeing a dream. Or a flashback. It's a combination of everything together that makes this hard to watch - doubly worse when you directly contrast it with the second movie. You can watch the first three or so card captures in this compilation video. They're spoiler free insofar as they're only the sealing animations. The second one has a short scene where you can see Sakura and Tomoyo. Just stay away from everything else you can find and you should be good. I haven't watched the entire video, so I don't know if something spoilerish comes up later. Just... stop after the first three. The obvious CGI elements aside, I don't know if Clear Card was traditionally animated in the modern sense, i.e. having the animation drawn on paper and then scanned, colored and compiled digitally (like, say, Steven Universe) which curiously enough seems to yield much better results in more cartoonish animation, or if the look and feel is the result of something else. There's one other problem so far, one that's not with the animation. The storytelling hasn't been nearly as good as it was in the earlier anime in the four episodes I've watched so far. It's not just a case of this being different or Sakura being obviously a little older and much more experienced in dealing with weird magical situations. If the second arc and the first movie were already not as well integrated into the world aas the Clow cards, this ups that further. It's somehow a little like... Sailor Stars so far, where you have the characters doing things, and then suddenly you get 2 minutes of magic action where she seals a Clear card. Or somtimes two in one episode. That one highlighed the problem even more. The first card was causing rain, which isn't entirely original, we already had Rain. It starts raining at school, which is fine, then Tomoyo and Sakura deal with the new water card on their way home. The second card in that episode happens after Sakura's cheerleading practice, she ties a shoelace, suddenly eveveryone's gone, then she captures the card. Done. In the episode before that, the card is an otherwise completely unrelated event that just happens in Sakura's room. It's not bad by any means, but it's nowhere as good as the orginal was in combining everything. It looks worse, occasionally dips into the uncanny valley and is less well written so far. That just adds to the overall not so great impression. The character interactions and the fun is still there. It's still funny to see Sakura jump up in the middle of the class and yell hooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!? when she sees what Naoko doodled in her textbook, only to be admonished by her teacher for it. Her faceplanting from what Tomoyo says or does is still fun. It's just that... the magic is gone. Which is something Sailor Stars preserved, even though overall the animation looked much different and it was less good than S. That's my attempt at explaining that. Don't try to google anything Clear Card, by the way. Lots of spoilers. LOTS of spoilers.

CCS Clear Card. Quick notes: It still looks bad. No, really, it looks bad. It's trying to do something with modern animation. It really looks bad. I can't get over myself with the aforementioned points. The whacky continuity between this and the old anime seems to be intentional. Chiharu forgot something and it was quite obviously highlighted that she was the only one who didn't remember one of the plays they made in episode 42 (a great episode, by the way). Also, this looks so bad.

There's also a 10 minutes Kero special that was made for the second film. It's pretty great too.

It takes place in the winter holidays between 35 and 36. So you, uhm, kinda missed that already, but you haven't missed anything of note. I don't want to say anything of value, because the film is good, but nothing of value for the anime itself, at least.

Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie 2 - The Sealed Card This is going to be a short(ish) post, because the nature of the film doesn't allow to post about any spoilers at all without potentially ruining @Bartimaeus' watching of the show with even cryptic references or the barest of vague hints. This is, by the way, a good thing, because everything I complained about from the first movie is gone. It's 80 minutes long, has almost an hour of fun character stuff before things become serious, doesn't try to stand on its own, i.e. watching this without having seen the entire run of Cardcaptor Sakura is pointless and is more like an extended, movie version finale to the show taking place a class later, so I'm guessing a year, give or take. The last time we see Sakura in the anime, she's in class 5-2, in the film, she's in 6-2. Her class is preparing for a festival in Tomoeda when... what a coincidence, some characters come to visit and mysterious things begin happening again... As always, there's one thing to criticize. Perhaps more, but one thing that stands out a bit. The film is about one final Clow card. One that was sealed away by Clow Reed, based on a concept that barely showed up in the anime before, and a card that Kero doesn't know about. It's not bad, but after spending the first arc of the show collecting all Clow cards, finding one extra that nobody knew of beforehand seems a tad, well, no way around it: The basic premise of the film is nothing but a massive ass pull. But that doesn't really matter, in the end. It's an ass pull in the service of greatness. It's also looking damned good, but maybe that's just because I watched two more episodes of Clear Card before. Also, one last thing that I can say without revealing too much: Meiling and Tomoyo are great when they're scheming together. There should have been more of that. Like all the time.

The latter part is in the lyrics, yes. A bit hidden, but in there. I haven't watched the video, so maybe it is about bullying. Just saying the lyrics aren't.

That dub sure is something. Not sure what, but it's... something.

Sure, they're star-crossed lovers from a different time and magically attracted to each other, so that makes everything okay, even slaps and some major douchewaffling, right? You're right, there are boundaries that Tomoyo doesn't cross, and in fact, Sakura agreed to be filmed. She might occassionally faceplant when Tomoyo reveales the extent of her obsession, but that's about it.

Indeed, more CCS!

Maybe, but that's sort of what I meant. I have never seen a full show, only a number of clips on YouTube, and those are probably hand picked and contain a laugh or two. Unless it was about evangelicals believing Trump to be the reincarnation of King Cyrus the Great. That was hilarious from start to finish, but those jokes practically wrote themselves anyway.

I don't know, as someone not from the US Bill Maher is fairly hilarious.

Going by the lyrics its about someone who has to sit next to a crying child on a plane. There's some humor in it (I hate all children unless they're mine), but unless the video is about bullying I don't see how it would be. It's a humorous take on parents that don't bother to engage with their children (in this case, on flights) and people who complain about children making noise all the while not being better themselves. Par for the course as far as Till Lindemann lyrics go. Not ever really going to be a fan of his singing though, but that's me.

CCS talk:

Cardcaptor Sakura The Movie 2 - The Sealed Card. Still watching, but that intro just pulled an amazing bait & switch, so I had to post:

Yes, but outside of Icewind Dale 2 that never changes, except for single class sorcerers. Mostly because you can't make those in any other way. Depending on the version of the games you play, they might break the game. Sorcerers in IWD Enhanced Edition are definitely making the game a lot less of a hassle - that that's a good thing with all the combat in it. That doesn't mean the other classes are useless*, but there just isn't any situation in Baldur's Gate or its sequel where a multi or dual classed version of clerics, druids, thieves or mages** aren't better at virtually everything, from having more hit points, to being able to actually, you know, hit things, hit things more than once in a round, have better equipment options and a whole host of other things, and that's before going really crazy with the min-maxing possibilities. Occassionally you'll run into someone who will tell you stories of single class thieves (often swashbucklers) who supposedly are way more overpowered, but that's... people not knowing how HLAs are assigned in Baldur's Gate 2, and they mistakenly believe that they're acquired significantly faster or more often with single class thieves. Never mind the fact that Fighter/Thief combinations can take Assassination more than once (that one is fixed by various mods and the EE, I think - not 100% sure on the EE though). Then you have the other people who will tell you that single class assassins are the way to go because they can one-shot everything not immune to poison, which is quite correct, but that is a specialty use that's... well, pretty specialty***. It's biggest advantage is the rapid application of the poison dot, which causes the enemy AI to spaz out, rendering the enemy completely hapless until it dies. It's a one shot kill CC ability, but not good enough to waste a full party slot on. *What that really means is that these games are all viable to play with any combination you'd like to try. They're just a good deal easier if you just disregard the idea of having single class thieves and clerics, and act accordingly. **Mages are a slightly different story, particularily for Baldur's Gate because of the lower level cap. In IWD they're the most expendable party slot and can have their role filled by a bard which also enables some interesting interaction in Easthaven, they level much quicker and you won't be wanting for spell slots because a) there's a distinct lack of scrolls in the game and b) they can also cast up to level 8 spells in IWD, unlike the level 6 cap in BG. That's exactly what makes the inclusion of sorcerers in the Enhanced Edition so powerful. The game wasn't designed with being able to cast fireballs at every enemy horde you see the moment you unlocked your first level 3 spell slot. ***Also often people who install the "improved" THAC0 tables from various mods, giving their thieves the ability to actually hit enemies in Throne of Bhaal, which they otherwise simply wouldn't. Thief THAC0 sucks. The only reason swashbucklers can keep up is because they receive massive bonuses over the course of the game, but that's a bit silly when you think of the levels involved. You need to reach level 40 with your Swashbuckler to perform similarily to your level 20 fighter in combat, but that fighter at level 20 will still have more attacks per round, will still have better THAC0 and most likely some similar armor class, which is really the only thing the Swashbuckler has going for it. Technically, at level 40, with the best gear available and the cheesiest setup, you could make an invincible Swashbuckler. It's not very likely that you'll even reach level 40 unless you know what you're doing and it is much easier to achieve similar results with a fighter/mage tank with prebuffing, at lower levels... decent class for easily soloing the game though. Not very interesting to play, but really interesting to set up at least.

JOESTAR-SAN! OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD! Sure will. Won't be any time soon though, I'm afraid. I still have enough to watch and read for a while without adding new stuff into the mix. And, uhm, Steven Universe: The Kaiju Stories, I mean, Future.

There's also something about the animation in this that's just great. It might not be the most elaborate, but still looks great, and the animators were really capable of transporting emotions through it. There is a context free picture in the spoiler, I just edited it into a spoiler tag because knowing the context, it bums me out every time I scroll by. Reaching a 4 TB limit would take some doing indeed. We used to have a fair use limit but that's been dropped for a while. There also never came anything of going over it, I regularily reached 50+ GBs of downloads at a time when the fair use limit was 5 GB, but that was a while back, like 1999/2000. But that was a much different time where I had access to a scene dump. If I still had that, and would have enough disk space, I'd probably blow through your 4TB limit with relative ease. My current use is roughly half a TB per month. Still crazy when I think back to starting out with a dialup trying to download Sailor Moon desktop themes. Heh. I thought the same thing, then didn't actually post it for exactly the same reason. Although, his behaviour in Crystal season 1 and her behaviour in SuperS are really pretty much close as objectively justified domestic violence as you can get, I guess. Still, it was weird enough to see Ami slap her in the old anime, and that was in 1992. This one has no excuse for what Mamoru does in Crystal, or now in Eternal. Nope.

Rei sees a vision of her 4-year-old past self kissing Tiger's-Eye. I'm still more miffed that Mamoru slapped Usagi. This was released this year guys. I wonder if that was in the manga too. Healthy relationship and all. *whack*

In spite of all the complaining, this wasn't as painful to sit through as the 39 episodes of Sailor Moon SuperS were, but that's because SuperS came after S, while this came after Crystal Season 3, and SuperS is like 15 hours long while this was just three. When you start from low expectations and it doesn't get any worse, that's a positive thing, right? And this one had more fun character stuff than the other three seasons combined, but it was still not enough to save it. At least now I know why the ending of SuperS was such a mess. What else could you possibly do with that material. I'll let you know once I'm done with the manga and the live action TV show, of which I expect a lot. It looks cheesy, but it's supposedly beloved by both fans of the manga and fans of the old anime, and that's quite a feat. It also means I'll probably just hate it, but who knows. I often ask myself that. I complained about every new Star Wars movie sind 1999, but I still went to watch them at the theatres every time one came out. Midnight premieres, even. Every single time. Except for Solo, because that did not have a midnight premiere because Disney didn't want one. But what else can I do? I expect this to tank anyway, with or without my viewership, so I'm confident and take solace in knowing it will not make a difference. Ultimately it's just sad, this will be the first Sailor Moon experience for many people, and it'll probably just make thm never try it ever again. Yesterday it was still in Netflix' top 10 things here, today it no longer is. I'm guessing that's done and dusted already. That's very considerate of you. What do you mean with data to burn, uhm, do you have some download limit? Cardcaptor Sakura is also only the like second thing on Netflix I've given a thumbs up. It easily earned that.

Nail fungus is a lot better than that, so... sure. It's a good film, actually. It's just not a good Cardcaptor Sakura episode, which is more what I wanted...

The opening of the second part of Sailor Moon Eternal was probably the best sequence, Setsuna's death in the second season aside perhaps, of the entire run of Crystal so far. It's similar to the first few filler arc episodes of Sailor Stars insofar as that it deals with Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru living together, until Sailor Saturn awakens and pretty much ruins their dream of a quiet little life together. Hotaru still goes full Mysterious Waif of course, and it seems that part of the filler arc for Sailor Stars was inspired by material made for the previous manga arc. Everyone also has loads and loads of visions of the other characters being naked. What a bummer for the Ami x Makoto shippers, that meant nothing guys, everyone dreams of each other without clothes on. I have no idea why. In the old anime, all the nudity (of which there isn't much, compared to underwear) serves to showcase spiritual purity. Except Haruka's bare butt, that just showed that she didn't care and served more as a weirdo threat. Not sure that Haruka is a decent vehicle for fanservice, so I doubt it was meant that way. Or if it was, at least it's not the only thing that was implied with it (much like Asuka dangling her breasts in front of Shinji in NGE). Here... I'm not entirely sure. Haruka also runs around with an almost completely unbuttoned shirt, and Setsuna wears a see through crop top with a black bra and ultra short hot pants. I'm guessing it's hot outside, just like the other girls told us last movie. It's so hot outside you guys. Oh, right, I forgot, our goddess of love, Minako, was the only girl in Crystal so far to have gotten a panty shot in the last film. It was pretty brief and in a fight, but it was there. At least it's the only one I can remember, so this comes with a caveat, I really didn't pay all that much attention while watching Crystal. The opening is over, and we're now going back to the storyline. Which means... I'm guessing there's like 70 minutes of stupid action, some silly exposition and an unsatisfying resolution ahead where Sailor Murder Death Kill blasts off the head of Nehelenia or something or other. Or maybe Setsuna blasts her away with her GDI Ion Cannon. In case you forgot. ION CANNON READY. Just in case that's region locked... To the manga's credit, assuming that is taken directly from it, that came out roughly around the same time, or earlier than Command & Conquer, so any similarities to the secret ending of the GDI campaign is unlikely to have been intentional from either party. If this is an invention from Crystal, then there's no real excuse. Look at Kane being hit in the Nod Temple in Saraj... Tokyoevo. Hahaha. Jeez, the Outer Senshi transform. How lazy was the modelling team in making the bodies for the girls here. Haruka gets a massive boob upgrade in the transformation simply because her body is a copy of Michiru's. Or... vice versa. Minako you silly, how did you EVER think Haruka was a boy? Wait, I complained about that the last time they tansformed in back in season 3. Even their transformations are just color swaps of each other's. I mean, with some added hair for Michiru and a water instead of a wind effect. Uhm... whatever. Minako: "Hey Artemis, you're back to being a cat." Literally the only reaction from anyone so far to the revelation that Artemis is from Stephen King's Sleepwakers. Sure, it's not like there's any time for reaction, we're back to breakneck story pacing, but guys really, you can't drop a bomb like that and then NOT do anything with it. I wonder if Mina will say anything about him being a metamorphic were-cat vampire that oggles her while under the shower and siphons her energy while she's not looking. Have you forgotten that he admitted that he was the reason you could not transform? He also handed her the new transformation crystal. Probably leftovers from a meal or two. Zirconia shows up with some Bond level villain exposition. Good job. She attacks Mamoru and Usagi, Pedosus intervenes and the attack turns both into children. Pedosus teleports both away, presumably to his creepy ass Crystal Lake where he's taking all the young ones to have fun with them. Yeah, so that just confirms it. Pedosus isn't satisfied with Chibi-Usa. Sailor Satan and Chibi-Moon run off alone. That's going to be fun. They bond over wanting to fight together, and the fight the Amazoness Quartet, convince them to hear them out (well, Sailor Satan does) and... Zirconia shows up, transforms the four into little round balls representing their asteroid selves and traps Super Chibi-Moon and Satan in a glass shard. They're now lying at the feet of Nehelenia. Good job everyone. Mamoru and Usagi are meanwhile back to normal. Pedosus tells them that his Crystal Lake fixed them. Still waiting for Jason's mother to slaugther him. Is that going to happen? Probably not. Anyway, again, nothing comes out of this change. The animators were even lazy enough to make the transition back happen off-screen. What was the point of doing that again? Right, it probably had a point in the manga that was simply glossed over from one issue to the other because Ms. Takeuchi had no time to do anything with it. Well, Pedosus, Usagi and Mamoru unlock Mamoru's golden crystal, his... uhm, silver crystal equivalent. Looks like it's not Pedosus' horn this time. Okay, whatever. Zirconia shows up and things get borderline experimental. She obliterates Mamoru and Usagi by casting Flesh to Stone, then they crumble away, but they're not really dead - well, duh - and now... are somewhere, doing something. Usagi is glowing with a purple-pinkish outline. I have no idea what's going on. Artemis, Luna and Diana are back in the super secret command bunker. Luna and Diana never left there, but how did Artemis get there? It's been like five minutes since he transformed back into his cat form. Wait, I forgot, everyone can teleport or fly in this whenever the plot demands it, but they conveniently forget it every time it's necessary for dramatic effect. Speaking of flying, nobody did that yet. This just in: Mamoru just slapped Usagi. Yep. I mean, that happened. PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER he tells her. *whack* I'm guessing this is still some sort of nightmare. Zirconia is the size of a Kaiju now, and Haruka swears her undying loyalti to Slapped!Usagi and says something like "we only live and dream through you and your light", come on guys, really? I get it that you're super into your future king and queen and all that, but this is ridiculous. They Sailor Planet Attack Kaiju!Zirconia, and she turns back to normal size, then leaves the scene. Guess that slap was real then. Good on you Mamoru, lord knows there were moments in SuperS where I wanted to slap Usagi myself. Except, in this, she was mostly okay. Also, as usual, NOTHING came out of them all being turned into stone or not. Usagi runs after Zirconia and ends up standing in front of Nehelenia, then uses her giant schlong shaped Pegasus scepter thingy to free Satan and Super Chibi-Moon. Sailor Moon's and Chibi-Moon's combined attack shatter the reality behind the mirror. Literally, into tiny pieces, the other girls begin pounding on Nehelenia's mirror. This sure has turned into something else. Satan picks up the Sailor Asteroid balls. I mean, okay, at this point we don't really know that yet, but really, who gives a f*ck. Everyone and everything in this is a Sailor Princess of some sort. Even Rei's ravens. Everyone teleports to Elysion and are greeted by two women who introduce themselves as Maenads. That's pretty weird, because Maenads were women in the retinue of Dionysus and they were raving mad (hence the name - raving ones) and would often dance themselves into a state of intoxicated euphoria. These two are... calm, reserved and meek, but hey, what do you expect from someone called Helios who is neither a sun god nor fits in with the rest of the mythological basis. I wrote an essay-style post on that earlier, anyway. *checks time* There's still 30 minutes left. Yay, the Dead Moon's Spelljammer ship is back, as is the mirror with Nehelenia in it. I swear Nehelenia's already ample bosom is getting more ample every time she shows up. She probably has back problems and is always grumpy because of that. Might I suggest breast reduction surgery? Or magic, in your case. Your back will thank you for it. Nehelenia reflects Sailor Moon's MOON GORGEOUS MEDITATION and they're trapped inside Pedosus' plastic schlong kaleidoscope now. What in the what now? Usagi has a vision of her mother. This is downright bizarre. Because Michiru is there, it falls to her to state the obvious. Poor Rei, now she can't even do the one thing she was good for in the other seasons. I think that counter will stay at one by the looks of it. Six year old versions of Sailors Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter show up and gush over a newly born Princess Serenity. They're super happy to swear their undying loyalty to protecting her. This is me right now: Warning, this video is SUPER disturbing. Much like everything else from Halo 5. Nehelenia shows up to Serenity's birthday party and is sealed away by Queen Serenity, but not before cursing the baby. My, we're back to very traditional European fairy tales. Okay, sure, I'm certain they're all totally fascinating for Japanese people. Nehelenia also does a "there can be no light without darkness" spiel. Psh. Honestly, never thought I'd say this, but her backstory in SuperS was better than this. Nehelenia grabs Usagi's silver crystal. Looks like it's up to Slapmoru now to save the day. What am I watching? What is this? Mamoru and Usagi kiss, and that shatters the Kaleidoscope reflection, the silver crystal teleports back to Usagi, the two summon GIANT BALLS OF LIGHT, everyone else detransforms from Sailor Guardians to princesses wearing fancy dresses (yes, even Haruka). Artemis, Luna and Diana are transported from the SUPER SECRET COMMAND BUNKER to Elysion, and transformed into their human forms. Oh, right, and Nehelenia insinuated that the people of the Silver Milennium were extraterrestrial in origin too. Sure, why not. Everyone's a Sailor Princess, and everyone's an alien. Works for me. EVERYONE SEES Absinthe-Fairy versions of themselves. Drink more responsibly you guys. Besides, you're like 15, you're not really supposed to drink liquor yet. Ami, you should know that's bad for you. Proof that I'm not making this up: Drink less absinthe, you guys. Or alternatively, do less LSD, and keep that stuff away from Hotaru! Minako shows off her impeccable fashion sense, kek. The fairies tell the princesses to, uhm, give Sailor Moon their power. Yeah so... I guess Usagi is about to sprout wings now. Assuming the wings weren't made up for Sailor Stars. Nope, they weren't. Usagi has wings now. There's a closeup of Haruka to be seen. Every time she's shown in a close up, her boobs go up two cup sizes. It's mesmerizing. There's also some Haruka, Setsuna, Michiru and Minako side boob to be seen. Sure. Why not. I feel this need to post proof every time, and I resisted most of it, but have a look. I'm certainly NOT exaggerating for effect here. That's no moon, it's a chest! What the hell. With everyone's power combined Usagi melts Nehelenia's face and smashes her mirror. Good job. Still 15 minutes left. Will this ever end? Did you guys think Chibi-Usa yelling PEGASUS is annoying? Try her yelling HELIOS all the time. Usagi cleanses the four asteroid balls. Guess the girls will be back now. ParaPara! And there we go with the kids swearing undying loyality to Chibi-Moon. My life for Sto'Vo'Kor! Aren't you all little Klingons. Helios summons Pegasus to ride on. Okay. Chibi-Moon stares at him and is probably thinking of some hot female-male-horse threesome action, but instead says: He really looks like a prince on a white horse. I'm convinced that White Horse is the code name for the drug everyone involved in this production was on while making it. For Naoko Takeuchi that was probably just sleep deprivation. Yay, done, and over. Finally. Here's to hoping they make Stars a series again, because that was painful to sit through. No post-credit scene this time. Well, at least Rei wasn't completely useless this time. I wonder when - if at all - the Sailor Side Boobs will be back. I'm kinda looking forward to it now. This is really good stuff. *snort* Pretty good kick. *snort* Sparkles! *snort*

Minor ramblings on Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie As much as I loved the series, this one has all the problems of turning an excellently working 25 minute setup into a feature length film. Sailor Moon wisely avoided this by far and large by making the specials 50 minutes offerings, and with that the length of a two parter episode. At the end of the day, the Sailor Moon films were but better animated standalone episodes. Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie, on the other hand, is a better animated... regular anime film with the same characters from the show. To keep this as spoiler free as possible, it features Sakura and Shaoran some of the cards they already have at this point in time, and Sakura captures a new one that is exclusive to the film. The biggest problem of it - in my opinion - is that it turns the Sakura episode formula into something more movie like and loses some of its special magic in the process. What do I mean by that? Well when you watch the regular anime, the episodes have a threat of some kind - except for two episodes that simply don't (episodes 16 and 54) - and this threat is integrated rather well into the world. It just happens, and often is more annoying than dangerous. It serves as the backdrop against which everything else happens, and that everything else is really, really, really good. Can't stress that enough. The second arc already loses a part of that charm by making the threat something external that has a directing will, rather than what the first one is about, that Sakura accidentially scatters Clow cards that, with no direction given, simply do what they were designed to do on their own. The movie... is all about an external threat. One that is, distractingly, voiced by Megumi Hayashibara, otherwise known as Rei Ayanami. Distractingly so because she sounds virtually indistinguishable from Rei. The other character that's new and has a recognizable voice is Shaoran's mother, who is voiced by SERA ARUMINUM SIREN. Sorry, I mean, Sailor Aluminum Siren. But the voice acting problems aside, because these are very subjective and probably bother just me, while it still is very Cardcaptor Sakura-ish at heart, the film is way too heavy on the storyline and not enough about Sakura and her interactions with other characters. I get the necessity. The film needed to justify its presence in theaters and its existence to people who don't follow the show regularily, and if you'd just make it one long 90 minute sequence of Tomoyo stalking Sakura that would have been fun for fans, but certainly wouldn't have drawn in any new viewers. There still is Tomoyo fangirling about Sakura, of course, and there's the obligatory faceplant of Sakura when Tomoyo talks about her and the costumes. But there isn't enough of it. Nope! Here's a supercut of Tomoyo fangirling in the movie: Spoilers, obviously, if you click on it! It's only 5 minutes. Out of 90. As I said. NOT ENOUGH. Not nearly enough. There's some other fun stuff, of course, but yeah, too much time spent on the storyline. One wich is perfectly fine, don't get he wrong, overall this is an enjoyable film, it just doesn't have the same magical feeling as many of the regular episodes have. Counting out the intro chase for the new card, we're talking about 35 minutes of Sakura and friends doing stuff and meeting people and the rest spent on the storyline. Storyline spoilers: Still, very well made film that certainly deserved the awards it won, if viewed as a standalone film. As part of the larger Cardcaptor Sakura universe, it's... an average episode, I think. It's hard to keep the two things apart, and it's a strange feeling. It was an enjoyable experience to watch it, just not what I wanted from it. The fault might be entirely mine. Looking forward to what @Bartimaeus thinks of it.

That it really does, doesn't it? It's baffling. I think the two are male, and they're twins called Xenotime and Zeolite. They're in the movie, like all random bad guys, for like five minutes. They throw the daggers at Minako and trap her on the ground. From what the wiki has told me while looking up if that is in the manga like that, Minako spends some time afterwards apologizing for all the abuse she's given him. Of which there wasn't much in Crystal so far, I'm guessing that comes more from Sailor V and maybe a manga scene or two. Not sure. I wonder if he apologizes for watching her bathe. Minako is at leats 15 now, but he started out with her when she was 13, the old creep. No wonder Minako yelled at him in Sailor Moon R for looking at her change. But yes, the cats actually being transformed humans (or vice versa) has very unfortunate implications seeing how often Usagi and Minako mistreated them. Luckily that isn't canon for the 90ies anime. Otherwise the S movie wouldn't have had a special short time Luna transformation.

I know, I wish I could.