majestic

Next up you'll be facing a six episode filler arc in Sailor Stars. It's... well it's better than SuperS, but, eh, yeah. You'll see. edit: Thanks for the gif. Dear god.

Congratulations, I feel like you didn't like the ending too much. How... surprising. Final toughts on SuperS? Like, greatest season ever, right? RIGHT? Even joking about that turd is boring. I don't know anything about DotA other than it is a MOBA, which is everything that I don't like about RTS games condensed into a new genre. That's why I asked, but that answers another question, namely if knowing anything about DotA is necessary to enjoy the anime.

Gotta ask... how do you make a story out of DotA? Like Battleship the movie did?

Then... you're a... no, actually, that's fair. My opinion of the first season changed a good deal in the rewatch. It was pretty good, actually. I'd put it up there with R nowadays (maybe even ahead... not sure). Before I would have ranked it above SuperS because what else other than crotch rot would be ranked below that, but not as better or even equal to the other seasons. That's probably also because I joined watching in the middle of the run, with the team almost fully assembled already. The filler arc of R was less good than I remembered it being, even if Makoto trying to explain food and love to Ali is still one of the highlights for me (I've read that the live action TV show actually made Makoto get a husband - and while it was Motoki out of all people, good on the show to do that), and the R storyline wasn't nearly as interesting or good as I remembered. Nor was Chibi-Usa as annoying. The first season had something the others didn't - more time to do random things. It's the season with the most episodes and the fewest of them being used on manga storyline focused adaptations. At a first glance R had a lot of episodes too, but it has two storylines to follow and much more story focus at the end, so it's effective episode count to do fun or exploratory things with the characters wasn't much higher than that of S. The reason why I rank S higher than R or the first season (the fandom calls the first season Sailor Moon Classic, but that's really not a good idea now that there's Crystal, first it has the same abbreviation in SMC and Classic could be taken to mean all of the 90ies anime now) is because it's the only time the storyline episodes are actually fairly decent. Maybe even good, so they feel less of a waste of screentime. Sailor Stars clearly got the short end of the stick there. Which is unfortunate, because I would have liked more episodes with the other characters. But that was kind of doomed to fail in the first place, with 10 Sailor Guardians, Mamoru and the three new characters to write about and only 34 20 minutes episodes, good luck with that. Live action TV series with 26 episodes per season, a 45 minute runtime and a cast of five have problems giving their characters equal screen and focus time. Let alone equal quality. And SuperS... well who gives a damn. Yeah, "rumor" has it Sorbo had a problem because he didn't understand the stories or what was going on and wanted more focus on himself. Well, can't change that, it is what it is. RWH at some point released a screenplay of an Andromeda episode where he revealed what his originan plans for the show were. I'm not entirely sure I would have liked where this was going to be going, but it was an interesting concept, and the sheer scope of it was audacious, to say the least. It was also the only show I've come across that has done consistently interesting timetravel episodes. I mean, yeah, "consistently", there's like two of them, one of which copies the Star Trek TNG finale's concept of something affecting the present that has yet to happen in the future, and the other one is really just there to give some of the characters a massive moral problem to resolve (and to establish some character traits) that happens very early in the show. Actually, the first time travel episode was what sold me on the show, and it only got better from there. For a while, at least.

Your talk of troubled production made me go and look at Andromeda quotes. They sure wrote a lot of memorable stuff in the first two seasons. Later, not so much. The dialogue is a huge part of what I love about the show, but it's not just that, the character interactions are great and they slowly built up everything. Tech invented or found in one episode would come up later (this was early 2000 and all we had at that point was Star Trek forgetting almost every piece of new tech right after the episode ended no matter how useful it would have been later... mostly). Anyway, the mid season 2 point is where Robert Hewitt Wolfe took a stand and said this far, no further, and... got fired over it. Just ran across one of my favorites, it always makes me laugh. The crew except for the gruff mercenary type with uncertain loyalties (Tyr) and the pilot (Beka) are waiting on the ship, and they're bored, so Tyr decides to make dinner and invites Beka. He surprises her with a fully set table, including some candles. Beka Valentine: Where did you get the candles? Tyr Anasazi: I rendered them from the fat of my enemies. The line is delivered in such a perfectly deadpan fashion. Heh. Eh, enough of that. I do enjoy it well enough, and the few story related episodes I've seen so far were great, I also like the little hints here and there. So far it's a little uneven indeed, but hey, that was the first season of Sailor Moon too, and it wasn't before the middle of R that I knew I loved it, and the rewatch elevated the first season for me. Uhm, so don't mistake the lack of any essays as not appreciating it. If the one two parter so far is any indication for later then I'll end up loving this show for sure. It is better, but I'm not sure you will like it any better. It does retread old ground and feels derivative, and given your feelings on Ami's SuperS power-up episode which was perfectly fine and well made (not just for a SuperS episode, but in general) because of reused plot points I'm not entirely certain that it'll be all that interesting for you. On the other hand, @InsaneCommander seems to love it, so hell if I know. That's the problem with these either hate or love it seasons. While SuperS is generally considered the worst outside of a few weirdos who think that the first was the best season and thought S was trash that only die-hard fans of the show could enjoy, there's really a strange divide on Sailor Stars. There's the anime fans that love it and think it's the best thing ever (or second best, next to S), the anime fans that hate it, and the manga readers who think that everything after the first season was bad because it didn't follow the manga closely enough.

Well, then I got something to look forward to, at least once I wake up. Planning on turning in before midnight for a change. I'm kinda tired... and really hungry. I'm liable to break my fasting if I stay up any longer. Meh.

Yeah... yeah. Why would this be any different than the rest of SuperS? I think I forgot to mention that part of this dumpster fire somewhere. *checks* Yep, I did. Man. Sorry. Anyway, Steven Universe edit: More SU:

That reminds me of something...

If anyone's interested, this is the German dub of the scene. Again time coded for your convenience.

Indeed, that's somewhat harmless, especially because at the point it happens you're much more distracted by the rape gang that's marauding the streets of Tokyo and you could possibly assume that their interactions are more innocent than they appear, even if a weird horse with wings installing a video camera system in a 9 year old's bedroom is a tad strange. But anyway, watching every other season of Sailor Moon is still worth it. You can skip SuperS entirely. Mostly. You'll probably not understand a single scene in the Stars filler arc, but hey, who cares about that.

Okay. Done. Pls don't hate on me. Anyway, yeah, I think I mentioned that in my write up, of which there is only one, the ending wouldn't be half bad if not attached to that season of horrors. For a Sailor Moon season end, I mean.

KP already read it and thought it was too harmless given the people involved. Started the story stuff of SuperS yet?

I was hoping you'd say that. PM sent. Enjoy. Or, more likely, not... heh. edit: With ideas like that, maybe I should apply to the SuperS revival writing team, we could come up with an even more disturbing Pedosus.

So, some thoughts on this. I'll put it in spoiler tags not for spoilering, but so that reading it is optional. No, it's not the actual fiction and I will also outline how I even came to think about it, why it's never going to be finished and just how far along I really was... and this is really less to let you guys know about but to get it out of my head, although I wouldn't mind some feedback - just on the general concept and my reason(s) for discarding it. TL;DR: I think I can lay this to rest now in my mind. I hate my brain. edit: Never mind, that's way too problematic to leave here. @Bartimaeus, @ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP if you're interested, I'll PM you the details. Let me know!

I'd also never pick on Rei. Or any of the other girls. They're my friends and I love them. Quick googling reveals that the pink overalls are Rei's third most worn outfit. Not sure if there's a list somewhere, but that sure sounds like it.

Episode 21 of Sailor Moon, the one with the anime studios, where the girls call her out on being a hypocrite after saying anime is for kids and then totally going to check out the studio anyway. Eh... also one of the more hilarious scenes from the DiC dub: She sure wears these overalls a lot. Like for three seasons. Sounds like a plan.

Kids don't catch the gay from pedophiles. edit: Whelp, and here I am, again writing essays instead of doing useful things, like watching JoJo's or Steven Universe or working, or... What am I going to do with my life when you're all done watching Sailor Moon?

@Bartimaeus here's some Japanese Pegasus, @ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP this is from your upcoming episode, so don't click play unless you want to be prepared. You probably should, but anyway... spoilers! Oh, and by the way, @InsaneCommander, because you asked about why Rei's school has the shortest skirts, that's a complicated question, and one where you need to examine Japanese fashion trends and gender roles in the early 90ies and... eh, long story short, when you look at actual school uniforms of Japanese girls in the early 90ies, you'll notice that they aren't much longer (they're mostly just about the length of the other girls' uniforms, or maybe a tad shorter), and girls always tried to make their skirts even shorter, in order to appear more feminine and cute. Add to that Western catholic school uniforms, which are also usually relatively short, and you have the reason why. This is by far and large truth in television, not really fanservice like many people in the West simply assume when they see girls in skimpy skirts in anime. That comes from the presentation, overly, uhm, sizable breasts (especially for girls their age) and underwear*. Not the outfits on their own. Otherwise Sailor Moon wouldn't have such short skirts, Ms. Takeuchi copiously complained about the male gaze in the anime, but the designs really come from her and weren't meant to be sexist or fanservice, but Sailor Moon is still fairly mild on that. Early 90ies Japanese counterculture involved wearing longer skirts than usual, not making them shorter (unlike, say, when mini skirts first came up in the West, as a symbol to stick it to the conservative role image of the time). It's one of the things a Western viewer is liable to miss when looking at Makoto. Her not being able to wear a normal school uniform like the other girls have and the one she actually has having a long skirt marks her as an outsider, in addition to being overly tall, stronger than men and having wavy hair, making her an ancillery part of a counterculture she doesn't even want to belong to, and the reason why she's really wearing the regular school uniform in Sailor Stars even though it sometimes looks like it doesn't fit. I think that's deliberate, but I might be wrong. It could just be that she was drawn awkwardly in some episodes, I mean, Sailor Moon clearly has an A, B and intern animation team (and the aliens that animated the fourth episode of SuperS). That should also explain why Makoto and Ami both run around with short dresses or skirts when in regular civilian clothing even though they have selfesteem and body issues and in a Western setting would probably wear something that would draw much less attention. It's the normal thing to do for girls. Usagi doesn't give a rats ass about social conventions, so she wears all sorts of things, and Rei does too, outside her traditional miko outfit. I mean... pink overalls? Heh. *This goes back to the American occupation of Japan after WW2. The reason for this seemingly weird obession with (young) girl's underwear comes from a time where Japanese fashion changed and their traditional underwear (which was a piece of cloth a woman would wrap around her waist) could no longer be used. The only women who could afford Western style underwear however were the sex workers servicing US soldiers. Hence the really close association of underwear and sex. That and when skirts came up as fashionable, combined with never having worn Western style underwear, women ended up not really knowing how to move or sit without revealing too much, something that never was a problem with traditional koshimaki. Or in other words, the reason why there's such a panty obsession in Japan is squarely the fault of the United States.

Credit for Pedosus in this thread should be given to KP's fiancee, I think. I'm actually a little jealous because that rolls much easier off the virtual tongue than Creepasus.

Nothing like a proper guilt trip, huh? For fun guys, there's a video on YouTube that has every Chibi-Usa and Pegasus conversation through the Palantír with the new Viz dub (called Every Night Chibiusa Talks to Pedosus Pegasus in Sailor Moon SuperS (Viz Dub)). Not only does Pegasus get a really, perfectly creepy voice in that dub that screams sex offender... he apparently actually is one - or at least really abusive. Just... I mean, don't watch it, just go look at the comments. They're all so wrong. Oh, wait, screw that, I'll give you some quotes and a direct link. What IS wrong with people?

The art in Utena is really strange at first. It has some of the most gorgeous backdrops I've seen. They're really pretty, soft, and dreamlike. The characters on the other hand are a real contrast, sharply defined, standing out a bit from the backdrops. Usually, at least, there are times when the character are also presented like a watercolor painting, but that's going a bit too far now, and I haven't seen nearly enough to make any obersvations about what was intentional or just happenstance. The world itself has a technological level that's roughly at the mid 90ies of our time (digitla stopwatches, cars, modern sports, etc.) but at the same time is full of medieval imagery and mannerisms, like the duels, the castle, the academy itself which looks very much like a 17th/18th century European palace: The upside down castle and the duelling ring are inside the wood behind the buildings. It also has Utena slapping someone who touches her hair trying to "flirt" with her, so that was an instant win after Tuxedo Creep sniffing Usagi's hair in Crystal. Utena itself is also an interesting idea, while she's trying to emulate a fairy tale male role, she's still very much a girl (she even says so herself early on), not a woman who wants to be a man. She just wants a man's job, more or less (it' also very easy to infer her bisexual nature, just look at the image with her an Anthy, but it's not explicitly stated... not sure if it will be in the show itself - doesn't really matter either). Oh, and if you want to have another reason to watch: Rebecca Sugar said it was one of her favorites, and there are references in Steven Universe (but I guess that wiki list already told you that). edit: Oh, right, and because I was worried when I first read it, the episodes are all named Duel XX where XX is the epsiode number, but that does not mean every episode has a duel. But every duel does have a good deal of stock footage, but not to pad the runtime, that's an artistic choice this time.

It's not that the world is competely free of what could be seen as typical surrealist imagery, but it's mostly concentrated in the duelling ring. The duels are fought atop an unsupported spiral staircase underneath an upside down floating castle: Not really spoilers because first episode basic stuff: The duels themselves are fought to first blood, or at least Utena's version of first blood. Both duelists attach a rose to their lapel, and the aim is to cut the opponent's rose while protecting your own. Utena finds herself getting into one of the duels on accident in the first episode because she wanted to defend Himemiya Anthy's honor (the girl in the middle, also kown as the Rose Bride; Utena sees herself as, or rather, wants to be a prince or knight on a white horse, i.e. a fairy tale hero) after she sees what appears to be her fiancee abusing her. Seeing a rose ring on her finger, the other party accepts her challenge and tells her to come to the dueling ring behind the academy. Utena got the ring a long time ago from the person who inspired her to become a knight/prince, not really knowing what it is for, it signifies membership of the student council, a sort of elite shadow group of the academy with special assignments. Hence the rose imagery. Sub Rosa (link provided just in case). She brings a practice sword to an actual swordfight and ends up winning because the arrogant other party starts toying with her after her wooden sword is cut in half. Things then get really interesting for her, because these duels aren't fought for honor or practice, but for posession of the Rose Bride. In other words, she has just won the engagement to Anthy from her opponent. She's sufficently weirded out when she's assigned a separate dorm for only her and Anthy, who really starts treating her like a potential husband. Complete with being demure, cooking, cleaning and all the other things that good women are supposed to do for their spouses.

In the middle of SuperS when I was really not motivated to keep watching I watched the first six episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena after reading it was what half the Sailor Moon creative team went to make after they left Toei over creative differences. The anime is set in a surrealistic world (but not overly absurd or impressionistic, i.e. it's not like Puella Magi Madoka Magica's witch realms or Salvador Dalí's more prominent works) and is quite heavy on metaphors and imagery, you could probably take any number of scenes out of context and wonder what the hell is going on. I mean, look at this: You wouldn't get anything from that scene ripped out of context, other than perhaps a laugh or two, but it reflects... no, wait, it's shadows, not reflections, uhm... it's a stylized, warped projection of the sibling relationship between pair of twins. Or at least I think that's what it is supposed to be. I haven't kept watching because I want to finish the other shows I'm watching first. This really is something you need to focus on in order to appreciate.

Sure it's easy to blame the writers, and that's exactly what I did while watching SuperS. I posted about that in the older version of this thread, maybe even all the way back in the old TV one, trying to find some pattern. One writer that consistently wrote bad episodes while the others were good, perhaps, but nope. There's only one episode, the one with the Samurai girl, that can be blamed on that. It's from a writer with only one episode to her name (Mutsuri Nakano) . It was either so bad that they decided to immediately throw her out or she left after writing that one episode, I don't know (or it was Ms. Takeuchi in disguise) - but that might also explain some things, if she was supposed to write more than one episode and the team suddenly shrunk down, then there'd be more for the others to do. Much more. The other four writers - two new ones and two old ones - have a frustratingly even spread of less bad and terrible episodes in SuperS. The few good ones? Yeah, also spread out somwhat evenly. That is the really frustrating part, because the two old writers from the earlier seasons, Megumi Sugihara and Yoji Enokido wrote some of the top Sailor Moon episodes before SuperS (like the Ami and Minako focus episodes of Sailor Moon S). There is one thing that can perhaps be attributed to one particular writer. Genki Yoshimura wrote ALL the creepiest Fish-Eye stuff (fairy, ballet and fashion), but that's about it, on the other hand she also wrote the dentist episode. It would be unfair to blame her for the body switch episode, because that's a manga adaptation, and I don't know if you followed my posts, but that could have been much worse. The two new writers, including Ms. Yoshimura stayed on for Sailor Stars and made some of the best episodes in the season. So, no, what went wrong with SuperS isn't the fault of the writers. It looks more like they did the best they could or were allowed to do.

Not sure if lazy is the real problem here. Looks like the production of SuperS was a mess and it made half the team leave Toei afterwards. They probably just ran out of time and had to rush something out, why else combine their power ups into one episode. SuperS is just an endless series of baffling creative decisions. Ami's power up episode was written by the same writer, and even though it was derivative and retread old ground in terms of character development, it was nicely wrapped up, and certainly one of the better episodes in the season (possibly top 5 material, but that probably says less about the episode's quality and more about SuperS' lack thereof).