majestic

I do have a tendency to overanalyse things, but here we go. Warning, major overanalysis for a three minute scene incoming... So, how surprising is it really that the story parts are the weakest of the show? Geez.

I really wanted to watch Sailor Moon bad enough to ask. Heh. See, Sailor Moon even manages to inspire character growth in real people. Heh. You know what's really bad, when I talk about the good old times like they were "yesterday" at work and our 20-something colleagues look at me as if I'm a random crazy person yelling at them in the streets for thinking about something that happened 25 years ago as having happened "not too long ago".

These alt-right types believe the left has a secret muslim agenda because they're not immediately engaging in blanket racism by assuming that every single muslim is a backwards, regressive dork with a little terrorist hidden inside that just wants to break free. But I honestly have no idea what the big issue is that conservatives have with muslims. Muslims are just at a point where conservatives want to go back to all the time. Wife at home, not being allowed to go outside or work and just act as breeding machines and child reares, right? Plus they get to throw stones at the gays. Is that envy?

Here's one random bit of information that I haven't mentioned yet, and it is a complete tangent, but back when I first played World of Warcraft after the EU launch my first two characters were: In hindsight not the most creative of choices, huh? Still, that shows just how long the anime resonated with me. The first run was over for, uhm, 6 or 7 years at that point (the point where it ran on TV here, not when it came out, that was more like 10 years then, and 8 years for S, I think, yes, S aired '97). Apparently either Blizzard trashed the characters or messed something up with their server changes because they're no longer visible in the armory. A pity. When the anime ran on TV it was sometime in the afternoon, like 14:00 or 15:00 or so, with me being in school until 16:30 or longer every single day I had to ask my parents to tape it so I could watch later. That was... something. "Hey mom, can you tape Sailor Moon for me?" "Sure, what's that?" "Oh nothing, just a cartoon about pretty superheroes in miniskirts meant for young girls." "Whatever you want dear (read: weirdo)." And my brother was all over that too, like "haha look he's watching girl shows again."

What in the blazing inferno of infinite layers of the abyss is that?

Well you constantly need to be reminded that the character with the glowing weird eyes that can absorb the life energy of people and monsters with a mere touch is perhaps bad. Could forget that if they don't properly address her with her full name all the time. Sort of. Welcome to the endgame of S, anyway. ****'s about to go down hard from now on. Speaking of great dads and moms, slight Sailor Stars new character spoiler, click at your discretion:

Good to know, then I'll stop bothering with the Crystal videos. Dunno what's the issue here, Toei doesn't seem to mind the clips on YT. But what do I know, perhaps Viz knows it is better to protect the US from this show. Anyway, regarding Ami, it is ok. Haters gonna hate. Just kidding. I originally thought I'd make a more interesting post out of it but then lost track, but really, my favorite characters shuffled around a bit. There's a fun little joke (and one less fun) in the episode of S where Usagi gets her English test back, the one where she's got only 5 points. One of the questions on it was translating the word bubble from English into Japanese. It's not like her friend Ami runs around casting bubbles at enemies all day long for 60 episodes. Eh, but there's also a jokey question about someone accidentially picking up a new-half, so uhm. Best not to pause and read her English tests. Sakurada-sensei seems to be a real weirdo.

The best TW game is clearly the first Rome: Total War. The unit balance was hilarious. That is all.

Sailor Moon Crystal, Episode 16. Random naming fun fact of the day: Mizuno Ami literally means Water's Beautiful Center (or better put but less literal Beautiful Center of Water). Unless you want to read Ami as french loan word for friend. Which would make her name mean Water's Friend (Friend of Water). Since names never have Hiragana or Katagana it could be both if the Kanji representing her name were picked for sounding like Ami. Friend of Water makes more sense for Ami, right? Whelp, since I forgot this for Rei's Crystal Episode. Hino Rei - Fire's Spirit / Spirit of Fire.

Burning snow is usually used to "prove" Chemtrails. I had no idea that Bill Gates is involved with that too. Man... what doesn't he do?

Yeah, she got your and you're wrong on the note. Twice. Plus the guy who edited the video did so too, but just once.

So, in case you thought I wouldn't respond to your little snide remark towards Ami here: You were wrong! Ami is... <insert character defense here>. So let's talk characters a bit now that I'm done rewatching the entire run of Sailor Moon, and I'll be talking about them purely in their civilian form. I'll leave discussing who has the cooler super powers or the better attacks to fans of the manga where these discussions belong. First time I watched Sailor Moon, indeed, I loved Ami. I still do, don't get me wrong, but it no longer is the same. My life simply moved to a point where she's no longer the most relevant of the characters for me, plus the parts that could still be relevant are criminally underused. I really enjoyed watching her fangirl about on the internet in SuperS and in real life in Sailor Stars and being all embarrassed about it when asked, but this happens in three or four episodes out of 200, and she has one episode where she wonders if there's more to her life than what she's currently doing. While this is probably one of the best episodes in Sailor Moon S, and perhaps even of the entire run, it's... not enough. Not any more. The top spot now goes to Makoto and her attempts to move past being an outsider. Now to be fair to all the other characters, each of them - before meeting Usagi - is an outsider all on their own for various reasons. People are scared of Rei's abilities, think Ami is an aloof nerd girl looking down on them and Minako has all the problems that a girl realistically would have if she for some reason turned into a crime fighting super hero at age 13. Makoto though, Makoto's issues stem from an unhealthy body image and her lack of self-esteem and self-respect that come from that. That is something that will always stay relevant for me. Not that she gets more attention than Ami in focus episodes, but the relevance of her problems and how she deals with them is present all the time, so hey, here we go. It makes more sense in Crystal and in the manga (it's there according to the wiki) because we meet Minako like three quarters into Sailor Moon's 46 episodes (man, really, why couldn't they just number the seasons?) and by the time the other Senshi have had a good deal of interaction, character development and fighting as a team. Since they do none of that in Crystal, Minako being sensible and taking up a leadership role makes perfect sense. She stumbles upon a freshly awoken team of girls desperately in need of guidance. In Crystal, like in the manga, she also pretends to be Princess Serenity until Usagi's memories surface. Giving Rei a more active role and Minako a more goofball one was an adaptational necessity for the format, having to come up with 4 or 5 episodes between manga chapter releases.

Final thoughts on Epsiode 15: Okay, this was better than anything in the first 14 episodes. Sadly, with the way it ended, it also heralds that this is going to be the last time in this season where anything that's not break neck speed story stuff will happen. I hope I'm mistaken because the first half of the episode was actually enjoyable (if not entirely pretty to look at). I'll give this episode one more thing. It actually made me not dreading to watch the next one. What an odd feeling. 's got to be Stockholm syndrome.

Huh, look at that. Episode 15 of Crystal has the girls sitting at the Crown Fruit Parlor eating ice cream, just talking a little, enjoying the peace and quiet. Rei already had a premonition about that changing really soon but doesn't have the heart to tell the others. Regarding the animation, either I'm starting to have Sailor Moon Crystal Stockholm syndrome or this is really better looking than it was in the first season. But probably just an illusion. Although, wait, the video I have here is from the BR version, which really has improved animation compared to the original streaming release.

From what I've heard in Sailor V, yes it is. Sailor Moon manga, well, no idea yet. So far I've only read chapters that invovled Ami, Rei and Makoto from the first and the fourth arc. Definitely not in Crystal. She's the sensible leader type there. The one with experience the other girls turn to, and bringer of lots of exposition. Let's see what the second season brings.

The first arc in the manga has as many chapters as Crystal has episodes. A few details are different between Crystal and the manga, but the pacing is the same. The problem is the somewhat faithful adaptation of the source material. The manga, at least in the first arc, spares no time for silly things like character development. This does get better a bit with time, but not entirely. It remains really fast paced and really short too. Like I said, a chapter in the manga is 30 to 45 pages, and some of these pages are single images, or pages with a mere two panels. There is a reason for this, aside from not being the best writer (sorry manga fans, but that's the truth), Naoko Takeuchi was immensely pressed for time, having to come up with a chapter for Sailor V and Sailor Moon every month. There is a copious amount of asspulls in the storyline, like Ami's super dimensional time shield, her teleportation, the secret moon base power generator... geez. This reads, by far and large, like a first draft release of everything, with some editor interference. Kind of like Pr. Plinkett thinks the Star Wars prequel scripts were made. Supposedly Ami should have been a cyborg. There are also rumors that she wanted Rei and Minako to have a relationship but was shot down. While there's nothing that would substantiate this, I've seen several manga panels that, well, let's say that they do have immense homoerotic subtext (plus Ms. Takeuchi liked to draw artwork that wasn't in the manga that made it even more clear). It's by no means canon, but there's also the fact that Ares and Aphrodite were secret lovers in Greek mythology (a great pairing that produced Phobos and Deimos, i.e. fear and terror...). Oh, and this is what we're talking about when it comes to "subtext" - going by the looks of the third character this is from Stars (that's probably Yaten, which would actually be hilarious, since he's really a she). I'm pretty sure a lot of really hot and steamy Minako x Rei fanfiction sprang from this. Actually, and before someone comes along to post and accuse me of homophobia, I don't really care if the two are lovers, secretly or otherwise. It wouldn't fit the first anime version, but that's something else entirely. Rei was changed there, in my opinion, for the better, because she... well she actually has a personality in the original anime. Dedicated Miko with psychic powers who does not like men (i.e. is casually sexist framed as being fine, beause she's a girl - although Rei has every reason to dislike men what with her manga backstory and all, try to invert the genders for a moment and imagine the reaction this would get) isn't terribly interesting on its own. Doubly hilarious in Crystal where Rei has the personality of a dead fish but introduces herself as Sailor Mars, the soldier of flame and passion. Yeah right. Flame and passion. There's no passion in any of the first Crystal arc, but least of all from Rei. But the actual silly issue with the subtext, why not simply go and make it official? TL;DR: The original anime did really well to shed the shackles of the source material and adapt story beats that fit but left a whole bunch of nonsense out that should never have made it in the manga in the first place. Like the super secret control bunker, the power generator on the moon or that suicide plot.

Well, that was the first arc of Crystal. Or the first season, however you want to call that. IC, you should NOT read this. I mean, not until you're done with the first season. You don't have much left anyway. Phew. So what do you think, is the next arc going to be as awesome? Not entirely sure, but they do have a new director and a new writer for the third season (and the new movies from this year, and any perhaps coming adaptations for Stars). The animation looks completely different too, might as well be a completely new show. 4K difference video, I hope that one isn't locked in the US as well: Still don't really like the way it looks, but it certainly is a major improvement nonetheless. Final thoughts:

it's worth the experience for me. I feel like writing George Lucas a three hundred page apology letter for all the mean things I said about his Star Wars prequels. However! Apparently they fired everyone for the third season and redesigned the animation and used different writers. There's a chance that Crystal's version of S is going to be good. Or, at least, not 50 Shades of Grey level terrible.

Uhm, girls, you forgot to take your Legendary Sacred Sword with you. Hey, uhm. I don't think Luna and Artemis can carry that on their own. No, nope. They just teleported to the moon and left it lying there. Okay. Humm, humm, ho humm. It's starting to brainwash me too. This is great stuff. In the same way the Masters of the Universe movie was great. edit: Ah, it's okay. The Legendary Sacred Sword teleports itself into Sailor Venus' hand when she needs it. This is fine. She doesn't even need to pull it out of the Sorting Hat. edit 2: HOLY COW. Sailor Moon survived running herself through with the Legendary Sacred Sword which was shown two or so episodes ago to destroy even the hardest materials possible at the barest touch because it was deflected by Crystal's version of the Star Locket - Mamoru's moon phase pocket watch. edit 3: Oh look, Prince Endymion survived being slashed in half by the sword too, because that blow was deflected by four crystals pieces made of jadeite, zoisite, kunzite and, yeah, you guessed it, nephrite. Wow. Such awesome. Hey maybe SuperS wasn't that bad. Fly on the wings of love!

Everything looks terrible, but you're not supposed to look up spoilers for the parts where you aren't yet. I mean... not that it really matters for Sailor Moon, but still. Clearly so much better than the original anime version. Cleary. Because that's what Sailor Moon needed, a murder-suicide over love. People in the comments talking about Romeo and Juliet is somewhat strange too. No evil energy being corrupted Romeo, and they both commited suicide. And yes, the girls barely interact with each other.

Okay, so I'm going to leave this here and try to get some sleep. Oh and yes, also, straight up from the manga, I just checked that chapter to make sure.

The more I hear about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure the more bizarre it becomes. Also, I'll just quote the Sailor Moon Wiki here for something that just happened in Crystal: You go girl, you go. I think I'll skip the manga for the time being, because that is really... directly taken from it. Holy crap.

Sailor Moon Crystal: Rei's psychic powers in Sailor Moon Crystal is as useless as Deanna Troi's empathy in Star Trek: The Next Generation. It could be an interesting trait for her to have, but all she does is say "I have a bad feeling." whenever something is obviously wrong or "what immense evil energy!" when the girls are being blasted by Evil <insert color> Energy Blasts of Doom(tm). Usagi runs out of the Crown Arcade being noticably upset and super creeped out about something. Makoto and Ami are seeing her and go like: "Poor Usagi, I hope everything is all right." Yeah sure, does she look all right to you? They're screwed without Rei there to tell her that she's got a really baaaaaaaaaad feeling about this. No need to spoiler this seeing how IC already met Sailor Jupiter. How can anyone prefer this to the original anime?