majestic

By the way, when I'm done and we're maybe doing the best episodes list, can I skip SuperS and instead give double the amount to S? SuperS is really the first season of the show where filler episodes actually feel like typical filler, even if it never gets to 20 minutes of internal monologue level bad. And even though I don't speak Japanese I swear I can hear them reusing voice samples all over the episodes. Or maybe kawaii is really a word used by 9 year old girls for everything they see. Jesus Christ Chibi-Usa.

I guess Minako got a bit of the short end of the stick when the director attempted to fix anime Rei's popularity by giving her some of the personality traits and story beats of Minako. Remember that season one episode where Rei organized that school festival and was shown to write music and sing? Yeah that's actually Minako's dream: To become a beloved pop idol, but Minako showed up really late in the first season and so there we are. At least she got to do a bit more in the third season. She gets more episodes where she's featured prominently and even is allowed to kick off the mid-season storyline reveals in an incredibly hilarious, dare I say very Minako-y, fashion.

There's a decent chance that my perception of Pegasus from the anime colored what I've read in the manga in a more negative light than what it might be, but otherwise, yeah, I'm sort of looking forward to your reaction to the entire plot of SuperS even though I'm not really looking forward to you watching this season... heh.

Watched three more episodes of SuperS. Oh, and while trying to look up who wrote which episode (hint: it apparently really doesn't matter) I've noticed that... Anyway, two of the three were only filler, one of them was fun filler, the other went back to this feeling that the writers tried to adapt parts of the manga that no longer have a place in the show. Or at least should have been set up better. But most likely left out. In a sense reading the manga helped me understand where the seemingly random creative choices come from, on the other hand it doesn't help at all in realizing why they were successful in transporting the intents and themes present in the Dream arc into the anime in some cases and not at all in others, and you can't even pin it on one writer being better than the others, because they all equally produced both good and supremely trashy episodes this season. Except for the one time they apparently had a guest writer. Only one credit to the name and the episode was forgettable, weird, and... about something or other, I'm sure (okay I obviously remember what it was about, but I want to use hyperbole to convey just how forgettable and alien that was). Story/somewhat filler episode discussion: Fun filler discussion: Odd flller discussion (this one has a minor connection to the manga that makes it all the more odd): Thematic discussion about Creepasus in the manga and in the anime (read this only if you don't want episode spoilers). I began reading the Dream arc in hopes for clarity, and all it did was make everything even more confusing. Ah well.

Wow, Speed Racer is a blast from the past. That ran here on TV ages ago, and I was so little at the time that I only have the barest of recollections. I know I'v watched some episodes on TV, the characters are familiar and that car he drove was awesome (at least as a kid). By the way, I checked, Steven Universe is available on Netflix here, but only the first season. I plan on watching it after I'm done Moonie-ing around, whenever that will be. Hopefully more will be available on Netflix by then, or some other streaming service. I hate distribution licensing. Why does this have to be so complicated? Ugh. edit: Speed Racer also has a horrible, horrible, bad, terrible, horrible, bad, bad, bad, terribad live action movie adaptation. It's not even fun if you like trash. Meh.

There was this episode where he suddenly became super confident because some alien nervous system he was linked to (alien later turned into an energy being). He was quite the charmer then, but no, not unless you count the future presented in All Good Things where he's married to a "Leah" where the assumption generally is that he finally managed to wear Leah Brahms down. Heh. Oh Geordi, when you fondle the Enterprise, you fondle me! Yeah so THAT is a part of TNG that aged incredibly poorly. Much of that was maybe because he was probably supposed to be gay, or at least bisexual. First season has him leering at an aged up Wesley Crusher. Hey Wesley, not baaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Yeah, creepy. Creeeeeeepy. Poor Geordi, always the butt of everything.

Wait, what?

They had guns, so they were villains?

Geordi's really into holograms of scientists, not actual people, but you should know that from like, the third season.

Just finished watching the SuperS episode where Rei gains her new attack. Episode was good, some fun interactions and a very meaningful encounter for Rei. Watchable streak increased to 5 now. What a wonderful development, this makes a good case for skipping like 18 of the first 22 episodes and pretending they never happened. And +1 for the theory that the writers were replaced by alien ghostwriters earlier in the season. I'm actually looking forward to the next episode. That hasn't happened since... oh before you were born, Luke.

I figured reading one random arc of the manga without context isn't the best way to continue with the comparisons. The characters in the show have deviated enough at this point for it to make no sense without approaching any sort of analysis (and I use that term lightly, because I'm probably one of the worst persons to do that) with the context and themes of the earlier chapters. Or in other words, time to start at the beginning. But since Yuichiro came up, there's one thing that I know and already mentioned about the anime that bothered Naoko Takeuchi, and that was changing Rei to be more like Minako was in the manga. Manga Rei is not only psychic but takes her role as shrine maiden and protector of the princess seriously. She's rational, conservative, isn't mean to Usagi and really doesn't like men in general because they were all a disappointment in her life. There are people who are still incredibly soured by the change in the anime. One of the directors of the anime supposedly liked Rei a bit too much and insert his ideal woman into the role in an attempt to fix the fact that Rei didn't resonate with the audience nearly as much as virtually everyone else on the show. Usagi, Ami, Minako and Makoto weren't just fan favorites for Sailor Moon fans, they dominated the most popular anime characters polls for years. Rei... just didn't. So she began being stepped on by Mamoru, was as boy-happy as the other girls (or more so), pinched Ami for no real reason, and other somewhat weird things that eventually coalesced into an interesting character that ended up being Usagi's best friend, even if she was verbally abusive every now and then. In the end she became a character that while doesn't actively dislike men, but takes no crap from them either. I like anime Rei. So the hell, why did I post that? Oh, right: Oh, and I remembered something that made me spend half the day in front of my computer laughing hard, there's a web comic (one of the few comics I read and actually followed) called The thin H line, later called Sexy Losers (it is also mostly known as Sexy Losers, but like any early adopter I'm proud of being able to out-nerd people). Unless you enjoy really, really dark humor that breaks every (mostly sexual*, but not only) taboo possible it would probably not be a good idea to look it up, and most of it is not safe for work, but it has a a parody section that has a comic strip that deals with Sailor Moon's gratuitous upskirts drawings, and the reason why Tuxedo Mask always leaves so quickly (reason in the spoiler). Here's what the Interweb has to say about SL: *In case anyone deduced from my post about American Pie that I don't like sexualized humor in general, no, that's not it. Sexy Losers is a riot because it breaks taboos that are taboo for a much better reason than simple prudity, and most of the punchlines are actually really clever - and almost universally disturbing. I love it, please don't hate on me for it.

I just thought back (and this is completely off-topic) and it hit me. I said you're just one quick google away from finding out yourself. When I watched Sailor Moon the first time there was no Umbrella Corporation google yet.

This is kind of fun. Really reminds me of the good old times. And no, I'm not really going to confirm or deny any of that (not even in the spoilers). I mean, yeah, it's not like you're one quick google away from being able to look it up yourself if you really want to though.

I can't make any accurate statement by reading one chapter out of 11 to be honest. The storyline was definitey different (i.e. the enemy trio that survives for 22 episodes in SuperS lasts one fight each in the manga, and at least for Fish-Eye was only a handful of pages long), the themes on the other hand weren't, apparently. Which makes this all the more confusing. Maybe I'll go read the entire dream arc, it's only 11 chapters anyway, but reading a manga takes some measure of concentration when you're not doing it all the time which I, to be honest, don't - I'm not an avid comic/graphical novel reader (although I did read A Dame To Kill For in an effort to appreciate Sin City more, which people close to me found terrific, with me being the odd one out, as usual... sigh), let alone used to reading from right to left (and from top to bottom in columns, but that's true for Western comics just as well). Spoiler has a how-to/reading direction explanation picture, not an actual spoiler. It's not so bad for Sailor Moon because it seems to have a relatively simple koma (frame/panel) layout but it still takes some conscious effort to get the reading direction right, and combined with having to read on my gaming screen that means it's incredibly taxing. edit: edit 2: edit 3:

First episode after the change from the Amazon Trio to the Amazoness Quartett heavily features Ami and her self-esteem issues. This is another episode I remembered after beginning to watch it. So does that bode well? We'll see... Holy crap, that became even longer than the pseudo-essay I wrote the last time when I said I won't do that again. Watchable epsiodes streak has now increased to 4. This was the first one in the season that actually felt like Sailor Moon though, in terms of being a mixture of fun and serious and the girls interacting with each other in both completely sensible and hilarious ways. Plus no Creepasus, that's always good. I mean, except for the attack sequence. Can't have Usagi shoot her attack at the monster without Chibi-Usa metaphorically rubbing Creepasus' horn first.

Now for the part that I can post without spoilers. I've watched the entire run of The Big Bang Theory (but not because I enjoyed it but because my brain forced me to). But I'll make a separate post for this, I think, potentially in the actual TV thread.

Anyway, I'm glad you're trying to not let it bother you. Even though I absolutely hate the term (not as much as X-Phile though), the world can always use another Moonie.

I was on the verge of making this post another essay, but then I deleted most of it, the wrote another essay, then deleted most of it. I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but it's been a long time since I got my grubby hands on someone who just started watching Sailor Moon. Feels like old times. Thanks.

So let's make a fake Sailor Moon episode title. The Trio Gone? A sigh of relief for @majestic! Well, let's see how long the streak of somewhat decent episodes lasts. It is at an impressive three so far.

If there's wheat in your beer you're doing it wrong.

Like recognizing that Crimea overwhelmingly voted to join Russia, right?

I think that's supposed to be Sailor Pluto. @BartimaeusI'll put all the pictures in Spoiler tags to make the post more concise but click on Saturn and Pluto at your own... uhm, "peril" I guess. I mean you know Pluto already, but there's a plot-significant detail that will come up soonish. So, from left to right: Sailor Saturn: Sailor Pluto: Sailor Chibi-Moon (who should be half the size of everyone else, but don't let me stop you from cosplaying a 9 year old on my account): Sailor Neptune: Finally, ha ha, an actual male Sailor Uranus. At least I think that's a guy in a Sailor Senshi costume:

It was a really good idea having the cousins around to act as both impetus and goal for character growth, both in real and superhero life. Care to guess who wrote that episode?

I wonder that more and more these days. More often than not when watching Star Trek episodes, I mean there must be someone at the creative meetings that realizes that it is utter and complete baloney what they're writing. Is there really no one around that says "Hey, guys, really, this is wrong, can we not do that?" in any of the meetings. Or like the actors. I don't know. There is more than one instance of Star Trek Discovery where they don't bat an eye saying their lines even when they're full of grammatical mistakes. I mean, what? How does that get through proofreading. The issues with SuperS are arguably more problematic. It's not out of character for Usagi to fly into a jealous rage over Rei and Mamoru spending time together. In season 1. Maybe early R. But after S? No way. I mean Mr. Serious Mode Episode knew that and acted accordingly, it's just so weird to see someone who is on the team ever since season 1 do something like that (it also doesn't help that it is probably the funniest episode in the season as a whole, it's really laugh out loud stuff, just out of place).