majestic

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?

I need to correct that statement a little. I don't mean it is noticably different insofar as it does anything with the formula. That is still very much in effect and it is by far the most derivative of all the seasons. Nothing original happens, but the character interaction is a good deal different. Or at least it feels different (maybe different enough). It is noticable that they're now in high school, if that makes any sense. Makoto is the original Marie Kondo.

Oi, you mean like there never were any Star Wars prequels (or sequels to the first trilogy, or first two movies, depending on whom you ask) or only one Matrix film. Yeah, maybe. I'd still like to read your take on the season that does not exist. Don't get me wrong, it is as close to a universal truth of the internet that you can come that in almost every poll SuperS is ranked below every other Sailor Moon season, but that usually has pacing issues cited as the main problem. Not everyone behaving like alien shapeshifters replaced them or the creepy things the antagonists do combined with this childlike dream-state vibe the season gives off. Minor spoilerish fun fact for Sailor Stars relating to SuperS, because the writers appaently agreed with your sentiment there: This is actually more accurate than you might think. It might be a good idea to think of Sailor Moon Sailor Stars as a high-school spin off of the original Sailor Moon that ran for four three seasons. I love Sailor Stars, but it is different...

Warning, complex math spoiler ahead:

Also, enjoy the show while it lasts. Serious mode is about to launch soon. Tick... tock...

Got a complaint today that an order has not been billed correctly, and we should check what went wrong. So I did. Turns out the customer's set to a monthly billing period and the order was finalized last week. Last. Week. Monthly period. Get it? This was my reply: Because screw that, I'm done. From now on I'm just going to reply in memes.

Currently stuck in the worst online meeting ever. It's hilarious.

Spoilers ahead for IC and KP anyway, click at your own discretion:

There are some mild differences in many of the versions. The original english dub for instance reduced the breast contours during the transformations (and made the bathwater intransparent in various scenes). The heaviest editing happend in South Korea where an entire sub-plot was dropped from the fourth season. Although, to be fair, nothing of value was lost. That's the low point of Sailor Moon. Attack on Titan is definitely on my to-watch list, but I'm getting more and more lazy when it comes to spending actual effort to watch something. Netflix had two seasons of Attack on Titan and I figured I'll just wait for the whole thing to drop, and now it's gone altogether. Stupid licencing, no wonder the word contains lice. Parasites, all of them. Time to get the one thing that can stay spoiler free out of the way: The formula is here to stay, except for storyline episodes or some exceptions that don't follow the usual format. Outside of a very few exceptions (one coming up in S03E15) it will also always take Sailor Moon to defeat the Monster of the Week, and in 99% of all cases she will be told "Now, Sailor Moon!" because... honestly, I don't know why. The only explanation I have is because it was supposed to be a show for kids, and repetition helps them retain interest in something. There's a reason why kids want to watch Frozen every day, right? And the reason why the Teletubbies are what they are. But why this was kept even during S and Sailor Stars is another issue entirely. SuperS was clearly an attempt to go back to being mainly a show for little girls. Now to the other things... sort of. I'm not going to re-type my entire post about that Mako or Ami episode, anyway.

Watched two more episodes of Steven Universe. More food. Food. I should not watch that at night. Where would I even get a cheeseburger now? I already had Sailor Moon themed dreams recently, but they were actually nice. I do have recurring nightmares, but they usually revolve around more mundane things, like showing up to exams unprepared (which I always did, so how's that a nightmare and leaves me feel uneasy?) or living the life of a complete stranger. Those tend to be the most disturbing dreams I have, because I actually wake up thinking I am someone else. Eh, and making SuperS look good would really take some doing, but Crystal is so far trying really hard.

That I'm going to do anyway.

See guys, that's the sort of thing the 90ies anime just dropped, obviously very much to the detriment of it. Amirite? Snort. Should I continue posting this stuff, by the way? edit: I am, however, beginning to see how the classic anime adaptation left manga fans dissatisfied with the storyline adaptation. You can almost imagine the meetings in the writing room where they go through the manga and go like: "Well, no, that's crap, let's just do our own thing."

Have you ever tried M+KB in Tie Fighter? That kills your desk, and your mouse. And once you're done running through both your fingers too if you don't stop. For the one time in ten years I feel the urge to go back to Tie Fighter? Nah. I could try to play with a gamepad, but I'm not sure that would work out too well. The game has ten thousand different keyboard shortcuts you ideally use and getting them all mapped on a pad is, uhm, not sure, let's say potentially a challenge.

Ideally one that's playable without flight stick. That would probably change the feeling of the game for the worse, but at least I could play it again.