majestic

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).

Yes, according to me, who has checked some single episodes and saw familiar names in the credits. Turns out I wasn't entirely correct. SuperS actually featured three new writers, while between Sailor Moon, R and S the only change was adding one (!) writer, not replacing any. Writing credits: Sailor Moon Sukehiro Tomita Shigeru Yanagikawa Katsuyuki Sumisawa Megumi Sugihara Sailor Moon R Sukehiro Tomita Shigeru Yanagawa Katsuyuki Sumisawa Megumi Sugihara Sailor Moon S Sukehiro Tomita Shigeru Yanagawa Katsuyuki Sumisawa Megumi Sugihara Yoji Enokido Sailor Moon SuperS Megumi Sugihara Yoji Enokido Ryota Yamaguchi Genki Yoshimura Mutsuri Nakano Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Ryōta Yamaguchi Genki Yoshimura Kazuhiko Kanbe Atsushi Maekawa The misconception of mine that Sailor Moon SuperS had largely the same writing team came from simply recognizing Megumi Sugihara and Yoji Enokido on the writing credits of the episodes I checked. Yoji Enokido is a new writer from S that stayed on. As far as I know he was also a writer on NGE, and most of his contribution to Sailor Moon S were pure manga storyline adaptations (but let's call them Serious Mode Episodes, I like that term ). So, remember when I complained about Usagi being mature and secure about her relationship with Mamoru but two episodes later went on an all out jealous rage? Guess those were the new writers, eh? Nope. That was Yoji Enokido and Megumi Sugihara. The other thing that colored my perception there was the fact that the two of them wrote over half of the episodes of SuperS. So whatever went wrong in SuperS wasn't just the new guys. Were they at least at fault for the weird focus of the filler episodes' attacked character of the week? Well... no. They're spread across all writers, but most of the episodes that don't have such a weird hyperfocus were written by Ryōta Yamaguchi. He apparently got the enviable task of setting up most of the girl's dream mirror violations (except for Rei, who gets that in the episode where Usagi acts like season 1 Usagi for the fun of it, written by Megumi Sugihara). But yeah, there might have been more writing problems in this season than I thought. It's an easy mistake to make when you see a familiar name every other episode, right? The Makoto gut punch psycho-horror episode was therefore also written by Ryōta Yamaguchi who... has written a LOT of Sailor Stars episodes. Like half of them.

It took 20 episodes but I've finally watched one that I remembered from the original run here. It's another one that is focused on Makoto, but alas, in this season being the focus is... yeah, you guessed it. Rapey vibe time. Poor Makoto. The entire episode spends time dealing one gut punch to Makoto after the other. Someone one the writing team really hates her, huh? Apparently she makes a good punching bag. But there is a moment in this episode that puts it far ahead of most of SuperS. I'll get to that. edit: It took an hour and a half to come up with the post. I'm not sure I'll go into that much detail again anytime soon. Ho-humm. It's 03:30... geez.

Eh... no, not immediately as soon as she returns. But a bit later probably, yes. I'm guessing I'll be done with SuperS by the time you're halfway through S. I'm considering to write a guide how to minimize the SuperS "fallout", i.e. a short episode list of episodes with important story moments. This isn't going to be long, because SuperS is mostly filler. Interestingly enough, Sailor Stars is the exact opposite. Almost nothing of that is filler. Out of the 34 episodes of Sailor Stars, only 9 are filler episodes and out of SuperS's 39 episodes, 25 are filler. Or in other words, whereas SuperS meanders way too much, focuses too much on random stuff, I'm not sure Sailor Star's hyper focus on what you call "serious mode" episodes will be any more enticing for you, although I can't really remember how the balance between silly and serious was in Sailor Stars. But I'll see soon. I hope. I didn't get around to watching as much as I would have liked recently. Too much work going on, that was a good deal easier over Christmas. My biggest problem with SuperS is, meandering aside, that the girls seem to have ignored their character growth from S in favor of a more regular comedic focus i.e. it feels as if the show tries to be funny in a more classical, jokey way than the more organic "the characters are silly so it's funny" way of R and S. The jokes don't happen because they make sense to be there, they happen because someone wanted a funny scene here. Not sure if that makes any sense? Eh, we'll see. Sailor Moon wouldn't be the first show to be ruined by later seasons. *cough* X-Files *cough* Although I'm semi-certain that Sailor Stars will be good for me.

You might be of a different opinion. The episodes certainly a silly enough. Most of the SuperS monsters are beyond silly even. I don't like the way the season is structured, the focus on random one-shot characters and... Plus there's the creepy part.

So far watching Sailor Moon SuperS has been an exercise in frustration. It's not going to mar my enjoyment of Sailor Moon as a whole, and there are some worthwhile and fun moments too, it just feels less. Less what? Less everything. I also find it odd how little I remember of this season as a whole. The general plot, yes, single episodes? Barely*. I know I watched it when it aired, because it was immediately followed by Sailor Moon Sailor Stars (and I remember liking it more than SuperS though it felt like a Sailor Moon S rehash at times). Following Sailor Moon S was always going to be hard, realistically, but to have fallen so low? I am really curious what you guys think of it. "Guys" is assuming anyone else other than @Bartimaeuskeeps or starts watching. Because I am open to the idea that I'm too harsh on this season, and I hope that the new group of enemies that comes with the second half of the season will be more fun to watch. My lack of significant memories suggests differently, but... who knows. *To explain why this is significant which seems strange given we're talking about something that aired like 23 years ago: X-Files as even longer ago and I can recite specific plot points from episodes based on the title or images from the episode alone. I can pretty much do so with Stargate's SG1 and Atlantis (which ran longer and later, respectively), any of the Star Trek shows from the TNG era, a long list of movies I've seen at the time (and most obviously the other Sailor Moon episodes). My ability to do that is tarnished when binge watching where episodes tend to morph into one amorphous blob of information** rather than separate entities (worse if the show tells a serialized story), in other words. I remember what happened, when it happened in the storyline, etc., but I do not remember in which specific plot points come up in which episodes. I once hard spoiled a colleague at work because he told me he'd seen episode three our four of a show and I was like "yeah that's when that totally unexpected and rad plot twist happens where..." and he was like "no not at all" which was a little awkward. Because that was one episode later. I... digress, I think. Sorry. Watching Sailor Moon at a pace of one episode per day is more or less fast enough to trigger that, with some exceptions, but even so with the three prior seasons the visual stimulus of seeing the episode managed to untangle that while watching. It doesn't for SuperS. I'm curious to see if it will for Sailor Stars. ** The absolutely worst instance of which happened when I binge watched FMA and Brotherhood back to back. I have no idea which is which. Heh.

You should really start timing the stock footage and skip the seconds. Talking out of my behind here but whatever you use to watch Hulu must have a skip 10 seconds functionality of some sort. Sailor Moon gets regular attack changes, the other Guardians sadly less often, but something tells me you're not going to like Burning Mandala any better than Fire Soul. edit: @Bartimaeus

Are you going to put me on ignore as well if I don't? Heh. Don't worry. It takes way too much time and effort, and it never has the desired effect. That not going to become a staple.

So, and now think back to episode one, ever thought you'd have THAT kind of discussion about this anime?

Speaking about Adventure Time (was already typing this post, so... don't want to fiddle a quote in up here) I see. That does sound more frustrating than fun (incidentially the same thing as Sailor Moon SuperS, stupid fourth season, really). More random Sailor Moon SuperS musings and observations: Still having a hard time believing this is from the same staff that made S. I mean, except the executive producer, but the replacement was already a producer on R and S, I think, so that can't be it either. With no other recourse I blame executive meddling on this one, completely without proof. Also, Mako-Chan blabble time! Yay. edit: Now that I read this, I think my love for this episode might also be based no small amount on projection and identification. Make of that what you will.

Let's not forget that this is the TV thread (and yeah, I am at fault as much as anyone for derailing it).