Anime: Emotions on a Rollercoaster

[Bartimaeus]

hey pal, I'm sitting here minding my own business having SUCCESSFULLY FORGOTTEN that and you go ahead and remind me again, what's the big idea

Edited March 15, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

14 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

hey pal, I'm sitting here minding my own business having SUCCESSFULLY FORGOTTEN that and you go ahead and remind me again, what's the big idea

I have a duty to prepare you for any weird shenanigans, I think it's enough if I sat through that without prior knowledge, right?

[InsaneCommander]

@ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP
 

Spoiler

 

Chibusa now has the Twinkle Yell attack.

So, Tiger's eye likes girls and Hawk's eye like older women. I hope the last one is not into younger girls or boys...

 

 

[majestic]

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

@ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Chibusa now has the Twinkle Yell attack.

So, Tiger's eye likes girls and Hawk's eye like older women. I hope the last one is not into younger girls or boys...

 

 

No, don't worry...

Spoiler

Fish-Eye doesn't like younger girls. Just men.

Spoiler

And young boys.

 

Oh, and...

 

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

@ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Chibusa now has the Twinkle Yell attack.

So, Tiger's eye likes girls and Hawk's eye like older women. I hope the last one is not into younger girls or boys...

 

 

All I'll say is that Fish Eye is the creepiest.

[majestic]

Got some Steven Universe watched.
 

Spoiler

 

Didn't need the screencap when the next episode has her fusing with Amethyst. Ah, well... that answers some questions. Prett sure that Pearl is my favorite actual gem. I'm not sure picking Steven is okay, he's "just" a half-gem and it would be like saying Usagi is your favorite Sailor Guardian, she gets to hog the spotlight (when it isn't Chibi-Usa doing that).

Next up was another episode that has a lot of Lars in it. Is it just me or are episodes brought down a little by Lars being in them too much?

 

 

[majestic]

 More JoJo too.

Spoiler

Nazis gonna Nazi. Heh. Pace seems to keep up, as do the even more and more ridiculous meme-attacks. HAMON HAIR ATTACK!

And more Cardcaptor Sakura.
 

Spoiler

 

So there's the first, barest indication of something else going on. Someone else showed up looking for the cards too. One of the episodes had a clever use of one of the cards Sakura captured earlier, that was actually quite nice. Funny episode too, albeit the premise was a little weak. Magic or no, Sakura, Tomoyo and another six year old probably shouldn't be able to sneak into an art museum like that.

The other character looking for the cards is a boy named Li Shaoran from Hong Kong and, true to all the tropes, of course happens to be transferred to Sakura's class. The two of them have a rocky start and Shaoran wonders how Sakura came to be a Cardcaptor when she's just so clueless. Sakura in turn is really put out by his abrasiveness, and he immediately insults Kero because he should be Kerberos, and instead he's a flying plush lion cub, very much to the chagrin of both Kero (who bites his finger) and Sakura.

In other words... I'm going to call it now, Sakura just met her future boyfriend. Whether that means Yukito is really gay or not is something else of course. I'd still bet on it.

edit: Oh, right, I forgot. One of the earlier episodes had Sakura fall off a small cliff, being saved and passing out. Yukito picks her up and brings her to his home, and unlike with Mamoru doing that to Usagi it's not creepy because... he knows nobody's at her home. Her brother is out working and her father is out on a business trip, so it makes no sense to bring her home.

Instead he calls her brother, talks to her best friend and THEN brings her home (well this happens off-screen but he tells her) where her brother comes to pick her up.

See Mamoru? That's how you're not being a creep.

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

11 minutes ago, majestic said:

Got some Steven Universe watched.
 

  Hide contents

 

Didn't need the screencap when the next episode has her fusing with Amethyst. Ah, well... that answers some questions. Prett sure that Pearl is my favorite actual gem. I'm not sure picking Steven is okay, he's "just" a half-gem and it would be like saying Usagi is your favorite Sailor Guardian, she gets to hog the spotlight (when it isn't Chibi-Usa doing that).

Next up was another episode that has a lot of Lars in it. Is it just me or are episodes brought down a little by Lars being in them too much?

 

 

Spoiler

I didn't like Lars for a while either, particularly in season 1a, but he appears somewhat less thereafter, and especially following the ending of season 1b. He'll also gets some better (IMO) characterization as time goes by. He's a tough cookie, though.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

More Sailor Moon S

Ami gets targeted by Tiger Eye. After failing to seduce (maybe I'm forgetting, but the Amazon Trio strikes out everytime) our loveable studyholic, he kidnaps her and takes her to a secluded place. After briefly pondering what friends are, he decides he doesn't need them and penetrates Ami's dream (after getting interrupted by Shingo and the Sailors). I'd ask if they could make this more rapey, but I already know they will.

Oh, and Shingo has a crush on Ami now. This is the closest he's gotten to having a personality besides bullying Usagi, and is one of a few occasions where the age differences in this show have the masculine character being younger. I'm guessing it won't go anywhere, and all the other Sailors (except Mars) will have no long-term romantic interests.

Next up is the Ballerina episode, where Fish Eye manages to not be as creepy as when he wanted a 12 year old(or younger) boy to "score a goal inside me". Instead he gets just gets jealous and shoots a girl with water before ramming into a dancer's dream. Usagi gets called fat, and this is one of the few (if not the only) occasions where they tried to animate her as being fat.

The animation of this season is much better, but God damn if the storylines aren't worse even if you discount seeing thinly veiled sexual assault every episode.

@majesticBut without Von Stroheim, we would have never had Guile in Street Fighter.

[Bartimaeus]

Both you and Majestic have now mentioned SuperS as having the best animation, but I've taken peaks at it and it doesn't really look any different to me. What about it specifically looks better?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Just now, Bartimaeus said:

Both you and Majestic have now mentioned SuperS as having the best animation, but I've taken peaks at it and it doesn't really look any different to me. What about it specifically looks better?

The way it moves. It's hard to put specific frames, because in general the stills aren't particularly better, but stuff like Usagi and Rei fighting looks better than s1 or R.

[Bartimaeus]

Oh, I've only taken some quick looks at some non-action scenes, so that makes sense.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

14 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh, I've only taken some quick looks at some non-action scenes, so that makes sense.

Yeah, imo most still frames don't give you a real taste of what animation looks like. Like you could have stills that look fantastic but the movement is very awkward and doesn't flow well at all.

[majestic]

Final thoughts on Sailor Moon Sailor Stars. As per usual, I'll mark spoilers where necessary.

I initially wasn't sure if I should do this one, but YouTube just suggested a Sailor Moon AMV to me that made me type this up. I normally don't watch AMVs, like at all. I might be biased, but we had a colleague at work who constantly watched AMVs. Or rather, he listened to music with his YouTube playlists and those were full of AMVs, and they all were stupid power fantasy cuts of popular animes.

Now that doesn't mean that all AMVs are stupid power fantasy supercuts. Just that all of them that he was watching are. Sailor Moon AMVs, as I have now noticed, usually aren't, unless they're from Crystal (gee, wonder why it is easier to make a power fantasy supercut out of MURDER-DEATH-KILL Usagi than from the original love and peace Hippie-Jesus Usagi).

Anyway, here's the video. It contains a couple of funny and sad scenes from Sailor Stars and is a bit spoilerish in that regard, although I don't think they'll hurt given the complete lack of context. The song is, uhm, yeah, 2010 style German trash, but it's quite catchy. *shrug*

Before I go into any more details, I'll go out and state it. I love this season, in spite of, or perhaps just because of, its many issues. In fact I plowed through watching it in record time, even quicker than Sailor Moon S. My personal season ranking would be: Sailor Moon S > Sailor Moon Sailor Stars > Sailor Moon R = Sailor Moon >> Sailor Moon SuperS. Prior to my rewatch I would have ranked R better, not the same as the first season. R was what really got me into Sailor Moon way back, but it wasn't as good as I remembered it to be - or no, let's rephrase that, it wasn't better than the first season.

Not that I don't consider Sailor Moon to be one of my favorite animes. Out of its 200 episode run, only a few are real stinkers, and almost all of them are concentrated in Sailor Moon SuperS. In the end, the show is something like 90% good to great, and 10% terrible, a ratio that even the most sucessful smash hit shows with a lot less episodes can only dream of reaching.

Animation

I've talked about this before. Presuming you'll watch the video above at least once, you'll see what I mean. The animation of the characters is noticably different from the other seasons. For all its other faults, I think the anime looked best during SuperS. Except for that one episode with Naru that looked like aliens made a fan episode. That's not to say that this looks bad, not at all. I love the animation in Sailor Stars. The girls are 16 and in high school now, so a bit of an age up was a good idea.

Soundtrack

Oh. The first thing you'll notice, unless you already know, is that the opening theme is different. Moonlight Densetsu only comes up once in the ending credits of the very last Sailor Moon episode. That was actually a really nice decision, and it really drives the point home that you're no longer getting any Sailor Moon. Or at least, no more Sailor Moon that isn't a total waste of your time. Here's the Sailor Stars Theme:

I stated last time that the German opening was always the same song, except for reruns where they introduced other songs. The theme song was initially weird for me, but at some point it began to grow on me, and in the end I was looking forward to the opening credits. It's also the opening season where I watched it in full every time, I just love the opening scenes with the girls.

True to form the opening theme also gets a slower, orchestral version to underscore emotional scenes. It's bloody fantastic (but that's the Sailor Moon soundtrack in general).

But... but. With a large part of the season being about a boy group at the height of their popularity, the sound track also included some of their songs, and they're... not good. Well, one could argue that boy groups were never good. Anyway, I don't really like Search For Your Love, but your milage may vary.

 

The storyline, the episodes, and the issues

The good thing first. Naoko Takeuchi hated the sweeping alterations this season made to her storyline. Which we by now know means that Sailor Stars is better than what she came up with. Much like in R, her manga chapter structure and storyline proved to be barely adaptable. If you don't leave your animation team even a bit of something to work with, then please don't complain about the alterations necessary.

Especially not when they're all better writers than you are. It may actually pay off to read the manga just to properly appreciate how much of a mad dash to make everything work the production of this show must have been. The storylines of Sailor Moon have consistently been nothing special, but the ones in the manga were downright terrible at times.

What does that mean in the context of Sailor Stars? Warning, MASSIVE spoilers ahead.
 

Spoiler

 

The Stars arc in the manga kills off every Inner Senshi in the first four acts. Mamoru dies in the first act, Ami and Makoto (and again, the two fan favorites die earlier than the other two, notice a trend here?) in the second act and Rei and Minako die in act four.

So again, how do you make a 10 month run out of a storyline that has you bereft of your main characters (except for one) for three quarters of the run? Yeah, you can't. Sailor Starts therefore pushed all this to the ending. Which is a nice segue to one of the problems.

Everything that happens happened before. Ka is a wheel, the cycle of time repeats just as the timeless prophet states. His Divine Shadow will be killed by the last Brunnen G (has anyone of you seen Lexx? The best sci-fi trash ever made, if you enjoy trash that is).

This season's storyline has almost nothing original in it. All the girls die at the end, save for Usagi (and the Starlights). There is conflict about working together with a new set of Sailor Guardians. There's a filler arc completely unrelated to the manga in the first few episodes. Usagi is right, just like in S, but nobody listens to her. The conflict is forced, but worse so than in S.

Does any of that matter? That is hard to answer. It might matter to some, I didn't really care, except for one point: Unlike at the end of the first season, the deaths of the Inner Senshi in this one is a complete waste. They just die. That truly is a weak point, but what can you do. At least the girls got to interact with everyone else for a full season before having to die. Usagi and Rei get to share some tender and some fun moments that really make it clear just how much Rei loves Usagi.

There's a scene where the girls give Usagi a whistle at school after it becomes clear that she's a target of the enemy. Usagi does what she does, she blows into it at full blast, and you suddenly see Rei running across half of Tokyo in ten seconds to come to the defense of her friend.

Not counting the overall plot of the season, most of it deals with the girls and their friendship with the Three Lights, the aforementioned boy band, and a lot of that deals with Seiya's feelings for Usagi. He loves her, but Usagi loves Mamoru and has pretty much immediately friendzoned (for want of a better word) him (he's a he unless transformed in the anime). Their interactions are the highlight of the season.

Whether or not you'll like the season probably hinges on how much you like Seiya and Usagi spending time together. There's a lot of that. So much, that Rei at some point talks to Usagi about that she really needs to tell Seiya that she's not interested in him.

The biggest problem of this subplot is that Seiya and Usagi are clearly so much a better couple than Mamoru and Usagi ever were on screen. Mamoru gets barely any screen time, because like in the manga, he dies in the first real storyline episode. We see that, but Usagi doesn't. She spends the season thinking that he's so busy with his studies in the US that he can't call or write back. She never tells anyone about this until right before the end. Why?

For the same reason she tries to hide that new enemies have shown up at first. All the girls, except for her, are really happy that they finally have a different life. More free time in high school, they pick up their hobbies again and begin to pursue their dreams. Usagi can't bear the thought of ruining that for them. That's how Seiya gets close to her, but Usagi at the same time doesn't understand what Seiya really wants from her. She puts up a brave face for everyone, but the daily letter writing, her scenes pining at the mailbox, her calling Mamoru's answering machine to hear his voice just tell... that she hates being separated from Mamoru.

So the driving character interactions for most of the season are actual shojo stuff. It's easy for me to relate. It was a lot easier when this first aired too, because hey, do I know how Seiya feels? You bet. There's a scene where Seiya accidentially stumbles into a situation where Usagi is attacked, and he saves her by throwing a red rose that he picked up earlier.

This is what happens afterwards:

Am I not good enough?

Well who hasn't asked themselves that question before. Poor Seiya, you never had any chance. And who wouldn't want to hear how much a girl misses her boyfriend (well fiancee at this point) when you're madly in love with her. Sailor Moon has a few scenes that are really hard to watch for me, not because they're disgusting like Reika's SuperS rape scene, but because they're incredibly emotional for me. This is one of those.

So what happens in the actual storyline?

Usagi wins the final fight by refusing to fight at all. The theme of her being the Messia are fully realized. In spite of having a weapon that could defeat Galaxia and possibly seal Chaos (the actual big bad, the obligatory power behind the throne) and Galaxia having killed everyone she loves, she still refuses to use it. She just defends herself once, and in doing so hurts Galaxia. She freaks out and immediately stops.

She manages to banish Chaos from Galaxia and disperse it throughout the galaxy, along with the Light of Hope (Galaxia's gift and burden as the strongest Sailor Guardian was to carry the Light of Hope) that means that both hope and despair have been brought back into balance in the galaxy again.

Thematically that ending is a perfect fit for the show. it is riddled with pacing issue and the problem that we're shown that by working together, instead of stubbornly carrying out senseless conflicts with each other, Galaxia could have been defeated much earlier.

We can discuss the ending in further detail once you guys have seen it.

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Well at least I can count on a light at the end of the tunnel. For now though I will try to plough through Super S to the best of my ability.

[Bartimaeus]

Sorry, I can't watch AMVs: it's against my religion. And I gave it a try anyways and nearly spontaneously combusted instantly, so, you know, don't say I never did nothing for ya.

5 hours ago, majestic said:

Naoko Takeuchi hated the sweeping alterations this season made to her storyline

Did she ever give her feelings on SuperS? You've mentioned her feelings on just about everything about the show EXCEPT that (I think!), so you know, I'm naturally curious...

Sailor Moon S: The Movie! A few screenshots from near the beginning:
 

Spoiler

Uh-oh, Chibi-Usa has a voodoo doll of Usagi...aaand it seems to work. Yikes!

I don't understand exactly what this shirt is supposed to mean ("Love Never Changer"? sounds like a bad translation), but it seems appropriately Minako.

...I need an adult? Hey, wait a second, the Outers are all back - these movies like sort of occur in their own timeline or something. Oh wait, Usagi actually has the Holy Grail still, I guess this happens more in the middle of S instead of after.

No comment: just Usagi being an adorably big dumb. "I'd bet you've never experienced love before, have you!?" Wow, way to kick a cat with a cold while she's down, Usagi.

Sometimes, I don't know if they're best friends, enemies, or sort of...something else for each other. What the hell are you two doing?

Am I watching The Bee Movie, except for a cat? Luna asking for advice on love from Usagi of all people...oh egads, how the tables have turned! Hoo boy. And man, you weren't kidding about there being boobs in this one - all sorts of naked ladies all over the place.

Setsuna actually bashed a monster with her staff...and Minako ripped off another's arms and a chunk of its head with her Crescent Beam. Nice. And somehow...Ami held it down with her Bubble Spray? That seems like a new application of it. Usagi is wearing a jacket that matches Chibi-Usa's hair, while Chibi-Usa is wearing a shirt that matches Usagi's hair. Hmm! ...Uh, I don't know how I feel about Chibi-Usa's transformation here - that was a little uncomfortable. Preparation for SuperS, I guess. lmao SANTA CLAUSE? And he had a new attack...sort of!

This plot is really something else. Poor freakin' Artemis just getting completely dumped on again - just utterly ruined. Minako actually having the forethought for once to try to protect his feelings...just for everyone ELSE to be completely oblivious. "There's a comet heading towards Earth, and to make matters worse, there's an evil ice witch on it!" Okay, now that you say it out loud like that, I get why this other lady doesn't understand, because I'd think you're a big dumb insane person too, Usagi. This ice witch is pretty serious about freezing over the entire Earth - the Sailor Guardians need to work together as a team and fuse to defeat this new evil! Oh wait, wrong show.

"If you use the Silver Crystal, you'll die!" Hey wait, didn't we do that for the last movie? Oh hey, Ami remembered that and the rest of them are just going to add their own power to hers instead - nice job guys, I'm glad you learned from the previous movie. Uh...lmao, what is this choice of music though, this is not good music, especially for this Dragon Ball Z moment - this is so deflating. And...Usagi uses her power to turn Luna into a human, what an excellent use of her incredible power, as usual.

"The sunrise, it's incredible!" Well, you're above the atmosphere, I expected a lot more screaming about how you just went completely blind and are being melted by the incredibly hot, irradiating rays of the sun...but I suppose that's fine, too. Man, this sure got anime towards the end...but that's okay, I've watched enough of this show that I'm okay with that. Wait, she's already back from her moon mission? Dang, that was fast.

Pretty solid movie, just like that last one. R: The Movie was about a semi-unrequited gay love story between Mamoru and some random alien, this one was about a semi-unrequited love story between some random guy and Luna, I can only assume that SuperS: The Movie will be about...a hopefully semi-unrequited love story between Chibi-Usa and a unicorn. OH NO!

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

7 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Well at least I can count on a light at the end of the tunnel. For now though I will try to plough through Super S to the best of my ability.

That's the part I'm not 100% certain of. Like I said, me liking Sailor Stars that much with everything that's going on in it and how it is going on rings an alarm bell at the back of my mind. The episodes are certainly better and more entertaining than most of SuperS at least.

 

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Sorry, I can't watch AMVs: it's against my religion. And I gave it a try anyways and nearly spontaneously combusted instantly, so, you know, don't say I never did nothing for ya.

Well that was a close call. Phew. But I understand you there. I don't like them either most of the time, but probably for different reasons.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Did she ever give her feelings on SuperS? You've mentioned her feelings on just about everything about the show EXCEPT that (I think!), so you know, I'm naturally curious...

Funny, huh? I've read fans comment about her comments, some of her comments about a lot of things, but nothing... nothing about SuperS. Wouldn't be surprised if she was fine, if a bit annoyed, with SuperS turning Pegasus into an even more glaring pedophile than he is in the manga. My, am I feeling acerbic today.

So let's look a bit. In SuperS, producer Toshihiko Arisako was given a more influencial role after Iriya Azuma stepped down. There's also a Q & A with two topics he's talking about. I've omitted some things for brevity.

1: The depiction of daily life is what appeals to fans (editor's note: Gee, you think?)

A lot of people refer to Sailor Moon as an all-girl sentai team, but I think the series’ real appeal is how it depicts their normal, day-to-day lives. Sentai teams are brought together to fight, but that’s not who Usagi and the rest are. They just face threats whenever they happen to arise. They eat delicious food, get excited gossiping about love, and live lives that are remarkably similar to those led by real girls. Sometimes they have to do battle and get to engage in somewhat extraordinary lives, which can also be appealing to those who also wish they could transform.

The manga does an impeccable job at striking a balance between the ordinary and the extraordinary, which I think is what has led to the series’ popularity. The anime is similar in how it strikes this balance.

Italics added by me. This guy is clearly insane, unless he was being really obscure about something. The wording of this IS bit open to interpretation, however... who knows without access to the original and enough knowledge of Japanese to properly read between the lines.

However, second one:

2: More emphasis on input from the creator

Lately female manga artists have been much more direct in providing input in how they want the anime [based on their work] to be. I think it’s thanks to that input that we’ve seen a boom in the creation of more anime that meets female sensibilities.

Huh. Yeah. Figures. That does hint at more input from her, but who knows at this point.

Truth still is, considering that the creative team took their hat and went to do something else after SuperS, is that the Toei messed it up. Hard.

Oh by the way, something I haven't talked about. By the time the anime began airing they didn't even have the stock footage ready for it. The new transformations by Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi-Moon and their new attack was... only partially on screen for the first two episodes. If that doesn't give any more credence to the troubled production theory, then what does?

[majestic]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

I can only assume that SuperS: The Movie will be about...a hopefully semi-unrequited love story between Chibi-Usa and a unicorn. OH NO!

 

Oh, I forgot. Some spoilers:

Spoiler

There's no Pegasus in the SuperS movie, but a cute elfy boy that Chibi-Usa begins to like.

Spoiler

All the Sailor Senshi are naked and glow in their color at some point.

Spoiler

 

Thought you'd see some primary (and secondary) colored boobies here? Hah!

Spoiler

 

Honestly, with breasts this large, how did Minako ever think Haruka was a boy? Mina, look at her. Geez!

 

 

 

 

The SuperS movie draws heavily from European fairy tales and was for me the least interesting of the bunch. I'm sure that was interesting for a Japanese audience, but eh. 's kinda like Indian food isn't exotic in India, right?

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Italics added by me. This guy is clearly insane, unless he was being really obscure about something. The wording of this IS bit open to interpretation, however... who knows without access to the original and enough knowledge of Japanese to properly read between the lines.

However, second one:

2: More emphasis on input from the creator

Lately female manga artists have been much more direct in providing input in how they want the anime [based on their work] to be. I think it’s thanks to that input that we’ve seen a boom in the creation of more anime that meets female sensibilities.

Huh. Yeah. Figures. That does hint at more input from her, but who knows at this point.

Truth still is, considering that the creative team took their hat and went to do something else after SuperS, is that the Toei messed it up. Hard.

Oh by the way, something I haven't talked about. By the time the anime began airing they didn't even have the stock footage ready for it. The new transformations by Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi-Moon and their new attack was... only partially on screen for the first two episodes. If that doesn't give any more credence to the troubled production theory, then what does?

Probably more likely he was just being diplomatic: no producer for a show is going to be like "oh yeah we've had to do complete re-writes of the show for the past few seasons because the stuff in the manga was straight up unworkable trash", especially not for a liked author.

I tried to go through some of the manga to see what it had to say about Helios, but this stuff is really difficult to even skim through: there's just so little that's fun or likable about it, everything is so danged serious almost all of the time outside of like the beginning of an arc, and it seems really repetitive. How did they ever make anything out of this?

[majestic]

7 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

How did they ever make anything out of this?

And how did it ever become popular - the manga, not the original anime?

The two questions I've been wondering about ever since reading through a bit of the manga and watching Sailor Moon Crystal. SMC aired to terrible ratings and bad reviews, very much deservedly so, I'd say. Some of SMCs problems are related to adaptation that feels not very thought out, but most of it relates to the source material. The one point where the first season deviates from the manga, namely giving the Four Heavenly Kings (word filter here censors the original Japanese name because it begins with an expletive for manure) an expanded role is one of the more interesting things that happened.

In the framework of SMC, however, it was a complete waste to give the girls past romances akin to Mamoru. They get two scenes where they talk about it, then die. Poof. Gone. Like Slughorn's wee little fish Francis from the Potter movies (I was surprised that this doesn't happen in the book) when Lily Potter died.

It looks more and more like a complete freak accident of history. At some point somehow the anime adaptation of a manga that wasn't really good, nor a success of its own because it was a brand new sequel to a popular manga nobody actually asked for, blew up into a beloved billion dollar franchise.

My working theory is that since they both came out concurrently people watched and read both, and it formed a single whole in their minds, with the anime padding out what's not shown in the manga, i.e. the girls being friends and being normal girls. That explains Japan, and by extrapolation everything else too, because the manga wasn't readily available in the rest of the world. You can read the manga and keep the characterization of the anime in mind, and some of it makes more sense and the pacing doesn't seem to be completely sloped towards the breakneck zero character development style it actually has.

Either that or all the other (maho) shojo manga of the time was even worse. So bad in fact that Sailor Moon was good by comparison. That's a scary thought.

Going back a bit to the adaptation as it is in SMC. The most annoying thing is everyone narrating what we can see on the screen. Interestingly, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure does something similar. However, in these scenes, nothing is completely animated out. There are still-frame shots that are animated as a whole, like moving manga panels, with the narration running. That's a stylistic choice that you can appreciate - or not, depending on your tastes and preferances, but it is intentional and a creative choice of the team behind the anime.

Whereas the one in SMC just looks like they didn't know at all what they were doing. That's not by choice, but by blind adherance to the source material. Being cynical for a bit, I wonder how much of a wakeup call SMC's initial "success" was for Ms. Takeuchi. She finally got her faithful(ler) adaptation, and it was trashed by fans and critics alike (and the fans still like the manga, and make excuses for it, like SMC isn't totally faithful, that's why it sucks).

[Bartimaeus]

The first explanation, that they just went together for most people who were actually read the manga at the time, probably makes more sense, but the other explanation is funnier, so I vote that. If I know anything about specifically arrogant artists/creators, they have a tendency to think fans just "didn't understand" or were "biased" or running on "nostalgia" as a result of watching the original show 20 years ago or whatever. More or less the same crap fans of the new crap say...

Episode 1 of SuperS Episode 5 of SuperS

Spoiler

Okay, so I'm already getting what you guys mean by retreading ground that was already solved. Why should Chibi-Usa care about any of this? She pretty clearly evolved past thinking about Mamoru in this way back in S. Where's Sailor Satan when you need her? This is...funny, but does feel wrong.

These three creeps are proper creeps already, and they just came out of nowhere with no introduction. Holy crap, this red-headed one is so much taller than Mamoru's friend. Wait, lmao: "If you ask me, you came across as more of a creep." Well well well...the villains are already self-aware - literally the first episode.

Chibi-Usa's transformation in Super S is thankfully a lot less uncomfortable than it was in S: The Movie, so at least there's that.

Uh...hold on, wait a second, did I miss an episode? "Please, Pegasus, protect everyone's dream!" I wasn't even introduced to this guy yet and he's already here. What the hell happened? And now that I think about it, those creeps appeared without any introduction either.

Alright, so yeah, apparently, my episodes are out of order, and I actually watched episode 5 instead. How did this happen? Pfeh. ...At least it happened to SuperS instead of any other season.

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Sometimes, I don't know if they're best friends, enemies, or sort of...something else for each other. What the hell are you two doing?

 

Oh, I forgot to comment on this. Minor Stars spoiler:
 

Spoiler

 

During the Sailor Stars filler arc, the Senshi are split up in Nehelenia's dream world. Neptune and Mars are together. While Rei tries to overplay her insecurity because Michiru us a more experienced psychic than her, they also talk a little about their relationship with the other girls. Michiru remarks that Rei and Usagi are really good friends... like her and Haruka. You're definitely not the only one who got some vibes from scenes like that. Heh.

I love the relationship the two have, and nothing of that would have happened if not for the decision to change Rei.

 

 

[Bartimaeus]

In another life where Usagi wasn't already destined to be Neo, maybe they could've both been proper man-haters together. Hell, the only other dudes Usagi ever attracted were Umino at the beginning of season 1...and Ail...and Price Demande...and probably a whole host of other dudes I'm forgetting about right now, but ignore all that because it doesn't support my point.

[Bartimaeus]

38 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

The first explanation, that they just went together for most people who were actually read the manga at the time, probably makes more sense, but the other explanation is funnier, so I vote that. If I know anything about specifically arrogant artists/creators, they have a tendency to think fans just "didn't understand" or were "biased" or running on "nostalgia" as a result of watching the original show 20 years ago or whatever. More or less the same crap fans of the new crap say...

Episode 1 of SuperS Episode 5 of SuperS

  Reveal hidden contents

Okay, so I'm already getting what you guys mean by retreading ground that was already solved. Why should Chibi-Usa care about any of this? She pretty clearly evolved past thinking about Mamoru in this way back in S. Where's Sailor Satan when you need her? This is...funny, but does feel wrong.

These three creeps are proper creeps already, and they just came out of nowhere with no introduction. Holy crap, this red-headed one is so much taller than Mamoru's friend. Wait, lmao: "If you ask me, you came across as more of a creep." Well well well...the villains are already self-aware - literally the first episode.

Chibi-Usa's transformation in Super S is thankfully a lot less uncomfortable than it was in S: The Movie, so at least there's that.

Uh...hold on, wait a second, did I miss an episode? "Please, Pegasus, protect everyone's dream!" I wasn't even introduced to this guy yet and he's already here. What the hell happened? And now that I think about it, those creeps appeared without any introduction either.

Alright, so yeah, apparently, my episodes are out of order, and I actually watched episode 5 instead. How did this happen? Pfeh. ...At least it happened to SuperS instead of any other season.

 

Okay, so...I must have misplaced the first five episodes, because the second episode is actually episode 6. I don't know where they went, so I'm just going to pretend that I know what's going on and keep going.

Spoiler

Not too much to say about episode 6, except that it was great but this whole weird staking out victims to assault and then confusing and tricking them and then assaulting them is very uncomfortable, especially with the noises these guys are making when they do it. A number of different little different things - villain pretending to be burned by a cross, the Artemis-is-a-father subplot, Rei basically saying churches suck, etc. made this a genuinely good episode, especially with no other dumb stuff to drag it down.

 

[majestic]

 

21 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

In another life where Usagi wasn't already destined to be Neo, maybe they could've both been proper man-haters together. Hell, the only other dudes Usagi ever attracted were Umino at the beginning of season 1...and Ail...and Price Demande...and probably a whole host of other dudes I'm forgetting about right now, but ignore all that because it doesn't support my point.

No host of dudes there. Only one you haven't met yet, but hopefully will (I hope you'd rather skip parts of SuperS than drop the show entirely), and Ali/Ail isn't even canonical in the strictest sense. Manga!Usagi could maybe be a man-hater under different circumstances, but Anime!Usagi? Never. She just loves everyone.

Out of order episodes...
 

Spoiler

 

You got lucky, you've accidentially stumbled into one of the better ones where Chibi-Usa is wondering if she'll ever be born if Usagi keeps up being this immature, instead of being half the reason why Usagi is behaving like that, and even though KP didn't like the giant beach ball, it was one of the funnier monsters in this season for me - and Usagi isn't at all jealous or worried about someone else spending time with Mamoru.

Spoiler

This'll be the last time in the season by the way. Anything else that even remotely looks like a girl looking at Mamoru? Hold fast. You're not safe. Not even if your name is Ami or Rei.

 

The funny thing: Mamoru is hugely popular.

Spoiler

 

(list randomly stolen from the interweb):

• Rei
• Usagi
• Lake Monster
• Beryl
• En
• Fiore
• BRACK RADY
• SERA PRUTO
• Mimette
• Fish-Eye
• Nehelenia

Looks like everyone wants a piece of Mamo-chan.