Anime - coasting on emotion rollers

[Bartimaeus]

We're very sorry for your marriage!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

48 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

We're very sorry for your marriage!

Man that episode is great. 

Looks like Buck really is taking lessons from Guitar Dad.

And S4 is done.

Edited April 28, 2021 by ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP

[Bartimaeus]

Have I ever told you all of the story of how much I hate certain strong accents? In that way, I am supremely un-Steven Universe-like, as I instantly and utterly despised Andy purely because of his accent, and that episode was very painful for me as a result. I've gotten to the point where hearing his voice doesn't make me want to claw my ears out though, which has allowed me to enjoy that episode a lot more.

I would never make it on the East coast or in the South, suffice to say.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

50 minutes ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

And S4 is done.

Okay, so full disclosure...season 5 is the last season of SU (not counting SU:F). The SU crew originally planned for two more seasons, and didn't know it was to be the last season until production was already underway. So...you know, you've been warned - things get a little screwy in some ways, and you'll just have to forgive it because ya can't really do anything else anyways and they tried their best to make do in their very limited amount of minutes (and as I understand it, they begged and begged for more time and CN only gave them just a few extra episodes). It's not SuperS or anything, but...you'll see what I mean, I think.

Why they then turned around and then decided to greenlight The Movie and then also the short Future epilogue series after basically cancelling the original, nobody really knows. Probably even Cartoon Network itself doesn't really know.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

24 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Have I ever told you all of the story of how much I hate certain strong accents? In that way, I am supremely un-Steven Universe-like, as I instantly and utterly despised Andy purely because of his accent, and that episode was very painful for me as a result. I've gotten to the point where hearing his voice doesn't make me want to claw my ears out though, which has allowed me to enjoy that episode a lot more.

I would never make it on the East coast or in the South, suffice to say.

Hey, I'm from the South!

I think accents in entertainment are usually exaggerated to the point of parody. I'm sure you could find a right-wing uncle like Andy in Bawstaan, but they would sound more normal.

13 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Probably even Cartoon Network itself doesn't really know.

Not surprising, most decisions they make are really dumb. I'm still mad Venture Brothers got canceled after Hank running away in an Adam West Batman mask. Way to **** up a great setup.

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, I think that's definitely true. The same way I hear a lot of 90s and especially post-2000s Japanese voice-acting and can't last for more than ten seconds, and then I actually hear Japanese people talking (or stuff from pre-1990s) and they sound perfectly normal to me.

[majestic]

  

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Oh, now you've done it. Look at what you did. Look at it! Now @majestic has to do it all over again. How could you do this to him?

 

 

Spoiler

I appreciate the offer, but I'd keep switching it off to read their posts anyway. There's a reason why I don't have anyone even on normal ignore.

 

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

If/when I ever watch Sailor Moon again, it's gonna be the original English dub. ...Except I'm going to have to skip a lot of at least the first season, because Molly (Naru) has the absolute worst voice I've ever heard in my life, and ain't no way I'm sitting through all of that during her Nephrite arc.

Oi, Molly is bad. And Nephrite's civilian name is Max?

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the R filler arc too, now that you mention it. While the ending of it isn't necessarily anything to write home about, it was, once again, at least fairly short compared to everything that's not the Sailor Stars filler arc finale or the season 1 finale, so it's automatically up there as well as a result.

I'd say so. The whole way it actually resolves with Queen Beryl and stuff isn't particularly better or anything than other arcs, but besides that it is more concise, less repetitive, and gives things to do for all five girls, so it kind of wins by default.

It's almost as is if the first season finale and the filler arcs were planned a bit better than the others. That's a given for the filler arcs, obviously. I've also wondered why there's a filler arc particularily for R and Sailor Starts, and not S or SuperS, and the one reason I can come up with is because both Black Moon and Stars remove main characters right from the beginning. Which I initially thought was made just to spite the anime team, but now I'm convinced she did that to reduce the amount of work she has to do (or rather, the amount of characters she has to write dialogue for).

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

No kidding: most shows have somewhere between very mediocre and utterly lousy endings. SU's a little strange in that most of its major story arcs usually had good to great build-up all the way to their ends, but then the final moment that would finally resolve the story arc had a tendency to feel...kind of flat and anti-climactic, in a sort of "oh, I guess that just happened" kind of way. I think the Cluster finale in S2/beginning of S3 best exemplifies this - literally just about everything leading up to the end moment was awesome, but the end moment itself where the Cluster just decides to take care of itself was totally deflating to me after all of that build-up, .

It's not just shows. Stephen King, and his German equivalent Wolfgang Hohlbein both made successful careers out of writing fun to read books with mostly lousy or lackluster endings.

The cluster just hugging itself was indeed a bit anticlimactic, but that's endemic to this type of situation, I think. Once you show all conventional means to be exhausted, all you can come up with is fantastic or improbable, and that's just hard to do in a satisfying manner.

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Or the episode where Minako does her double-date, which is actually a fantastic use of the Amazon Trio...............um, right up until the end of the episode where it's not so funny anymore for reasons I don't want to talk about, . Ami's beach episode was also quite good...once again, right up until it wasn't. Like I said way back when, there were actually good ideas and even villains buried somewhere in SuperS - even the Amazon Trio could've been a hilarious group of bad guys with a little retooling. Unfortunately, buried they were indeed, and very deep at that. And there was, quite frankly, no way to save the horse romance plot - Ms. Takeuchi really dropped and then shattered the ball on that one, .

To be honest I didn't want to include any of the episode with the Trio where they go after one of our protagonists. Minako's episode was fun, Ami's had nice moments. Rei's was terrible, and Makoto... uhm, no, not talking about that. By now we already know that I thought it was a great episode for various reasons, but I can't into Makoto torture porn and I can't recommend an episode that is just cruel with no real point - this isn't Outer Limits, it's Sailor Moon.

Maybe if they spent a couple of episodes dealing with their experiences, then it could have been worthwhile, but as it stands, the season even giving the Amazon Quartett a different way to check out dream mirrors, oh boy. Talk about making things worse in hindsight.

Yeah, speaking of Helios...

5 hours ago, Amentep said:

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal Season IV: Eternal the Movie picked up by Netflix.

Uhm:

Quote

The film is based on the "Dreams arc" of the original manga series. The official description: "The story is about the Sailor Guardians' growth, both as teenage girls and as Sailor Guardians, as well as the faint first love of Chibi-Usa and Helios."

Well, that's one way to say that it's two films about a nine year old girl falling in love with a winged unicorn who can't really decide between wanting her father or some hunky horse lovin'.

I wonder if one of the two films will include the scene where she's watching her mother, wishing for an equally beautiful body so that the above mentioned father would finally find her sexually attractive.

All that and more, coming to Netflix soon! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Spoiler:

Spoiler

She goes for the horse lovin' because that father thing was done and dusted in season 2 already. Yep. That really happened. And no, while it wasn't consensual, the force originated from her, not him.

This is so bad. People are going to watch this on Netflix and will never again check out anything Sailor Moon related. Out of all possible things Sailor Moon to come to Netflix, this will easily be the worst. The WORST.

Even if it turns out to be a good adaptation, has some good animation for a change (though I doubt that) or better writing, no matter what you do, even if you change half the storyline from the manga, at the end of the day it will be a little nine year old with pink hair pining after a horse. I, what, how, why. As if it wasn't bad enough to be ridiculed for liking Sailor Moon as a teenager because it's a girl show, soon you won't even be able to mention it because people will think it's some weird horse eroge anime.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh, now you've done it. Look at what you did. Look at it! Now @majestic has to do it all over again. How could you do this to him?

 

5 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

I guess @majestic is going to lose his mind on or shortly after June 3rd.

I've been checking out various anime "providers" if there's a fan-sub version of Sailor Moon Eternal to be found once per week or so. Looks like there still isn't, the scene really failed on this one. Not even one with low quality video and audio.

At least I can stop trying. There's no point, I'll see it soon. I guess that means I can even watch it with the Viz voice cast, so that's... something, at least. Gotta look at the silver linings there.

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Have I ever told you all of the story of how much I hate certain strong accents? In that way, I am supremely un-Steven Universe-like, as I instantly and utterly despised Andy purely because of his accent, and that episode was very painful for me as a result. I've gotten to the point where hearing his voice doesn't make me want to claw my ears out though, which has allowed me to enjoy that episode a lot more.

I would never make it on the East coast or in the South, suffice to say.

Funny you mention that. English accents don't bother me at all, but German ones often do, the further they move away from what I'm used to, the more uncomfortable they become to listen to, even if there are just slight traces of it, like with Usagi's first voice actress in the German dub.

[Bartimaeus]

  

59 minutes ago, majestic said:

Well, that's one way to say that it's two films about a nine year old girl falling in love with a winged unicorn who can't really decide between wanting her father or some hunky horse lovin'.

I wonder if one of the two films will include the scene where she's watching her mother, wishing for an equally beautiful body so that the above mentioned father would finally find her sexually attractive.

All that and more, coming to Netflix soon! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay.

I didn't even read the description for it until you quoted it. Way worse news than even I initially imagined.

59 minutes ago, majestic said:

This is so bad. People are going to watch this on Netflix and will never again check out anything Sailor Moon related. Out of all possible things Sailor Moon to come to Netflix, this will easily be the worst. The WORST.

Even if it turns out to be a good adaptation, has some good animation for a change (though I doubt that) or better writing, no matter what you do, even if you change half the storyline from the manga, at the end of the day it will be a little nine year old with pink hair pining after a horse. I, what, how, why. As if it wasn't bad enough to be ridiculed for liking Sailor Moon as a teenager because it's a girl show, soon you won't even be able to mention it because people will think it's some weird horse eroge anime.

The description does say "faint first love". The only hope in hell that it possibly has is that we are talking about a love so incredibly faint that it can't even be detected by anyone that wasn't already a dedicated superfan, because that crap is not going to go over well with general audiences that just turn it on to see what the hey is.

lmao, I had all of my post CTRL+A-ed because I had just copied it, then I hit quote on a different section of your post and it deleted my entire post because I guess it decided to overwrite what I had been highlighting. Good thing I had copied it...

53 minutes ago, majestic said:

Funny you mention that. English accents don't bother me at all, but German ones often do, the further they move away from what I'm used to, the more uncomfortable they become to listen to, even if there are just slight traces of it, like with Usagi's first voice actress in the German dub.

You know, that kind of makes sense. I can't say I can think of any accents applied to non-English that bother me, so maybe heavy Southern or East coast accents would actually be fine to me...if they were speaking German or French or something, . It's not just American English accents I hate, either - some British and British-Indian ones as well (though not all - I'm very particular about which ones). As far as I'm concerned, there are a few different Scottish accents speaking English that I've heard, and they beat everything else - I haven't heard any that I've disliked.

59 minutes ago, majestic said:

To be honest I didn't want to include any of the episode with the Trio where they go after one of our protagonists. Minako's episode was fun, Ami's had nice moments. Rei's was terrible, and Makoto... uhm, no, not talking about that. By now we already know that I thought it was a great episode for various reasons, but I can't into Makoto torture porn and I can't recommend an episode that is just cruel with no real point - this isn't Outer Limits, it's Sailor Moon.

Maybe if they spent a couple of episodes dealing with their experiences, then it could have been worthwhile, but as it stands, the season even giving the Amazon Quartett a different way to check out dream mirrors, oh boy. Talk about making things worse in hindsight.

That really was the most insulting thing. How can you have your main characters be assaulted and traumatized while they're screaming bloody murder, like they're being...well, killed or something else...and then just completely ignore it ever happened mere moments later? That'd be bad enough for infrequently appearing side-characters like Matoki and his sister...but the MAIN CAST? And not only is it so quickly forgotten, the tone of when it's happening is almost...like it's just for laughs, like it's no big deal, it's just Sailor Moon villain business stuff as usual. I'm sorry, but you just can't do that.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

7 hours ago, majestic said:

Oi, Molly is bad. And Nephrite's civilian name is Max?

Keep him away from his ex.

And now Lars is pink and hanging out with gem rejects.

[majestic]

@ShadySands you kind of keep reading this thread and liking random things whenever I mention Star Trek.

How about you take a break from watching bad YA stuff on Netflix and join us in watching Sailor Moon, which was made for... uhm, wait. Don't let that talk about rape gangs and horse pedophilia fool you, that's just a small part of it. Really! *cough*

 

[ShadySands]

I always at least skim this thread because it's generally been the most active one for a while. I dunno why I can't just click mark as read.

Also, the mention of rape gangs immediately brought to mind Tasha Yar. Maybe I'll go watch TNG for the unknownth time.

[Malcador]

https://www.cbr.com/ghost-stories-failed-anime-became-most-offensive-dub-ever/

 

[majestic]

38 minutes ago, Malcador said:

https://www.cbr.com/ghost-stories-failed-anime-became-most-offensive-dub-ever/

 

That's glorious, whatever it is...

"God, can you go bomb an abortion clinic or something?" "When that wonderful president finishes stacking the Supreme Court we won't have to."

 

[Malcador]

10 minutes ago, majestic said:

That's glorious, whatever it is...

"God, can you go bomb an abortion clinic or something?" "When that wonderful president finishes stacking the Supreme Court we won't have to."

 

My favourite is the the last bit about Muslims and pedophiles seizing control of the Internet

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, ShadySands said:

I always at least skim this thread because it's generally been the most active one for a while. I dunno why I can't just click mark as read.

Also, the mention of rape gangs immediately brought to mind Tasha Yar. Maybe I'll go watch TNG for the unknownth time.

I'm in the middle of watching Voyager, which unlike TNG or DS9 I take weeks or months long breaks from because it gets really dumb. Like Janeway trying to kill Tom for breaking the Prime Directive to save a planet only to break the Prime Directive next episode (and risk the wrath of some space nazis) to save some telepaths. It seems like you could interpret Voyager as Janeway trying really hard to get her crew killed in action.

Anyways you should watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Because it is so good you can't describe it.

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

https://www.cbr.com/ghost-stories-failed-anime-became-most-offensive-dub-ever/

 

Holy **** this is awesome.

[Bartimaeus]

Speaking of wanting to destroy Cartoon Network, they have now cancelled Infinity Train because, as the creator put it, "the series' stories and themes [had become] too dark and unappealing to children", . ...I mean, they're mostly not wrong, but gosh. Haven't had a chance to watch the last season that came out recently yet, but the second season is one of my favorite seasons of any show ever (I only just barely watched it too - the first season was pretty good, but I didn't find its characters or themes to be particularly resonating with me...very glad I was persuaded to, because boy did that change in the second season). Guess I kind of knew the writing was on the wall when...well, actually, never mind - just in case any of you guys ever watch it. Well, at least Hilda's still continuing (its second season was also better than the first, and the first was already pretty darned good)...

The story I've heard about that Ghost Stories dub is that it was *extremely* expensive to make because of various talents they had hired on, but it utterly bombed in Japan, so they ended up giving the distribution and dubbing rights with absolutely no requirements or guidelines to whatever company was willing to pay the most for it, and that company...decided to do that with it.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

41 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Speaking of wanting to destroy Cartoon Network, they have now cancelled Infinity Train because, as the creator put it, "the series' stories and themes [had become] too dark and unappealing to children",

[Bartimaeus]

I kind of get the feeling that for a studio like Cartoon Network, a show basically has to be selling a lot of physical merchandise (i.e. primarily but not limited to just toys) in order for it not to be at constant risk of cancellation. It's about the only thing that I can figure out that makes sense for why they cancel the shows that they do while letting the absolute garbage continue to get season after season. And I guess that basically means that unless a show is popular with a large segment of <10 year olds, it's pretty much always going to be at risk of being cancelling. Prestige, critic reviews, adult followings...all simply just do not matter as much as the glorious dollar.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

24 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I kind of get the feeling that for a studio like Cartoon Network, a show basically has to be selling a lot of physical merchandise (i.e. primarily but not limited to just toys) in order for it not to be at constant risk of cancellation. It's about the only thing that I can figure out that makes sense for why they cancel the shows that they do while letting the absolute garbage continue to get season after season. And I guess that basically means that unless a show is popular with a large segment of <10 year olds, it's pretty much always going to be at risk of being cancelling. Prestige, critic reviews, adult followings...all simply just do not matter as much as the glorious dollar.

That makes sense. They also could have really bad taste. Or alternatively the studio could be an attempt to harvest psychic rage and grief in order to rip a hole in dimensions and bring forth horrors too much for the human mind to comprehend.

[majestic]

  

23 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

The description does say "faint first love". The only hope in hell that it possibly has is that we are talking about a love so incredibly faint that it can't even be detected by anyone that wasn't already a dedicated superfan, because that crap is not going to go over well with general audiences that just turn it on to see what the hey is.

Horsey does kiss Chibi-Usa early in the manga, so that puts it out of "faint" immediately - but hey, maybe the writers had more sense this time around. On the other hand, maybe it's not that weird when the Helios reveal comes earlier. Or maybe they skip the horse part entirely. That would be something.

By the way, I was looking for a document today, and incidentially came across this in one of my archive boxes for old stuff I don't want to throw away:

Spoiler

Too bad it got damaged, and someone scotch taped on it.

Spoiler

That someone was me, apparently. Man younger me, what were you, stupid?

 

23 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That really was the most insulting thing. How can you have your main characters be assaulted and traumatized while they're screaming bloody murder, like they're being...well, killed or something else...and then just completely ignore it ever happened mere moments later? That'd be bad enough for infrequently appearing side-characters like Matoki and his sister...but the MAIN CAST? And not only is it so quickly forgotten, the tone of when it's happening is almost...like it's just for laughs, like it's no big deal, it's just Sailor Moon villain business stuff as usual. I'm sorry, but you just can't do that.

And that statement comes with you not having seen the two really awful scenes in the first two episodes that really drive home how terrible of an experience that was (unless you didn't skip them, but I think you did, after all you watched them after the season, I think... or in the middle, anyway, long after you started skipping scenes). The other scenes were a lot less, uhm, I don't want to say rapey because they always were, but the assault victims at least mercifully passed out in later scenes. Except for Minako, she just kicked their butts. But that was to be expected.

It's even worse because they actively mentioned being targetted by the Death Busters as a terrible experience that Minako should really not try to go through just so she doesn't feel left out, and that was "only" a regular physical attack with some pain attached. It would have been better if they had just dropped the entire idea, but if it has to be in there, then for the love of god do something worthwhile with it.

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I kind of get the feeling that for a studio like Cartoon Network, a show basically has to be selling a lot of physical merchandise (i.e. primarily but not limited to just toys) in order for it not to be at constant risk of cancellation. It's about the only thing that I can figure out that makes sense for why they cancel the shows that they do while letting the absolute garbage continue to get season after season. And I guess that basically means that unless a show is popular with a large segment of <10 year olds, it's pretty much always going to be at risk of being cancelling. Prestige, critic reviews, adult followings...all simply just do not matter as much as the glorious dollar.

So it's the SyFy of animation. I'm still stuper salty that they cancelled Dark Matter and let Killjoys go on. DM hat the better ratings, better reviews, everything, but cost more to make. Good job.

17 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

And now Lars is pink and hanging out with gem rejects.

Don't you mean rose?

9 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I always at least skim this thread because it's generally been the most active one for a while. I dunno why I can't just click mark as read.

Also, the mention of rape gangs immediately brought to mind Tasha Yar. Maybe I'll go watch TNG for the unknownth time.

That's because deep in your heart, you know you want to watch Sailor Moon with us. I have faith, faith in the fragment of interest that is still there, in your heart!

Yeah, so quoting Usagi here doesn't make total sense, but anyway...

[Amentep]

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I kind of get the feeling that for a studio like Cartoon Network, a show basically has to be selling a lot of physical merchandise (i.e. primarily but not limited to just toys) in order for it not to be at constant risk of cancellation. 

This is what I've always heard.  They've cancelled popular shows due to not getting revenue from merchandising.

[Bartimaeus]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

That someone was me, apparently. Man younger me, what were you, stupid?

Feel like that's pretty normal for kids/teens, since it's not like you can exactly frame stuff at that age (and the paper quality of the poster doesn't usually warrant framing to begin with, anyway).

I think Minako's is the only one I saw. I take it she handled it the best, what with her breaking herself out and attacking them?

3 hours ago, majestic said:

terrible experience that Minako should really not try to go through just so she doesn't feel left out

But, but...her self-esteem! Doesn't that matter at all to you?

[Bartimaeus]

34 minutes ago, Amentep said:

This is what I've always heard.  They've cancelled popular shows due to not getting revenue from merchandising.

If that's really all there is to it, it's kind of a wonder that some of these shows last for more than a season or two at all: ain't no merchandising to be found basically at all for their more serious shows.

14 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I always at least skim this thread because it's generally been the most active one for a while. I dunno why I can't just click mark as read.

The very first iteration of this thread was started back in January 2013. You resurrected it back in January of this year on page 15 after basically telling all of us to quit spamming the TV thread. We've now run through 65 pages' worth of posts between you doing that and right now, in just a little bit over 4 months. In the same time period, the Politics series of threads have been through just about 81 pages' worth of posts. So not too far off for basically just 4 posters in the anime threads doing 99% of the posting, . Of course, you should also account for the fact that it's been much more intelligent conversation in here than in the politics thread, too, .

Edited April 29, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Feel like that's pretty normal for kids/teens, since it's not like you can exactly frame stuff at that age (and the paper quality of the poster doesn't usually warrant framing to begin with, anyway).

It was a centerfold out of a relatively popular youth magazine that my cousin got regularily (his parents, unlike mine, could afford a subscription), so yes, that's really cheap quality paper and explains all the folds, but still, that doesn't explain why there's scotch tape on my Sailor Moon poster and my Turok 2 posters are framed. It's not like Turok 2 deserved framing, the first one was much better.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I think Minako's is the only one I saw. I take it she handled it the best, what with her breaking herself out and attacking them?

Yes, Minako dealt pretty well with it, all in all. Out of the main cast, the worst was Makoto's if only for her utterly defeated expression while it happens (she also stays conscious and fights afterwards, being understandably mad as hell at Tiger's-Eye). Which makes not talking about it or dealing with it at all even worse, because clearly the animator had the good sense to show just how heartbreaking that was for her - even before all the pain and violation that followed.

The overall worst scenes...
 

Spoiler

 

Were the first two, Unazuki and Reika. Hm, look at that, being the sister and the girlfriend of Motoki seems to be unhealthy for some reason. Motoki never gehts attacked, does he?

Anyway, Unazuki's entire scene is horrible, from the way Tiger's-Eye steals her wallet to be able to come to rescue her after not being able to pay the bus fare, to the fact that he claims their meeting to have been destiny, then they take a walk through a nice park, and when they're alone he just assaults her. Unazuki's voice actress - in the original, at least - was also pretty good at screaming in pain while Tiger's-Eye, well, you know, just enjoys it. This scene, above all others, immediately tells the viewer that the writers really intended that as an allegory for sexual assault.

Reika's scene even one-upped that. There's less of a spiel from Tiger's-Eye when it comes to the prelude, but Reika... man, ugh. Even writing about it is uncomfortable, not only does she scream in pain she BEGS Tiger's-Eye to stop. Right from the go, with "Please, don't look!" and later "Please, stop, please!", uhm.

There's no way this was meant as something that "just another Sailor Moon villain" does, and yet, every other episode from here on out pretends it is. I have no idea what happened, but I blame Toei for that, seems reasonable. It's possible that the writers wanted to do something else with this but weren't allowed to, because really, the topic matter doesn't have a place in a season of Sailor Moon that wanted to go back to its origins.

 

We could also talk about whether or not that should be something Sailor Moon dealt with, but it was (still is?) a sad reality for teenage girls in 90ies Japan to be subjected to abuse in one way or the other, especially on public transportation ("chikan"). It got so bad that in certain places there are women only busses and subway trains. Insfoar I'd say the intention was good, I mean, Sailor Moon was already a vehicle for empowerment, so why not show girls that they don't have to suffer random strangers groping them and that they shouldn't get away with it?

It's the execution that was terrible, for whatever reason, we're left with an assault allegory that goes nowhere and everyone pretends it never happened. That's the worst possible outcome.  Even the first season did more in terms of transporting a message, what with its episodes about losing weight, or falling for sales, makeup, exploitative cruises or the myriad of other things that happened.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

But, but...her self-esteem! Doesn't that matter at all to you?

I might have my favorites, but they all matter to me, of course.

That episode was great from start to finish. From the weird daimon that didn't want to fight, to the way Minako looks like she wants to talk to Usagi about something but just wants her to carry half the dolls, to the insane cackle of hers after she gets attacked... hm. Maybe I should watch S again.