Sailor Moon S
I have always loved the last three seasons of "Sailor Moon" so I am super excited to get started with "Sailor Moon S." The "S" stands for Super. "Sailor Moon S" introduces the rest of the outer Sailor Senshi who are probably my favorites. It is super queer, to the point where in the original English dub that they made Haruka and Michiru cousins instead of lovers, which is wild, since they didn't change any of the dialogue. Let's get to it.
"Premonition of the Apocalypse: The Mysterious New Guardians Appear"
Sailor Moon: "Stop what you're doing! I am the Pretty Guardian who fights for love and for justice! I am Sailor Moon!"
Mikuuji: "Sailor Moon?"
Sailor Moon: "How dare you attack my best friend who has a pure heart? That's absolutely unforgivable! Now, in the name of the moon, I'll punish you!"
The Sailor Guardians are enjoying their downtime after defeating the Black Moon Clan and sending Chibi-Usa back to the future. Usagi is trying to use this time to catch up on her studies, but it's not long before Rei is having apocalyptic dreams. Soon, Rei is attacked by a Daimon sent by the Death Busters who are attacking people with pure hearts to find three talismans that will lead them to the Holy Grail. And their first target is Rei!
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| Is this what hearts look like? |
We are back with "Sailor Moon S" and its time to be introduced to new enemies and new allies. The primary antagonists for this season are the Death Busters. They are kind of similar to the Dark Kingdom, Ail & An and the Black Moon Clan. They aren't draining energy from people which is kind of a nice change. Instead, they are stealing people's hearts which is worse?
One of the things that I really enjoy about this episode was how it sort of shed more light and added more context to the friendship between Rei and Usagi. I think that sometimes it can be difficult to understand why they are friends despite the few times that Rei actually says nice things to Usagi. This episode has maybe one of the best interactions between them in the series so far. Rei gives Usagi a lot of compliments and praises her. There's a lot of focus on what Usagi is bad at as far as like schoolwork and such, but Rei reminds her that she is good at other things and maybe those things are better. I also love all of Rei's dreams for when she's going to grow up. She wants to be an actress, a model, a singer/songwriter and of course, a wife and mother, the things she would never admit.
I think that the way the Daimon's are formed is pretty cool. Professor Tomoe sends out a seed and it attaches to a tree. The Daimon seed then twists the thing that it attaches to and creates a Daimon. This time it becomes a tree creature that goes by the name of Mikuuji. If there is one thing that the villains in "Sailor Moon" are going to have it is really convoluted motivations, which honestly, is pretty common in most anime. Professor Tomoe and his assistant, Kaolinite, are trying to find people of pure heart. Apparently, three extra pure hearted people contain talismans. Once the three talismans are found, then they will make a map that will lead them to the Holy Grail and then everyone will do the hokey pokey and turn themselves around.
The fact that these Daimons are trying to steal people's hearts is cool and gruesome and I love the way the show does it. I think the black star marks that extract the hearts and the hearts are these really pretty crystals is a really cool visual. It's also kind of chilling. I mean, Rei basically dies in this episode. Usagi is holding her lifeless body. It's a lot and I appreciate that the show is willing to go there especially when it is also being cutesy and fun.
I think that sometimes the villains on "Sailor Moon" are not the most menacing. It's like, why are the girls scared of these people? It doesn't make any sense. You can't really say that about the Death Busters. They immediately make an impression and you are scared for the girls. I mean, this Daimon takes out Rei and the rest of the Guardians before they even have a chance to transform. Takes out Tuxedo Mask like it was nothing. That is really great. She deflects Moon Princess Halation and basically sucks the shine out of the Legendary Silver Crystal and forces Sailor Moon to revert back to Usagi. The girls would have been screwed if the two shadow Sailor Guardians hadn't appeared to save the day.
For the first time, it definitely feels like the girls are in trouble and that is kind of cool.
Grade: A-
"The Rod of Love is Born: Usagi's New Transformation"
Usagi Tsukino: "Moon Cosmic Power Make Up!"
Usagi is still reeling from her confrontation with the Daimon and her brooch being broken. Mamoru takes her to an abandoned building that is brimming with stray cats. There is a young girl that is there feeding the cats and Usagi decides she is going to re-home them all to help alleviate her stress over no longer being able to transform. It turns out the next pure heart that the Death Busters are going after is this girl. How will Usagi protect her when she can no longer transform into Sailor Moon?
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| Ooooh... |
Has anyone noticed that Mamoru has like zero desire to do any romantic type stuff with Usagi? It's almost like he's actively avoiding it. In the last episode, he suggests no dates until Usagi gets her grades up. And he suggested that like right away. No hesitation. He was waiting for her to say something so that he could say, well no dates then. And he knows that Usagi is not great at school, so he knew that was going to take dates out of the equation for a while. In this episode, he's apparently rescinded that because of the whole Usagi can't transform and she's all bummed out but did you see the look of abject terror in Mamoru's eyes when Usagi wanted to kiss him? He shoves that cat in her face so quickly. Listen, I'm not saying that Mamoru is a homoromantic bisexual, but there is evidence. That's all I'm saying. This sort of behavior makes them creating new weapons out of their love a little eyebrow raising.
I'm never mad about any episode of television that focuses on cats. If you know, you know I love cats. And this subplot about Usagi deciding she is going to singlehandedly re-home all these stray cats is wonderful. It's frivolous but it doesn't undermine or take a way from the seriousness of the primary plot of the episode. And it is legit very funny. I love how Usagi just assumed that each of her friends would take one of the cats and I love how they each have an excuse. And even, Usagi has an excuse for why she can't take one, which is basically that Luna is eating the Tsukino's out of house and home. Luna gets mad but how happy she is when Ami shoves a sandwich in her face makes it seem like maybe Usagi is right.
The Daimon this episode, Nekonneru, is maybe one of my favorite youma of the entire series. The Daimon seed affixes to a cat puzzle in the little girls's room, so Nekonneru is a cat creature. She has large cat bell bracelets on each wrists and shoots puzzle pieces. It's ridiculous in the very best of ways.
We get another visit from the shadowy Sailor Guardians and they don't make a great impression on the rest of the girls. They show up and restore the little girls hart after it is removed by Nekonneru, but they refuse to stay and help the girls defeat the Daimon for good, telling them to clean up their own mess. That is real cold.
The big thing coming out of this episode is that Usagi gets a new transformation and a new weapon. I'm going to kind of gloss over the fact that the Cosmic Heart Compact and the Spiral Heart Moon Rod are formed by Usagi and Mamoru's love. This is probably my favorite of Sailor Moon's transformations. I love that she is like being limber and it really injects something new into something that is a variation on something we've seen a million times before. Her new attack is just as good. Sailor Moon is a voguing diva, well probably "noguing" but I'll forgive her. She is dipping, spinning, twirling, twisting before she unleashes this attack and it's a ton of fun. I could honestly watch it a million times.
"Sailor Moon S" is off to a really great start. We've got mysterious maybe friends or maybe foes. Villains who actually are menacing. New transformations and new attacks for Sailor Moon. I think we are in for a great third season.
Grade: A-
Next up, the Sailor Guardians meet Haruka Tenou and Michiru Kaiou.
So, what do you all think? Are there any other "Sailor Moon S" stans here? Are you excited to finally get Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus on the series? Are the Death Busters the scariest main villains so far? What do you think of Sailor Moon's new transformation and attacks? Let me know in the comments.
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