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EP. REVIEW: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal: Season III

Oh, one thing, though. Professor Tomoe and the Witches 5 are actually pretty different in Classic as well, and your mileage may vary on whether you find them hilariously ridiculous or just kind of grating and annoying. It's very Ikuhara, if you've ever seen his particular brand of comedy.

Sailor Moon's great epiphany about trusting herself once again felt shallow to me because her sudden sinking into despair/darkness/loneliness was just so randomly placed and made no sense. Also, having the scene take place mere seconds after Haruka gives her the "answer" made it feel quite rushed, and lacking in any emotional investment. I understand that it's important that the magical girl trusts herself, the whole thing seems just like hammering in the whole "Sailor Moon is flawless and perfect and everybody loves her and she can do no wrong" which is just... ugh. This part made me recall the episode in Card Captor Sakura in which she faces the Dark card and must struggle to find the Light that resides within her. The latter is a much more effective example of the hero learning to believe in her own powers and using that strength to save everyone.

Something that has bothered me endlessly since the second season is the fact that the Silver Millenium has these Outer guardians that are, for all intents and purposes, exiled and condemned to eternal solitude, and once again, no one questions this. I mean, we can all agree that sending your loyal warriors to the confines of the universe with no means of communication and nothing to do but occassionally fend off threats is a really shitty thing to do. Honestly, the fact that none of these Senshis who for all we know have been literally alone for centuries (or millenia?!) don't resent the queen that sent them in such a thankless, joyless mission is rather unbelievable (I know, plot convenience, Sailor Moon is a flawless perfect queen and everyone loves her and will do anything for her, but it's terrible writing). For crying out loud, at least the men of the Night's Watch have their brothers in arms to keep each other company and do occassionally get to slack off and have fun.

Another climactic moment that fell completely flat for me. I have meh feelings about pretty much all of the episode, I didn't even stop to think about how dumb getting on the elevator was, or how convenient that the Inners decided to let the Outers have the spotlight. I don't really know how to explain it, but the episode didn't really grab me.

I also felt Tomoe's and Kaori's backstory was unnecessary because it didn't even explain their motivations to be evil -we already knew Tomoe had been rejected by the scientific community, and Kaori was "converted" without much persuasion, it doesn't make sense why a scientist would suddenly be swayed by the promise of "more power", but w/e-. So those few minutes were pretty much a waste of screentime.

Sailor Moon's great epiphany about trusting herself once again felt shallow to me because her sudden sinking into despair/darkness/loneliness was just so randomly placed and made no sense. Also, having the scene take place mere seconds after Haruka gives her the "answer" made it feel quite rushed, and lacking in any emotional investment. I understand that it's important that the magical girl trusts herself, the whole thing seems just like hammering in the whole "Sailor Moon is flawless and perfect and everybody loves her and she can do no wrong" which is just... ugh. This part made me recall the episode in Card Captor Sakura in which she faces the Dark card and must struggle to find the Light that resides within her. The latter is a much more effective example of the hero learning to believe in her own powers and using that strength to save everyone.

Something that has bothered me endlessly since the second season is the fact that the Silver Millenium has these Outer guardians that are, for all intents and purposes, exiled and condemned to eternal solitude, and once again, no one questions this. I mean, we can all agree that sending your loyal warriors to the confines of the universe with no means of communication and nothing to do but occassionally fend off threats is a really shitty thing to do. Honestly, the fact that none of these Senshis who for all we know have been literally alone for centuries (or millenia?!) don't resent the queen that sent them in such a thankless, joyless mission is rather unbelievable (I know, plot convenience, Sailor Moon is a flawless perfect queen and everyone loves her and will do anything for her, but it's terrible writing). For crying out loud, at least the men of the Night's Watch have their brothers in arms to keep each other company and do occassionally get to slack off and have fun.

I was also bothered by the fact that, when Usagi thought of the happinness she wanted to protect, she thought of Mamoru and Chibiusa and even of Hotaru, but not a single thought was spared for her "friends". I guess they all deserve each other, the Inners gave up on fighting for Usagi at the first minuscule temptation and Usagi will abandon them at the drop of a hat for Mamoru. This is honestly the most disappointing aspect of this whole series for me.

Even the good ideas are basically just thrown out the window, like Usagi's possible conflict over killing Hotaru's father. I would've liked more introspection, or maybe more regret after she was forced to kill him to save Haruka, but the writing didn't even give us time for that because the Inners were obliterated seconds after the fact. It's like they're just going through a checklist of plot points, thus not allowing any of the moments to have any emotional weight.

A lot of the issues you're taking up with Crystal can't be help because it's following the manga to a T. For better or worse the issues is the Crystal are being copied into the manga. Which is why the classic anime exists; to alleviate the issues that the manga possessed.

For the life of me, until I my last breathe, I'll NEVER understand why people who are obviously dissatisfied with Crystal continue to watch.

SailorNaruto wrote:

For the life of me, until I my last breathe, I'll NEVER understand why people who are obviously dissatisfied with Crystal continue to watch.

To be fair, I watched Guilty Crown all the way through even though even episode (aside from the excellent first two) made me want to bang my head against a wall. Why? Eh, for me it was mostly potential. Guilty Crown occasionally had glimmers of brilliance that made me think that maybe, just maybe, the next episode would improve upon that. (Spoilers: it did not.)

While my stance on Crystal's third season isn't as harsh as CrowLia's (I do think it improved significantly on the first two seasons in pacing alone), it feels largely the same for me here; Crystal offers shining moments of "Hey, that was pretty good" to just flat out "Holy shit, that was awesome! ", but it also shares that space with some of the worst trope-y writing Naoko indulges in (like making Haruka more of a Takarazuka wish-fulfillment fantasy and less of a fully-realized character, in my opinion). Plus, it's colored by my experience of the generally-agreed-to-be-awesome Classic Infinity arc, which seems to have taken a lot of the stuff Naoko alludes to and expanded upon it intelligently.

It's admittedly not fair to Crystal that I already have these preconceptions of a "good" Infinity arc, and try as I might, it's definitely coloring my reaction to Season 3. But if nothing else, CrowLia offers the opinion of someone who seems to have totally missed the Classic bandwagon and is hopping on now, 20 years later, after seeing everything else Sailor Moon has spawned.

It's not totally surprising to me that someone without any kind of nostalgia for Sailor Moon anything tends to see more of what Crystal does wrong/poorly rather than what it does right, if only because we've had 20 years of shows based on "what Crystal did right". Kind of like if someone tells you Citizen Kane was the first movie to show indoor ceilings (movie sets weren't built with roofs back then). At the time, I'm sure most film folks at the time went "Bwaaaah? What magic is this?" whereas most of us today just shrug and go "Meh."

Maybe someone has already mentioned this a bunch of posts ago, but all this talk about Sailor Saturn being the "guardian of death", while Sailor Pluto is the "guardian of time" really makes me think those two should have switched planets.

Which brings me to Sailor Moon Crystal. The majority of the hate Crystal gets comes from people who've only ever watched the classic anime and never even glanced at the manga; being fully unaware of the distinct differences between the two. I'm fully aware that Crystal doesn't have the same fleshed out characters that classic anime does. And I'm OK with that. Why? Because I'm also aware that's how they were in the manga; that can't be helped. Having read the manga a dozen times, I knew what to expect.

I also really liked the animation style in seasons 1 & 2. Aside from having people who didn't know what they were doing animate it, the art style was just fine in my eyes. Instead of revamping the entire style in season 3, better animators should've been brought on. Because as it stands now, SMC looks too much like the classic anime now, which kind of defeats the purpose. It annoys me, but I've learned to live with it.