Forum - View topicREVIEW: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos Anime Films Review
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MFrontier
Posts: 12970 |
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This was probably the peak of the entire remake, both from a visual and thematic standpoint, and I feel like they juggled the plot and the action better than the Eternal movies. As quite possibly the swan song of Sailor Moon, and Kotono Mitsuishi's tenure as the character, I think it was a great way to go out.
I love how they brought back Moonlight Densetsu and the Sailor Stars theme, as well as playing Moonnlight Densetsu during the credits of the second movie so it closes out the series and franchise just like it did for the original anime (aside from the new theme for Usagi and Mamoru's wedding). I'm glad they acknowledged Naru exists right down to being at the wedding. I don't even remember if she even showed up in Stars. All the transformation call-backs...bringing back the transformation vocals, doing an accurate Eternal Sailor Moon transformation and Sailor Moon's final proper transformation being a shot-for-shot recreation of her original transformation sequence to bring things full-circle for the finale was absolutely beautiful. Megumi Hayashibara and Kotono Mitsuishi were two of the most prominent female seiyuu of the 90's so having them go head-to-head as Sailor Galaxia and Sailor Moon feels fitting. Hayashibara feels like she was born to play a Sailor Moon villain and enjoyed every minute of it. I wish we had gotten to hear more of the new version of "Search for Your Love." The Inner and Outers seiyuu seemed to love playing bad guys during the climax. Nana Mizuki just living the dream as Kakyuu and getting to do the characters Sailor Guardian transformation. She even sang the Sailor Stars song! |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 5055 |
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The Dream and Stars arcs were some of my favorite arcs of the manga and seeing them get faithful adaptations were the main reasons I’ve supported Crystal this long and Eternal and Cosmos knocked it out of the park. I loved how Stars really expands the Sailor Moon universe and ties everything together right down to even having spoiler[Wiseman show up and flash backing to Saphir’s scene in Black Moon]. The Starlights are better characters here where they seem to be taking on the role of trying to protect Usagi rather than being antagonist towards her and I appreciate Seiya’s love triangle with Usagi isn’t quite so dragged out in Cosmos. Kakyu and Chibi Chibi having larger roles is also exciting and it’s cool to see Sailor Guardians we haven’t seen in anime form before with Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon being my personal favorite. It was also cool to see spoiler[the Sailor Quartet finally getting to take action and Chibi Moon taking up the role as their leader.].
The animation was gorgeous and I loved the new attack and transformation footage but I the Inners and Outers got new ones but I understand why they just didn’t bother with it. I also continue to enjoy the music and hearing the new versions of Sailor Star Song and the Three Lights’ song but I wish we got to hear the others from the 90s anime and the ending theme song from the 90s anime deserved a new cover too. I have to disagree about the pacing as I thought it was better in Eternal when there was more slow down slice of life moments and it didn’t feel like things were going as rapid fire as much. With Cosmos it felt like things were always moving and they were haphazardly jumping from manga panel to panel. I didn’t have too much trouble following it but I could see it being exhausting to follow if you didn’t already read the manga. I haven’t gotten the chance to check out the dub yet but I’ve enjoyed the Viz dub cast before in past installments. I had to watch the sub to hear Kotono Mitsuishi’s last performance as Usagi which her role have always been legendary and this is easily one of her best performances as Usagi and I’ll miss hearing her. Keiko Kitagawa was also perfect as spoiler[Sailor Cosmos]and I was thrilled to see her in anime form finally too. It’s too bad they didn’t bring back Mitsuko Horie as Galaxia because her performance is iconic but Megumi Hayashibara nailed it as her and she was the best possible recast. I wish they kept things more ambiguous about the fate of the Tsukinos as it gave the manga ending a more bittersweet ending but I understand why they made those changes. In spite of Crystal having a rocky start, I think things did start to improve with s2 and s3 through Cosmos made the Crystal reboot project worth it in the end. Now I just hope we can still get a Codename Sailor V anime and I hope they’ll at least continue the musicals. |
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MyMasterMatthew
Posts: 169 |
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As someone who never watched the original Stars Arc anime adaptation, and as someone who never read the manga but did read about stuff on the Sailor Moon wiki over the years, I'm not sure what I was expecting here, but I strongly disliked the pacing (especially in Part 1). When the villains are dropping like flies within 3 - 5 minutes of their introductions, and when the Sailor Star Lights are appearing to say something cryptic and then jump off the stage or rooftop for, like, the 6th time in the span of 30 minutes, I have to wonder whether this story would have been better told in an episodic format.
I liked seeing Usagi wake up in her bed multiple times throughout the first movie, as it felt like a reset each time, but beyond that, I was bothered by the repetitive, formulaic, and rushed storytelling. I realize that story related issues are on the author, but I wish the anime could have done more to fix the shortcomings, even if that meant considerably more anime-only moments to fix pacing and pad out the story. Certain transitions didn't work for me, like when Chibiusa told the Outer Senshi that she was going home, and then suddenly everyone is there to say goodbye. I'd have loved a moment with her and Usagi's family before undoing the brainwashing, for example, or a 3 minute "everyone says their piece" moment before she leaves. If things like that didn't happen in the manga, I'm fine with it being added in the anime. It's nice to know that SOME anime-only touches were added, but they needed more. I'd honestly forgotten that Phobos and Deimos were revealed to have human forms in the Eternal films, so I tried to be less critical of their part in the story, but it felt like lore was being introduced with no real purpose during their confrontation with Sailor Lead Crow, and again with Sailor Tin Nyanko and the cats. None of Galaxia's minions were memorable, although I did appreciate the character designs. I enjoyed the callbacks with Wiseman and other previous villains. The epilogue with Usagi and Mamoru was sweet. The animation was high quality. Music and voice acting was great. I liked the thematic message of hope. Seeing a conclusion to the story after all these years is appreciated. The character designs were pretty. The openings with music from the 1990s anime was a huge hit for me. These films had a lot of good points, but I just can't get over the pacing issues and weird lore drops. And I'm surprised that we didn't get closure with Kakyu and the Star Lights, even if closure didn't mean reuniting with Usagi and friends. I absolutely loved the original Sailor Moon anime, despite it's obvious shortcomings, so while I understand that it didn't adapt things perfectly, the polar opposite, bare bone approach never felt like a slam dunk either. I've often wondered how different my appreciation of Crystal would be without the power of nostalgia on my side. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 12970 |
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Seeing the rest of the Sailor Animates finally animated makes me curious how the 90's anime would have adapted them considering how much they expanded on Iron Mouse, Lead Crow, Tin Nyanko, etc.
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1dbad
 Posts: 725 Location: Texas |
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Crystal might've got off to a rough start, but it managed to end with a bang. The Stars arc of the manga has always been my favorite so getting a faithful adaptation of it has been a dream come true. It's also nice Cosmos got a dub in a more timely fashion than poor Sailor Stars did.
Really curious to see what's next for the franchise, or if this will be it. (if only for a decade or two, lol) Either way, I'm content. |
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Amritzer
Posts: 157 |
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I was so happy when my wish ended up being true. I don't know, it always seemed to me like Megumi should have had much more important role in 90s, than that of Himeko Nayotake which appeared in that one movie. IMO, considering her status in the 90s, I am surprised she wasn't one of the Senshi - in some alternate universe, she is probably Usagi. - Having her be Galaxia, who is a final villainess, as well as Sailor Senshi in her own right, is such a beautiful to celebrate her as the Queen of the 90s seiyu. |
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Vee-Tee
 Posts: 133 |
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i really enjoyed this movie!
just curious what's going to happen next, now they've adapted and remade just about everything from the manga. i know sailor moon merch for all sorts of different products sells loads in japan. i almost wonder if we're going to see another remake in 20 years time. keep the gravy train going 
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MauValmont
Posts: 7 |
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Cosmos suffered a great deal from the rushed pacing and weak character development (besides Usagi/SM, of course) that the manga is known for, but the little throwbacks to the 90s (the opening songs and SM transformations, especially) sold it for me. I'll forever be thankful for the 2 or 3 new scenes they gave us in Cosmos too spoiler[- the ending with Shinjo closing the door on Usagi just like in the first episode and Luna welcoming her back were glorious.]
All in all, it was a wild ride, I had lost complete faith on Crystal after the hot mess that was S1 and S2, but I'm happy I pulled through it. It might not have had the strongest plot or visuals, but it made it all up with all the hope it brought back to the fans. As they would say in the 90s version of Stars, Usagi is still very much the Light of Hope. |
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Custom Apex
Posts: 157 |
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I actually enjoyed Cosmos despite the fact, the movies moved very quickly. I only watched the English dub and it was nice. Also, I do wish we got more backstory on the ones like Sailors Chi, Phi, etc..because of how they got involved with the Shadow Galactica.
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PC 20XX
Posts: 16 |
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I agree with pretty much everything you said in your post. I've never read the manga so I don't know if it's a fault of the films or the source material, but it felt like they tried to cram an entire TV show season's worth of content into 2 1/2 hours. Every 10 minutes or so introduced yet another new character, typically a villain, only to have them one-shotted into oblivion 2 minutes after their introduction. I know it wouldn't have been faithful to the manga to omit them entirely, but it sure would have improved the pacing. I personally think it would have worked better as a standard 13-episode season, because it sure felt like that's what it wanted to be. On the plus side, the ending was perfect and a fantastic way to close out the Sailor Moon saga. The message from the author was icing on the cake. And you can't go wrong with hearing the OG Sailor Moon theme to close things out. Very well done there. |
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1dbad
Posts: 725 Location: Texas |
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To answer your (and MyMasterMatthew's) question, it's a fault of the source material. Ideally Crystal would've adapted each manga arc into a 24-26 episode season to improve the pacing and flesh things out, but alas season 1 made it clearly early on we were looking at a 1 episode per chapter adaptation. Though Cosmos (and Eternal) certainly exacerbated things by shifting to a movie format. I'm normally not a fan of releasing movies into series format, but I think Eternal and Cosmos are one time something could benefit from that. While pacing has never been a strong suit of Crystal, the episode breaks for the first 3 seasons did help. |
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Amritzer
Posts: 157 |
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Who knows when / if there will ever again be some new Sailor Moon anime; personally, I think Sailor Moon is kind of story that could easily get each decade one new interpretation similar to Gegege no Kitaro, but...
Honestly, I'm afraid this is it. But then again, when you think about it, for a rather short manga, there IS a lot of anime available already. |
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db999
Posts: 311 |
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I really enjoyed Cosmos and I think both it and Eternal, are the best entries in the reboot. While Crystal might’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, partially because it was by Toei circa 2014-2016 where literally every show they produced ended up looking like garbage, I’m glad it managed to start righting itself around the third arc. I did have some minor complaints with the movies. The first one is that the first act moves a bit too fast and the pacing doesn’t really settle down until spoiler[after Ami and Mako are killed]. That brings me to the issue of the Sailor Senshi’s characterizations. It’s been a big complaint from a lot of people since the beginning of Crystal that the Inner Senshi were under-characterized and underutilized by the plot, and that’s something that I personally never had a problem with, other than Rei who had no discernible personality til the third arc, but it’s something that I started feeling here.
Ami and Mako get it the worst spoiler[because they die like 30 minutes into the movie] even though we get some nice moments with them. Rei and Minako are a bit better off spoiler[since they get a lot more screen time and have to deal with Ami and Mako's deaths before they get killed as well.] I get that for the story the arc wants to tell spoiler[it’s necessary for them to die], but it really does hurt their characters because even if they didn’t do anything in previous arcs with really resolving the main arc, at least they were there during most of it. I think this could’ve been solved by giving them a better epilogue cause they get really short-changed in the ending. After they start to wake up in the cauldron they all get just 1 line of dialogue each and then just stand there being background characters spoiler[in the wedding]. It really needed another epilogue scene showing the characters, what they’re doing now, and giving them some more closure. Also, it feels really weird that Sailor Kakyuu and the Starlights spoiler[just disappear from the plot after they get killed during the ending, save for flashbacks during the final battle. I mean we know they’re OK because of Sailor Cosmos’ explanation] but it feels really cheap not to get a real farewell scene for the main secondary cast of the arc. It feels especially weird for Seiya who had that unrequited romance arc with Usagi. Again just one more epilogue scene on Earth where they thank Usagi and the rest of the Sailor Senshi, or hell even just 1 shot of them spoiler[at Usagi and Mamoru’s wedding] and I think the issue would be fixed. If it feels like I’m complaining a lot I thought the rest of the films were brilliant. I loved this final arc, especially the second movie where we get to see bunch of other guardians under Galaxia’s control and I loved that Galaxia actually ended up being a real nuanced character in the end. Her backstory is tragic and she works really well as a foil to Usagi. |
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chrisb
 Subscriber Posts: 632 Location: USA |
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The English dub seemed stronger than it was previously. I think this movie had better voice direction. The previous dubs were a bit dry and didn’t sell a lot of the comedy. I even liked Stephanie Sheh’s Usagi a little more than Kotono Mitsuishi’s.
I loved the movies but will never forgive them for making the Starlights’ transformations so cringe. |
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1dbad
Posts: 725 Location: Texas |
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Crystal's had 3 different voice directors over the course of its run. Suzanne Goldish directed the first 3 seasons (and the entirety of the 90s redub), Todd Haberkorn directed the Eternal films, and Cosmos was directed by Haley Veres. I'm with you on thinking the change of director has been for the better. I like Goldish's work (and do think her Crystal work is stronger than her redub work), but I find her direction a bit too understated for Sailor Moon. It's a larger-than-life show, and I think it benefits from the bigger performances Haberkorn and Veres allowed the cast to deliver. Script-wise Crystal has had two different script adapters: Deb Crane for seasons 1-3 and the Eternal films, and Michele Knotz for Cosmos. I think Crane's work on the first three seasons was Crystal's best, but I did find myself preferring Knotz's scripting for Cosmos to Crane's work on Eternal interestingly enough. |
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