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Forum - View topicWhy Sailor Moon Crystal Isn't a Total Disaster
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Lostlorn Forest
 Posts: 544 Location: USA |
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Aww embarrassed Sailor is really cute! Some cute caps where it doesn't look like she got face surgery. I hope the artwork is consistent when I'm watching the anime.
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5936 Location: Virginia, United States |
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I haven't watched any of Sailor Moon Crystal. Being a web only series of a major franchise, I thought that meant that the creators of this series didn't have the faith in it to put it on TV. I still wonder why it wasn't on TV.
Thanks for writing this, I will now give it a chance. |
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DmonHiro
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And then there's the animation, the pacing, the music that should be in the Fairy Tail spin off, and the fact that the other scouts have zero personality. OK, maybe not a total disaster, but a 3/10 is still a failing grade.
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Emma Iveli
Posts: 679 Location: Hobo with internet |
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I enjoy Sailor Moon Crystal, is it perfect, no... But what story is, there will always be mistakes and other things...
Also I'm really tired of all of the nitpicks... Some of those mistakes happen for briefest seconds sometimes... On a side note, I'm one of the few people who wanted to see a true to the original adaptation of the manga... So I'm happy with the actual story of the anime... I just hope they do continue all the way through... Which sadly doesn't look like it's going to happen... |
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Masura
Posts: 20 |
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I know for me the main issue is not story or how the story is executed, but for me it's the animation. I saw side by side comparisons of the Blu-ray release of Sailor Moon Crystal, and thought, "Yes, this is what it should be!" Especially when you look at other Toei produced animes like Go! Princess Pretty Cure, which has significantly less derp animation moments, Sailor Moon Crystal looks...well not good (albeit there are some, but the 'broadcast version' of Sailor Moon Crystal has more.) I intend to give this a full on watch when ViZ releases the Blu-rays for it (I just hope they don't let the original lyricist do the translations for the songs...)
Last edited by Masura on Wed Jun 10, 2015 12:54 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Animeking1108
Posts: 1244 |
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Bite your tongue! Saying anything positive about SMC will get you crucified on this site.
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5506 Location: Iscandar |
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I intended to watch Sailor Moon Crystal hoping that it could be a shorter and tighter story (I am not a fan of the original being 200 episodes long), but the previews and the few minutes I watched from the first episode turned off.
I doubt I will give it another chance because the universal assessment seems to be that this anime is crap. And I am sorry Rebecca, but, aside from Mamoru being a better character in Crystal, your arguments are too shallow. I am frankly surprised that ANN is publishing this piece because I suspect they will get a lot of vitriol from posters.
I doubt it because Crystal is proof that Japan cares very little about this property. Companies that sell Sailor Moon merchandise are even using the old anime to promote their products. |
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thekingsdinner
 Posts: 1098 Location: Geertruidenberg, Netherlands |
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No matter how many good points people can give this show, to me, the show is one of the most boring animes I've watched and I dropped it halfway. I just couldn't go through with it any longer.
I'll stick with the original anime. |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Mamoru in the original 90's series wasn't that interested in Usagi either before he knew she was Moon, and wasn't dating her by any means before he did know his "destiny"--His buried memories just gave him an "unexplainable" need to teasingly banter insults with this crazy 14-yo. bunhead who kept (literally) bumping into him everywhere he went. (Which is one thing conspicuously missing from the Crystal version, that would throw off Usagi's suspicion that he was Tux.) Around that time, Usagi had her crush on Motoki at the arcade, who treated her as a cute little sister but not seriously, and Rei was throwing herself at Mamoru to his embarrassment. Thus causing the cute moment when Mamoru asks Motoki about Usagi's crush: Motoki: "Yeah, but who wants to go around with a middle-schooler? Mamoru: (embarrassed thought-bubble image of Rei: "It's me, cutie Rei-chan!  ") 
Last edited by EricJ2 on Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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KaiserNeko
Posts: 25 |
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Even when you don't compare this series with the older one, it's still garbage.
The music is bland, the animation is awful, the art is even worse, the pacing is weird, the transformation sequences are giant letdowns, and the story is tired by this point. not to mention they made alterations ot the story which made it even worse. A blog post I made a while back: Firstly: The character designs are awful. None of them look “pretty” or “gorgeous” or anything of the sort, to me. They look like aliens with disproportionate eyes and pointy chins. Their legs are so long, if you tried to measure them you’d start at the ankle then die half way up of starvation if you came unprepared. They’re not even all that faithful to the manga… not that, that might have helped all that much. No offense to Naoko Takeuchi, but those character designs do not translate very well into motion without some significant appropriation. Second: Usagi’s voice. I’m going to get a ton of flack for this one, I’m sure, but I prefer that, when a character is acting obnoxious, they still be tolerable enough to want to see them succeed… and that voice for her is just killing it for me. In her softer moments, she’s okay, but otherwise? Between sounding too old for the character at this point, and being woefully ear grating whenever she is supposed to sound “funny”, I just want to throw myself off a cliff. Third: The art and animation are abysmal. I don’t care if people are sick of hearing how awful this show looks: It’s production values are garbage. I also don’t care how garbage the old series looked, I’m not comparing the two. Poses are often off-model, the animation on “special attacks” and magic look ugly as sin… The art is so bad that the Blu-Rays have to fix every other frame of it, and even then they still have the problem of just being poorly designed. What animation that isn’t conveyed through still-frames is jilted and terrible; I feel like I’m watching a poorly drawn storybook half the time, with CGI transformation sequences splitting up the action… speaking of which: Fourth: The transformations are just… I want to say ugly, but they’re not all ugly. Some of them have some beautiful elements to them, but others, such as Mercury’s, are positively jarring because of the awful CGI particles being used. What’s even worse is the character models during these scenes; it is my personal opinion that anime should avoid using CGI at all costs on any character that qualifies as “organic”, because the uncanny valley effect that arises from it just takes me, and many people I know, immediately out of the action. Making them 3D in the first place was a terrible call on the production staff’s side and is one of the biggest failures of the series thus far. They had the opportunity to give us beautiful, 2D transformations of some of the most beloved magical girl characters known to mankind, a fresh, modern update with a bigger budget with all the bells and whistles… and what we got was cold, awkward CGI, with a mixture of some pretty effects, some ugly effects, and unsettling, uncanny valley. Five: The music is bland. Oh, the transformation pieces are pretty epic… but it’s also terribly uninspired. The composer has done better work on other magical girl shows, and this just comes off as run-of-the-mill at this point. The opening theme song is pretty good, though, as is the animation that accompanies it, but beyond that I feel like it’s just kind of… there, most of the time. Then again, perhaps I’d enjoy it more if what was on screen were more compelling. Six: The changes to the story from the manga. While the changes have been moderately light here and there, there are some big ones that really stand out to me, such as keeping the Shitennou alive just so the anime could play up the Sailor Guardian’s relationships with them more and add drama, completely changing Sailor Venus’s most iconic scene from this arc where she LITERALLY STABS QUEEN BARYL IN THE GODDAMN STOMACH WITH THE GODDAMN SWORD, mirroring her previous life… only for this moment to be given to Sailor Moon, who instead stabs the stinkin’ necklace around Beryl’s neck. Not to mention, these changes also make the scouts look… less powerful, less independent. I understand that Sailor Moon and Mamoru are star-crossed lovers through time, and I’ll allow that to be the focal romance, but keeping the Shitennou alive just to try and give the Guardians a counterpoint took away from their own individuality and importance… but largely because it’s just poorly executed, in my eyes. “Every girl in this series has a gorgeous man for her!” Again, I know the original series had them focus a lot on romance, and I know that these specific changes were on the behalf of Naoko Takeuchi. I’m just saying, they were poorly done here in almost every regard. Sailor Venus also gets downplayed a lot here, with her shining moments being removed or given to Sailor Moon. At least some of the changes the original anime made were fascinating and engaging, i.e. Nephrite’s relation with Naru, Kunzite’s relationship with Zoisite, the humor (while repetitive) being cheerful, engaging, and warm, the death of the Sailor Guardians AND Mamoru, leading up to the final climactic battle with Beryl. Here, the changes are minute, but insulting and largely unnecessary. But that’s the first and last I’ll talk about the original series. Seventh and final: It’s just a poorly put together wreck, in my eyes. From top to bottom, it comes off as boring, ugly, and not nearly as feminist as it claims to be. I’d of loved a big, dramatic, beautiful magical girl show with romance and tragedy, but I honestly do not feel like that’s what I got with this series. |
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KENZICHI
 Posts: 1118 |
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I stopped watching after the first arc.
And for your first example, you really should have found a better picture of Crystal because, from what I can see, I'd rather have the 90's designs than the ones in Crystal even if they are closer to the original :/ (Usagi's looking scary there!) Ohhh, how I wish I could watch this show. But not only is it badly drawn, but it's terribly boring. I can't even get back into it even if I wanted to. It's just too slow for me. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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You've also left out: ---for the first arc (Dark Kingdom) there is no bonds of friendship between any of the girls outside of their respective introduction episodes. They are boring by themselves and they're especially boring together. They don't feel like a team. ---Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are absolutely useless in fights outside of their respective introduction episodes. They fire one attack each and then go down with ease. Even backup dancers would have been more useful. ---Luna is drawn by someone who has never actually seen a cat in real life. A minor quibble but it does speak to the quality control issue. ---the transformations are boring, which in a Sailor Moon show is a complete fail. ---the series undermines its own theme of girls being independent by having Usagi be totally reliant on Mamoru. In episode eight he not only has to encourage her to fight (a change from the manga), but when she actually does fight he must also save her life twice in literally less than two minutes, which surely is some sort of record. |
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Animechic420
 Posts: 1733 Location: A Cave Filled With Riches |
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Sigh, you people... Forever complaining about the animation. The original being superior. The living up to the manga's story line. And whatever the hell else.
I have absolutely no problem with SMC, but most of you people are so quick to bash it because it doesn't look like an anime from 20 years ago. My guy friend who's hasn't really watched SM in a long time saw a transformation scene from SMC and said it looked shiny and crisp. He ever ohhed. So like I've been doing before, I'm gonna continue watching SMC because Sailor Moon/Usagi/Serena herself isn't the whiny little crybaby she used to be and Chibi-Usa/Rini isn't an annoying brat that made me want to sore through the TV and strangle her to death. I like the new them. I just wish each episode didn't air every two weeks. So stupid. Last edited by Animechic420 on Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Which IMO is a negative, not a positive. Never could withstand the manga drawings. Of course there are many people that like the manga, but there are more people that liked the anime (and never bothered to buy the manga), so from the get go their decision to change the character designs "flavor" limited the potential "user base".
Which would be dandy if the animation didn't suck big time. Even after 200+ episodes of classic people didn't mind seeing the same footage over and over, because those had nice animation.
More believable in this case becomes less memorable, characters that people love to hate are some of the most memorable.
Which would be nice until you remember that in crystal mamoru steals the relevance the other four sailor scouts used to have in classic. We can dismiss all of the above, but the simple truth is that SMC is a disaster because it has abysmal ratings, even after several TV stations started to broadcast (using the blu ray version, something unheard afaik) it in japan. Remember this series is a big 24 minutes commercial for sailor moon merchandise, if nobody sees it then it has outlived its usefulness. |
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DmonHiro
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Oh, Lord, I forgot about the abysmal CG. It looks so bad, and sadly, Toei is now using it in Precure as well, and not just for the ED anymore. Toei keeps finding new ways to cut corners.
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