~ Eric HofferWhen people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
No less than five new Sailors appear, making Sailor Moon envious.
That will be it, for a while. For this week, at least.
Download episode, and that'll be the last for a while.
We've got translator's notes for this episode!
The opening sequence has changed, now that we're finally in the Sailor Stars season proper. Who are these people? Another intro spoiler? Gah.
Three mysterious, previously unseen guys walk through a dim-lit (to add to the mystery) hallway and ramble about finding some mysterious "her". These are obviously the same as the trio from the opening, but we'll pretend we don't know this.
Turns out they are important and notable. Wikipedia-notable, even. They're a music group called Three Lights, and they produce some really upbeat music - which, interestingly, isn't just another variation of Sailor Star Song!
The girls are at the Standard Designated Meeting Place™ discussing the group. Even Ami, the geek, has a thing for them. Except Usagi, who's still stuck with her submissive "Mamo-chan". Wait, not stuck. Bound. With the Red String of Fate™.
Well, at least Her Pinkiness Chibiusa is gone. And they removed her from the show in an especially anticlimactic manner, offscreen, and nobody really mourns her. That's good.
A flashback... then a romantic moment with a photo of them together... Nothing that wasn't already done. Luna reminds Usagi (and us) what a ditz and crybaby she was back in the very first episode. Well, she still is ditz and a crybaby now, but only as Sailor Moon, not Usagi, oddly enough.
A plane is leaving. What, Mamoru left offscreen too? No, that's not his plane. Of course, they can't send him away without a long, cheesy romantic scene. And all Usagi got was a lousy engagement ring...
Meanwhile, the Three Lights push away fans (who are all heart-eyed, literally) — with cool sunglasses like that, they're definitely on Serious Business. Which consists, apparently, of walking past a loving couple in a creepy manner.
We get, at last, to the new villain: the premise of a grinning Ms. Evil on a throne is once again recycled... IN SPACE!
Furthermore, she sounds suspiciously like the Disembodied Voice from the first episode of this season. She sends yellow lights of doom to Earth, and, laser-guided, they enter Mamoru's plane and blast it... or so it seems.
Of course, the Three Lights immediately do the plot-prescribed "my significance sense is tingling" routine.
The girls (at the Standard Designated Meeting Place, henceforth known as the SDMP) try to explain to Usagi what her ring means. Since they like to be cryptic, they don't advance far.
They go to the park to see the Three Lights. Ami tries to deny being a fan. She definitely reminds me of someone in this respect...
And as usual, these gender-confused girls continue to refer to themselves as "guys".
Usagi tries using people as a ladder.
In the boughs of the tree above them (since this is the standard place where new characters appear for the first time), a strange shadow appears. Zoom in to reveal a woman in Souichi Tomoe Standard Issue Scary Shiny Glasses.
Usagi, desperate to see the Three Lights from a close distance, tries to sneak through a restricted access passage. On the way, she bumps into one of the Three Lights — Seiya, to be specific. And she's such a big fan that she doesn't even recognize him, and for some reason gets offended by the name he calls her...
She sneaks in anyway, and sees the woman in the hat and Scary Shiny Glasses removing both, revealing a rather goofy outfit, and doing "my kung fu is stronger than yours" moves.
She attacks the co-star "Alice-chan", as Usagi calls her, and the latter, seeing two yellow Lights of Doom flying towards her, just stands there and doesn't even make an attempt to run.
Some kind of flower opens on her forehead, expelling some kind of crystal floating in the air.
Meanwhile, Usagi transforms — and this time, the full sequence, with as much fanservice as you can get, occurs. By the time the mouse-girl removes the Star Seed, Sailor Moon uses her time to climb one of the trucks for no reason at all, besides impersonating Obi-Wan "I have the high ground" Kenobi.
The mouse girl identifies herself as Sailor Iron Mouse. Sailor? Hmm. Well, the name suits her — the mouse part, rather than the iron part. She's not made of iron, and teleports away shamelessly as the Victim of the Day transforms into the Monster of the Day.
(The Doctor will call in several episodes. He does want his TARDIS back.)
As it often happens, the monster of the day is more weird than fearsome.
This makes some comments. The enemies know, as we learn further, that only Sailor Senshi possess "true" Star Seeds that they need, and this is what distinguishes them from regular humans, who possess "blank" Star Seeds. Yet, despite seeing a Sailor Senshi right in front of her, Iron Mouse doesn't remove her Star Seed. Furthermore, neither do any of her successors later in the season, preferring to attack random targets instead. This just seems stupid to me: we're in the first episode, not counting the Nehellenia arc, and already the premise is falling apart...
Sailor Moon refuses to fight the human-turned-monster, and... someone else appears with a rather anticlimactic (but cool) theme music. Three someones, identifying themselves as Sailor Starlights. They literally appear out of thin air,
They're obviously the Three Lights, just more scantily-clad and more... female. Although the latter woudn't be immediately obvious if not for the bras. But the Clark Kent effect intervenes, and Usagi/Sailor Moon doesn't recognize Seiya/Sailor Star Fighter, and neither does he... she... do they recognise her.
With the monster of the day also being a Sailor, it makes five new Sailors introduced in a single episode. Not bad. I wonder if John Ostrander knew about this Sailor-fest when he started that Star Wars comic series where everyone and their father is a Darth...
Star... Serious... Laser! Okay, try to say that with a straight face. And then try to look at what ensues with a straight face.
They prepare to finish her, but Sailor Moon gets in the way. She may pass for an alien now, with these big eyes, big mouth, and wings. But no, she was born on Earth... in this incarnation, anyway. While the Starlights are aliens. Human aliens, who are ubiquitous in live action series like Star Trek due to budget constraints, but don't really belong in animated series, where one can draw real aliens.
Yellow light emanates from the crescent on her forehead, which is not the Yellow Light of Doom we saw earlier because it comes in rays, not balls. Still, it's scary.
Her new rod appears out of nowhere, and starts spinning without her intervention, or even without her touching it — it just follows the hand...
(Notice how unrealistic the body proportions are. She could stretch an arm upwards, and still the legs alone would be longer than the rest.)
Okay, "Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss" is even more difficult to say with a straight face than "Star Serious Laser".
While she performs this extremely long attack, the Starlights, realizing their work is done here, go away.
"Hmm. Perhaps they really can disappear..."
Or not.
None today, but the link to the previous episode video is finally up.
When structuring the first chapter of the (possible, depending on the level of my laziness) Firefox-ko novel in my head, I elaborated on one segment. In it, Firefox asks Widget Styler about her religious beliefs and, getting the predictable answer that she's Christian, goes on about how the Christian Church misinterpreted Jesus's teachings for questionable purposes and turned it into a means of mobilizing the masses, while disregarding the message that he really wanted to convey.
Most importantly, I coined (or so I thought) the derogatory term "Jesusists" — this is how she calls followers of organized Christianity.
Then I actually Googled for "Jesusism". And saw this. Even though it refers to the exact opposite, it's good to know that I'm not alone in my views on Jesus and Christianity.
Die, Big Bad, die! What? Redemption? How disappointing. But at least the first story arc is over, and it's time to celebrate.
Just a brief rundown, as almost the entirety of this episode occurs in Nehellenia's throne room, and it's little more than a wrap-up to the arc.
First, as Chibi Moon and Saturn charge, Nehellenia makes the typical villain "it's going exactly as planned" and "do you think you arrived here by yourselves?" routine. Chibi tries to awaken her future father, but fails and starts fading out, making the Marty McFly parallel even more obvious.
Saturn flourishes the Silence Glaive by spinning it in the air, Western-revolver-style, and prepares to erase Nehellenia from existence, like Dave McFly's head.
Meanwhile, back in Tokyo, the cats provide some exposition on people stuck in their mirrors. Most of the montage that follows looks really weird.
Back in the throne room, Nehellenia, after claiming that Mamoru is irrevocably under her curse, attempts to blast him, just in case. Saturn shields him with a cool power.
Really, Saturn's powers are cool. They owe some of that coolness to the fact the Silence Glaive is actually longer than its wielder.
Except for one drawback: if she erases someone from existence, she will die as well. What a lame power! And that's what Nehellenia tells Saturn after the latter suffers an identity crisis, believing that "Saturn" is a third person.
Nehellenia, however, does become afraid after she realizes that Saturn means it.
Silence Glaive Surprise! (Cool power, wacky name. This happens often.)
This could be the shortest episode ever, had Chibi Moon not interrupted the attack. "Crazy Hotaru, how come she always gets sacrificed for the greater good?" Yes, it will be better for them all to die, instead of just Saturn. Who immediately gets encased in a mirror after the attack is stopped.
Who's this?
She made it, after all. Too bad Chibi Moon disappears in her hands. Now the "temporal paradox" issue is going even farther than BTTF dared to explore it.
Nehellenia (read: Palpatine) urges Usagi (read: Luke Skywalker) to fill with anger and hate, while trying to prove that she's not-really-evil-and-just-misunderstood by using a flashback from the time when she was young and cute.
After finishing the flashback, she forgets her role and goes Vader on Usagi instead of frying her with Force lightning.
But here comes a reference to a Russian children's book-turned-movie about mirrors and the land behind a mirror. I completely forgot about that one until I finished writing to this point. Turns out that this Big Bad, rather emo-ish, doesn't like the look of Big Blue Eyes of Innocence.
Usagi offers Nehellenia a generous offer: friends. As an exchange for sacrificing herself to Nehellenia's revenge. But we know that status quo is god, and when a main character tries to sacrifice themselves, something happens to prevent them from doing so.
In this case, that "something" is the mirror-shard that goes out of Mamoru's eye and shatters, breaking Nehellenia's curse. (The fate of the atoms is unknown.) The mirrors in which the Senshi were encased also shatter, and they attempt a psychological attack on Nehellenia by surrounding her. Even Chibi Moon appears out of nowhere next to that loon.
Another Force Meld scares the heck out of Nehellenia.
They don't really give her much choice, though. Usagi finally realizes that she was forgetting to transform since she arrived here, goes purple at first, and then black and white, and finally colored.
Well, as lame as the winged "Eternal" uniform looks, it does have one improvement: the sailor collar is more evident, putting the "Sailor" back in "Sailor Moon", after it was lost somewhere in the S season.
Nehellenia goes "WTF"...
She does, however, follow the advice and recall her dream when she was a child. And literally turns into a child. And is sent into the past. And thinks it was all just a dream. Which would bring us to the Zhuangzi-butterfly paradox, if not for the fact that the present-day Earth continues to exist after Nehellenia awakens.
They call it "a chance to relive her life". I call it "luckily getting out of a major screwup". Thankfully, this is the last we saw of her in the series.
And Moon even remembers to return the rose-trinket to Jupiter!
...And meanwhile, IN SPACE!, the Disembodied Voice, completely forgotten after the first episode, goes all "MWAHAHAHAHA!!!", hinting that it's another Big Bad, even bigger and badder, that we'll eventually see.
The writers see several battles between the Senshi and Nehellenia clones as an opportunity to anvilliciously present no less than three morals.
This is probably one of the most anvillicious episodes out there, referring to the way it presents its morals to the audience.
For the theme song, the subtitles use a combined approach this time: both the original Japanese script and the English translation. What awaits us next?
As usual, a recap; Mars and Neptune are running and get surrounded by a circle of blue fire. Mars's skirt starts burning.
Unfortunately, before it burns completely, Neptune Deep Submerges the fire, revealing it was just an illusion. Mars starts making goofy faces. Doesn't suit her at all.
They find themselves back in the black-and-red void. Nehellenia captures Neptune. At least she does know that in such situations, the hero will put down the weapon and step away.
Mars... Flame...
(Will you really shoot her? Boom! Aargh!)
Mars... Flame...
(Shoot, it's your duty blah blah blah!)
...SNIPER!!!
A brilliant subversion of the classic trope.
They find themselves back in the forest, then fall into a puddle in a very forced and unrealistic manner. Then they're sealed in mirrors, proving that this sequence was all for nothing as well.
Meanwhile, Usagi is walking through the snow, still barefoot, still untransformed. Suddenly...
...the scenery changes to a flower meadow.
Meanwhile (yes, I'm getting sick of these meanwhiles), Venus and Pluto are running from NC-17s instead of trying to blast them. As usual, the scenery keeps changing at random.
Pluto tells Venus to leave her behind and run across the rickety bridge, then makes a long speech about leadership and saving the princess. Meanwhile, the NC-17s keep ridiculously slowly running towards them.
Venus does leave Pluto behind. After all, she can't really miss the opportunity to watch her fencing the NC-17s with her staff in melee combat instead of using a couple of Dead Screams.
Usagi searches for Mamoru in the meadow — fruitlessly, of course. The flowers start to talk! And talk her into forgetting her and Mamoru's names!
Who came up with this scene? A novice writer with a Lewis Carroll obsession? No wonder Usagi headpalms and goes all... blue-eyed.
Meanwhile™, Pluto finally remembers that she has that purple ball thing. Dead Scream! But what worked last time, doesn't work this time, and the NC-17s reassemble. Demoted to a dwarf planet again?
Venus returns (running through half the bridge) to blast them, and then both run away from the NC-17s through the bridge, which is what they should have done immediately when the NC-17s were still far behind. Predictably, they fall to their doom...
Venus Love Me Chain! Not quite.
MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Quite.
Not quite. Not quite dead, that is.
But still, it shows that their sequence was pointless as well.
Nehellenia prepares to slap the absent-minded Usagi rrrreeeaaallll bad, as a means of her rrrrrrrevenge!
But Jupiter comes to the rescue.
Unlike Usagi, she doesn't seem to be affected by the flower-spell (okay, sorry, I can't say it with a straight face! Hahaha! Flower-spell! Hahaha!) at all, and tries to wake Usagi up. Unsuccessfully. Enraged, she charges at Nehellenia. The latter waits until Jupiter runs the lllooonnnggg distance, and then simply floats into the air, giving us the opportunity to learn that Sailor Senshi uniforms canonically include underwear.
Jupiter Oak Evolution! Of course, no success. Will you really die for her blah blah blah? Yawn.
"You have failed, your majesty. I'm a Senshi, like Usagi before me."
"So be it... Senshi."
ZZZZAAAKKK!!! ZZZZAAAKKK!!! ZZZZAAAKKK!!!
ZZZZAAAKKK!!! ZZZZAAAKKK!!! (Yawn.) ZZZZAAAKKK!!! ZZZZAAAKKK!!! ZZZZAAAKKK!!! Finally, Juputer falls on the ground and is encased in a mirror as well. Another pointless sacrifice, oh well. It is the attempt to hug Usagi that counts.
Jupiter does, however, throw a rose brooch. It induces an association in Usagi's nearly lost mind, and she awakens. Nehellenia, instead of teleporting her away, teleports her straight to the footsteps of her palace — Usagi's final destination.
Except... there is one problem.
And Usagi can't just fly over the bush, although she flew before. Instead, she starts crawling right through it.
Suddenly, there comes a big twist — in the form of Chibi Moon and Saturn. The latter spins the Silence Glaive in a really cool manner, and a third episode in a row ends with a cliffhanger (which is, as always, not quite a cliffhanger if you watch the spoilers past the ending theme).
The Senshi go to a colorful alternate dimension, and the Big Bad mocks them to the extent of her limited imagination.
Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Dun-dun dun-din DEN du-dun du-dun du-dun, dun-dun dun-din DEN du-dun du-dun den, dun-dun dun-din DEN du-dun du-dun DUN, du-du-du-dun DU-dun du-dun!
Just teasing you. That will have to wait for three more episodes, which are, basically, one overstretched episode. Let's start with the first part.
The subtitle-makers, it seems, can't decide what to use for the opening sequence. So far, we have had the English translation of the song, no subtitles at all, and the Japanese-in-Latin (Romaji) original text. Now, they have used the original Japanese script, which is rather pointless in English subtitles.
First, there is a recap of the previous episode's ending, then Chibi Moon goes not only pink, but glowy-pink, which is even more unbearable. All the Senshi are present, including Outers — even though they were supposedly left behind. They all look at Chibi in horror — except Moon, who's staring at Saturn, and Jupiter, who's staring at Moon's legs.
Chibi transforms back. Well, the less pink, the better. Falls unconscious (yay).
The entire group, instead of trying to figure out how to follow Mamoru and Nehellenia through the mirror, goes to Rei's shrine, where they hold a conference titled "And How Are We Supposed to Live Now?" Setsuna pulls a Dr. Emmett Brown and explains that Mamoru's drug... I mean, mirror addiction can lead to Chibiusa never being born, causing a time paradox. As always, she says she knew it all along, but didn't pay enough attention.
Usagi, scared of the thought of using a DeLorean... I mean, Time Gate to travel to the past and correct the space-time continuum, decides to try another way. Haruka goes Admiral Ackbar on her.
Usagi decides to solve the problem by doing what she does best: crying. Surprisingly, it helps: her tear has the exact chemical compound needed to start a reaction with the transformation brooch.
Transformed, she flies away by means of pixie dust. Rei tries to stop her, but only ends up grabbing the air because she's aiming at the wrong point.
While the remaining Senshi (including, unfortunately, Chibiusa) debate whether or not to go after her, we're shown the consequences of the "apathy disorder". Although the only people on Earth of any interest to Nehellenia are one lousy 16-year-old girl and her lover, as always, the entire Tokyo has to suffer.
Sailor Teleport! This power actually does look cool, although somewhat recycled.
Usagi is in vast nothing. Well, at least not IN SPACE! Although she flew as Sailor Moon, she's now detransformed. Nehellenia insists on the title "White Moon Princess". Why can't villains ever call anyone by their real names? She induces a flashback from the Cheesy Season in Usagi's mind, then teleports her to... the north pole? Been there, done that. Looks like she didn't read Beryl's diaries after all.
Hmm. That pose sure looks familiar. Even if it doesn't, we'll see it later in the season. Nehellenia continues the vampiric associations by drinking some red liquid.
Hey, put your Snow Queen references away, Toei Animation! Seriously, they stink!
Interested which sort of glass it harder to break, Nehellenia throws the now-empty glass at one of the mirrors. (Stupid ambiguous word "glass"!) The mirror glass, as it turns out, is more fragile. Maybe that's because there's vacuum behind it, into which the mirror shards are immediately sucked.
The Senshi are flying, hands held, through vast blackness that suspiciously resembles the previously-seen scenery IN SPACE!. Why they're flying while the power is called Sailor Teleport is beyond me, but let it be so. They encounter the mirror-shards, and, afraid of a few scratches, they separate hands and immediately lose each other, R-season-style. Hmm. Is this arc about recycling the worst plot ideas from the previous seasons?
Uranus and Mercury find themselves stranded in some antique ruins. To signify the dramatic importance in the moment, we're presented with a misspelling in the subtitles.
They run, unaware that no problems can ever be solved by running in fiction. But at least it provides a nice opportunity for another meaningless S-season-style Neptune flashback.
Who is this? Nehellenia? Not an NC-17? Wow. She decided to personally took care of these two. The two are also unaware of the "attacking the Big Bad directly never works" principle, so they get hit with their own attacks. Another reference to R, and to the same episode no less.
This encounter anvilliciously tries to present us the question of "what's better, to act or to think first?", so we'll skip all the flashbacks from Ami's childhood, which wouldn't make much sense in a real basketball game anyway. Instead, we'll move directly to the "And now, young Mizuno... you will die" part.
Force Lightning never works on important characters. Remember that, villains.
From Return of the Jedi to A New Hope, with primitive vector graphics suggesting Mercury to blast that space station. No, wait, that's no space station — it's a moon!
Uranus does as Mercury requests and blasts the moon (meanwhile on Earth, Alexander Hartdegen sees the blast and quickly gets back into his time machine), exposing the false Nehellenia as an NC-17. Ewww.
Without her protective clothing, she's vulnerable, and the Senshi destroy her. Now, what answer would you expect from Mercury when Uranus asks her how she learned it was a fake? "I actually didn't"? "My computer told me so"? "Because she was just standing still down there and not making speeches about how she pwns us all"? All wrong.
Well... iron logic, indeed. Too bad it was all for nothing, and they get encased in mirrors, demonstrating Nehellenia's UNLIMITED POWAH.
Meanwhile, Usagi is going through the snow, barefoot. As a rabid supporter of the "act" side of the "think or act" dilemma, she didn't think about the possibility to transform — if not to fly, then at least to get some footwear that comes with the Sailor Moon costume. Hmm, I need to submit this one to the TV Tropes Wiki.
Still meanwhile, Mars throws one of her unlimited "Begone, glitch" papers into the bush somewhere in a forest. Neptune remembers her pyromaniacal tendencies and runs quickly in the other direction.
Nehellenia — another fake, as we can guess by now — appears from behind a tree, leszy style, and surrounds both with a circle of violet flame. Somehow, they are much closer to each other in the next shot than they would be judging by Neptune's speed.
Dang. Another cliffhanger. Well, only two more left to endure.
Tokyo is filled with mirror addicts, and it takes the entire team to figure out the reason.
Also, turns out, I posted the wrong link for the previous episode. I accidentally uploaded episode 184, which is far, far ahead. The link has been corrected.
Be prepared for a boring episode. Not much happens until the very end, which is, essentially, a cliffhanger. It does, however, set up the plot for the next three episodes, which conclude the Nehellenia arc.
Okay, now that I have headphones and can finally listen to it, as opposed to just reading the subtitles, I should say that Sailor Star Song doesn't really fit as a theme song. Moonlight Densetsu does, but SSS feels disconnected from the visuals. Also, bah to whoever made the subtitles. Sometimes the subtitles are present in English during the opening sequence, sometimes in Japanese, and sometimes not at all.
News flash! Turns out Setsuna's knowledge of the future is limited enough that she has to watch TV news (with half-lit slow-motion shots of creepiness). While she discusses the new disease, which is, of course, unknown to science, with Haruka and Michiru, the verbally challenged Hotaru repeats her words from the previous episode over and over again. Fortunately, nobody pays attention to her.
And what's this? It's not the first season anymore, is it? But Usagi and Minako obviously can't miss the opportunity for a running gag (literally).
They're late for school, but as always, when we're explicitly shown that, things don't go as expected. They're greeted by Ami and Makoto, who explain that the studies have been essentially cancelled.
They see a creepy narcissist girl with black eyes standing in an empty hallway (to add to the creepiness), who seems obsessed with looking into a mirror. Usagi robs the poor, defenseless girl of the mirror and looks into it herself. The camera rapidly rotates around them, adding to the creepiness.
Makoto goes angry and tries to steal the mirror from Usagi in turn.
Kiyah! Naturally, the mirror, not designed to withstand karate punches, falls on the floor and breaks (shooting some kind of black ray, which only misses Usagi's eye due to Makoto's intervention). The girl... overreacts a bit.
Makoto offers her own mirror as a replacement, not realizing that the broken one was probably family treasure that the girl inherited from her (great-)ngrandmother. The Senshi leave her alone, even though she's obviously emo and will probably attempt to cut herself with one of these mirror-shards. But their duty, after all, is to Save the World, not one girl.
Usagi decides to pay a visit to her boyfriend, who has become a mirror addict. (Where did he get all the time and money to buy so many?)
She sees another guy trying to call him out, but luckily for her, he doesn't enjoy much success.
When the guy leaves, she rings. We see a static image of Usagi's finger on the doorbell button, not moving a single pixel, but since the sound of the doorbell ringing several times is heard, we're presumably supposed to pretend that she actually presses the button. All right. When Mamoru doesn't open the door, she doesn't take the hint that she's unwelcome. Nor does she consider the possibility that he may have left, or may be sleeping.
She enters, steps on a mirror lying on the floor, and breaks it. (How many years of bad luck is that in Japan? None? All right, let's skip it. Besides, bad luck and Usagi "Zayne Carrick" Tsukino don't get along.) Mamoru, narcissistic as he is, does nevertheless turn away from the big mirror he's blankly looking into and mourns the poor mirror on the floor. Uasgi leaves him, despite the fact that something is obviously wrong. She'll regret that.
Usagi and the other girls "brainstorm" the mystery of the mirror-related incidents, but the solution, self-evident as it may be, doesn't present itself until Hotaru and Setsuna engage in a Captain Obvious competition.
A massive montage of flashbacks, flashforwards, and whatever else follows, during which the Senshi are shown running through the streets with the help of Force Speed. Interestingly, Hotaru/Saturn and Chibiusa have no trouble keeping up the others.
Meanwhile, Uranus and Neptune get surrounded by NC-17s. Again. Standing back-to back. Again. They don't even treat the one-beaten enemies seriously and continue their pseudo-philosophical conversations until they remember that they're supposed to, uhm, fight.
Space Sword Blaster! (sic!)
Submarine Reflection!
Dead Scream?..
That's right, the help has arrived. They split up; the Inners enter Mamoru's house, while the Outers use the opportunity to shirk. Too late (of course). An NC-17 emerges from the elevator, followed by two more. Jupiter Oak Evolutions them into oblivion.
They take the stairs, which is what they should have done in the first place. Moon suddenly has a flashback, which is obvious enough to allow even her to put two and two together, and stops for a dramatic moment.
(Never mind the spelling in subtitles. I use the spelling used on Wikimoon. Blame them.)
We see the camera climbing up creepy, dim-lit, narrow stairs. The Senshi burst into Mamoru's room, where the mirrors have gone all red and menacing since we last saw them.
Sailor Moon tries to detach Mamoru from the mirror. He proves what a meanie he is by pushing her away. Nyah, nyah, how could you, nyah, nyah. Nehellenia appears in the mirror, tries to convince everyone that she's just misunderstood and not actually evil, and squeezes Mamoru (who's really high by now) in through the mirror.
Sailor Moon tries to follow, but falls for the typical WB cartoon trick and only hits herself. She transforms into the winged form with the others' help, blasts some NC-17s summoned by Nehellenia from the mirrors, and transforms back (with dramatic music and a sequrnce whose meaning can only be expressed as "Epic fail").
Nehellenia, in a lame attempt to prove that she's a classic villain, explains her entire plan to Sailor Moon, including her intention to brainwash Mamoru into submission. Wow, how original — this hasn't happened since when, the first season? Looks like Nehellenia got hold of Queen Beryl's diary. She even gives Sailor Moon a deadline!
And thus, having set up the plot for the mandatory "reach the evil overlord's hideout before dawn" sequence, the episode ends. One note: if you don't want to deprive yourself of at least a tiny bit of intrigue, under no circumstances continue past the ending theme. They appear to have moved the spoiler-ridden intros there.
The cloned Hotaru experiences the effects of rapid growth and post-sleep hallucinations. Sailor Moon must come to terms with being an angel — literally.
Still the same opening with Sailor Star Song, but at least no spoiler-ridden intro this time.
Usagi and Mamoru are sitting on a bench. Usagi doesn't get the hint that Mamoru clearly isn't in the mood to talk and just wants to be left alone. She insists. He almost hits her.
Wait, what do you mean this is all a result of Nehellenia's spell? Ah, there she appears as a reflection in the balloon. Right.
The girls gather at the new Specially Designated Girl Meeting Place. Remember it, we'll be seeing it for the entire season. They discuss girly stuff. Yawn.
Haruka and Michiru arrive home with a bag of food. They're greeted by a very disproportionate mini-Hotaru.
A minute later, Hotaru grows back to her real size without changing shape. Okay. She mentions "Haruka-poppa", "Michiru-momma" and "Setsuna-momma", which is one weirrrrd family. Especially given the fact that Haruka can't be a "poppa" for biological reasons and her real "poppa" is still alive. I can only imagine the legal mess they went through.
While the three adults are chatting, paying no attention to Hotaru, she runs after a butterfly and disappears in the bushes. They decide that the most logical explanation is that she ran into the house, despite having run in the opposite direction, make no attempt to search the yard and go straight into the house.
They look through all rooms, and naturally, Hotaru is nowhere to be seen.
They open the door to one final room. It's dark, it's creeeepy. Hotaru is holding some kind of energy ball, which expands and fills a good part of the room with black void. However, the Outers aren't scared.
A "what do you mean it's not symbolic?" sequence follows, involving a model of the Solar System inside the creepy-black-void-ball. Since Hotaru can't simulate events with computer precision, the distances between planets are slightly not to scale.
After Truly Symbolic Sequences, Sailor Senshi are required by the standard plot guidelines to faint, and Hotaru is no exception. Then she regains consciousness and starts saying random mumbo-jumbo about the princess in danger again, only this time, it's even more random, mumbo-jumbo-ish and incomprehensible — all the time violently shaking. I wonder what kind of dubiously legal substance she found in Setsuna's basement this time.
Meanwhile, the other girls are all envying Usagi for having a boyfriend. A very familiar figure is watching from behind the glass, but since they're all facing the other way looking at two "cool guys" passing by, nobody notices.
Mamoru is in his apartment. He's programming. In BASIC!!! Why does Usagi even hang out with that loser anyway?.. Suddenly, some kind of warning appears in Japanese in the lower-right corner, even though the computer is supposedly in text mode.
Frustrated, Mamoru disconnects the keyboard and throws it on the floor while seeking appropriate Japanese expletives for Bill Gates. Then he stands up and washes his eyes; his right one is glowing, presumably tired of looking at small text all the time.
Night comes. Evil Black Hair creep into Usagi's bedroom. Luna is for some reason absent, so there's nobody to warn her. The same Evil Black Hair appear in windows throughout the city. (Windows? I knew it!) The moon is a little too big. It's creeeepy.
Hotaru is sleeping. Then there's a close-up on a slightly bigger Hotaru. Then an even closer close-up on an even bigger Hotaru. Apparently she grows in quantum leaps. The Evil Black Hair appear in the window, but Hotaru wakes up and they disappear.
Now it seems that she isn't that awake after all, because we get to the hypnopompic hallucinations that make Hotaru go "WTF?!":
Get more sleep!
Force Ghost Hotaru uses her finger as a cable to upload data into the real Hotaru's brain, overloading it with more hypnopompic imagery...
...which is not even from her own perspective. But it's okay. How often do you see yourself from the side in dreams? Anyway, good excuse to use recycled footage from the third season.
Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna wake up in another room, and are greeted by Hotaru practicing exhibitionism.
No wonder they're shocked. So shocked, in fact, that they finally gain a boost of common sense and decide to do what they should have done a season ago: go help Sailor Moon and the other girls.
Meanwhile, Rei is reciting a flashback to the other girls. This night, it turns out, she saw the Creepy Hair in a mirror, threw a piece of paper reading "There is no spoon" in Japanese, and since the paper completely obscured the mirror, Rei assumed the vision was gone.
Suddenly, a bunch of NC-17s from the previous episode appear.
They're jumping from the sky in slow motion, giving the girls plenty of time to transform. Wha..?! The cutey-pinky SuperS transformation sequence — with Chibi Moon? Nnnnooooooo!!!
Pure SuperS zaniness follows, proving that this season is not that much "darker and edgier" after all.
Venus tries to help, but almost fries her allies in the process.
Tuxedo Mask comes to the rescue. The interrupted subtitle prematurely gives away the twist while he speaks.
Indeed, he experiences pain in the eyes due to coding too much BASIC this night, and he forgets completely about those he's supposed to rescue. Meanwhile, the NC-17s prove they're not evil, just misunderstood, by giving the girls tight hugs. Notice how not to scale Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon are, compared to the others.
Meanwhile, a few meters away, the Outers are playing tic-tac-toe, wondering if they'll be able to finish the current round before the Dramatic Moment. They are, and while the Inners are being hugged to death, Uranus just stands there staring blankly into space like a Greek philosopher, making a long, flowery Erik Pflueger introductory speech.
Finally they get to some serious but... er, glass-shattering. World Shaking! Saturn suggests they will all enter Force Meld to reveal Moon's "true form". I don't get it. Isn't her true form that of Princess Serenity, which we saw back in the original season? Which one is "truer"? I certainly don't consider the form with decorative wings of dubious usefulness "true".
Anyway... their state of "unity" is symbolized by dramatic wind and lots of pink. A new, albeit brief, transformation sequence ensues — the naked Sailor Moon becomes purple!
Presumably from the overcharge of Cutie Honey Energy. She reverts to normal during the transformation, though. And the finishing pose:
"Are you an angel? I heard they live on the moons of..." Earth?
The sheer stupidity of Sailor Moon's new uniform shocks the NC-17 so much that they all instantly disintegrate. Sailor Moon and her Rod of Randomly Waving Around change back to their previous forms, and she's really worn down by the weight of the useless decorative wings. She'll get used to that eventually.
Usagi follows Mamoru to his apartment's door, but doesn't make any effort to find out the source of his apathy. When she's gone, he washes his glowing eye again, and... who's this? Ah, it's just the reflection. Nehellenia announces her plans for the super-evil rrrrevenge!
Too bad Mamoru just stands there like a loon and doesn't run like mad to tell everyone. Otherwise, this arc could be a couple episodes shorter.
(PLEASE MR. SUNSHINE) kimi no egao ga
(I'M LIKE A MOONLIGHT) watashi wo terasu
Dakara itsumo kagayaiteite
(PLEASE MR. SUNSHINE) yume oikakeru
(I'M LIKE A MOONLIGHT) hitomi ga suki yo
Demo muchuu de kono te hanasanaide
Most "WTF"-ish Japlish mix ever.
Inspired by 000's forgotten Marvel review thread on TFN, and by Fourdot's audio commentaries in the Wookiee-Cast.
Every day, I will write (hopefully satirical) commentary on an episode of Sailor Stars, the fifth season of Sailor Moon. I chose that one because it's the only one I have with embedded subtitles, and almost the only one I have in non-Russian period (besides the pinky-merry-go-round SuperS, which I'm not doing for obvious reasons). Also, it's the only season that wasn't broadcast in the US (but was broadcast in Russia).
Every page has a link to the actual episode (AVI, ~180 MB) at the top. Each episode will be kept for two days: for its own review day and the next episode's review day. They're in Japanese, with English subtitles embedded in the video itself.
Here I present you the first episode of Sailor Stars, which is number 176 in the overall series: "Time for the Nightmare to be Scattered! The Queen of Darkness Revives".
Download link expired
The first thing we see are the eyes of the lame villain from the previous lame season. She's purple, she's mad, she's eeeevvviiiilll. This is because the series overtook the manga and they inserted a six-episode filler arc that brought her back. So be prepared to tolerate her and Chibiusa for six whole episodes before we finally get to villains in animal suits, parody Senshi, gender-confused pop-singers, and more! But hey, at least this arc doesn't follow the standard "monster of the day" everyplot.
Wow. A new theme song. Too bad they didn't bother to create a separate opening sequence for this arc, so the imagery gives away a major plot element by introducing us to Sailor Moon... with decorative wings! And the heaviest rod so far. Oh well.
Finally we get to the intro sequence, which, as usual, gives away the entire plot of the episode, thus spoiling any intrigue.
Hotaru 2.0 is hallucinating, despite being a bit too underaged for that, with deliberately vague visions of Sailor Moon with butterfly wings IN SPACE! that may or may not be of any relevance:
During the close-up, the butterfly wings change into angel wings. Okay, typical dream inconsistency.
It seems that Sailor "not a planet" Pluto has renewed her contract! And she's back to take Hotaru 2.0 from her father, Professor Tomoe (another ex-villain), who, since his last appearance, got younger and closer to the typical anime-pretty-white-haired-boy than to a mad scientist, and also lost his glasses and wheelchair in the process.
Funny how this is his only appearance in the entire season. What a caring parent he is.
The sun shines in strange hexagonal rays. Usagi (the civilian supposedly-secret identity of the title character, which is only secret because the villains don't bother to deduce it) immediately guesses that this is the "impending" part of their impending doom. No, wait, she doesn't. She thinks it's a nice day.
She meets the other girls, who are now all wearing identical school uniforms to cut artwork costs. No, wait, there's actually a completely logical explanation! Mmmkay. Usagi says she's 16 and can get married now. Hmm, apparently the marriageable age is lower in Japan than in Russia. Okay, I can buy that, too.
We cut to an Alternate Dimension, where the previous season's Sealed Evil in a Can has been resealed. A Disembodied Voice frees her... again, swearing in the process.
Chibiusa is going back to the 30th century, by projecting a vertical beam of energy, as pink as herself! Is this the last time we'll see her?..
The villain, Nehellenia, sees the beam in a scene that screams of the "Recycled IN SPACE!" meme. Because she's so evil and pointy-eared, she's not required to breathe in space. Interestingly, the beam, despite being only a meter in diameter or so, is perfectly visible from space.
She's pisssssssed. You can tell that by black lightning she emits in all directions.
Palpatine the Disembodied Voice urges Anakin Nehellenia to kill Dooku break the mirror that emerged from her chest. "Break it! Break it! Break it!" Nehellenia, unfamiliar with the "don't do as they tell you" rule from the Main Characters of Fiction Code, breaks it, beginning the Snow Queen rip-off. (Toei Animation, starring: Nehellenia — the Snow Queen and the troll, Usagi — Gerda, Mamoru — Kay).
Somehow, the shards of the mirror don't all evaporate in Earth's atmosphere. They all fall over Tokyo, because all the interesting stuff always happens in Tokyo, disrupt Chibiusa's Beam of Getting the Heck Out of Here (damn), and one of them completely disregards the laws of probability by falling straight into Mamoru's right eye.
We see aquariums and fish, which means Star Neptune... sorry, Sailor Neptune is somewhere nearby. And there she is, still with her Speedy Gonzalez lesbian lover. Sailor "insert overused joke here" Uranus is looking even more like a guy than before, but at least those two don't engage in pseudo-philosophical conversations any more and get straight to the point.
The shards continue to disregard probability; one of them cuts Uranus's hand, and Neptune pulls a vampire by licking the wound. So melodramatic. *sob*
The shard transforms into... err, something NC-17, sending even more shards in all directions, and soon we have an obvious violation of the law of conservation of mass.
Neptune makes a typically Sailor-ish Captain Obvious speech:
Sailor Pluto to the rescue, with her "Duh... D... Dead Scream" that happens to be the only attack that is whispered instead of being shouted aloud. Not quite scream, not quite dead. Yet. The other two take out their transformation rods [insert Freudian analysis here], and, after a season-long absence, finally use their magic to instantly get naked [don't insert Freudian analysis here]. The audience prepares for two minutes of stock footage, but their hopes are cut short because the Outer Senshi transformations are not quite as long and fanserviceish as they could be.
Despite being surrounded by eeeevvviiillll redshirts (without the shirts, but redshirts nonetheless), they find time to introduce themselves. The black-and-red background of doom apparently means that this is no longer a kids' show, but one of the Bloody Serious Gory Anime Series. We'll see.
Sailor Pluto leaves baby Hotaru unguarded in the bushes, because this is obviously the safest place for her. The reunited trio of the "realistic" side of the Idealism Versus Realism Dispute attempts to smash the glass-NC-17s with their bare arms (because superheroes never get cut by glass unless it's plot-relevant). Since the new season's villains are always stronger, they fail.
One of the NC-17s pushes Uranus over a ledge. Thankfully, as plot-critical moments always occur in slow motion, Neptune manages to run to the ledge and catch Uranus's hand, even finding time to crack jokes in the process.
Meanwhile, Pluto totally loses her self-confidence as the Guardian of Space-Time and goes all goofy. Pluto? Goofy? Hmm. Seriously, that's probably the goofiest facial expression she makes in the entire series.
One of the NC-17s prepares to shred baby Hotaru with her claws, but we know she'll be fine because babies are invulnerable in fiction. And indeed, baby Hotaru blasts her, as well as the other NC-17s, using the power of Planck's constant!
The Outer Senshi find themselves in a colorful Alternate Dimension, conveniently wrapped in gelatin — thankfully, not breathing it. But all is not lost — as it turns out, the IAU has decided to restore Pluto's planetary status!
The appearance of a Latin-based symbol invented in 1930 in this context is no more awkward than the fact that the "Moon Kingdom Arcane" language appears to be broken, Japanese-accented English. Anyway, using their newfound UNLIMITED POWAH!, they destroy the remaining NC-17s for good.
They turn around to find out that the Hotaru 2.0 developers have awakened and are now struggling to meet the deadline:
The vampiric theme is explored a bit further as we see the shape of shadows they cast...
...although inanimate objects, including Pluto's staff, don't cast any shadows at all. Presumably this is D-canon, for "don't take it at face value". "The princess is in danger..." blah blah. The "what do you mean it's not symbolic?"-class vision is repeated, and on this highly optimistic note, the episode ends.
I think I have determined the best sequence for Sailor Moon songs: Otome no Policy (yes, the title is a bizarre Japlish mix, and fitting too), followed by Tuxedo Mirage, and finally Sailor Star Song.
The first one sets the mood and inspires, the second one is dreamy and relaxing, and the final one is revitalizing and reassuring.
The "reassuring" parts are the verses, which are "light-hearted" compared to the rest of it; they make me breathe more deeply. During the chorus, I inhale as much air as I can, the "Sailor Wing" part makes me actually feel like I have wings behind my back, and the "Makenai!" signals a new burst of strength and speed. Actually handy when I'm running — makes me run faster, leap higher, and feel like my body's lighter. I think I'll measure the time required to get from the bus stop to the apartment door with and without SSS playing in my earphones. The difference will probably be considerable.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a fan. Of anything. I don't know a tiny bit of Japanese. And I don't get anime. Can't stand it, actually. This is not anime by my internal classification; this is a Japanese cartoon I grew up watching.)
Download (Ogg Vorbis, be prepared for incomprehensible Japanese):
Honorable mention: Moonlight Densetsu, which was subjected to unforgivable translation butchery in the censored English version (which we Russians, thankfully, were exempt from seeing — we had the uncensored version broadcast).
I know what Bantam and Del Rey's excuse would be: "We're writing something that sells". Dear Bantam and Del Rey. Please open your browser, I hope it's that fox thing, go to farawaypress dot com, enter. Skip the post where the KOTOR comic writer is saying he's been hired to write for a video game, and "no, not that one". Skip the comment where I asked if the game in question is KOTOR III, having totally missed the "not that one" part. Stop at the post where JJM admits he's writing something that sells. Now count the new-to-original ratio in the KOTOR comics, despite the crowd screaming for more Revan and Bastila.
But no, they just won't listen. I wonder why they didn't insert Luke into a prequel-era novel - after all, Star Wars is just not Star Wars without Luke, according to some people. You know, maybe he flow-walked there? A perfectly plausible theory that makes exactly as much sense as the most awesome Mount Sorrow. Not to say it's purely their fault, of course. Dark Horse put the same amount of effort into building the Big Three's Katarn-class character shields. To quote Randy Stradley on Chewbacca's lame death: "At least we made sure it wasn't someone important, like Lando". Yeah, that's right, Lando is really important. Doesn't negate the fact that if Dark Horse killed Chewbacca in their Star Trek-class alien invasion series, cancelled thank Kyle, Chewbacca wouldn't be killed by a moon. He would be killed by a Muun, and fanboys totally wouldn't whine that it was a lame death.
Still, even Del Rey is apparently considered bloodthirsty by Stradley's standards. And we're talking about arguably the most sane man in the entire Star Wars writerdom, the only one who still has the guts to discard certain elements of canon as "stupid". But apparently it's okay with the Big Three surviving 40 years after Yavin, getting involved in every major galactic conflict by pure chance and still breathing. That's the problem: while I'm a rabid Stradleyist in the "attitude to stupid" sense, there are two kinds of stupid things: Stradley stupid and stupid stupid. And things like Dark Empire, unfortunately enough, fall into the second category, but not the first one.
So, to summarize: I want the Big Three to die, and I heard that if enough people whine about this, Lucasfilm will make it cannon. So, here's a Sacrifice plot idea for Karen Traviss: place them all on Corellia, then fire from Centerpoint Station. Obliterating Corellia in the process and thus dealing with four problems at once. That's the only possible way she can redeem herself for the clone trooper retcon.
Rant over. Thank you for suffering.
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