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.