{Insert witty subheading here}

What do you get when you cross fall anime season premiere week with fall allergy week? A very fuzzy-headed blogger, turns out. I had a ton to say about Episode 147, but I blazed through 146 to make up for it, and I have exactly nothing of value to add in the opening remarks except “It was a good week and neither episode made me throw my tablet out the window, yay!”

And if you wanna read the SuperSubstance I managed to scratch out before the sinus meds wore off, hit that jump and dive right in!

The Recaps

Episode 146 – Total Monanarchy

Queen Rubina from the Amethyst Kingdom is in town and, as expected from someone from the Amethyst Kingdom, she’s big on personal freedom and is HERE! TO! PARTY!

The Bunnies get roped into taking her around a local festival, where she hides from the police, gives the cotton candy guy a heart attack ‘cause OMG boobs on his back!, and rewards a screaming brat by handing him the balloon he wanted. She also robs a hardworking merchant in the process. The monarchy is THE WORST, you guys.

When Grumpy Balloon Man demands payment, Hawk flies to his latest Dream Target’s rescue. But she wasn’t born yesterday, son! She knows you’re here to take her back to the embassy, and she’s having none of it! So she runs off again, leaving Hawk to pay her tab.

Meanwhile, Diana recognized Rubina from the news and gathered the rest of the sidekicks to do something about it. While Luna and Artemis look on, Mamoru approaches Rubina and encourages her to go home soon, because “the people who care about you are worried,” quietly reminding her that she should find a balance between personal freedom and responsibility. She develops a ferocious crush on him and agrees.

But first, fireworks! Well, at least until Hawk swoops in again while the Bunnies’ backs are turned. Rubina confronts him this time, which is good for her character growth but bad for her life expectancy. Lucky for her there are some Moons around the corner to take on our latest Lemures, Elephanko the Ball-Riding Elephant TraineEEHEEHEEHEE.

Recycling a character design that will NEVER GET OLD, NOT EVER, Sailor Moon has more fun with spinning balls and “Ze Roses, zey do nothing!” gags until Tuxedo Mask busts out his EXPANDO!cane and hits our minion into the corner pocket. Then all that’s left is to take Rubina to the embassy, have her blush happily at Mamoru again, and carry on with our story.

Episode 147 – Take My Dance Dance Revolution

Down at Cirque du Ombre, Madame Zirconia is replaying the Amazon Trio’s string of failures IN EYE-POPPING 3-D!

She wants them to use their brains to find the most likely Dream Candidate instead of just picking hawt randos, so Tiger sees her scolding and raises her ALL the hawt randos. He’s off to the local college mixer to peek into as many cute co-ed dreams as he can! In his hurry, he drops a photo belonging to a certain judo-flipping sailor scout. Has Mako slipped through the Dreamcatcher’s net?

For a time, yes. Said mixer is happening at Mamoru and Motoki’s university, so Mako and the Moonies (and Unazuki) show up ‘cause THEY WANNA DANCE WITH SUMBUHHHDEHH! THEY WANNA FEEL THE HEEEEAT WITH SUMBUHHHDEHH! But nobody wants to dance with the tall girl (those jerks), so Mako’s stuck playing the wallflower until—

UM

YOU GUYS

IS THIS REALLY

AHHHHH

…Okay, half-joking (buttotallyhalfserious) non-canonical ‘ships aside, I actually adore this scene, not only because it continues to prove that Ami is just SO THE BEST LIKE HOW I CAN’T EVEN, but because it’s played as such a sweet, genuine moment between friends. There’s no awkward ‘baiting or forced fanservice like you’d see in a lot of fiction—it really is two good friends having a fun time on the dance floor. And half-joking (buttotallyhalfserious) non-canonical ‘ships aside, that is a beautiful thing.

A less beautiful consequence of this scene is that Mako’s slick moves catch Tiger’s eye, so he decides to use her as “bait” so the other girls will notice him. It works, but along the way Mako has herself a wonderful, fairy tale-like dance and falls head-over-heels for her partner. He says he’ll dance with her again once he’s danced with all the other ladies mobbing him.

So Mako waits. And waits. And WAITS. And when the dance is over, she sees Tiger leaving the hall. She reminds him of his promise, but he says he hasn’t finished dancing with the others yet, so he STILL has to take a rain check. Mako promises to stay right by that door ‘till he’s finished, and Tiger…

…Okay. So. Here’s the thing about Tiger this week. We’ve already established that he’s a possibly literal animal lacking empathy or respect for human life and agency, so he can’t exactly get WORSE, which is why this week he seems to almost… get better? He actually kind of likes Mako and wants to dance with her again, and only lies to her because he has to focus on his mission—and he darn near looks guilty about it, too. I dunno, you guys. I think Tiger might be developing a conscience or something.

This doesn’t excuse his leading Mako on, mind you. She waits until it’s late in the night and raining, and eventually some member of her household we’ve never met calls Usagi in an attempt to track down their loved one. Usagi activates all the Moon Friendship Power in her arsenal, has Mamoru PEEL onto that college campus, and pretty soon all the Moonies have arrived. When Mako (who’s actually in pretty high spirits) refuses to leave because “I’ll regret it if I don’t at least try,” Sailor Moon gets A-DAMN-DORABLE on us again.

The campus festival continues the next day with a beauty pageant. Fish enters and wins (obvs), but Tiger is not happy to see another minion honing in on his territory. Fish gives Tiger the photo of Mako that he dropped, questions his ally’s seduction skills, and Tiger makes a big show of boasting about all the girls he can woo.

The Bunnies overhear and are ready to turn this no-good dirty playboy into a tiger-skin rug, but he dashes off to find Mako before they get the chance. Mako’s overjoyed to see her trust rewarded, and Tiger wonders what this “trust” thing is, as well as these, er…

But Fish gets impatient and swoops in to help with the Dreamcatching. Tiger reveals himself and UGH, VICTIM-BLAMES MAKO, THE JERK (although the great Okiayu makes it sound more like he’s struggling with this weird new “guilt” stuff rather than actually mocking her, so nice nuanced vocal work, there). He does the mirror thing, but Mako’s heart is Pegasus-free.

Tiger leaves the cleanup work to Fish, and Fish leaves it to his Lemures, the Sorrowful Card Master. He stacks the deck against the Moons and our deuce is soon on tilt, but their trump card recovers before the final hand, transforming into Sailor Jupiter to reveal her ace in the hole and take this minion for everything he’s got.

After the battle, Mako muses on whether she loved Tiger or just dancing with him. She answers her own question when Unazuki shows up to tell them about a nearby high school that’s having a dance party next weekend, and Mako jumps all over that shindig.

And that’s Mako for you: She falls hard and hops right back up again, barely noticing her skinned knees. As an overly-cautious person who tries to be less so, it’s hard for me to fault her for wanting to trust people and take risks (although she should probably learn the difference between “trusting” and “being taken advantage of”). But hey, fortunately for her, she’s also got some great friends around to apply a few band-aids when needed.

This, That, and the Other

• The constant side-eye the Bunnies throw at Rubina during the festival sequence is a thing of running gag beauty.

• Speaking of which, Episode 146 was full of great animation that had an oddly throwback feel to it. Sailor Moon is sort of quintessential ‘90s anime to me, but it got a little old-school with the wobbly mouths and eyes this week, and it made for some noteworthy (if not a bit out-of-place) artwork at times.

• Also great animation: That dance sequence. Somebody get me some animated gifs, stat! I want to put them in my, um, “Cool Animation Gifs” folder. Not my “Non-Canonical ‘Ships” folder. No no, certainly not. ¬_¬

• So what happened to all those other Dream Targets Tiger was after, anyway? I mean, he was out with them all night… the, uh, same night the Moonies were giving moral support to Mako, actually… so… Tiger. TIGER. How many people did you murder last night?!

• Hark! A plot character point! Tiger nopes outta Fish’s “let’s kill Mako” plan so fast the animation team didn’t even have time to draw him moving his feet. YES, GRADUAL BUT SIGNIFICANT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, VERY GOOD, SAILOR MOON. Redemption arcs are coming, team, I can feel it right down to my fancy sailor boots.