sailor moon

Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 65-66

Better late than never, no?

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Delayed SM post this week, courtesy of the hectic holiday season. (Note that I announce these delays in the Chirp-o-sphere, so if you ever notice something isn’t coming out when it’s supposed to, you can check there for more info.) It was a fun week, with some subtle plot bombs and slightly varied character dynamics—all good things, really—but in the interest of getting this out before the end of the weekend (I’m typing this during the, like, three-hour window between parties and chores), I’m going to unleash my little-used superpower: EXTREME BREVITY. Prepare yourself, Kakarot!

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 61-62

Huh. So apparently the “R” stands for “Rage-induced table-flipping.”

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These past couple weeks I’ve been merging my reactions with my recaps, and I actually like the way it flows better (it’s also helped me to keep these a little shorter and write them a little faster), so we’re going to try that for a while longer and see how it works out. If you’re not a fan of the new format, let me know and I’ll consider shifting back to the old way, but hopefully this works just fine.

And on that note—to the recaps! The angry, angry recaps.

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 59-60

And so as one Sailor Moon aRc ends, another begins…

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And no, we do NOT have time for a retrospective! There was FAR too much happening this week. So I’ll cover my reactions as we go, with my usual blend of exaggeration and irreverence. But don’t let my cheekiness fool you: I quite enjoyed both episodes this week, and I’m looking forward to telling you kids all about it.

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 55-56

Aliens are people, too!

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These two episodes encapsulate pretty much everything I love about Sailor Moon, using supernatural events to develop characters and provide commentary on love, friendship, and gender roles. And it doesn’t hurt that they were darn amusing, too. This is kind of the show Sailor Moon R should have been from the beginning, really—when you have aliens masquerading as humans, it’s almost a crime NOT to have them constantly interacting with (and being confused by) (and being affected by) human culture and quirks.

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 53-54

Sometimes I worry that Sailor Moon will run out of episodic plot lines—then I remember that Cheers ran for 11 years, and they never had any aliens to battle, and I know we’ll be okay.

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Man, I wasn’t kidding when I called Sailor Moon a “magical girl sitcom” way back in Episode 11. Toss in a laugh track and some flannel and there are days when this show would fit right in with the live-action teen sitcoms airing back in the early ‘90s. This week we’ve got the Babysitting Episode and the School Recital Episode—okay, more accurately the “School Festival Episode,” a long-time staple of school-based anime and manga. But it’s the same concept, really: An episode centered around a performance and one character’s dedication to it.

Nevertheless, SM manages to put its own (thoroughly ridiculous) twist on these tales, as the baby drama is less about the baby and more about Usagi struggling to connect with Amnesiac Mamoru, and the recital reveals some facets of Rei’s character we haven’t seen before. Also, Clow cards. Relatively few of those U.S. school sitcoms had Clow cards.

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 51-52

Moon Prism Power, Level Up!

Doncha just love shoujo and their emotions-based power-ups? Who needs training and fighting and slowly gaining martial experience when you can just feel feelings SO HARD that you turn jewellery into legendary crystals and absolutely nothing into magic rods? I wish I could’ve spent MY middle and high school years having my FEELINGS converted into Lovely Items: I was a fairly chill teenager and I still would’ve been able to ride into battle atop a sparkling Jayhawk while shooting flaming arrows from my longbow made of dreams and stardust. To victory!

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 49-50

The pretty guardian in a keffiyeh appears!

I’m on the road, sans my usual computer (and therefore my animated gif collection), and completely burned out from my week-long Utena watch-n-blog marathon, so today’s recaps are going to be an exercise in brevity. Fortunately it’s also an exercise is mostly-filler, so this should be doable.

In terms of general impressions, I had two thoughts this week: (1) Wow, the animation saw one hell of a dive during Episode 49, and (2) It seems like Sailor Moon might be trying to inject some life lessons into its relationships, and not just of the “love conquers all” variety. It’s nice to finally see a close boy-girl relationship that’s an actual friendship instead of a romance (even if we really didn’t get to SEE much of it at all), and I very much hope we get more of that in the future.

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 47-48

R you ready for a new season?

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A Note on Spoilers: I didn’t really mind spoilers previously, but we’re entering the part of SM of which I know almost nothing, and I now have some other readers who are watching SM for the first time as well. To keep the experience fresh and exciting for both them and me, please avoid posting any future plot points (related to either the anime or the manga) in the comments section. Thanks!

Well’p. The bad news is that everyone has amnesia. The good news is that Sailor Moon’s creative team looked at this whole Sailor Moon Reboot thing and went, “What? Spend a bunch of episodes having the girls slowly regain their memories and powers? PSSSH. Ain’t nobody got time for that! We have magic cats. We can fix this in, like, two episodes, TOPS.”

And so they did!

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