Sailor Moon Reboot coming up

[DA_Champion]

Wow, I really enjoyed that, I was kind of embarrassed at how much I enjoyed it, but I did. The animation works better when it's ... animated.

I can't remember how much of it was exactly like the original Episode 1x1. I was surprised to see Amy there in the first episode, was not sure if she knew who she was, but at the end the rain scared her, and she has water powers, so probably yes.

[darkphoenix21]

I enjoyed the premiere. The animation was crisp and sharp; part of that has to do with it being in hd.

I'm glad that there was still some goofiness in it.

I was thinking that if you watched the original pilot with the is one about 80% or so was frame for frame exactly the same. Some things were slightly different such as Serena (I'm always going to call them by the names I know them as) not knowing about Sailor V, Zoasite (spell?) male now, Amy appearing at the end and the language was more pg-13.

I got to watch the original pilot on youtube. It's going to bug be trying to compare and contrast the two

[DA_Champion]

Here's a thorough take on episode 1:

http://www.denofgeek.us/tv/sailor-moon/237044/sailor-moon-crystal-episode-1-review-act-1-usagi-sailor-moon

The review is negative for the first part but the latter text is positive.

This is the biggest makeover in the series thus far:

[darkphoenix21]

I had the same thought when I saw the arcade scene again; the only places I know that have arcades are on the boardwalk down the shore. It seemed dated and out of place if this series is set in the present day.

I did watch the original pilot again and there was more to that Jewelry Store scene at the end then the reboot.

The other things were more nitpicky than anything else.

[DA_Champion]

I was rewatching the dub of season 1, and I've noticed a few things:

- There are a lot of continuity errors and plot holes, probably due to the dub's artistic license. Some things don't make sense, for example Beryl giving Zoacite a brand new dark crystal that happens to look exactly like the crystal that Zoacite took from Nephlyte.
- I like that they did their homework on some details. For example, Nephrite, when calling upon the power of the stars, refers to the centre of the Milky Way as part of Sagittarius. That is correct, good for him and good for the writers. It's a small thing, but to someone like myself whose career is all about the centre of the Milky Way, it's appreciated and it shows that they did their homework.
- Jaedite is totally useless, Nephrite is more interesting, which makes sense that the second general would be more interesting. I wonder if in the original Japanese version Zoacite+Malakite didn't want to follow Beryl and wanted to be their own leaders, I'll check it out later.
- The filler episodes are a lot more boring at age 30 than they were at age 23 or age 14.
- One can make the case that Molly falling in love with Maxfield Stanton / Nephrite is problematic, it's a little creepy like the Bella-Edward relationship, in that she doesn't care that he's evil and lying because she loves him. There's an age difference of a thousand years or more. Nephrite even goes to her room when she's sleeping, though he wakes her up at that point and explains who he is. Yet ... I was moved and not disturbed. So it's not quite the same as Bella-Edward for reasons I've failed to identify. It might come from the genuine evolution of Nephrite's character, he goes from evil to good in part due to her love.



Some differences with the reboot:
- The jewellery store scene in episode 1 was more extended in the pilot, you see Moon struggle more, she bleeds and almost dies.
- Sailor V as a cultural product is less mentioned in the original;
- There's more help from Tuxedo mask in the original, he saves her a lot. Though I can see some character development I had not previously noticed, Serena grows more competent throughout the season.
- I had forgotten about the moon disguise power pen, my God, that's fun.

[darkphoenix21]

Next Rebooted Episode Will Be Available Tomorrow ...

I'm going to re-watch the original episodes and the rebooted ones back to back to be able to compare the differences.

[DA_Champion]

Are you re-watching the originals in English or in Japanese?

Episode 2 of the reboot really compares more to episode 8 of the original English dub.

So having rewatched season 1 in English recently... I have to say ... the voice actress for Serena / Sailor Moon was great. She had this sweet, affectionate voice that I think is essential to the role.

[darkphoenix21]

I'll re-watch the English dubs cause those are the ones I know; though I watched a few of the episodes in Japanese that didn't air in the states (including the series finale). My next question was going to be about the episode count; the original season 1 had over 26 episodes, so they'll probably skip over some of the fillers the original had.

Yeah that voice was perfectly cast for Serena as well as for the rest of the other characters...but, than they changed the voice actors in season 3...I just remember saying to myself, " What happened?!?! they don't sound right" it was sooooo obviously not subtle.

[DA_Champion]

Review of Crystal episode 2

This episode was fun, this second time around I notice that the art is in fact, a lot better. The art does in fact look beautiful, whereas before (i.e episode 1) it seemed clunky, maybe it just took some effort to get used to.

I was a little confused by Usagi having a friend who looks just like Ami but with brown/purple hair, I thought that was Ami, turns out it's another girl. Overall I like what they did with Ami, she's starting from a relatable position of weakness, thinks she's only good at studying and is obsessed with becoming a doctor, a lot of us have been there. We get to see that she has other talents too, for example she's good at video games, and Usagi tells her she's pretty when she smiles.

They're continuing the trend from the first episode of mentioning Venus/Sailor V more. Usagi actually says that she hopes Sailor V is on her team.

Sailor Mars (Rei) is teased for the next episode, I wonder if we'll see Jupiter in episode 4 and Venus in episode 5, I hope not. But whatever I'm sure it will work either way.

Rei was mediating with fire, so this means she had superpowers prior to being a scout, like in the anime I think.

Moon/Usagi is braver early on, it seems. Tuxedo Mask has still not thrown a rose. I'm not sure why his character wears a tux when he's not in role?

Jaedite looks a lot more feminine now, we also see him emote dissatisfaction via facial expressions with his Queen, or maybe it was frustration? Queen Beryl lets us know that she's a lackey in the second episode, by referring to our ruler.

[DA_Champion]

This is the music video "Moon Pride", I'm not watching it because it apparently contains spoilers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Va228UhRs

[darkphoenix21]

I don't think they gave much away. You've seen the original, so you pretty much spoiled the series for yourself. The clip itself was a some standing, walking and posing + a few scenes of [SPOILER]the Battle at the Moon Kingdom; you see the girls on the ground, Serena falling, Prince Darien and Serena trying to grab for each other [/SPOILER]

[DA_Champion]

It took me a couple weeks but I finished rewatching Sailor Moon Season 2 / Sailor Moon R. I hadn't watched it in ~7 years, and actually I had forgotten enough about the plot that it was bearable. I watched the old dub, as I figure I'll get plenty of authenticity from the new dub eventually, as well as the subtitled Sailor Moon Crystal, plus the dubs of seasons 1+2 are much better than those of 3+4.

If anybody's interested in rewatching too, here's a useful filler guide that I didn't use that tells you which episodes you can skip:

http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=23484613

Looking back on it and watching it now with more literary experience — I have mixed feelings on this season. It has several problems that might be due to the translation.

The most significant I think aside from the inevitable excess of filler, is the weird treatment of the relationship between Serena/Usagi and Darien/Mamoru. They break up because Darien/Mamoru is having bad dreams — what for? Because future King Endymion wants to test their love? I don’t see how that makes sense, it’s a very lazy way to delay the progression of the relationship so as to create drama, reminds me of season 3 of Lois and Clark. Darien was also quite nasty to her throughout season 2, in the first few episodes with the amnesia (tough he softened up) and later on when he was blindly following his dreams even though the dreams were honestly not very convincing.

If this were made today, the further twenty years of feminist critique of popular culture would probably mean that Serena/Usagi would be angry about how she was treated during the breakup ... though maybe not, there's an out. She theorises at one point during the season that Darien/Mamoru's bad behaviour is due to supernatural intervention, within the context of the world she lives in, that makes sense, though it comes off as a metaphor for delusion.

The second issue is that Crystal Tokyo is a cool idea, and could have been developed in a cooler manner. Within the dub the development is reduced to “the world had an ecological disaster, then one day neo-queen serenity used the power of the silver crystal to re-awaken everybody” … could be a lot more interesting I think. For example by showing the other scouts a thousand years in the future as more powerful than their current selves, or explaining why that society’s better as opposed to just having better architecture, or better showing the achievement of building Crystal Tokyo prior to it being reduced to ruins.

The third issue is an excess of villains. Alan and Ann, then the four sisters, then Rubius, then Emerald (who is completely useless), The dream man (forget his name), Sapphire, Prince Diamond, Wise Man and eventually doom phantom. Season could have been streamlined and made tighter.

For the good parts:
1) The other sailors got some character moments in the Alan and Arc, they did have a few cases where they fried an enemy by themselves without relying on Serena/Usagi or Uranus/Neptune.
2) The dark moon arc is the perfect conceptual counterpart to the dark kingdom arc (season 1), rather than reflecting on 1,000 years in the past it’s looking forward to 1,000 years in the future, it shows these teenage girls one day becoming rulers (well, for Serena/Usagi anyway) and rebuilding what was lost.
3) Absolutely everything that happens in this season is worth it for this scene:





For those of you who don't remember that might look ridiculously cheesy (and it is), but it's earned by what's come before. Serena/Usagi's character arc for the reason is to learn to take care of and love the little girl who she later finds out is her daughter. Definitely gives me the feels.

ETA: Possible spoiler, I read up some wikis to make sure I got the labels right, apparently it's implied that Wiseman might be Jaedite. I always thought that made more sense, since he never actually died in the original season 1 he was just frozen, good to see it's suggested elsewhere :-)

ETA #2: I notice in my rematch of seasons 1+2 that all characters get a romantic interest except for Minako. Never thought of it before, that's kind of dark actually since I've seen a few tidbits on the reason ... I think she's cursed to be alone forever?

[Degobunny]

It took me a couple weeks but I finished rewatching Sailor Moon Season 2 / Sailor Moon R. I hadn't watched it in ~7 years, and actually I had forgotten enough about the plot that it was bearable. I watched the old dub, as I figure I'll get plenty of authenticity from the new dub eventually, as well as the subtitled Sailor Moon Crystal, plus the dubs of seasons 1+2 are much better than those of 3+4.

If anybody's interested in rewatching too, here's a useful filler guide that I didn't use that tells you which episodes you can skip:

http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=23484613

Looking back on it and watching it now with more literary experience — I have mixed feelings on this season. It has several problems that might be due to the translation.

The most significant I think aside from the inevitable excess of filler, is the weird treatment of the relationship between Serena/Usagi and Darien/Mamoru. They break up because Darien/Mamoru is having bad dreams — what for? Because future King Endymion wants to test their love? I don’t see how that makes sense, it’s a very lazy way to delay the progression of the relationship so as to create drama, reminds me of season 3 of Lois and Clark. Darien was also quite nasty to her throughout season 2, in the first few episodes with the amnesia (tough he softened up) and later on when he was blindly following his dreams even though the dreams were honestly not very convincing.

If this were made today, the further twenty years of feminist critique of popular culture would probably mean that Serena/Usagi would be angry about how she was treated during the breakup ... though maybe not, there's an out. She theorises at one point during the season that Darien/Mamoru's bad behaviour is due to supernatural intervention, within the context of the world she lives in, that makes sense, though it comes off as a metaphor for delusion.

The second issue is that Crystal Tokyo is a cool idea, and could have been developed in a cooler manner. Within the dub the development is reduced to “the world had an ecological disaster, then one day neo-queen serenity used the power of the silver crystal to re-awaken everybody” … could be a lot more interesting I think. For example by showing the other scouts a thousand years in the future as more powerful than their current selves, or explaining why that society’s better as opposed to just having better architecture, or better showing the achievement of building Crystal Tokyo prior to it being reduced to ruins.

The third issue is an excess of villains. Alan and Ann, then the four sisters, then Rubius, then Emerald (who is completely useless), The dream man (forget his name), Sapphire, Prince Diamond, Wise Man and eventually doom phantom. Season could have been streamlined and made tighter.

For the good parts:
1) The other sailors got some character moments in the Alan and Arc, they did have a few cases where they fried an enemy by themselves without relying on Serena/Usagi or Uranus/Neptune.
2) The dark moon arc is the perfect conceptual counterpart to the dark kingdom arc (season 1), rather than reflecting on 1,000 years in the past it’s looking forward to 1,000 years in the future, it shows these teenage girls one day becoming rulers (well, for Serena/Usagi anyway) and rebuilding what was lost.
3) Absolutely everything that happens in this season is worth it for this scene:





For those of you who don't remember that might look ridiculously cheesy (and it is), but it's earned by what's come before. Serena/Usagi's character arc for the reason is to learn to take care of and love the little girl who she later finds out is her daughter. Definitely gives me the feels.

ETA: Possible spoiler, I read up some wikis to make sure I got the labels right, apparently it's implied that Wiseman might be Jaedite. I always thought that made more sense, since he never actually died in the original season 1 he was just frozen, good to see it's suggested elsewhere :-)

ETA #2: I notice in my rematch of seasons 1+2 that all characters get a romantic interest except for Minako. Never thought of it before, that's kind of dark actually since I've seen a few tidbits on the reason ... I think she's cursed to be alone forever?

Yeah...Ace, a former love interest for Mina from the Sailor V manga cursed her to be free of the burden of love and to always put her duty to Sailor Moon first.

[DA_Champion]

Yeah...Ace, a former love interest for Mina from the Sailor V manga cursed her to be free of the burden of love and to always put her duty to Sailor Moon first.

Isn't that awful?

Also, something I neglected to say in my post:

I wonder if the Rini/Usagi story is the inspiration for the Buffy/Dawn story in Buffy season 5? The plot mechanics are the same, as is the main character arc (Usagi learns to love her daughter, Buffy learns to love her sister), though the implementation is different. I have not seen this done anywhere else.

[Degobunny]

Isn't that awful?

Also, something I neglected to say in my post:

I wonder if the Rini/Usagi story is the inspiration for the Buffy/Dawn story in Buffy season 5? The plot mechanics are the same, as is the main character arc (Usagi learns to love her daughter, Buffy learns to love her sister), though the implementation is different. I have not seen this done anywhere else.

I would say the relationship between Usagi and Rini is similar to Jo and Amy in Little Woman especially when Laurie is factored in.

As far as Usagi and Rini I never really liked there scenes as much. It was a similar dynamic to Raye and Usagi to be honest, except with Rei it felt more natural and not as icky. Rei or Rini would be flirty with Darien (which was just plain wrong with Rini), Usagi would get jealous and Darien would just role with it all until Usagi would go ballistic, then he would patronize her about Rini or try reassure her there was nothing between him and Raye.