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Okay,
since some of you might still remember the DiC cut of this episode, prepare
for some notes on what you missed. While this episode wasn't too badly cut
up, there are some legendary changes you might have missed, and you know
what? I keep forgetting to bring this up, but for those of you buying the
uncensored DVDs (whether you got Viz's DVDs or the old, SD ADV prints) you
might be confused by the start of every episode starting with episode 2.
For some weird reason, DiC decided to cut out the daily intros Usagi has for
each episode, where she just reminds the viewer that she's a klutz and Luna
wants her to save the world. The excuse DiC had back in 1995 was that they
needed more time for ads, so the only time this segment was left alone was
for the Sailor Moon R movie. Sadly, she only does this until midway through
this season. I kinda wish they kept this up during Sailor StarS, but then
that would have taken her forever to introduce everyone from Ami to Yaten.
What's more weird however is that DiC later re-used footage from these
segments for all Sailor SayS PSA's, trading cards, calendars, merchandise and
even the PC game. Curiously, although Ami was added to the team in the last
episode, this segment is unchanged, and Usagi just talks about herself and
Luna.
The episode starts with Queen Beryl being slightly scared and pissed that
Sailor Mercury has appeared, but Jadeite tells her that humans expel a ton of
energy when they think they are running out of time. Beryl is so cool with
whatever Jadeite has to say after this that we get a new animation of her
smiling. Isn't it nice to get something other than stock footage?
Now this is another DiC scene I never understood why they cut. It's less than
30 seconds long and it's not offensive, unless Japanese Kanji pisses you off.
Anyway, we cut to Usagi taking Ami window shopping in Harajuku. DiC said they
were "going to the mall" because it was the 90's and that's what we
did before Amazon.com was invented. But Harajuku FYI is a huge shopping
district with tons of stores and unlike shopping malls, it's not enclosed,
which you can see by the BLUE SKY BEHIND USAGI!! I'm sorry, the whole
"changing things for American tastes" issues bothered me even when
I was 8 years old and watching this on weekday mornings.
Ami admits that she's only ready about shopping areas, but never actually
shops on her own, so Usagi takes it upon herself to take her new friend for a
day of just bumming around.
Sailor V sunglasses??
What the hell is "benim" and just where
is the United States of Tacoghu?
Ami likes to buy reference books while Usagi is all about manga.
What is Hotaru doing in this episode?? You are two seasons ahead of yourself,
little girl. Don't you have a creepy dad to go home to?
There's a new clock and watch store that has randomly opened, and they're
offering 70% off of everything. Ami says she just got a new watch from her
mother, so she doesn't need to go in, but Usagi drags her inside anyway,
still trying to pull her out of her shell and help her enjoy being a teenaged
girl for a bit. They marvel at the dirt cheap watches and clocks.
Usagi's eye is caught by this CREEPY cat clock, which reminds her of Luna.
Usagi wants to buy it, but finds that she is running low on cash.
Usagi starts to wail that she needs a new clock because she's been late for
school all week, and somehow her outburst is pissing off the baddie of the
day.
Ami offers to pick her up for school, and we get the closest thing to an
Usagi Yuri moment that we will have for a long time.
Usagi comes home to find that Kenji is nailing up a new clock. Ikuko went
shopping with Umino's still unseen and unnamed mother (they're friends in
this anime) and must have just missed Usagi and Ami.
Here's another edit from the DiC era that puzzles me. In some markets, this
snippet was left alone. In others, the green writing was digitally painted
over and in other markets, DiC just cut this scene out. So not only did DiC
cut up the episode but they made different cuts per area. THIS WAS NOT COST
EFFECTIVE. Are Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji really that offensive??
Well it turns out Usagi didn't need to cry after all, Ikuko bought her the
creepy Luna clock. Even a broken clock is right twice a day as they say.
Also, this is a rare chance to see Ikuko give a pose Usagi would.
Luna hates the clock, insisting she's better looking than the damn thing and
that it's really creepy. Usagi ignores her and heads to bed early. Luna can't
sleep, wondering if she's really this sinister looking. (Yes, yes you are.)
Overnight, Luna's suspicions are proven right when all of the new clocks start
to glow and.. and wait.. wait a second.. Ikuko and Kenji sleep in separate
beds!?!?! But but but but they're MARRIED with TWO KIDS!! How did?? How is
this?? This was 1992 not 1952, WTF?? And isn't this quaint, his sheets are
blue, hers are pink. How gender specific.
HEY WAIT!! I just now caught this, their bedsheets are in the same colors as
Usagi's transformation! The two of them made her, so that's kind of cute if
you think about it.
The next morning, Ami comes to Usagi's house to find that Usagi and Shingo
have left hours ago, Ikuko has a nervous twitch and Kenji is running on air.
And I just want to point this out. *Ahem* This is the ONLY TIME Ami will EVER
try to walk Usagi to school EVER AGAIN for the remainder of time itself. I
mean it. This will never happen again. Like Usagi had ONE SHOT at walking to
school with Ami, and she blew it because of a creepy, demonic clock. Blew it
forever, even AFTER Ami finds out the clock is evil. Can you believe it?
At school and hours ahead, the class decides they can't wait for those who
wanted to be on time today, so Ms. Haruna tells everyone to self study
because she has four dates lined up for tod-sluuuuuuuut.
What a wonderful teacher, abandoning her class for dick.
Umino uses his time to try and hit on Naru and Usagi at the same time, but
they both decide to bail with the rest of the class. Hurray for truancy!!
As Ami tries to figure out why everything is open so early… okay. Stop. Look
at the above picture. HOW DID LUNA TIE THIS CLOCK TO HER BACK?!?!
After complaining about Usagi getting up too early (you should be so lucky)
Luna demands that Ami check out the clock, and do you see this? I TOLD YOU
it's coming from her butt, look at the sparkle! What, did you think she has
pockets?
Luna gives Ami a mini super computer (which Ami does not wipe off) and Ami
asks if she can keep it. Luna says "It's too much for Usagi" taking
an unnecessary jab at the girl for no reason. I mean, she could have just
pointed out that it has the mark of Mercury on it or spun some story about
Ami's intelligence being a super power, but nope! We're just gonna rag on
Usagi.
FINISH PAINTING YOUR EYES!! And why is Luna's head a ball? And is Luna's moon
glowing? Well anyway, a ball of energy pops out from the clock when Ami opens
it, and the two discover that there's no clock parts inside at all.
After the commercial break (DiC also wanted to censor this scene with digital
paint) we see that car accidents are happening al over the place. People are
freaking out about being late, and their energy is tripling because of it.
Cosmic Moon? That's two seasons from now!
As Jadeite collects the energy, Ramua muses that her grandfather clock is
responsible for culling the energy out of people. Jadeite warns her that
Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury will soon be on the way, then he leaves.
First Rei and Hotaru, now Minako too?
(Yes, DiC also cut this scene out due to imitative behavior, and no, that's
not a joke.) Usagi is on the bus ride from Hell, with a maniac who is driving
as though his ass is on fire through Juban, causing people to wreck.
He wrecks the bus right in front of Ami and Luna, nearly killing Usagi and
everyone on board.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!
Now for some role reversal, Luna tries to tell Usagi not to rush into battle
with the enemy, while Usagi is ready to (excuse me) clean her clock. This is
so different. Usually, Luna is demanding Usagi go and save the world, but
today, it's the other way around. Luna keeps insisting they wait, but Usagi
has none of it, grabs Ami's hand and demands she transform.
You know, I forgot to point this out before. DiC and Cloverway both digitally
painted over the girls' transformations, except for Usagi (until S) and
Chibiusa. This was because Usagi's breast lines didn't really start becoming
noticeable until somewhere between R and S (she's still a growing kid in case
you forgot) and Chibiusa's body lines never showed up during transformation,
though her bust became pronounced during SuperS. Also, Ami's transformation
here is greenish, and will stay this way until R. I'm still trying to figure
out why they wanted her to be green for a while and why some of her
merchandise is still in green when in the manga, everything for Ami is in
blue. Hmm.
Once transformed, Sailor Moon uses Moon Tiara Action to blast a hole into the
enemy's hideout, but the hole only lasts long enough for Moon and Mercury to
enter, slamming shut on Luna.
You know what? That's karma for ragging on Usagi today.
Upon finding the enemy, the girls do their very first ever joint speech as a
team, leading to some new screens.
Opening a portal, Ramua leads Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury into her own
space-time dimension.
Sailor Mercury tries to warn Sailor Moon that with them being in her own
dimension, that anything can happen, but Sailor Moon is getting beyond
impatient, and just wants this episode to be over with.
Pressing her earring, Sailor Mercury activates her visor, and tries again to
warn Sailor Moon about wondering off, and where are the white things on her
Odango? And WTF happened to her locket? Well after seeing Mercury's new
computer, Sailor Moon ages down and then up.
Well if you were ever curious about how a kid Sailor Moon would have looked
during puberty, now you know.
Mercury explains that the rooms can even age you, which makes Usagi think
about what she will look like old.
Which isn't too different from how her 900+ year old daughter thinks of her
old self later on in SuperS.
 
But they will actually look like this. ^.^
Tuxedo Mask shows up inside the now abandoned store, but doesn't know about
the alternate dimension.
Sailor Mercury pulls up Robocop's directive, albeit with the word
"innocent' horrifically misspelled. This somehow helps the girls find
Ramua across the new time dimension.
Ramua starts messing with the energy of Sailor Moon's timeline, stopping her
in her tracks.
She then uses a giant spear to swipe her face. This was cut from the DiC
broadcast on syndication, but not from Cartoon Network.
She then uses her energy to freeze Sailor Mercury's timeline.
Then for good measure, she goes to stab Sailor Moon 30+ times … AND MISSES
BADLY!!
Somehow able to hear Sailor Moon screaming from the back end of another
dimension, Tuxedo Mask chucks a rose at the grandfather clock of Ramua,
reversing her power on her and sucking out the energy that was stolen.
With the girls free, it's time to take down Ramua.
Sailor Mercury uses Bubble Spray to mask their movement for a moment, pissing
off Ramua.
Sailor Moon throws her tiara, disintegrating Ramua alive and erasing the
clock store.
Usagi initially says she's had enough excitement for one day, but suddenly,
Naru races up to tell her there's a cake eating contest with a prize going to
the fastest eater. (The DiC version, this was a BS line about a shoe sale.
Because they're girls. >_O)
Naru tries to drag Usagi along, but Usagi trips, hurts herself and cries.
Luna and Ami decide to rag on Usagi, saying she will always be like this.
Luna is teaching Ami a BAD habit.
And you know what? We end the episode here! Ami and Naru never help her up
and Luna just sits back, enjoying the tears. HOLY SHIT.
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BONUS
The DiC version of this episode made some strange cuts, as I noted before.
They replaced "Harajuku" with "The Mall" and cut 30
seconds of footage needlessly to make it seem like Usagi and Ami (or Serena
and Amy) were in an American shopping mall, and then they tried to edit
Usagi's 100 Yen bill to an "American" $10 bill. But just look at
how sloppy this was:
 
Not only did they digitally paint over two zeros, they also went ahead and
tinted the dark pink wallet brown. WHY?? Is pink suddenly offensive on
wallets?!?! Also, they zoomed and cropped the image, making it look even
WORSE, like they wanted to draw attention to the sloppy editing. Again, WHY??
 
Another obvious DiC change is that they flipped all of the scenes involving
driving. Why you ask? Well America is one of the only countries in the world
where the driver is on the left side of the vehicle. We also drive on the
opposite side of the road. Everyone else drives as you see on the left side
of the screen. Rather than explain to children in 1995 that this is a
JAPANESE animation with JAPANESE characters in JAPAN and that things are different
in JAPAN, they decided to flip the screens at random. And yes, even in Sailor
Moon R when we're told about Crystal TOKYO like 900 times per episode, DiC
STILL wanted to hide the fact that Crystal TOKYO is in TOKYO, JAPAN.
This is another edit that seems to change in each market. In some
translations, Usagi says "I guess God was watching out for me" and
you can clearly hear her say "Kami-sama" which means
"God". (Jesus's dad.) But Viz sort of translates this to the screen
you see above. DiC just made a random comment about getting up for school.
Foreign translations vary.
Did you notice? There are five buttons on the bottom of Ami's computer. They
are supposed to represent Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Venus, Sailor Moon or Sailor
Chibi Moon, Sailor Mars and Sailor Mercury respectively. The D-pad is in the
shape of four ice tear drops, funny, seeing as how Ami's attacks are ice and
water based. Also, it varies from aqua/seafoam green to turquoise blue
depending on who's painting it, just as Ami's hair for this season alternates
between green, teal and blue.
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