|
I must kill it with fire, Luna, and seal it away before it destroys our
kingdom.
This pilot has eluded me for ages and ages.
Today, I plan to riff on it very, very heavily.
Okay, fair warning to those of you who've never visited
Moon Sisters before and likely came in via a link I shared someplace, lemme
warn you now that these are my uncensored thoughts going forward. I will be
dropping quite a few f-bombs, so if you are under age 18, please please
please go away before your parents catch this and throw a hissy fit. And if
you are a parent or legal guardian, please consider this your last warning.
For everyone else, this is NSFW content, so be cautious if people are looking
over your shoulder.
Why am I swearing? No, I'm not an edgelord, but hear me
out. I'm usually a stickler for details. Sometimes, I show leniency with some
Sailor Moon projects. Believe it or
not, there's episodes of the 90s anime and certain Sera Myu
plays I actually super enjoy, even though they take major liberties with the
source material. If the writing still feels close enough to the original
characters and not too much is changed, I can let a lot of content slide.
This is not
one of those projects. The hefty amount of Americanization is driving me
bonkers, so please understand if I start utilizing a lot of R-rated language.
I don't wish any ill will on those who made it, we all
know by now how deadlines and projects all get mangled when writers and
animators are working with big companies, so I know they had a limited budget
and not a lot to work with. To the contrary, my heart actually goes out to
everyone who worked on this, especially if they thought they were going to
get greenlit for something bigger. Getting that lovely NOPE phone call from
Toei must not have been much fun. Certainly, I wouldn't know how to handle
that.
But in seeing the project in full, I can also see why
NOPE happened.
Why am I putting up a content warning?
Because this is a show that would have debuted in 1994,
and like everything was "Viewer Discretion Advised" back then. We
had a ton of uneducated "parental rights coalitions" trying to
censor the dog shit out of everything. It was insanity, and I've always kept
Moon Sisters feeling nostalgic, so this warning is just straight 90s vibes
for you.
Also, when I started Moon Sisters in 2005, I had some
hate mail from parents who thought for some strange reason that this was a
children's page. It wasn't, and they hated having to be told that not
everyone will cater to your demands.
Today, most of you watched like I dunno, Walking Dead and Stranger Things
with your kids, and I've seen some of you dress your babies in t-shirts of Grand Theft Auto, so go right ahead and laugh at my
unnecessary warnings and then enjoy some laughs below.
Queen Serenity probably wants me to get onto the credits.
I need to start this recap by stating that I cannot
possibly thank Ray Mona enough for her hard work and dedication. I hope she
knows just how very much she means to every single Sailor
Moon fan here and beyond. She did the unthinkable, tracked down
not only the lost pilot, but she found it in shockingly good quality, and
then she uncovered just about every scrap of information possible.
Officially, this woman is a national treasure, and I demand that you
subscribe to her on YouTube right this very instant. If you want to drink in
the pilot as it originally aired, click here.
Also, every single Toon Makers screenshot going forward
on this page is 100% credited to her, which is why I didn't work around the
logo she has on the bottom right corner of the screen. The amount of labor
she put into finding this is extensive and you owe it to yourself as a fan of
any version of Sailor Moon ever to watch both
of her videos on Toon Makers. She's also gone above and beyond to uncover
some lost Saint Seiya stuff and some lost video
game materials, so if you want to dive deep into lost content, subscribe to
her channel and tell her I sent you.
Additional credit time, whenever you see a screenshot
from any episode of the 90s anime, you can thank the current Sailor Soapbox
for that by checking out the incredible gallery here. This
site is cheerful, stylish and the screenshots up are in the best quality
ever, it takes me back to the fun I had searching the web for Sailor Moon websites when I was 10. All I did were minor
touch-ups.
And all manga screenshots come from my favorite Naoko
Takeuchi themed website Miss Dream,
so be sure to let all these folks know I said thank you.
With that said, this face haunts my nightmares in ways you can't possibly
understand. Just look at this. Look at those vacant, high pupils, that dead
expression, that tagboard tiara. It's fitting how much she looks like if
She-Ra had a baby sister, because the voice of She-Ra also voiced this show's
idea for Queen Serenity, Queen Beryl and Luna, and this pilot also shares
some of the animators from She-Ra. Baby
girl is suffocating under cakes of makeup.
Look at this. Just look at how they drew these kids. Chest out, ass up, one
leg bent, one off to oblivion, do you know of ANY girl or woman who stands
like this normally? No, of course you don't. You know why? Because that's a
spinal strain right there. Back in the 90s, you only saw this pose on action
figures of Batgirl designed by dudes thinking with the downstairs head, or in
magazines aimed at adult men, because this is what they wanted to see. They
wanted to accentuate the parts of the female body cis straight dudes
typically like seeing. But this isn't an adult's magazine. Oh no. This was
drawn for little girls ages 2-11. This is actually indicative of the time I
grew up in. Bewbs pushed out, bows removed, bewbs clearly outlined, ass up,
cakes of makeup, hair blowing wherever? Totally oversexualized 90s. If you
were born after 2002 and you've watched documentaries about the 90s being
obsessed with perfect bodies and fashion and how that negatively affected
Millennial kids, please understand that shit like this is what we're talking
about.
In contrast, here's a screenshot from episode 61 of Sailor
Moon R. In this episode, there's a scene where Usagi is being
pressured by the villain of the day into wearing big cakes of makeup while
being told that she won't be beautiful without it, and that the only way a
man would ever find her attractive is if she cakes it on. Usagi defiantly
announces that Mamoru (who just dumped her) isn't like that, and then as the
episode goes on, both Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask give speeches about how
true beauty comes from within and how you treat people. I know, that might
sound hypocritical when you look at all the officially licensed Sailor Moon makeup products out there and the few times in
Crystal and in the manga she wears
makeup, but this right here was a powerful moment for me as a kid. Until this
moment, I had Tenko And the Guardians of the Magic,
Princess Gwenevere/Starla
and the Jewel Riders, Jem, She-Ra and just about every other
female cartoon ever with heroines with full faces of makeup on and either
thin frames or frames centered on what men wanted parading across my screen,
and yet here was Usagi – or at this time, Serena – flat out saying that you
don't need to put yourself through those harsh chemicals in order to be
beautiful, and even more inspiring, there's Tuxedo Mask, a straight dude
everyone fawns over, echoing the sentiment that who you are as a person is
far more attractive than who you could be with a false identity covered in
paint. Having a bare-faced, imperfect kid like Usagi/Serena as the main
character was really inspiring to me growing up, and a major reason why I
didn't do very much with makeup or get into fad diets. I watched her struggle
through those things and decide on her own that being herself was where it
was at, and that had a super positive effect on me. That's not to say people
who wear makeup are this or that, but it is to say that this clean-faced
little girl in pigtails showed me that you don't need to slather it on, and I
feel like seeing these highly Americanized girls buried under eyeshadow,
lipstick and God only knows what else feels like a major slap in the face to
a lot of what made Usagi/Serena such an important icon.
Now one thing I will not be ragging on going forward is the CGI, and that's
because for 1994, this was
"state of the art" for children's television. I know, I'm sure
you're laughing about this right now, but it's the truth. We didn't have
access to today's programs, and CGI was unreasonably expensive for some
reason. Freeware options for CGI software were just straight up cringe, and
paid software often cost more than the damned computer it was on.
 
Putting things into perspective, ReBoot
started airing in 1994, and this was what
we would get. The pic on the right where Enzo is grown up and hanging with
his girlfriend? Yeah, we didn't see this episode in most markets until
Toonami picked it up in 2000, 2001 or some shit like that. Just LOOK at this
mess. This was state of the art technology back then, so giving Toon Makers
some credit, their CGI when compared to what would have been their direct
competition doesn't seem all that bad.
So for 1994, these planets and that CGI Sailor Moon model don't look too bad.
So the episode begins with a music video that… well almost spoils the entire
show. I mean with the exception of about five or six scenes, the entire pilot
is squeezed into one montage. I noticed the German and Italian openings for
the 90s Sailor Moon anime also had a ton of
spoilers, and the first episode of the DiC dub would go on and spoil episode
44, so I guess this is an international pattern. Since the footage is going
to be repeated throughout the entire episode, I won't recap the sing along,
but good God, is it a special type of awful. The full music video is two
minutes and thirty five seconds long, the pilot seems to clock in at 13
minutes instead of 17, and a big chunk of that is end credits and music
video, so the actual episode is more like 10 minutes of footage.
Do you get nostalgic feels for the logo DiC would eventually swipe? Well
good, because here it is again to start the episode.
 
Also, the shine and shape of the words "Sailor Moon" was supposed
to be designed after her tiara. So more credit to give here, Toon Makers was
going for clever artistic representation.
 
So in this universe, Earth's moon is the ONLY moon, and it looks exactly like
Mars. This concept was used in a color image for Act 10 of the manga, so okay,
good nod to the manga. That's a few brownie points.
THIS is the Moon Kingdom?!!?
So here's the premise for the story. Queen Beryl is now a space alien,
instead of being a corrupted human who joined forces with Queen Metallia to
destroy all of the things because she had a lady boner for Prince Endymion,
who was already seeing Princess Serenity. In the Toon Makers version, there
is no Queen Metallia, Dark Kingdom or Negaforce. Just one bad bitch on a
spaceship. Sound good? Okay, keeps it simple I guess. Anywho,
Queen Beryl has stolen the "Sailor Jewels" of Uranus, Neptune,
Pluto and Saturn, and now wants to take Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus and
Jupiter's gems, which will somehow make her ruler of the universe.
Hokay, so maybe Toon Makers is responsible for
Sailor Galaxia, and now that's a whole ass thing we get to live with.
Yeah, there's a very good chance that Toon Makers had the "people NOT
named Sailor Moon have Sailor Crystals" idea BEFORE the official manga,
and this knowledge is ours forever now.
Now since Queen Beryl has already kidnapped the unseen and never animated or
designed Outers and taken their Jewels, Queen Serenity contacts the royal
families of the remaining Milky Way planets and forms an alliance. Does this
sound like Voltron to you? Of course it
does. Why not? Now Queen Serenity just as we see in the manga and both anime
is like the main queen of all of the things. But to solidify the remaining
five planets, she decides to marry off her 16 year old child to grown ass man
Prince Darien of Earth. Why? Because a marriage between the Earth and the
Moon will make the other planets play nice against Beryl. Does that make a
lick of sense to you? No? Did you spot the grooming? You did? Well
congratulations, you're a normal person!
Okay, let's address that elephant in the room, shall we? So in the manga and
in Crystal/Eternal, we establish that
Princess Serenity was 16 when Queen Beryl fucked up all of the things. But we
don't have an actual age for Prince Endymion from back then in either anime
or the manga, so I'd like to think that they're closer in age here.
In the original 90s anime, Mamoru was straight up 18
when he meets 14-year-old Usagi. They shorten the age gap to three years
starting with the Sailor Moon R
movie, but their relationship back then was still total cringe. Episode 167,
Usagi says she is not yet 16,
adding extra cringe when she later reveals she already has a key to his
apartment. And keep in mind, she is his SECOND 14-year-old girlfriend AFTER
Sailor Mars.
In the manga, he's floating around 17ish and in Crystal, I think some of the promotional material tried
to make him seem a little younger, like 16-17 with 17 definitely being the
dominant age after Chibiusa appears, since
Usagi tells us his birthday is coming up. He's in high school until Eternal/Dream Arc, so the cringe didn't completely set in
until Eternal starts and Chibiusa says her
dad is officially starting college while her mom is just NOW in high school
at 16.
There's usually about 3-4 years between them, maybe 2
with Crystal/Eternal/Cosmos.
It's definitely not okay for
an adult to be with a legal child regardless, but at least with a small age
gap, you're looking at the equivalent of two (by U.S. standards) high
schoolers with one aging out slightly sooner. With that said…
This is a straight up, grown ass man, putting them giant grown ass gorilla
paws on a 16-year-old baby girl.
Look at him. Just LOOK at him. Does this scream "teenage boy" to
you? No, it does not. This looks like a man after combing Just For Men
through his hair, sniffing around a high school to prove to himself that he's
still got "it".
Look at that receding hairline, those student loan paying lines on his face.
He even got old man wrestler ears! Would you trust this man around YOUR
child? I can gripe about Tuxedo Mask heading into college with a teenage
girlfriend or two, certainly, but this is very clearly a car rentable aged
man.
I'm just thinking about Tuxedo Mask as he is in Sailor
Moon Crystal and then reeling from this nightmare.
Now supposedly, one of the ideas Toon Makers had kicking around was the idea
of a boys' school across from a girls' school and having that be how their
Earth identities meet up, so MAYBE he was going to be disguised as a teenage
boy, but the way they drew him? I am not convinced
at all that he could pass as a high school kid. Oh he might REMEMBER high
school, but unless he was left back a decade or so, I don't buy it. The fuck
is wrong with Queen Serenity letting a GROWN MAN sniff around her only baby?
Get those mitts off that little girl!
You must be wondering what their names are, right? I mean, Usagi's princess form
is Princess Serenity. That's such a nice name, isn't it? Is that what they're
called here? NOPE! Not at all. In this universe, the girls are transformed
100% of the time while animated, so her birth name is guess what?
SAILOR MOON. Her Mama wrote "Sailor Moon" on her damned birth
certificate and that's the name she called out when lil' miss jailbait here
acted up in her house. And yes, we get to meet her friends too, the Princess
Warriors. Not Sailor Guardians, Scouts or Senshi. Nope, we are skipping ahead
here. Princess Warriors. Because Xena: Warrior Princess
was popular and also produced by Renaissance, who would have helped
distribute this mess. Nice tie-in, eh?
Giggles here, is Sailor Mars.
Glazed donut with bedhead is Sailor Mercury.
Sailor Venus knows where the body is hidden.
And Hotaru in Blackface is Sailor Jupiter.
Okay, one nice thing I can say is that at least this version of Princess
Serenity already has her powers and knows how to use them to transform. The
90s anime, Crystal and the manga versions
of her do not have this luxury, so at least this one should have SOME way to
defend herself, right?
Okay, so MAYBE since they were introduced to us already transformed in all of
the flashbacks, I can live with that.
And since they really ARE supposed to
be princesses too, and this wasn't
revealed in the manga until AFTER this was animated, again, I'll have to give
Toon Makers credit for predicting the future… or egad, inspiring the manga.
O_O;;
This is going to be someone's wallpaper.
She tells Prince Darian (It's spelled "Darian" here, and
"Darien" in the DiC dub, just FYI.) that she's been looking forward
to this day, as bootleg Sailor Moon
anime bubbles just randomly pop in whenever.
HE REACHING!!
Whistles.
He says "At last, we will be together" and I just got all the
inappropriate "SHE IS A CHILDRENS" vibes right here.
MOM? I NEED AN ADULT!
He places a star pendant around her neck.
And then gives her a white-pink rose.
Why? Because wedding rings are beyond this show's budget and don't fit over
those gloves.
That and he spent so much time growing this too.
FFFFFFfffffffffffffffffffff
Llllllllemme lick dat rose.
BOOT.
Well before she can take the rose, an ice wind blows it onto the ground.
ERRRR??
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Is THAT Queen Serenity?!!? NOOOOOOOO!!!! NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOO!!!!
      
HOW?? How did we get here?? I feel like we took some random designs from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Next
Generation, slapped on some Black Lady vibes and then added She-Ra sprinkles to the mix. Like what the hell? And then
you stapled the original anime Sailor Moon tiara on top and added some phases
of the Moon all over and then made a necklace out of the brooch Sailor Moon
is supposed to use?? WHY?? HOW?? How did they screw up Queen Serenity THAT
bad?? Is it THAT hard to draw a skin tight, white dress with a bow and some
wings??? Worse, I wonder how much of this look influenced Princess Kakyuu.
I waited for YEARS to see how they drew Queen Serenity, and by God, it's
actually WORSE than I imagined. I think… I think I'm crying BLOOD. T_T
 
Queen Serenity says "Look! It's Beryl" and Jupiter says "The
evil beast has found us." And I am reminded that back in the 90s, it was
perfectly okay to refer to women as "beasts". It's also right about
here that I notice they all have the SAME LOCKET as Sailor Moon, and that
it's a crude, upside-down drawing of her 90s anime brooch.
You can tell they are deeply troubled by Queen Beryl.
Wait, who are all these other people and why is the Moon Kingdom suddenly on
Frieza's ship???
Grrr! You couldn't even design your own spaceship,
so you TRACED from Dragonball Z?!?!
And now that I think about it, Planet Vegeta was also red in the 90s, so
maybe this is that Sailor Moon/Dragonball Z crossover everyone wanted.
Now if Frieza was here, this is how the episode would end.
That is a lopsided, butt-ugly ship.
     
Queen Beryl arrives and it just feels like they traced over Maleficent from
Disney's Sleeping Beauty. I'm also getting some
Star Stealer vibes from Rainbow Brite, Jana
from Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic,
and a little creepy ass book from Care Bears.
High, bony, Vulcan cheekbones? Check. Comedic levels of makeup? Check.
Permanent resting bitch face? Check. Gaudy fashion? Check and double check. I
just feel like in the days before we had "Karen" there were these
sleazy, selfish, sometimes thirsty Lancôme Ladies at malls just pissing off
disgruntled animators left and right, and maybe that's why so many 90s female
villains had this face…. Or this is subconscious commentary on how older
women are constantly vilified in society. I dunno, your choice.
Queen Beryl says "Our time has finally come" and while Earth is
randomly on fire behind her, (Man, Climate Change is no joke) I swear I can
hear Angel Of Darkness
by Alex C and Yasmin K playing.
And now that I think about it, they gave Tomb Raider's
Lara Croft the same resting bitch face as Queen Beryl in their video too!
 
You know, I'm starting to feel bad for anyone with this face naturally.
Seriously though, if you
listen to this song from 2000, it totally fits Toon Makers Beryl, and the
CGI in this is a special level of Y2K era action cheese. I can't think of a
better theme song for her right now. It also gives me some tasty early 2000s
internet memories of watching Sailor Moon
AMVs.
LLLLLLlllllllemme lick dat rose!
YIPPIEEEE
So Queen Beryl sends her min-HEY!! NO NO NO YOU DID NOT!!!
  
First of fucking all, that's Jiji of the Seven Great Youma, or as he's
otherwise known, Grandpa Hino! In the 90s anime, Rei's grandfather is one of
the seven Rainbow Crystal Carriers, and this is what Zoicite turns him into.
But in this universe, this tracing of Jiji is not Sailor Mars's grandfather,
but a random minion of Beryl's.
  
Second, they turned Gesen/Game Machine Joe into a cloned army of
Stormtroopers???
And third, who the hell are these people??
GANGLY FEETS
Oh shit, they packin' heat. I guess we should do
something.
Prince Darian making not on this carpet face, is clearly upset by all the
guns and by Beryl sending her bootleg Stormtroopers out for the gems, so he
decides to fight while Sailor Moon has this face like she's not sure if
that's a good idea.
No no, don't fight or help him or do anything useful, Sailor Moon. Just stare
at that booty a little longer. It's all good. It's not like your kingdom is
under siege or anything like that.
Okay, giving him some serious credit, Prince Darian is actually throwing
hands and getting physically involved, unlike SOME rose throwing sperm donor
I can think of in the 90s. And look, he's even fighting in them fugly ass
boots with flippy floppy ribbons too.
Hey wait a sec!!
NOOOO BAKENE!?!?
  
They just traced a THIRD member of the Seven Great Youma in Bakene, or
rather, Rhett Butler. And just like in the 90s anime, he meows too. Effort?
What's that?
Huh. I wonder if we should do something.
Sailor Moon orders her team to jump aboard the randomly placed Sky Flyers…
which now that I'm noticing, also have the same locket plastered onto them.
Was there a sale? Also, nice parking job, folks.
I AM MOANAAAAAAAA
Never, ever pause a cartoon.
Cape has a butt.
BAKENE PACKIN'!!!
Oh shit!!
 
Like seriously, they didn't just Americanize Sailor
Moon, oh nooooooooo. We had to
MERICANIZE Sailor Moon. We're talking hooty poppin' blondes and big fat
guns. GOOD GAWD. I'm so sure the network censors would have just fucking
LOVED this much violence in (checks notes) the last 60 seconds of animation
being aimed at little girls ages 2-11. Yep, the PTC would have loved this
about as much as they'd love a root canal without Novocain.
Have you ever just wanted to slap somebody with a ship? Well Sailor Moon did
it.
Smack.
And then she turned the ship around and slapped him again.
And then she dick clocks a Stormtrooper.
Bakene is shook.
EAT FLAG, MOTHERFUCKER!!
DAFUQ?
Endymion has a sword. Darian gets a flag.
Okay, giving credit where credit is due, there's been more action in about
two minutes outta this dude than Prince Endymion
saw in a majority of both anime. I am impressed. Good on ya, Toon Makers.
Sailor Moon tells Prince Darian with her ass that it's now up to HIM to save
the royal families and pilot the Galleon. But wait, um… (checks notes again)
Sailor Moon? Ah um… aren't YOU supposed to save the day here?? I mean, HELLO???
YOU ARE THE MAIN FUCKING CHARACTER IN YOUR OWN DAMN SUPERHERO SHOW, RIGHT???
Isn't saving people YOUR job?? Your ONE job?? YOU are a SUPERHERO remember??
Although now I wonder when she did become a superhero. Was it in childhood
like the manga inners? Did she ever save anyone before this? Oh God, I just
opened the fanfic door to prequels, didn't I? Shit shit shit alamode shit!
Prince Darian says "But I can't leave you now".
MOTHERFUCKER, YES YOU CAN!!
She says there's no time to argue, giving Dar Dar a case of the pouts.
But I don' wanna save as many as I can.
PUUUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOUUUUU-
-UUUWEEEEEASE can I stay wif yooouuu?
At least LLLLLLllllllemme lick dat rose!
FFFFFFFFFFFFFffffffff
BOY!! Did you not just see me smack a bitch with a sailboat?
Does it LOOK like I am in ANY kind of a mood today?
BITCH, THE MOON IS RED!! Do you think yo' blood would stain my Moon??
Look into my eyes, Darian. Do you not see these are the eyes of someone who
has at least one best friend who would help her hide a damn body real easy?
I would.
Look into my irises. Does YOU think I'm here to play today?
DO YOU??
*Siiiigh* Fine. I'll go.
Now I make frumpy man face at you.
But you can't stop me from skipping!
So Sailor Moon convinces Dar Dar to bring everyone not zapped onto the
Galleon to be transported to safety. That includes all of the royal families
from all of the planets. I sure do hope there's enough room… oh and maybe
food and medical supplies or whatever.
MY WAIST IS TINY AND I AM OUT OF BOWS
BUT IT'S OKAY, I HAVE GLORIOUS TIGHTY-WHITEY-PANTIES
AND MY CASTLE LOOKS LIKE MENS' MEAT DINGIES IN THE BACKGROUND
YOU CAN NEVER UNSEE
OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!!
After sending her man away, Sailor Moon jumps off the Sky Flyer to talk at
her mama. Oh look, she's got the phases of the moon on her dress too, to
match that silly ass hat.
Damn, I'm on a Moon full of fugly ass fashion.
Queen Serenity tells Sailor Moon to take the Sailor Jewels, but hey… wait.
Time out. What the hell?
Wasn't she already wearing her damn Sailor Jewel?? And what happened to that
star pendant??
Wait, no, noooooo what ARE you doing?
What the hell am I seeing? Is she supposed to wear TWO giant pendants AND a
brooch?!?
Oh and right side up, it's even fuglier!! Hey!
Where's the Halloween pendants at?? The star and the second brooch? Hello??
What happened? Oh please don't tell me she hid them big ass things up in her
bra.
So Queen Serenity says there's no time to explain, because of course there
isn't, but that Sailor Moon and her friends now, like right now, just now,
have the most important jewels in the entire universe, and that they must
escape right this very instant to another dimension with Prince Darian, in
order to keep the jewels away from Queen Beryl.
Sailor Moon and her 16 year old friends are to guard the Jewels with their
lives, and they're all on these giant ass pendants you can see from the
Hubble. You know, most parents are reluctant to let their teenagers borrow
the car. You're just handing yours spaceships and jewels tied up in
universe-ending consequences. All I got was a Barbie doll when I turned 16.
I'm just saying.
Yum yum doodle dum, I am so HAPPY to be wearing
extra layers of fugly, heavy ass jewelry, loaded with chinse and
responsibilities while I'm fleeing for my life. Thanks, Mom!
So for years, I called this abomination "Lunartemis"
because I couldn't tell if she was one or the other. Well we know
definitively now that this is indeed Luna, and WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SMILING,
CAT?? Your entire livelihood is in danger!
Well being fair, one of the earliest prototype Sailor Moon sketches does have
her with a fluffy, chubby Artemis, so maybe someone at Toon Makers already
saw this sketch?
 
Oh hey, remember how Luna-P would have glowing eyes in Sailor Moon R and
Chibiusa would use that ball to talk to Sailor Pluto or communicate with
Usagi and the other girls' communicators?
Well Floof Luna's eyes glow and Queen Serenity states she will find a way to
communicate with her daughter, so now Floof Luna is a living communicator.
(Credit to Miss Dream) Well it lines
up with how Queen Serenity talked to Codename Sailor V/Sailor Venus and
Artemis directly through her transformational pen. Dear God, Toon Makers is
actually hitting some manga marks!! I'm going to have to score them differently
for the rest of my life. They're actually – dear God, I'm actually saying this – closer to the manga source material
than DiC and Cloverway combined. They're showing us manga tie-ins we wouldn't
see until Sailor Moon Eternal/Cosmos.
I… I feel faint. @_@ Stop the room, I want to get off.
Mommy paws
 
I know this is very important, Mother. But I have to be a 1959 Barbie right
now.
 
Or maybe I'm Bild Lilli? I mean, we
both have dolls in different sizes after all.
Oh, I don't know, darling. Mommy has always been more into Bratz.
OH NOES I DROPPED IMPORTANT THING
Queen Serenity tells Sailor Moon like a bunch of times she has to leave and
go to another dimension, and that sure sounds normal.
Hugs.
Why doesn't she have her own Sky Flyer? Why doesn't she hop onto one of the
Sky Flyers? Reasons.
Long, luxurious reasons.
I mean seriously, she's not really involved with the fight with Queen Beryl,
right? Am I supposed to believe she's going to stay behind and
"protect" the citizens that already got zapped? It's not like the
Moon is going to self destruct or anything. Why doesn't she hop aboard?
In contrast, by the time Queen Serenity found out about Queen Beryl (90s
anime, manga and Crystal) only
she, Luna and Artemis were left. Helios and the Amazoness Quartet were
already captured off-screen by Queen Nehelenia (unrelated shit, she doesn't
show up until the 4th arc, relax) and everyone else was super
dead. So her only choice was to play clean-up crew. She sealed away Queen
Metalia and Beryl's group, sent everyone's souls to be reincarnated in the 20th
century (or 21st if you're watching either Crystal
or the Cloverway dub of S) sent Luna
and Artemis along in cryogenic pods to be awakened in the future, and then in
the 90s anime, she dies on a pillar-cross while in Cosmos/the
manga, she makes one last vacay to The Cauldron and has them fix Princess
Serenity's star seed just before she dies. So it makes sense for Queen
Serenity in these three stories to stay behind, because what else is there to
do? Unless you want to "run from a real fight" like Sailor Cosmos.
But the Toon Makers Queen Serenity has options. She can join the party on the
Galleon or she can hop aboard her daughter's craft and get out of here. Queen
Beryl isn't even interested in her right now. What's the hold up?
She could just LEAVE for the other dimension on the Galleon with Prince
Darian and all the nameless, faceless inhabitants of the Earth, Moon, and the
remaining planets.
But no, that's okay. Just stay on Planet Fashion Challenged with that fugly
ass dress, it's cool. Don't leave to raise your daughter in another world or
anything. Maybe the cat exceeds the weight limit, I don't know.
Why does the cat have extra legs under her ass?
 
One more thing, I notice both Queen Serenity and Queen Beryl have similar
fugly ass outfits, identical cheekbones, similar color schemes, similar
makeup and the exact same voice actress. What if they did a story where this
version of Beryl was like Serenity's undead sister or some shit? Sorta like
how in Sailor Moon Eternal, Queen Nehelenia
tried to claim she was the same but opposite of Queen Serenity? There's a lot
of pink and maroon going on, and it's been swirling around in my head as I
type this. They share a voice actress too.
Two seconds later, Sailor Moon almost drops the cat, so maybe Queen Serenity
was smart not to hop aboard the U.S.S. Klutz.
DERRRR?
Oh no, that's cool. Floof Luna can just ride on the back.
Queen Beryl forgot why she's here, and decided to follow Prince Darian's
Galleon. Sailor Jewels? Eh, Whatevs.
Nooooooo
Eeeeek!
DERP
LLLLLlllllemme lick dat rose!
AAAAH!! WTF happened to her head??!! Why her arm broke?? What's going on with
Jupiter?? And WHY IS SAILOR MARS A MEAT PUPPET FACE BACK THERE?!!?
GAAAH
COME ON, SOLDIERS!!
I FLIP MY SPIDEY HANDS
So seeing that Queen Beryl is zapping lasers at Prince Darian's Galleon,
Sailor Moon orders her team to try to intercept.
Mars shakes a booty and Mercury is a mean lil' mama.
Oh… oh my God. They actually drew on battery packs to the bottom of their
ships. I am not even joking here. Look at the back of your remote or any toy
you have that takes AA or AAA batteries. (But not THAT grown-up one, wise
ass.) Look at the battery compartment, now look up. They actually planned to
make the toys part of the show. They actually made the battery compartment
cannon to the show. I can't. I just can't even. I'm laughing way too hard. I
don't know if this is genius, a joke or subliminal advertising for the toys
that never were.
The girls have to reach the Galleon before it's too late.
Queen Beryl's giggle ship has moons too.
The girls zoom past the ship and miss their spot to intercept, because oopsie poopsies. How the fuck
you miss a ship THAT BIG is beyond me, but if you can hear the acting skills
of the cast right about here, you'd understand that the bar is very, very
low.
Recycled footage here tells her team to watch out in the flattest voice
possible.
*KERZAP*
Uh oh.
OMIGAWD SHE SHOT VENUS'S LEFT TIDDY!!
SHE SCRAMBLE FACED AN HER TIDDY BEEN NUKED
HOW?? Just how in the hell do you think this would have flown with the Fox
Kids censors of 1994?? You know damned well they would have said something
about intergalactic tiddy zapping.
Someone better catch that flying sailboat before it crashes into something.
My collar is triangle.
MMmmmmm
I think there's something in my tooth.
Mmmm?
I know that "should" be Floof Luna, but it looks like a face.
Oh hell, I have to do something.
TRIPLE BEWBIE
WEEEEEEEE
So Sailor Moon turns her Sky Flyer around to rescue Sailor Venus.
And she's okay, just one tiddy is a lil' more swole.
Weeeeeeeeee
Venus's Sky Flyer went into autopilot, so Sailor Moon drops her back onto it.
But Sailor Mercury points at something major.
No!
OH
SHIT IT'S TOO LATE!!
Okay, so maybe Queen Serenity knew something would happen, so she stayed her
happy ass off the Galleon.
Well that's fine until you realize that her daughter just sent like all of
the people onto that Galleon with Prince Darian. So the kid just got her
fiancé, her whole kingdom and all her friends' kingdoms worth of people
nuked. That's a grim damn body count for a kids' show pilot episode, don't ya
think?? Like this was HER idea. We can argue that Beryl shot the ship, sure,
but Sailor Moon just sent everyone to their literal doom. It was HER plan to
have everyone ride the Galleon and take that route, when she told Dar Dar to
make haste to the ship. She didn't say "bye" or "I love
you" or nothing either.
Just "THERE'S NO TIME, GO! GO! GO!!"
She told him to go do this thing, and pointed in the direction he should fly
it, and he obeyed, and this is the payment. Five planets and a moon's worth
of royalty and court screaming to death in a fiery blaze.
So Sailor Moon sent Prince Darian and all these people into the Galleon, and
then her own mama was like "You know what? You and the girls go hop aboard
the Galleon too and go to that nice wormhole over there. Who me? Oh nooooo, I'll be fiiiine. Oh,
and take the damn cat with you. Kisses!" So you know what? She was in on
it too! Mother and daughter conspired on this!
Look at her beady little eyes. You think she couldn't see right through this?
I bet she didn't even want to be ruler. Just sent all them people and that
grown ass man who was around her to the space mulch farm. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO
SAVE PEOPLE, DIDJA KNOW THAT??
 
In contrast, our Princess Serenity was minding her own damn business like a
good girl when her Queen Beryl just up and destroyed all of the things, so
she didn't even have a chance to know what was happening to her kingdom. The
only version of Usagi who was "running from a real fight" was
Sailor Cosmos, but here, this version of Sailor Moon we just saw didn't so
much as "run" from a real fight as she sent innocent civilians into
the oncoming path of the fight. Does THAT sound like something Usagi would
have done? HELL NO! She'd be mortified to pieces and try to find a way to
time travel or some shit.
So an entire ship is blasted to smithereens, and it's technically Sailor Moon
and Queen Serenity's fault just as much as it is Beryl's. Now how does our
heroine take to the realization that she is 100% responsible for their
deaths?
"Noooo."
Okay, all done with crying, no more sads.
Vrooooooom
Now I know, you must be thinking that all of these screenshots are WTF IS
SAILOR MERCURY WEARING?? IS THAT A DRESS WITH A PETER PAN COLLAR???
Anyway, you must be thinking this was a sad and dramatic moment, right?
Because it should be, right? Her fiancée along with untold thousands dead by
her own short-sighted plan, you'd think that would be a major bummer, right?
NOPE!! All those screenshots take up less than 15 seconds of footage. Look it
up. She says "NO!" cries exactly three tears, and then turns her
happy ass around AND LEAVES.
Frame-by-framing this made this show seem more dramatic than it is here, but
this is only a 10 minute episode when you add the music video opening.
Yup. All done crying over all the lives lost by you're general incompetence
as a royal princess.
This entire scene from the Galleon blowing up to right about here is 6:35 to
6:40. Her grieving lasts FIVE ACTUAL SECONDS.
That face you make when you realize you still have many moon minutes of this
show to go.
EYE can't believe I'm barely past the halfway mark.
Oh hai spookzilla.
Oh what fresh hell is this?
Oh my God, what the fugly fuck is happening here?
     
So let's see. The moon shaped hot dog on a stick I am going to attribute as a
nod to Chibiusa becoming Black Lady, because it's pink like her hair and for
a few episodes, she had an upside down moon mark on her forehead. It's not as
cool as the staff Queen Beryl has in the 90s anime or in Crystal
or the weird stick thing she has in the manga, but it is a staff. I see the
outline for Beryl's little double black moon pasties thing. She has a tiny
moon necklace that sorta reminds me of Parallel Chibiusa having a tiny moon
on her school uniform. Her hair is shorter but it is red and it does stand up
like Beryl's hair should, but then we have a fugly crown-helmet, some
medieval poufy sleeves that just do their own thing, a chunky ass pink belt
and then shoulder pads that could cut tires. Is there no mirror on board her
ship at all? This was a choice. A choice was made here.
     
And now that I think about it, we've got some 90s Scarlet Witch, Lady Kale, Catra and Evil-Lyn vibes from X-Men,
Princess Gwenevere/Starla, She-Ra and He-Man going on. Was there just NO originality back then
at all? Same-Face Syndrome is real.
Sailor Moon can't believe she killed all those people in that hideous dress.
Also, WHO DREW THIS KNEE?
Oh Wolfy.
Queen Beryl, who totally looks energized, says "We almost had them,
faster, faster!" to her unseen crew.
Should I avenge Dar Dar and all those killed peeps?
Um…
Nah.
So Sailor Moon says "To The Vortex, and beyond oblivion!" and leads
her cat and her friends through a random CGI wormhole to RUN AWAY FROM A REAL
FIGHT, PEACE OUT AND LEAVE HER MAMA BEHIND.
I'm just thinking about how very NOT Sailor Moon like this is. I'm starting
to think that the DiC lyric "never running from a real fight" was a
jab at Toon Makers.
This is literally how Sailor
Cosmos wound up NOT being Sailor Moon anymore. Is THAT the future you want, kid? You
wanna float around the universe forever and a damned day because you RAN from
a REAL fight??
So a shot of a comet/shooting star with a rainbow tail appears to remind us
that once through the vortex/wormhole, the girls are now live action. They've
come into "our" universe now. God help us.
So randomly, here is Sailor Moon and Luna, watching the comet streak by. She
says "Oh Luna, home seems so far away now" and I'm like "YA
THINK??" I mean, you just flew through an interdimensional portal after
WATCHING ALL OF THE THINGS BLOW UP and seriously, THAT'S the first thing you
think of??
Sailor Venus refers to Sailor Moon as "Victoria" "Vick"
and "Vickie" and I feel sick. Randomly, the girls are now in some
sort of a boarding school? WTF? Who enrolled you? Is Queen Serenity paying
for this long-distance? How did you get here? Why are you in a boarding
school? You're aliens from another universe, like how did this even happen?
How long have you be here since the explosion? Hello? Is anybody going to
explain this??
Venus is being a little snot while Moon err… Victoria,
is spacing out. Gee, I'm so glad nobody here has like I dunno, PTSD from
watching an entire ship full of all of y'all's
friends, family and subordinates blow up! No survivor's guilt? Totes nothing,
right? >_O
Venus asks if she can borrow her lipstick and-wait. Borrow her lipstick??
BORROW?? What dude wrote this? Ah NO. HELL NO. Girls do NOT share lipstick,
fellas. That is super unhygienic. This is how people get infected, and why
can't she get her own damn lipstick?
Victoria asks Venus why she needs her lipstick and Venus says "Don't
tell me you forgot." To wit, Victoria DROPS HER CAT.
She actually makes the "UuuuuUUUhh"
sound. Dear God, we're going for the "dumb blonde" stereotype. Grrr.
"There goes one of my nine lives" says Luna, voiced by She-Ra.
Because being dropped paws first onto carpet is so deadly.
Oh, but this, followed by space lasers and the death of untold thousands is
fine. I gotcha.
"Oh, THE DANCE!! ☺"
The dance. The… dance. Why would you care
that there is a school dance at a boarding school you literally just crash
landed into? How much time has past, like 30 seconds? Even Sailor Cosmos reflected
on the lives lost! Where is your warrior pride, child?
  
Oh no. Oh God no. We're getting that theme song all over again for a montage,
and it starts with a sign for the dance, emblazoned with Sailor Saturn's
crystals. Oh look. It's over room 218. My website launched on 02-18-2005.
Maybe this pain was my destiny?
WOAH WOAH TIME OUT!! WTF am I seeing here?? WHO?? Who undresses in the hall
of a boarding school for a dance?? This does not happen, dudes. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN!! This is a
non-thing that happens in girls' schools!! Why is this happening? Who
directed this?? This is a thing kids do NOT do, fellas!
No, no, what the hell am I seeing?
Didn't a spaceship full of people DIE like sixty seconds ago?
Floof Luna is disturbed by the overall amount of silky fabrics this child
suddenly has. I mean, I get that you are a princess, sure, but um… you left
all of the things behind AND YO' MAMA when you came to real-life Earth, and
you don't have a job, sooooooo where the hell did
all this Macy's shit come from?
Animal abuse.
Gentlemen, Noxema parties are also NOT a thing. I'm
not sure which commercial it was that lied to you, but girls do not party
with their girlfriends while rubbing cream on their faces, yoooouuuu sick freak savages.
Sailor Memeable Face Mars says "Be honest,
should I be smashing in white…"
"Or sophisticated in black?"
Oh, right. Because she's a girl into sports. And girls who are into
basketball can't female, right? Because a dance requires girly and fancy
clothes and she's dumb to girl stuff because she likes sports. That's so
funny, I forgot to laugh. Because anime Sailor Jupiter? Who's her? Pffft, everyone knows that girls who like sports are like
little brothers, right? >_O
 
Sailor Mercury says "What happened to Pretty in
Pink?" Which I think is a movie, my All-Stars Midge doll
looking friend. Dear God, can you seriously imagine Ami saying stereotypical
girl shit like this?? And how would she know about outdated movies? Was there
a VCR on Planet Mercury? Did she have a Blockbuster Video?
The theme song is replaying by the way, so we come to the line "Her
talking cat Luna givers her advice" and I'm sorry, can you just imagine
anime Luna putting up with this bullshit? I mean, hell, in the anime, Usagi
has some legitimate reasons to cry, and Luna is all like "suck it up, buttercup"
and then fat shames her. This cat? She just glares angrily in silence, trying
to figure out how much of the show's budget went into clothes these kids will
never wear.
MAKEUP PARTIES ARE NOT A THING.
Nike, just do it.
Wait, wait, time out. Wasn't Sailor Mercury missing legs a second ago? I'm
not joking, look at her here. One leg…
NO LEGS.
Two legs and a twin sister, wait what?? What the?? Why did they double and
triple all of the five girls over and over? Why does each girl have two
clones? Why is Wile E. Coyote overseeing this?? WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS
MONTAGE?? How did we go from thousands dying in a ship explosion to a PJ
dance party while getting ready for a dance??? WHAT IS HAPPENING??
Sailor Jupiter talks about how she feels statistically, she's the most likely
to find the cutest guy to dance with, so I guess this makes her the smart one
and not Mercury, right? Oh but Venus says she thinks Jupiter is wrong,
because whomever Jupiter chooses, Venus will end up dancing with. Oh, I get
it. This is playing off of those two weird episodes in R
and in SuperS where Makoto and Minako fought.
I totally get it. You guys just came from another dimension and you're
already thirsty for the guys here. Right, because your potential boyfriends
blew up, so, you need replacement options, because being a single 16 year old
at an all girls school in a foreign dimension is such a drab without a dating
life. But even though you're friends, Venus only wants to date taken boys and
boys her friends are trying to score with.
"She's a got damn succubus!"
Venus bops Floof Luna with a loofa. Animal abuse. Stop throwing things at the
cat.
This is a lot of mid-90s costume jewelry.
See, she has to point to the moons, or how will you know she's Sailor Moon?
I guess she let her hair down to nod. Too much weight on her neck.
How much money do you think they would have lost, just for all these
corporate logos?
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT BUTTER
Oh wow.
Oh look. A Sailor salute. Because she's a Sailor Soldier. *GAG*
We can't shave a moon spot into Floof Luna's head, so here's a giant,
rhinestone moon necklace to anchor you to the table.
How long is this song? I feel like I've been here 1000 years.
Sailor don't ever make that face again Venus claims she has "absolutely
nothing" to wear.
Well Ms. First World Problems, stop buying fugly grandma clothes and maybe
that'll change.
Dear God, the fugly fashions just keep coming.
The song says they're "gonna crush crime time and again" oh really?
How? By dancing in Goodwill threads?
Here's a picture of why I don't believe that. Your friends, family and one of
y'all's fiancés just got blown to bits, and you're
ready to party and grab some new dates? Did you know genocide is a crime? Why
didn't you crush this??
I keep harping about that whole genocide thing, because Usagi would have at least
CRIED a little longer. Hell, her friends came back from the dead and she was still sad about it. Y'all
bootlegged Sailor Moon Cosmos, you know
what I mean. Girl was morose about
what happened, but Victoria? She's having a dress-up party for a boarding
school dance on another dimension and she's already forgotten all about Dar
Dar.
Wait, why is Floof Luna glaring at a tape player?
OH FUCK YOU. Are you trying to tell me that this whole time, Sailor Moon and
her friends were jamming to a tape of their own theme song? Are you for
real?? People died, and this is what you do? You conceited ass tricks! Do you
think Bruce Wayne does this? He watches Joker like I dunno, blow up Gotham
City and Bruce Bruce is just standing there in the mirror with Noxema going "Na na na na na
na na na
BATMAAAAAAAAAAN!" letting Robin share his lip gloss while Batgirl flings
fugly dresses at Alfred and Ace? NO!! His ass would be like "We'll be
there in a moment, Commissioner Gordon" and he'd be racing down Gotham
in the batmobile lookin'
for Joker. You know why? BECAUSE THAT'S THE SHIT SUPERHEROES ARE SUPPOSED TO
BE DOING, YOU AQUANET CHUGGING DUMB FUCK!!
"Luna, what's wrong?" Really Vick? You want the long answer or the
short one?
Luna says that Queen Beryl is randomly attacking the people of Planet
Jupiter, because you know, after blowing up that damned ship that Dar Dar was
on, she just turned her happy ass around to destroy more things, right? I
mean in contrast to the manga and both anime, maybe I should be all happy
that Planet Jupiter is still full of life where that's not a thing in any
other incarnation of Sailor Moon
at this point in the story, but I'm still mind-blown by the fact that a whole
ass spaceship blew up and we stopped for a dress-up party at a school we
never referenced before. Oh, and in case you're curious, supposedly Queen
Serenity is keeping contact with Luna. That is playing off of how Queen
Serenity was "Boss" for Codename Sailor V and Artemis, so I'll run
with that, but whatever.
Vickie pulls out the Japanese version of what will soon be a DiC era Sailor
Moon brooch and jams the reddish-pink crystal into it. This is absolutely toy
advertising at it's best for this show.
Oh, and there is no transformational phrase either. No "MOON PRISIM
POWER, MAKE UP!!" just snap the crystal into the chamber and POOF you're
Sailor Moon. Also, this white sundress is the closest you get to Princess
Serenity.
What she does say however are "Sailor
Jupiter, Sailor Mercury" etc. while this booming casino/arcade music
plays like she's announcing your chosen fighter in a video game. As she does
this, each of her friends go from being real to being a cartoon while she
turns full CGI. Now with that said, here's what gets me. Look at Jupiter in
her Hotaru haircut. Notice she has no makeup? She's got a cute, fresh face
going on.
Now we get a flash of green clouds, and I will admit, I like the colors.
And then bullshit. I've brought this up before and it still irritates me.
From the dawn of animation until somewhere in the 1990s worldwide, animators
would draw Black characters with big pink, peach, orange or white lips,
initially to mock them, especially in cartoons where blackface jokes were a
thing. You can NOT in good faith tell me that nobody on planet Earth in 1994
couldn't find better makeup for this kid. We all knew better back then!
Lipsticks in her skin tones were dirt cheap. What's the matter, are you out
of dark brown paint? By 1994 we had plenty of Black cartoon characters that
weren't being drawn this way anymore, you couldn't give her more flattering
makeup? Or here's an idea, you could even skip the makeup because she's a
16-year-old kid and not all teenagers get into that. Hell, you could have
even made her a Goth and that would have absolutely been a better option. Why
the pale pink lips??
In contrast, here's a screenshot from the Peppermint Rose
special from 1992. Merry Mint Violet has red lipstick, but it's not too
bright or clownish. It's a shade off of crimson, and blood red is one of
those rare lipstick colors where anyone can wear it.
 
Her lipstick even darkens slightly when she transforms. You want to tell me
they couldn't have chosen darker lipstick for Sailor Jupiter? And yes, Peppermint Rose now counts as a magical girl show, and the
dolls looked like early 1990's "anime" Skipper. Thank you for
asking.
This is Dee Dee, from the 1987 Barbie
two-part OVA/Movie based on the Barbie
And The Rockers doll line. Guess what she had? Lipstick that went with
her complexion. Do you see how this was NOT hard?
What is with Mars and her creepy eyes??
So while the other girls get short-changed on transformations, Sailor Moon gets
a pink CGI model and I have to admit, I wouldn't mind seeing this as a resin
statue. See? I can say something nice.
Real talk. Can you imagine a video game like this?
 
So here we are. There's your transformation sequence for the whole team. Yay.
So the Sailor Princess Warriors transform, are suddenly cartoons and wait,
time out. How many planets do they have to cross to get to Jupiter? Isn't it
Earth, then Mars then Jupiter?? And were the sky flyers just waiting outside
the boarding school? Did they turn into cartoon characters, start flying in
the real world and like nobody cared? Why is this show giving me so many
questions?
The wormhole? OKAY stop the bus! So this is the wormhole that takes them back
to their universe. So here's what's happening. First, they're in a boarding
school on the version of Earth that exists in the live-action world. But as
soon as they transform, not only do they turn back into cartoon characters,
but the planets outside of Earth become cartoons too, and THEN they go
through the wormhole to get to their version of Jupiter. This is so amazingly
convoluted. In the live-action world, is this just normal? Are people seriously
okay with being the only non-cartoon planet?
I love how Sailor Moon, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mercury are storming in
like this is important, while Sailor Venus and Sailor Mars are little
airplanes. I'm a little airplane nyaaa nyaaa ♫
Sailor Moon in the Temple Of Doom.
Well, we didn't have to wait long.
Sailor Venus is upset because she missed the dance for this. Yes, Venus. You're
missing out on a dance at a boarding school in an alternate universe where
you were going to try to snag a new boyfriend, so you can DO YOUR JOB and
save the people of planet Jupiter. I can't believe I'm mentioning him twice
today, but let's just imagine Bruce Wayne, rich boy of Gotham City. He goes
to tons of dances each year, granted, not at schools, but you get the idea.
Can you imagine Batman saying to Joker "Ugh! Is THIS
what I missed the Gotham Charity Ball for?" while people are like
bleeding and dying all around him. Oh but WAIT! Sailor Venus actually says
that if she breaks a nail, everyone will "really"
be in trouble. So let's roll back a second. The fact that these people are
part of a gang of murderous terrorists isn't enough for them to be in
"real" trouble. The fact that they have kidnapped the remaining
inhabitants of planet Jupiter and are holding them hostage isn't enough. Oh
no. But the fact that they made you miss a forgettable dance at a school you
just started attending AND the fact that you might break a nail, THAT is what
will spark your murderous rage? Areyoufuggingkiddingmerightnow!?!?
Are you serious?!?! A SHIP BLEW UP BEFORE YOU GOT ENROLLED AT THAT SCHOOL YA
KNOW, AND THESE PEOPLE WORK FOR THE FASHION CHALLENGED HOT DOG GUZZLER WHO
DID IT! Could you care?
In contrast, Minako, the real Sailor
Venus, back when she was Codename Sailor V, do you know what she did? On her
first ever day as a superhero, she melted alive the first boy she ever had a
crush on. She had to murder him in order to save all the kids they went to
school with whom he had zombified. This is the boy who told her she would
look cute with a red bow in her hair, and until Parallel
Sailor Moon, she wears a red bow in memory of that moment. That's
deep. Minako is hardcore. She mourned for him. She mourned for a few of her
villains. She was willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good multiple
times and not once did she ever complain about her nails or any dances, and
she was just as boy-crazy as this Venus. Any time Usagi is in danger,
whatever dance or date or girly-girl issue she has goes out the door so she
can be the hero she has to be in that moment. I can't stop thinking about
this.
So Sailor Venus goes for her un-named attack.
And no, it's not Sailor Uranus's World Shaking.
KA ME HA ME HA!!
 
And she hits Widow from episode 16. More tracing!
Sailor Mercury suggests they host a party right here, joking about the whole
saving the Jupiter hostages thing.
But Sailor Mars says that the villains are "too out of shape" and
need to burn off a few pounds. Oh great, body shaming. That's what this show
needs, said nobody ever.
By the way, there are ZERO out of shape characters in this frame. Even Rei's
Grandpa is jacked. Why is she fat-shaming everyone in the room? WHY? What is
the context?? Even Widow isn't really out of shape considering she's half
spider. Why was the 1990s so perfectly okay with body shame? Oh, and this is
Mars's un-named attack too.
I'm just watching her set him on fire and remembering how 90s anime Mars was freaking
out over her grandfather. Can you imagine if Rei was just like
"Oji-chan! Gomen. Sayonara. FIRE SOUL!!" and cooked him alive?
She zaps Game Machine Stormtrooper too.
Careful now. Too much fire and you'll be hearing from Marvel about the
Flaming Torch references.
I see a fire dick and balls and that Sailor Mercury forgot her skirt on the
top of the screen.
 
So Sailor Jupiter's attack isn't named, but it's a tracing of Supreme
Thunder.
 
 
It's like ordering Sailor Jupiter's base attack from Wish.
Did you want to know what kind of skeletons Youma have? Well here you go.
 
"Gang way for the original party girl!" Yells a very vapid Sailor
Mercury and excuse me… am I crying blood again? I'm just thinking about the
real Sailor Mercury and I'm imagining her DiC voice talking about partying
with boys and I think I'm breaking down. Go ahead. Here's a screenshot from
the 3D Adventures Of Sailor Moon. Now you
imagine your favorite Ami/Amy voice. Could be the 90s sub, Crystal sub or the Viz, DiC or Cloverway voices. Now
imagine our studious Ami saying "Oh yes, Serena/Usagi-chan, I am indeed
the original party girl." And tell me if you don't suddenly feel like
keeling over in a fit of crazed laughter and tears.
Oh wait, oh God. Why did I not catch this years ago?? Ami in that game is
wearing an homage to her Toon Makers variant. Why didn't I catch this
before?!?! It used to irritate me that they forgot her bow, is this why??
Valley Girl Mercury glides her wheelchair-plane into the bad guys… but misses
and suddenly turns tiny. I'm guessing this was a cel layering boo-boo,
otherwise it would look like nobody took perspective in art class.
And this is party-too-hard Mercury, mad that she missed. Was there alcohol at
this party? It's the 90s, I should ask. Doesn't she look like the femme fatal
on action movie posters of the 80s and 90s?
"Oh, I like your style." She says as I am somehow fixated on her
pointy sailor collar and silver tiara. This is actually starting to bug me
more than those trailer-siding shoulder pads.
Sailor Mercury just has a blue laser beam and wait, hold on.
 
Well what do you know? An original villain! I went through all the 90s
"villains of the day" and the manga and I can't find an exact match
for this monster. There's a few elements here and there for some Youma, but
this might be a new character just for the Toon Makers version. I wonder what
her name was? Good God. Am I praising Toon Makers again for having an
original thought?
LAVA BALLS O_O;;
   
Okay, I know this magma monster is supposed to be a fill-in for the Great
Youma/Technically Queen Metallia that we see in episode 44 of the 90s Sailor Moon anime, but I can't get over the fact that in
1996, we had Magmanamus in Dial M For Monkey,
Maligore in Power Rangers Turbo in 1997 and
then just plain Magma in the DC animated universe and this Toon Makers
monster actually predates ALL of these characters. Did these people just
share one big magma monster and just change up the design once in a while?
And what is happening with the nipple situation here?
Mercury decides she is going to fly into literal magma. Everyone except for
Moon thinks that is a very stupid idea. May I remind you again that Mercury
is the smart one in all other versions of Sailor Moon?
Also, do NOT think too hard about Sailor Moon's fist placements here. I'm
seriously not responsible for any Rule 34 Photoshopping, sickos.
But before flying into magma, she hits him with her pew pew laser.
Blue Kool-Aid tickles.
Ooooooo pull my finger!
"Take that tall, dark and gruesome" she says to a BRIGHT RED LIGHT
UP MAGMA MONSTER.
She zooms around while her friends yell "watch out" in unison and
then Mr. Magma BACKHANDS HER OUT OF THE DAMNED SKY. Are you serious??
Nooooooo, OMFG noooo they
actually let the bad guy backwards pimp slap a wheelchair-plane out the
damned sky. I can't even with this. I had to pause the video and compose
myself. I mean I get it, he's evil and evil will do whatever evil does, but
come on, REALLY?? Hello ableism!
It's totaled on impact, meaning that officially, their items are weaker than
anything we have in either Sailor Moon
anime, and her lackadaisical "Aaaa"
scream is just selling how low-budget this all is. I am screaming.
And the "it's a paycheck" face is killing me.
Venus asks if she's alright, in case you know, them busted legs and that fucked
to hell plane isn't an indicator that no, she is not alright, and Mercury
says "Hey, somebody answer that phone" because concussion jokes
were also so tubular in the 90s. Good God. How did we make it this far?
Sailor Moon can do Gohan's Masenko. This is now
canon.
Glowy hands hurt me.
STAWP
Okay, time to confess. If this had been it's own series, unrelated to the
real Sailor Moon, and if the dumb stuff was cut out and all we had were
battle scenes like this, I would have eaten this up as a little kid. Sadly,
these cooler segments don't last as long as I wish they did.
"This one is powerful" well no shit, Sailor Moon. It's a magma
giant that bitchslaps planes. Did you think he was
gonna be a pushover?
The magma monster figures out how to grab and form electricity. Uh oh.
He yeets the electricity ball back at her, but she
jumps up BEFORE getting hit, so it looks like she's hit BEFORE actually being
hit when you slow-mo this.
This thing lights up her chest bubbles like a Christmas tree. HOW was this
supposed to get onto Fox again?
Sailor Mars says "she's hurt" while everyone else has a moment of
silence for her chest bubbles. Like no duh she's hurt.
Off camera, someone chucks a lickable rose at
Sailor Moon. Not the monster. Sailor Moon.
Sailor Moon sniffs the rose. Magma sniffs his armpit.
"A rose?" Asks Sailor Moon.
"Look!" Says Sailor Mercury.
Oh no way. No fucking way. I'm seeing the crystals of either Elysion (another
future prediction from Toon Makers???) or Crystal Tokyo in the back, what
looks to be Planet Venus, a giant ass yellow Moon and oh no. It can't be.
It's a tracing of Tuxedo Mask with a black cape, even though his top hat and
red cape were JUST there a second ago!?! And his arms are stubby, WTF? I'm
almost happy to see him look about as close to his original design as we're
going to get for this, but what's with the arms? And them hands is… okay, we
know that's Dar Dar because he had them giant paws earlier but wait, wait, waaaaaiiiiit didn't you blow up? What's going on here?
Why is the rose moving? What's with the rose? Sailor Moon and Magma are both
creeped out.
I love how Sailor Moon is contemplating toughing it and Magma is like Nuh-uh girl!
Uh uh, NO. I saw Beauty And The Beast.
I know how this goes.
Wait, why is she smiling? Why is her brooch glowing?
Sleepy, dilated pupils? Oh no, don't tell me it's those drug flowers Jadeite
had.
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?
Broken wrist disco Moon!
What am I looking at?
Why is she ballet dancing backwards?
They're tracing select frames from 90s anime Sailor Moon's various
transformations.
What the hell is in the pollen on that rose? If she doesn't stop, she's going
CGI again.
DUDE she's in pain, WTF did you do? STOP IT!
Strike a pose!
Vogue.
Oh no, kiss my ass on this one.
Are you seriously telling me, that this version of Sailor Moon CAN NOT do
Moon Tiara Action WITHOUT Tuxedo Mask!?! ARE YOU SHITTING ME?? Usagi never
needed a man's help to do HER BASE ATTACK!!
And you traced over the original and STILL messed up how she holds the damned
tiara?
Oh no Miss Baby Arm In The Head while throwing a glowing pizza. I'm losing it
over here. Even the DiC Serena variant NEVER needed Tuxedo Mask's help in
doing this bare minimum attack. And it's not even named, either! She just
yells "THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS!" as the tracing continues. I'm gob
smacked. Like this was 1994, in a decade that's about to drop "girl
power" on everyone and give us a taste of feminism and girl empowerment
messages, and you drop this shit on us? The Japanese Sailor Moon can ALWAYS
do Moon Tiara Action/Magic by her damn self. She doesn't need Tuxedo Mask –
or anyone else – to help her use her own Moon power. Moon powers are
literally this child's birthright in every single variation of the series,
and THIS is how you do her role? HONEST?
Oh baloney, you're telling me it doesn't even vaporize him like all the other
Sailor Moon tiaras in the world? It just bonks him in the head? I just
watched a space boat blow up full of people and NOW you want to play
censorship on a death scene?
Oh excuse me. He doesn't die after all. Nope. He just falls down and goes
boom. He gets a mini boo-boo. So we can watch him play basketball with a
wheelchair-plane, we can watch a space boat blow up, but no vaporizing death
sequence for Mr. Magma. Splendid!
Woah what the… so in place of the Silver Crystal, the fucking ROSE is in her
brooch?? Is this a play off of how Usagi and Chibiusa's crystals turn into
crystal flowers? Because that is the only way I'm going to accept this. If
so, congratulations on sticking to the source material – in Chibiusa's case,
BEFORE her crystal morphs, and if not, what episode of the original did Usagi
EVER absorb Tuxedo Mask's rose into her brooch??
Sailor Moon checks her temperature as the rose fades away, and I'm checking
mine too. This feels like a fever dream.
Hey, Tuxie's gone missing.
Sailor Mercury asks who he was, and Sailor Moon claims she doesn't know… when
we can all see… it's Prince Darian, somehow put back together again. Or a
phantom. Nah, probably just got a Band-Aid.
Sailor Moon keeps repeating that she just doesn't know who he is, until she
turns back into Victoria and is live action again? Wait, what?
We're back in class? WTF?
You think any of these actresses in the back put this on their resume?
This is Victoria's ancient teacher, Miss Grim. Far different from Ms. Haruna,
right? She asks if Victoria is daydreaming about outer space again, in a tone
that implies she doesn't believe in outer space, which makes me question her
teaching license. Vickie denies it.
Why is everyone laughing?
Vickster stares directly into the camera and says
"I'm right here, on Earth" with a big ol'
grin.
PBS music plays us out.
We get a still image of the galaxy as the bad music plays and NONE of the
credits roll. It's like everyone was ashamed of what they had done and group
declined credits.
Renaissance-Atlantic is the only other group besides Toon Makers to take
responsibility for this.
|
Follow
me back to the Battle Record!
Follow
me to episode one of the original anime!
Let's
all just pray nothing like this ever happens again.
Follow me back to Moon Sisters!