As the rest of the world deliberates whether Home Alone or Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie, I have always felt myself above such things. ^_^ But then, translator Jocelyne Allen pointed out that Sailor Moon S Movie is in actual fact a Christmas movie and I could not argue. When she reminded me that this week the Sailor Moon Musical Kaguya-hime no Koibito was available for streaming on Japan 2.5. Stage Play World, my wife and I put together an impromptu double play of a story neither of us much like. ^_^

Firstly, Sailor Moon S The Movie is streaming in dub for free on YouTube right now for US folks. We never bought the new Viz release, so I dragged out our old Pioneer (!) DVD.  You can rent it on Amazon Prime or buy it for only about $5 more on Amazon, which gives you a sense of how popular it is.

The basic plot of the movie is that Luna and Artemis are on the skids. Luna, feeling sick, is found by a handsome man who is himself ill. He nurses her back to health. She learns that he is a Oozora Kakeru, a researcher who is obsessed with a comet that is approaching earth, which he has named “Kaguya-hime” after the moon being from the Taketori Monogatari. Kakeru’s lover is Himeko, a woman chosen for a space mission to study the comet. There is a little tension between them as Kakeru had also wanted to be an astronaut. Luna falls in love with Kakeru, but can do nothing when he falls ill.

As Christmas approaches, so does the comet, and with it Snow Princess Kaguya is revealed to be an alien who wants to take over the earth, naturally. The Senshi fight, are defeated and band together to defeat the enemy. Usagi grants Luna’s wish to become human for one night. She takes Kakeru to space and kisses him. She returns to Earth, and Artemis.

When the Sailor S Movie came out originally I watched it for the then-precious moments with the Outer Senshi. It was originally released in Japan in 1994, my three-disk “uncut” movie box set is from 2001, so possibly older than some of you reading this. Having Haruka and Michiru on screen sharing tea or shopping together was a big deal still.

If you still need proof that this is a Christmas movie, check in at about 21 minutes in:

Note the incongruous use of L’Chaim when Tuxedo Kamen throws a top at a snow dancer. This is wildly inappropriate – he should have said “Chag Sameach.” ^_^

Immediately after this, we fired up the Sailor Moon Musical Kaguya-hime no Koibito, starring Nogizaka46 members.

It was…not bad? Also terrible, but in the exact way I love. ^_^ To begin with here is the opening song, which was shaky but solidified up. Mercury was the weakest singer throughout, but the rest of the cast was good to great.

The bad stuff was more than one song about how much girls need guys, and until they have them are permanently unfulfilled. And Tuxedo Kamen’s final solo, about which my wife said, “This is unnecessary.” A shame too, because Riku Sorahane had a great voice. From the moment she stepped on stage we could see that she had been trained as a Takarisienne. It was in every motion she made.

Other strange bits were the Luna ballets and Himeko making a comment about being pregnant, which would definitely have kept her out of space. Also the final thanks felt like there was stuff that was supposed to have been said, and instead we have “thank you very much” shouted a us an excessive number of times, even for one of these musicals.

Speaking of excessive, they say “Starry Heavens” 8 times.

So…the good bits. Overall pretty good music. Snow Kaguya had a operatic voice that worked well. The Outers were all great. I can’t embed this, but here is a clip of the Outer Senshi actresses watching the show digest. At 1:30 they watch the bit where they arrive on stage: https://youtu.be/KBHlvUVcDnw?t=90. ^_^

The very best bit, in my opinion was when the Senshi “transform” they each have some dance moves that were adapted from their henshin sequence. I though this extremely clever.

The second best thing was that Haruka and Michiru are glued at the hip throughout the whole performance – even to the point of a small perfomative hug as they leave the stage the first time and holding hands as they leave the second time. It’s more than we ever got in the animated movie and it was overt enough that I wondered idly, if we’ll ever see them stage kiss in an official property.

Overall, it wasn’t as Christmasy as the animated movie, but it was fun. Again, I can’t embed it, but here is the show digest video, so you can get an idea of the spectacle.

Next year as everyone is waggling their Scrooged at you, don’t forget – Sailor Moon S Movie is also a Christmas movie. ^_^

2021 has been an “interesting” year in every meaning of the word, In the middle of so much wonderful and awful news, Netflix announced a Global (excluding Japan) release for Sailor Moon Eternal, Parts 1 & 2. The movie had been delayed in Japan, due to the pandemic, then pushed out in between two lockdown state of emergencies this past spring. Given that this, of all the arcs, is least likely to appeal to any adults not already fans of the series and being the one most likely to need a very young audience, it’s kind of obvious that it was being set up for failure as a theatrical release. Making it two movies didn’t help, as it forced people in Japan to make time *twice* to sit with other people in a small room for an hour in a pandemic. Frankly, the whole thing was so poorly handled, its a wonder we actually got the thing at all.

But we did, in the end, get the thing. And you know what? I think it was pretty darn good! Certainly better than I expected.

Sailor Moon Eternal, Part 1 is a re-introduction of the Inner Senshi without rehashing much of the history from the first three seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal. In rapid succession we meet Usagi, her daughter from the future, Chibi-Usa, and her boyfriend and eventual eternal consort, Mamoru. If you don’t understand their super weird dynamic when you begin the story, it is going to be super weird. This sentence was written for my mother who says she’s going to try to watch it. I’m just saying, that if you walked into this part cold, it would be befuddling.

Both bad and good, we spend almost no time with the Amazon Trio. On the positive side, we don’t get endless rapey chest mirror scenes, but on the bad side, the gender queerness of Hawkseye and Fisheye ends up reinforcing negative tropes. Of all the characters in the entire series, Fisheye is my  #1 vote for why this series desperately needs a full rewrite to bring it up to date with  modern understanding of gender and sexuality. I want a Sailor Moon in which she gets a chance to tell Hawkseye and Tigerseye that she was Assigned Male at Human Transformation.

Thankfully, we also got a brief moment with each of the Senshi in a relatively pure form. Character tells us her dream, powers up, defeats baddie. I love when the spirits of their planet castle come to help them power up, so swoon on that for me. It’s basically the only part of this manga arc I really like.

Voice acting (I watched the sub, as I am wont to) was great, I want to shout out to Watanabe Naomi for absolutely doing a Zirconia that was actually creepy.

Sailor Moon Eternal, Part 2 is begins with the Outer Senshi and again, this was the strongest portion of the movie. It was outstanding to see Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna recognize their vows to be a family and raise Hotaru, their happy home life together, and this scene in particular:

If the whole thing had stopped here, that would have been fine. ^_^ Along with I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 3, this has definitely been the year of the Yuri family. ^_^ When I log into Patreon, the thing that is written in this space is something like, “Why are you creating today?” or “What have you worked on today?” or something like that… Well…this image right here is why I am still writing Okazu. THIS is why I am creating today, So that someone looks at this and says, “That there is my ideal world I want to create.”

I consider the Amazoness Quartet a whole wasted opportunity every time. They deserve better than just being sent back to sleep. Can someone give them a decent comic arc, please? Saturn stepping up as Chibi-Usa’s companion was nice, but the Asteroid Senshi still deserve their own story.

I very much liked seeing the Senshi in their Princess (i.e. dressed-up) forms and the final powerup scene was beautifully done.

Most importantly, I want to give props to the animators for killing the transformation sequences. I could watch just them and the attacks and be happy. And, finally Saturn has an official henshin, yay! For once, the extra time Toei got from the delays went to taking better care with the animation. Kon Chiaki’s direction was on point and the whole package is that, as a theatrical experience, Sailor Moon Eternal was not going to let us down, as earlier seasons of Crystal had.

I’ve been thinking about this specific issue a lot. There’s something to be said for making sure people assigned to the creation of a beloved series give a shit about that series. Viz was doing really well on that score, until this release, when they and Netflix allowed a man who has been credibly accused of sexual assault of an industry colleague to be involved with the production. Lynzee Loveridge has written poignant and heartfelt coverage of this and I have to say I really feel her.  Almost 30 years of upskirts and down shirts (Part 2 was especially obnoxious in this regard) and sex pests infesting every aspect of this series – for little girls – sends a clear message that we will never ever be free of the creeps as long as all those “nice” guys let them have power and influence.

Just as impactful for those of us who rely on translations and adaptations – localization companies who put any old translator or actor on a series that is, in the original language, a breakthrough of representation for a marginalized audience,  is going to come off looking like they intentionally insulted that audience. It’s not 1995 and it’s not okay to put a vocally anti-trans person in a role that is trans or trans-adjacent, for instance. It’s not acceptable to put someone who doesn’t *care* about language used by a queer writer to tell a queer story to translate that story. When you pick some guy to direct the world’s most famous series for little girls, he’d better LOVE that series to death, or get him the fuck off the project. Sailor Moon Crystal Season 1 looked like crap. There has yet to be an edition of the manga into English that I think is better than okay. It’s been more than a quarter of a century. This stuff is important.  It’s time for a power up.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – YMMV on every last one of them, but we voted 9
Service – Yes, sadly – 4
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8

So, overall, the movies themselves are very well done, men who are sex pests suck and this series needs an overhaul. If I had the time, I would definitely be inclined to rewrite the whole thing. ^_^

No we sit back and wait for for news of the last season. Again.

There is no chance that this is the last post I ever make about Sailor Moon, but it may be the last post I make about the original 1990s anime. For the last time, we are going to talk about Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition, Part 2, Disk 3, in which no one listens to either of the Princesses they have sworn to defend, because 16 year olds make shitty decisions.

Because no one listens to Usagi and Kakyuu-hime, and no one else suggests they all work together, they are picked off by Galaxia, whose backstory isn’t as much of a surprise as she apparently felt it might be. No Sailor Cosmos here to clog up the works, just another Senshi blundering around with mostly no idea what to do.

Which makes me wonder how I would have ended it. Let’s do that at the end.

On the positive side, Seiya gets to say what needs to be said to Usagi. This time, I was really glad about that. Once Mamoru’s fate was revealed, it was a lot easier to forgive both of them for everything they didn’t do right.

Haruka and Michiru spend the last few episodes being really gay, in case you didn’t know they were a couple.  I felt and still feel that this was specifically directed at the corner of fandom who just would not admit that they were really together. Their final moments are both heart-wrenching and extended and good heavens there were still people who just would NOT believe they were together. (I bet those people are all gay now, if you know what I mean…)

And then the epilogue comes and everyone lives happily ever after. For real.

Until 1000 years in the future when Crystal Tokyo is destroyed. Because just as no one thinks “Hey, let’s listen to the Princess,” no one would say, “HEY, we know what happens, let’s not be defeated by the Black Moon.”  I’m looking at you, Ami. You’re supposed to be the smart one.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 6
Characters – 9
LGBTQ – 5 Michiru and Haruka are very, very gay.
Service – 3 Does Galaxia’s hair count? It’s really great hair. Oh, right, and some nudity

Overall – 8

So, how would I have ended it? How about this…

Sailor Moon and Kakyuu-hime would have convinced the Senshi to work together. They would have combined their powers and healed Galaxia, reuniting her with Chibi-Chibi. Hell yes, I would have included Sailor Cosmos – that’s a great costume. SHE would have told the combined Senshi Galaxia’s backstory and would have accompanied Sailor Galaxia home, by way of healing the planets she destroyed.

We would have had two epilogues…the one we got and one in Crystal Tokyo in the future where everything was shiny and perfect and Princess Small Lady was a little older, playing with the Asteroid Senshi, Saturn and Pluto at the Doors of Time, while the rest of the Senshi attended Queen Serenity and King Endymion in Crystal Tokyo as other planetary Senshi visited.

But no one asked me.

Viz has done an exemplary job with this classic title. I want to once again thank every person who worked on this release. Your love and attention was greatly appreciated. This is the definitive Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition, Part 2, Disk 2 has some good and some bad…and some annoying, upsetting, frustrating, bittersweet, sweet and a host of other feelings. It’s like an M&M bag full of feels.

Sailor Lead Crow realizes that the absence of her “rival” is a hole she may never fill. The Three Lights learn that being hard-asses doesn’t really pay off. The Outers don’t learn a damn thing and the Inners learn that Usagi has been lying by omission. Both Seiya and Usagi learn that Seiya’s feelings are very sincere and everyone learns that Kakyuuu-Hime was hanging out in an incense burner watching them. That’s not weird at all.

We all learn the high stakes of Galaxia’s attacks. Are we worried? Not really because even aside from this being 23 years old, we know Sailor Moon will win the day. Which is why her emotional is torment especially upsetting, because why?!? What benefit is there to do this to the audience?

On the positive side, we spend some time with each Inner Senshi for the first time in a while. Minako, particularly, has a moment to shine bright, as we might expect from Venus.

I have to eat my words and say that while Seiya had stopped jokingly hitting on Usagi, he (for I will continue to refer to Kou Seiya as a “he,” as Seiya’s actions and behavior still read masculine identifying to me, while Taiki I think would just have been better off not having to pretend to be a hard ass guy, and Yaten remains Yaten) has terrible timing. I sympathize with Seiya, but no, you cannot be enough when she doesn’t even know whether or not she should be sad or angry. So, yes, I acknowledge that Seiya might have, in an entirely alternative timeline, been a decent choice, but he loses all the points for poor timing and inappropriateness.

The art has pulled itself up a tad, too, as if everyone knew they were coming down to the wire.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 8
LGBTQ – 4 Michiru wants you to know that she and Haruka are very gay. They have one scene, and its gay.
Service – 1 Seiya shirtless, I guess, works for some people

…and here we are. It’s down to 6 more episodes, 4 of which will be everyone dying. Whee! Grab the hankies, we’re going in…

Route Venus is one of my favorite of the Senshi image songs. Here’s Fukami Rika not murdering it for plot purposes.