Content-wise, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Perfect Edition, Volume 2 (美少女戦士セーラームーン) is pretty much the straightest volume of any story ever written ever. ^_^
The Earth is being attacked by minions of the Dark Kingdom, and the remainder of Queen Beryl’s Generals are falling at the hands of the Senshi AND the true identity of the Moon Princess is revealed at last, but if you were just flipping through the manga, you might be hard pressed to tell with all that “Mamo-chan!”ing going on. ^_^;
Usagi’s memories are returned and she is awakened as Princess Serenity. That also means she now knows that she and the Prince of the Earth were fated to be together (which she would have known if she just listened to “Moonlight Densetsu” duh). And Mamoru takes on the role of damsel for the series with gusto being killed kidnapped, brainwashed and stabbed…all by the end of Volume 2.
The formula of minion–>boss–>Big Boss–>>Boss Boss is well established here. We’d better get used to it, because it isn’t going away any time soon.
My last thought about the Generals is that it was better that they were defeated by the Senshi than by Queen Metallia. That always made me crazy in the original anime.
The art gets really busy from the point where they all visit the moon, and after we learn Usagi’s real identity, the story shifts further and further away from the rest of the Senshi to her and Mamoru’s tragic love story.
The end of Volume 2 closes what we think of the first season of the anime and ends with the fateful moment when a small pink-haired child ruins Sailor Moon and all of voice acting forever. Also the inexplicable and simultaneously under-and over-used magic bag of LunaP.
Ratings:
Art – I really liked it. The repro is crisp as all get out. 8
Story – Messy, but who cares, really? 8
Characters – Ami, Makoto, Rei who? 4
Yuri – 0, The only thing even remotely “Yuri” if you worked hard enough at it was Minako and Ami cheek-to-cheek in the Christmas-themed color insert.
Service – Still hard for me to parse. Can someone ask an 11-year old niece if anything made her heartbeat faster?
Overall – 8
My takeaway from this volume is this: THIS is why you do not put a cat in charge of your operations.
