Okay, I’m convinced. Watching Sailor Moon S, Part 2, Disk 3 on Blu-Ray has convinced me of the superiority of Blu-Rayfor remastered old analog anime. (I’m still completely un-awed by it for regular already higher-definition-than-my-eyes-see-at-anyway hi-def.)
But here, at the final disk of my favorite season of this show, I was unwilling to let a single over-saturated background slip by unnoticed. So Blu-Ray it was. The sound quality was good as far as I can tell. Undoubtedly, audiophiles among you cried out in despair, but all I want is the BGM balanced against the foreground dialogue, (which we did not get with the Pioneer DVDs.) I want, to be specific, “World Shaking” to resound appropriately. ^_^ And so it does.
Plot-wise, we are in the darkest depths of the arc, basically watching uncomfortably as Hotaru’s body and psyche are the wrestling ground for three entities, only one of which is Hotaru herself. We’re forced to watch her struggle to live as Uranus, Neptune and Pluto try to kill her, Mistress 9 attempts to control her and Sailor Saturn awakens.
Thankfully, it’s the Sailor Senshi and her calm musical theme who wins, and proves the Outers to be completely, wholly, incorrect about all but one thing.
They save the world, of course, It wasn’t really in doubt, even almost a quarter of a century ago, when learning that fact would have been a spoiler. ^_^
The disk came with interviews with Erica Mendez, Lauren Landa and Christine Marie Cabanos, (Sailors Uranus, Neptune and Saturn respectively) which were delightful to listen to. Landa is a long time fan of the series and it shows. She has the same problem I have with “Tuxedo Mirage,” that I tear up for no particular reason when I hear it. ^_^ Another extra is watching them live as they watch an episode in which all of their characters appear together. It was worth a watch and it gave me a good reason to watch an episode dubbed. So let’s talk about the dub for a second.
There is one reason and one reason only I prefer subs to dubs. No, wait, two reasons. There are two reason I prefer subs. One, I really like to listen and try to follow the spoken Japanese. Anime dialogue is not nearly as fast and complicated as real-life dialogue, which makes it good practice for listening to spoken Japanese, something I am not at all good at (I say, then remind myself to put on JapanTV and listen to the damn news in Japanese and get some practice, only to find that Rin-ne is on. With subtitles. orz)
The second reason is completely, utterly, obnoxiously fannish. For decades, listening to American voice actors murder Japanese names just made it intolerable for me to listen to dubs. Well, I listened to this dub and didn’t cringe. So Viz is responsible for not only the definitive edition of Sweet Blue Flowers, but also the definitive – best-of-breed version of Sailor Moon S. In a short chat with Viz rep Jane Lui at New York Comic-Con I expressed how impressed I have been with their work on these Yuri classics. She noted that creator Naoko Takeuchi-sensei gets final approval of everything on this release of Sailor Moon. I was very relieved and happy to hear that. Takeuchi-sensei deserves to have her say. So I’ll repeat here what I told Jane – thank you to everyone at Viz for doing such an amazing job. The love everyone has for this series shows. So, thank you to everyone who worked on it.
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5 Alternate family FTW
Service – 3 The Daimon stay racy right through the end.
Overall – 8
The penultimate episode reminded me just why adult characters are so important in series with mostly teen protagonists – someone needed to have pointed out to Haruka and Michiru that they were wrong about almost everything. It is this that really drives my dislike of the 5th season. Someone needed to say to Haruka and Michiru, “Hey! We’ve done this already! You have to listen to Usagi…remember?” It vexes me through the entire season.
Sailor Moon SuperS is on the way, I’m looking forward to it to see the Amazon Trio once again. ^_^
Thank you very much Viz for the review copy! It was a blast to hum along with every single musical riff. We have the Proplica Spiral Heart Moon Rod and play the Spiral Heart Attack music about as often as you’d expect. You know…daily. ^_^
Not to stoke too much the *endless* fires of the sub/dub debate, but another reason I have (in addition to the two good ones you gave) is that a lot of dubs (and even subs) are just flat out wrong. They change or gruesomely misunderstand cultural references, dialects, degrees of formality, honorifics and other culturally-specific elements of anime that can be quite crucial to understanding the characters and plots of shows. Even if you are not interested in formally studying the language to pick up all the nuances, if you watch enough stuff with Japanese audio you at least start to get a better feel for the social hierarchy of characters and various phrases that don’t have an easy direct translation. Anime is still an artform created within a specific cultural context, and even the best dubs add an additional layer of remove between you and the art.
On another note, it’s kind of amazing to me to see the words “amazing job” and “the love everyone involved has for this series shows” in regard to commercial releases of BSSM. ><; We have indeed come a long way from the DiC dub and the SOS campaign.
Finally, I will unashamedly admit to that "dusty room" phenomenon with Tuxedo Mirage. XD It's partly due to the song itself, which is brilliant in the way it goes from tender and romantic to soaring, uplifting, and wistful. But it's also because my first run through S came at an awful and emotional time in my life and stupid as it sounds, escaping to VHS fandubs got me through it. That song meant I was leaving my fantasy friends for awhile but always made me feel a little hopeful too.
Yes, and those bad dub translations lead to bad “dubtitles,”too.
We absolutely have come a long, long way from DiC. ^_^
I’m glad to know that it’s not just my wife and I who have that issue with “Tuxedo Mirage.”