Why yes, I am finally getting around to watching Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3 just so I can put it on this year’s Top Yuri Anime list. Come at me, I don’t care. ^_^

There were many legit complaints about the animation in the first two seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal, but when Kon Chiaki took the helm, it was much less an issue of animation badly done, than personal opinion about the manga versus the original anime designs. It will probably be no surprise that I came to really like the Crystal iteration of the Senshi because I am whole-heartedly in love with them in every version and cannot be convinced that any version is better or worse than any other. In fact, it was an actual delight to see the manga brought to life in the exact way the creator had initially designed it.

I said in my review of the season when it initially aired, Minagawa Junko and Ohara Sayaka did a bang-up job as Haruka and Michiru and I grinned like a loon the first time through. Well, here it is during my second viewing and here I am grinning like a loon. I really loved this disk. 

We get to see a Haruka and Michiru who are way more confident than the emotionally tortured teens of the original anime, but equally as convinced that their way is the only right way for everyone. Haruka’s seductive behavior feels far more like manipulation; trying to keep Usagi off-balance so she doesn’t take charge. And her non-apology for “confusing” Usagi would be enraging if we had time to process it.  But we don’t, because our attention is split between so many things – Chibi-Usa and Usagi’s growths, Hotaru’s story, the appearance of the Outer Senshi and the many mysteries that lay obscured behind them – some few of which will be made plain in the next half of the series. And,of course, the main plot.

The one genuinely weak part of this series is, shockingly, the translation. Several times on this disk Chibi-Usa’s name is translated as “Small Usagi” which is questionable even if that was not being used as a name.  I was yet again disappointed to note that this translation team still doesn’t get the reference to Ribon no Kishi and hacked the bit about Haruka having the heart of a man and woman to death, then stomped on it. I was not happy at this shameless display of ignorance and crappy translation. Heart of a man and a woman, goddamn it. HEART OF. Get the fucking reference right.

/wipes spittle off mouth/

Other than that, I still cheered when Setsuna returned and saved us all with Dead Scream, I felt terrible for poor, tragic Hotaru, and thrilled at Sailor Moon’s transformation at the end of the disk into Super Sailor Moon. 

The whole thing actually looked excellent in Blu-Ray, so I don’t for a secon regret getting it.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Yuri – 4, mostly Haruka and Usagi, but then that scene between Haruka and Michiru brings it to 7.
Service – 2 some slight moments with the Witches 5 costumes and camera work being a tad linger-y.

Overall – 10

I am actually hoping that we get the 4th season movie as planned, because the Inner Senshi have really lovely power-up story /sequence in the Dream arc. I’d really like to see that animated.