Disk 1 gave us the SuperS Special, with it’s Yuri lovefest. Disk 2 turned a little dark, but was deeply queer.  With Sailor Moon SuperS, Part 1, Disk 3, we find ourselves deep into the middle of the 4th season of the original anime, with virtually no more information about the plot than we had in the first disk. Less, because this disk devolved into a a kind of pissing match between Hawk’s Eye and Tiger’s Eye about how many women they can seduce while Fish Eye seeks to seduce men, during which they occasionally remember they have a specific mission to discover Pegasus hiding in a human’s dream.

Because the mission has largely been forgotten, there are a number of things that draw our attention in this season which are problematic. Even setting aside Chibi-Usa’s crush on a talking horse, which reads more “fantasy” than creepy, and some of the earlier, quite creep lolicon, there is the frankly sexually violent way in which the Amazoness Trio immobilize their victims, rip people’s dream mirrors out of their chests, open them, thrust themselves in and out while digging around, as their victims scream. This violent act is horrific on it’s own, but that it keeps being conflated with seduction…I find myself at a loss for words.

This season adds shotacon to the pile of things to be made uncomfortable by, if you’re keeping a record, with Fisheye’s lame attempt as seduction/assault/mirror rape of a young boy and…Shingo and Ami. This is an equal-opportunity fetish series.

As I contemplated writing this review, I struggled with this disk. SuperS is my least favorite season for any number of reasons, the above paragraphs among them. I was considering skipping this disk in fact, as it seemed to me aggressively straight, until I began to really watch it, through the lens of my 21st century understanding. All three of the Amazon Trio are gender non-conforming and Fish Eye is, to my eye, trans. Minako’s “two-timing” episode is a poorly constructed episode that I would rewrite into her being poly and pansexual, except that of course, the Amazons are an alien enemy, not two genderfluid humans. ^_^;

I used to feel sympathetic to the Amazon Trio, but I’m not feeling it this time. I find myself actually looking forward to the theatrical release of the first Sailor Moon Eternal movie (functionally the 4th season of Sailor Moon Crystal) in which we blow through them to get to the Amazoness Quartet (whose story is sadly abbreviated in manga as well as anime and also needs a rewrite.)  The manga also has the much better powerup of the Inner Senshi than the one on this disk, which strips the agency from the Outers and gives it to Pegasus…which was just annoying.

Technically, this disk looks amazing and I only picked up the DVD, not feeling enough love for it to get the BD. While the art is retro as always, the quality of the reproduction and sound is absolutely stellar, as if it had been made for digital. Great job with the remaster and no over-saturation of the color needed. Extras on this disk are trailers only.

SuperS is never going to my favorite season, but my favorite episode of this season is coming up on the next disk, so that’s something to look forward to!

Ratings:

Art – 7 It’s noticeably improved on this disk
Story – 2 So much screaming
Characters – 4
Service – This disk adds shota to the pile.
LGBTQ – 6 For an aggressively heterosexual season, SuperS is really queer

Overall – 6

This disk leaves me with three questions:

1) Where does Mamoru get his money? He doesn’t work, goes to med school, lives in a huge apartment and has a European sports car in late 90’s Japan.

2) Do the Inners get tired of buying clothes in the same colors as their Senshi fuku? Because this season they are all-in on the matching color scheme.

3) What lessons is this season supposed to be teaching us? Because I don’t think those are the ones we’re learning. ^_^