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.

Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition, Part 2, Disk 1 enters what only can be considered the grind portion of any Sailor Moon anime season. The plot is established, we know what the deal is and the most sensible thing in the world would be to just team up and do it together.  But, that isn’t going to happen. Instead we grind through Monsters, while never just sitting down with everyone and saying, “Okay, time to huddle, let’s figure out what is going on here and how to deal with it.” This is my least favorite bit, where everyone ignores their Princess and just wastes their own time and energy.

This is why magical girls have to be 14, not 44.  Otherwise the story would be very short. ^_^; 

This disk contains several remarkable scenes, among them the day when all of the main cast shows up at Usagi’s house for reasons. Artemis is not wrong when saying that them all playing cards was pretty wholesome. This disk is also home to the moment when Aluminum Siren sees the rose petals that accompany Sailors Uranus and Neptune appearance. I wish that had been given some deeper thought beyond a momentary gag – but I’ll take the gag. ^_^

On the positive side, I will admit that Seiya stops hitting on Usagi, confining himself to role of bodyguard. I’ll never love the Lights, myself, but I can kind of see the appeal.

You can see that this series was not making money, the animation is frequently poor, sometimes frighteningly so. But as always Viz’s remaster is as good as something this badly drawn can be.I think I’ll watch the next disk as a dub; I have no doubt that that is well done, as well.

Ratings:

Art – 4, sometimes 3
Story – 4
Characters – 8
LGBTQ – 1 Pretty much nothing but crumbs
Service – 2 The art tanks hard and not even the Phages are fake-sexy.

Now the grind continues until we run out of Sailor Animamates and we have to befriend Galaxia to death. ^_^;