xwunsch - 2014-10-30 03:29:16

[Old review is old.]

(This review proceeds from Sailor Moon, so start from the beginning if you haven’t already!)

After my lengthy trip reviewing the chronological progression of the original Sailor Moon show we arrive at the last season: Sailor Moon Sailor Stars. As a finale to the entire series, it does its job well to bring a good climax and ending to resolve every aspect that the show presented to us thus far. Was it worth the many many hours to get to it?

After Super S, the first bundle of episodes in Sailor Stars deals with completely resolving conflicts with a good returning villain from the previous arc, and provides the viewers with interesting scenarios with different Sailor Soldiers solving problems and working off one another. It also gave viewers the return of the outer Soldiers, which were a particular favorite of mine, and even though they disappear for awhile in the middle, they still get lots of screen time in the beginning of the season to reward a long fourth season without their presence.

After a very good conclusion for that arc, we move on to the final arc of the show regarding the Sailor Starlights, which are an interesting group of characters who I will get to later on. The Sailor Soldiers must find a way to work with them in order to face the “final boss” of the Sailor Moon universe and put an end to the hundreds of monster of the week episodes. While the finale of this story is done very well and provided a nearly perfect resolution for the entire show, it doesn’t feel like it can pay off from the hundreds of episodes building up to it. Another problem is how after the first arc concludes, the show reverts back to some generic monster of the week episodes before the plot kicks in, which doesn’t really help with the pacing. In the third season it made sense, because it was taking the format and gradually changing it to become something more serious and plot-driven. In this season, after an interesting story arc, it seems counter productive to fall back onto the one shot episodes. The finale makes up for them however, thankfully providing a satisfying ending to the last story arc.

The returning characters remain their usual entertaining selves throughout the shows, and again, it was nice to see the return of the outer soldiers in all of their glory, but the biggest problem is how at the end of the day, Usagi has not changed at all. Take the closing character of Usagi and compare it to the one at the beginning of the show and no differences will be found. Each of the other characters, while still similar in their regards, have all went through important changes and developments as the show went on. Usagi has seen these developments very few times throughout two hundred episodes, and each time is nearly (or completely) forgotten about by the next episode. By the end of the day, I saw her more of as an observer character than an actual person going through experiences. Someone the viewer can put themselves onto as the other Soldiers guide her through fighting, telling her when to make the move, to have very little effect on the plot aside from a couple moments during the finales. None of her life-changing events carry over to her by the end of it, and compared to a plethora of great characters with good hero traits all changing as time goes by, it feels like a bit of a cop out to have the main character remain exactly the same as the whiny annoying little girl from when the show was just beginning.

With the introduction of the Sailor Stars, I feel it necessary to talk about how Sailor Moon was able to expertly handle it’s sexual aspects. Sailor Moon was always very open with it’s sexuality, which is very admirable for anime in general. Throughout the show there were always questions between the soldiers over possible attractions to the same sex, and even though it never really resulted in anything, it was still addressed as something that the characters were feeling, which was a good little detail to touch on. And of course in Sailor Moon S we get the kickass lesbian couple to push developments in sexuality even further. Sailor Moon Super S also gave us a couple cases of transgender characters who were portrayed just as well as the rest of the cast was. Finally, with Sailor Stars, we get the Starlights, who are possibly the best development for sexuality in anime in general. Their thing is that in ordinary life, they have male bodies who have a cover of being transfer students at the cast’s high school and being in a band, but behind the scenes they transform into their sailor soldier counterparts which have female bodies. Their characters are the same and even the voice actors remain unchanged, but it was an interesting way to show beings who identified as being both male and female. It was clever in showing ambiguous sexuality who weren’t confined to one gender and were comfortable in both gender roles.

With that said, it’s probably very easy to see why this season didn’t get an English dub. Haruka and Michiru got the famous change into cousins, which was a good way for western entertainment to avoid a controversial topic at the time, even though it was pretty easy to see through. However, with the Starlights, it’s easy to see why a dub wasn’t even attempted. There’s almost no way to dodge the presentation of men turning into women when fighting, which would be a very odd thing to see in the west in general. In some language dubs, the different genders of the Starlights are separated into completely different characters, which also would have been a stretch for a 90’s kids show.

I’ll also take this time near the end to talk about the music for the entire show. Compared to any other show coming out (even by today’s standards) the entire OST would probably be considered as average at best. However, I was able to enjoy a few standout tracks here and there, particularly any song where they bring in the saxophone. The small jazzy tunes placed sparingly were able to grow on me, and reminded me a lot of select tracks from Darker Than Black or from The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya. Moonlight Densetsu will never leave my head, and has easily placed itself on one of the most memorable openings in anime (even if only because it was able to stick easily after 160 episodes). Unfortunately for Sailor Stars, the opening is replaced with another song, and while I’m sure the visuals are fine and dandy, I was never able to fully watch it because I was kind of mad that the classic opening didn’t fully stick around until the end.

So after spending about a year dragging myself through this seemingly endless series, was the final product able to satisfy over 80 hours of running time?

The entirety of Sailor Moon (which does thankfully end here due to the presence of the phrase “The End” in the final few seconds of the show) is ridiculously longer than it ever needed to be, carried by many weak plots and one of the worst main characters in anime history. Less than stellar animation moves the show along at a painfully slow, repetitive pace as it meanders through filler arcs and excessive one-shot episodes to reach its destination of the fuller plots. Despite a botched storyline, a delightful cast of characters is able to carry the show on their backs to steer it in the direction it needs to go in, leading it to great arcs and a solid ending. In order, my opinions on the chronological seasons of Sailor Moon are these: meh, meh, good, meh, and okay. These are not very great words to result out of a show that has taken up so much time in someone’s life, and I suggest that viewers know what they’re getting into whenever they start their long, long journey with Sailor Moon and her amazing Sailor friends.

I give this anime (ALL of Sailor Moon) a score of 4.4/10 (2 stars) and a Passive rating, meaning you can watch it if it interests you, or move along if it doesn't without missing much.