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Sailor Moon Crystal: Episode 1 Review
by Mikari
This episode was very similar to the original. Usagi is introduced as a normal high school girl with poor grades and a tendency to cry. We meet her best friend, Naru, whose mother owns a jewelry store, and the class nerd, Umino. We are also introduced to Usagi's mother, her younger brother, Shingo, Motoki, an arcade employee, and a mysterious man in a tuxedo. If I'm going to get super picky, I preferred Haruna, Usagi's teacher, with her original hair color, but that's just being overly picky. One notable difference is that Mamoru wears his tuxedo in public broad daylight without his mask.
I liked the references to Sailor V, who had been fighting crime for some time. Though Sailor V is also featured in video games in the original anime, the reference to her stopping a jewelry robbery reminds me of the opening of the live action series. Another detail that reminds me of the live action version is Tuxedo Mask's search for the Silver Crystal, where in the original anime he started out just searching for the moon princess.
The villain of the day disguises herself as Naru's mother and uses jewelry to drain people's energy. This is pretty much the same as in the original anime. One thing that caught my attention from the original anime, which also appears in Crystal, is the way Sailor Moon's odango rubies transmit Naru's cry for help. I wonder if this will be dropped or used again. I'm also curious about Usagi's sonic crying, a weapon in itself, that comes from her amplified screaming.
With the monster defeated, by Usagi's tiara boomerang, Naru and her mother are saved, as are their customers. She doesn't recognize Mamoru when she sees him with the mask, despite having seen him with the tuxedo before. I'll have to cling to the fan theory that they're covered by magical auras to hide their identities, or just remind myself that this is Sailor Moon, and characters miss the obvious all the time, just like in the original. The live action has been the only version where the girls' appearances actually change from their civilian personas.
At the end we get a glimpse of Amy, which means she might be joining soon, though in the original anime we good a few episodes with just Sailor Moon before Mercury joined the team. Overall I like the art and the touch of CG during the transformation scene. I do hope this is a summarized, closer to the manga version that gives me something different to see, as I hate reading subs and will need some motivation to keep watching the episodes as they come out. Who knows, I'll probably fall behind and decide to wait for the dub, I guess we'll see. As a final note I must say they upgraded Jedite's bishieness nicely.
