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Sailor Moon Crystal: Episode 10 Review
by Mikari
I'm trying something different with this episode, mostly because life has been busy. I'm reviewing several days after watching the episode, using the screen shots I took as a reminder. Let's see how memorable it really was.
The sailors are planning to go to the moon, wondering how they'll manage. It was nice seeing them theorize about it instead of learning the planet power teleportation off screen. It was also good to get a glance at Usagi's life as she fights her brother to recover her (super cute) pink PSP. However, I feel that the other senshi are not being represented enough. I get that Usagi is the main character, but the others faded into the background almost entirely. If I didn't already know them, they wouldn't be memorable. I miss Makoto's "what a hunk" dreamy look and Rei's fire readings happening before almost every mission. They can't fit everything into such a short summary, but a little hint of something more would be nice.
The girls teleport to the moon, meet Usagi's past mom in fairy form and get some more memories of their past lives. They also pull out a sword, which is cool, but felt as if it just sort of happen, without any build up to it. I'm still not sure why the sword is important, or maybe I forgot, which means it wasn't really memorable, though they still have time to make it so.
I like the touch of Romeo and Juliet, it gave the fashbacks an olden classic feel. Endymion gets stabbed to protect Serenity and Serenity commits suicide in sadness. Stupid, yes, but that's exactly what I expect of classic romantic tragedy, stupid rash behavior that I can't reason, thus it makes the situation feel overly dramatic and far away, hence olden classic. Note that this isn't a critique, I'm expressing my amusement while disagreeing with the characters' judgement, mostly Serenity, who rendered Endymion's sacrifice in vain.
We learn that Nephlite, Malachite, Man-Zoysite and Jedite were Endymion's knights who fell in love with Serenity's friends when they followed her to Earth. Convenient, generic, too fast. This is different from the original where they were simply Beryl's minions and members of the Negaverse, which isn't really talked about in the remake. I do like the twist of the knights who were brainwashed, but it wasn't really developed, and the romance with the inner senshi happens in another life off camera, so it's hard to care. This could have been better developed by having them slowly recover bits of their memories like Jedite seemed to be close to doing with his inexplicable attraction to Rei.
The girls fight the four kings and they seems to be fine, until Venus tries to bring back the past memories, which works for the girls but not the guys. That was a very bad move, she should have allowed them to defeat the guys, stopping them from seriously injuring them, but at least let them put them out of commission. But no, the girls remember their love and refuse to fight against their brainwashed exes, which sucks terribly, c'mon, self defense girls! I prefer the girl power vibe from the original which might be to blame on the 90s, instead of the love drama of the remake, which is to blame (I assume) on the manga.
At least they manage to get their act together and the state of the guys' memories is uncertain or vague enough so that I'm not sure what it was. I did like the twist of Mamoru being brainwashed, which is nothing new, but since we actually got to see more of him and Usagi, it'll actually be interesting to see how she faces him.
It may seem as if waiting to review made me more critical, but it's the episode really. It's not bad and I'm still enjoying the series, but there are many missed opportunities, and regardless of when I wrote this review, the change in pacing can't be ignored. The show is moving faster and it's obvious. As the story of Usagi, it's fine, but when they try to play catch up with the other girls, it feels rushed. Maybe they weren't as far along as they intended to be after 11 episodes. The original also heavily focused on Usagi, but at least it was long enough so that the supporting scenes of the other girls added up to more. I'm still hoping to see an anime version of Sailor V. Usagi is cool and all, but it would be nice to shift the focus to another senshi for a change.
