Forum - View topicEpisode Review: Sailor Moon Crystal
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TuxedoSam
 Posts: 25 Location: USA |
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Whoa, I truly do not understand the majority of comments here. I literally cannot grasp the imaginary gripes that are being thrown around.
I loved the original anime for what it was, it got me into Sailor Moon in the first place, but it had a different tone of a specific niche. I would say it was more juvenile, although the Japanese dub was much more mature than the English dub. Moreover, the story line changes that differed from the manga were really bothersome to me. The fake relationship between Mamoru and Rei was extremely unnecessary and I hated every second of it. I also hated when Mamoru dumped Usagi, but at least he had a good reason. Rei was also an unnecessary bitch, which still affects my perception of her to this day, despite knowing her true personality is nothing like the original anime. The Stars season was also the most strange, boring, and far too different from the manga. (No Sailor Cosmos? No wedding?!) Although, if I had seen Stars as a child, I'm sure I would have loved it far more. I only recently saw it a year or two ago, and I'm 25 now. I grew up with SM and I can definitively say I like the new anime more than the original. It seems as though people need the characters to have constant wacky facial expressions, extreme personalities, and minor side stories of zero relevance to be satisfied, and that's definitely not what makes a good anime to me. I don't need a shy character to be so shy that she always hides behind something and makes over-the-top cutesy expressions. I don't need a sassy character to constantly bicker about absolutely nothing to make the point that she's sassy and a bitch. I don't need a character to constantly talk about her ex-boyfriend to get the point across that she's lonely and desperate. I just don't need extreme expressions, personalities, and minor stories that don't further the plot or add dimension to the story to appreciate and enjoy the characters and plot. I find over-the-top personalities make an anime feel more juvenile, less serious, and less realistic. The original Sailor Moon anime was more of a comedy with serious issues intertwined. Not to mention, the fillers were very repetitive that I feel only my child-self could truly enjoy rewatching it without feeling bored and anxious for some actual story line. I've actually tried numerous times to rewatch SM, but I've quit after only a handful of episodes, every time. In regards to the new anime... I love Usagi because she's humorously naive and clumsy, cute, a justice-activist, pure-hearted, and innocent. I also love how the least likely heroine (Usagi) is the one who will transform and mature the most into the perfect leader who brings out the best in people (which hasn't yet been revealed, but we have already started to see her inspiring transformation in episode five). I love Ami because she's sweet, soft-spoken, intelligent, and driven to be successful. I love Rei because she's strong, determined, psychic, and compassionate. I love Mako because she's kind, creative, protective, and maintains a balance of masculine strength and graceful femininity. I can clearly see all of these traits within the first five episodes of the new anime--without spending twenty episodes expanding on their backgrounds with exaggerated characteristics. I can also distinctively see that Ami, Rei, and Mako all feel a sense of loneliness and an unacceptance...until Usagi unites and befriends them without hesitation, despite hearing false rumors about them. This trait of Usagi, in and of itself, should be a realization and foreshadowing of the pure and loving heart of Usagi. If you can't see that, then you are choosing not to. If you want over-the-top themes, attire, personalities, and excessive accessories and details, there are a shit ton of anime that already cater to those demands. I think Sailor Moon is just the right amount of maturity and child-friendly themes to intrigue SM fans and newbies of all ages. As for the art, I admit that the animation has been poor in many instances. There have been quite a few frames of strange anatomy, especially when it comes to fingers. BUT, I am happily and pleasantly surprised to discover that much of those problems have been fixed in episode five. The art style itself isn't poor, it's just the execution hasn't been consistent. However, I find the art to be beautiful and heaps better than the common art styles we see today in many modern animes. The style is a MASSIVE upgrade for modern anime. Lastly, I have had the fear that I may not enjoy the show if it's too accurate to the manga because it may be too short, and I've already read the manga, will I enjoy seeing the same exact thing in motion? As of right now, my fears have been whisked away. I was wrong, and I'm extremely happy with how episode five turned out. |
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tygerchickchibi
 Posts: 1448 |
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Episode 5 was surely an improvement. Sailor Jupiter yeessss!
Considering they had 3 weeks, I'll excuse the delay. I hope they can keep this up going forward and are able to "fix" the 3 previous ones. |
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SailorTralfamadore
 Posts: 499 Location: Keep Austin Weeb |
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I agree completely with the review. Sailor Moon Crystal still has a lot of problems, but this episode was a huge step, and that was largely due to them zeroing in on Makoto's character and what made her work, and relatable to the fans. This is the first episode I can really see as being engaging to people who are not prior fans of the series.
I was someone who always related to Ami and Rei as a kid, due to their particular more "specialized" conflicts happening to be mine as well. So Makoto never resonated as much with me as she did with other people. (I think little-girl-me also didn't like how boy-crazy she was, which the old dub definitely played up more, too.) But she's a character I come to appreciate more and more as I re-visit Sailor Moon - and experience other versions of the franchise - as an adult. I really liked her in the live-action, for instance. And I think that Crystal did a lot to sell why Makoto is such an important character for so many people. Her arc is one of the more explicitly feminist ones in the series, as it's often used to explore how girls are unfairly boxed-in by society's rigid gender roles, even when it's over something as seemingly-minor as just being tall. |
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Shinraisei
Posts: 18 |
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I see that this hasn't been brought up, but I'll point it out now--
Toei has been outsourcing the animation drawing (原画) for SMC from the beginning (well, save the Moon Pride MV--that was a Toei Animation "all-hands-on-board" production from all reports). So far the studios have been: Studio OnePack and Studio Wombat (1); Studio OnePack (2, and apparently will do 6); NAMU Animation and Studio Wombat (3); NAMU Animation with Toei phils.* (4), and; Ace Company with TAP* (5, and hopefully more.). *TAP (as "T.A.P.") and Toei phils. stand for "Toei Animation Philippines". Likewise, Studio Kagura (かぐら）and Kagura are the same, it's just for some reason sometimes the credits show a full name, voiced initials (so, rather than "TAP" it's written as ティーエイーピ＝) or a sort of shorthand version. Also, the in-between animation （動画）has been by various studios--about 2-3) or the odd-individual animator or two. (This has also included Toei Phils) I just want to point out though that the teaming up of Ace and TAP seems to have been the winning ticket with episode 5. It's outsourced, sure, but at least it's not *all* bad as far as outsourcing is concerned? I just don't want people railing about outsourcing when most companies do do this, save for a few. I think what Toei needs to do is just hire (or select, rather) better studios for this series. Food for thought! 
edit: (bahaha, I need to report myself to the grammar police. Let me just polish up a bit--) EDIT 2: Also, I'm no animator, but I have noticed from episode-to-episode there have been some minor, blink-and-you-miss-it, fixing and re-timing for the henshin sequences. Specifically Mercury's and Moon's. They're small, but they have helped. THEORY: I am almost 150% certain they're going to keep the Shitennou alive until before the final battle where they'll get their memories back but then be unceremoniously killed by Queen Beryl or spoiler[Queen Metalia]. How this will fit into what does happen in the manga leading up to the final battle...we'll see. It could be that spoiler[when Sailor Moon kills herself out of grief of killing Mamoru--now a prince, but duh, mind controlled--the Shitennou try to stop her but she's too grief stricken. Perhaps in an effort to protect them both, they all get killed off. Oh I dunno. I'm genuinely curious to see where they'll go with that because in the manga, only Kunzite survives long enough to realize who he was to the Prince.] Last edited by Shinraisei on Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I'm with SailorTralfamadore when it comes to Minako in PGSM. I'd actually go farther and say it was a massive improvement over the Usagi-lite version we got of her in the anime (though the episode about her pure heart getting stolen was pretty good, I will admit ... but that's the only good thing I remember her doing out of 200 episodes). She's the only member of the team that I really don't like in the original series.
The manga is better, at least when it takes the time to give her development, so I'm hopeful that Crystal will do Minako right this time. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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I actually hadn't read the manga in it's entirety, so I bought the whole thing about a year ago to read it. And I watched what Cartoon Network aired of Sailor Moon in the 90s.
Having said that, while I appreciate that Crystal is trying to stay closer to the manga, to me, the manga is appreciatively darker, but for me, it moves WAY too fast. There's very little time to get to know the characters who aren't the Inner Senshi (and Mamoru). I don't know if that's just a product of the times or what, but I appreciate how the 90s took the time to flesh out the characters more, the spoiler[Outer Senshi] in particular. It definitely made spoiler[Pluto's sacrifice] as well as spoiler[Uranus and Neptune's relationship] much more significant. And the animation quality is particularly bothersome to me, especially given that my worst gripes, the CG transformations, look so dated. Other shows (Kill la Kill, Black Rock Shooter) utilized CG in such a way as to blend it almost seamlessly into a 2D art style, so I am flabbergasted that this level of animation (and stock footage, no less!) made it into the final broadcast. Although the outsourcing seems to shed a lot of light on the issue. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Precure Hearcatch was made in-house by Toei, and that has significantly better transformation sequences. I do hope that the studio that made episode 5 gets more work from now on (hopefully it wasn't just the extra week that made such a difference). |
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supersqueak
Posts: 194 |
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I am not much of a Sailor Moon Crystal fan but this episode made me feel like the series isn't completely hopeless. Episode 5 just gave me the feelz I think it was the best looking and most entertaining episode yet. Jupes is my favorite senshi and it makes me feel a little bad for Ami, Rei and even Usagi that so far she has got the most flattering character design and that her debut episode was the most interesting. Will it get even better from here? Maybe the show just gets better from here? Now that would be a nice thought.
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1747 |
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Thanks for the animation studio information. This explains why I haven't seen any backgrounds/layouts for sale yet on Japanese auction sites. If a large part of the animation is being farmed to the Philippines, it's likely never going to appear for sale as it will likely be destroyed. More and more studios are destroying their artwork. Even PreCure artwork is hard to find despite that being done in house, and what's available are all roughs. |
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rainbowrabbit
 Posts: 95 |
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Every time someone mentions Ikuko Ito, it makes me sad all over again that she isn't involved with Crystal. |
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Danette-Anime-Otaku
Posts: 115 |
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I'm not saying it's a feat, I was just pointing out the difference in the manga. |
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Danette-Anime-Otaku
Posts: 115 |
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TuxedoSam I could not have said it better myself.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Uh, we're getting a little symbol-happy here: 
The problem with the Crystal episode is that in the original 90's series, Usagi first meets Mako when she fights off a group of delinquents (and wins). That's a little clearer explanation of why everyone at school is so afraid of her reputation ("I hear she has superhuman strength" doesn't quite cut it as much as "I heard she got thrown out of her last school for fighting!"), not to mention why she'd be so surprised that Usagi stayed around so long to mooch off her yummy lunch. Here, Mako is basically perfect from the get-go, and rescues Usagi from a speeding truck, and stands up in the end as a holy martyr of Girls' Search for Love, because the Crystal series doesn't want their Symbol of Girls' Independence to appear flawed in any way. But it was in the old 90's Sato series that her "flaws" made her human--She was like Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh, the tall loner-girl with the scary reputation, who turns out to be all embarrassing sentimentality inside. As Usagi jokes, Mako wants to show her "girl" side in cooking, skating, making her own fashion, and looking for another boyfriend just like her old senpai. As it is, the Crystal series seems to be rushing through its agenda, with no time to tell us why any of the manga episodes seem to matter, or, like Sam says, to give the characters any kind of depth beyond just pageanting the essential story arc points. |
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TuxedoSam
Posts: 25 Location: USA |
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I think the harshest critics of SMC are going to be the long-time SM fans. Simply because they already have a pre-manifested expectation of what they want, while SM newbies will be clean-slates.
That is why the original anime was so popular. Most people saw the original SM anime before anything else. They were clean-slates when they watched it, and therefore, had nothing to compare it to. So they could get full enjoyment out of it without expectations. No matter what Toei did with SMC, there was going to be a backlash by pre-existing SM fans because of the pre-manifested expectations. There's literally no way all SM fans were going to be pleased. That said, I think some of you should take the liberty to re-watch the episodes and actually focus on the storyline, the transitions, their personalities and interactions, the OVERALL art, etc. It really is good. I don't think there could have been much done to make it better other than to fix the rare animation mistakes. |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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I've seen three SM's by now--not counting the SNES RPG game and the Sera Myu's--and I've already stated why the original was better: It's got nothing to do with sentimentality. (I was already in the college clubs when the original came out, and I hated the dub.) 1) Junichi Sato - The one director who can understand stylized fantasy, dreamer-optimism, AND lovably stumbling incompetence. 2) Filler episodes: Not only did we have enough "down time" to understand the good characters better, we were also given enough time to understand the bad characters better--We've barely seen less than five minutes of Queen Beryl total in five episodes, and she just doesn't seem like the Uber-Lord of Evil that she was in forty-five episodes of the original...Have they even mentioned her name yet?? 3) The old series just WAS--It wasn't also filtered through twenty years of selective memory as "A stand for Grrl Power!" Oh, we got a little of that rubbed in our faces in that old episode where the three faced off with Jadeite at the airport, but the "We're free and independent!" wasn't CONSTANTLY 24/7 in our faces like sitting through Brave. It was just girls who were friends, and fought Youmas. I know I keep harping back to bad Tim Burton remake movies, but there is a noted factor in movies where the minute a remake--any remake--is announced, a percentage of the audience will immediately leap on the novelty by explaining why the New Version will not only be so much "better", but why the Old Version Just Got It So Wrong. (Whether it did or not.) 
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SailorTralfamadore
Posts: 499 Location: Keep Austin Weeb |
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I hear a lot of Crystal fans saying they think this will be the case, but when you look at what's actually happening, it's not. The people sticking with the series are the people who are already invested in the franchise. We might have criticisms, but we keep watching it because we hope and pray it will get better (which it did this week!) And the people I've seen who love it are also 100% people who were fans of the old anime/manga already. Meanwhile, everyone I know who wasn't already into Sailor Moon, has either dropped Crystal like a hot potato, or they're holding on only because they watch every new anime but they don't have good things to say. Who knows, maybe things will change over time. FMA: Brotherhood was in similar, if less dire, straits when it was first airing, but now you see it's acquired some fans who had never seen the old FMA anime or read the manga, so it's possible SMC could acquire a fandom all its own. But so far, it's appealing only to prior fans, at least among the English-speaking fandom. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it's designed to do, considering how much the marketing played up the fact that it was the 20th anniversary and how much they're skimping on the animation. That's what you do when you know you have a built-in fanbase and don't have to put in much effort to find new ones (for a less extreme example this season, see Black Butler: Book of Circus). Either way, it's frustrating to sum up people's issues with this series as "you just have nostalgia goggles!" Not only because that's clearly not the case with a lot of people (as I said, most people who didn't see the old anime seem really unenthused with Crystal), but because it just looks like a willingness not to engage with the criticisms as they are. It doesn't really matter why people feel that way if the criticisms themselves are valid. Last edited by SailorTralfamadore on Mon Sep 08, 2014 7:29 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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I'm so happy I'm not alone, the consensus on Tumblr is always 'Crystal is awesome solely because it's more like the manga'. TBH Ikuhara, Sato, Enokido & Ikuko Itoh are far more talented than Takeuchi. Takeuchi is still awesome for giving us the concept, but still- the Anime team refined it into something special. 
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