Sailor Moon Crystal: Season III

Episode 37

It's kind of funny how everyone forgets about one half of Sailor Saturn. She's the guardian of death, yes, but also of rebirth, and leaving that out is not acknowledging that she is still, at her root, Hotaru Tomoe. The Outer Senshi have been so worried about her coming into her power and destroying everything that it's a shame that they don't get to really witness what Hotaru does this week, which is essentially fulfill Sailor Moon's role by saving everyone. When Mistress 9 takes the souls of Chibi-Usa and the Inner Senshi, it is Hotaru who quite literally brings them back to life. She says that the power she feels rising up within her, presumably that of her identity as Sailor Saturn, is urging her to save them – does that sound like an awful being whose awakening must be prevented at all costs? The fear of death has blinded the Outer Senshi to the fact that Sailor Saturn in her most basic definition represents the cycle of life, not just its end. She's frightening, yes, but she's also a savior in her way. In some ways she's more of a goddess representation that Sailor Moon herself, something that this episode has a bit much fun with on the visual symbolism front: Hotaru spends the episode in spirit form, garbed in flowing white with an ethereal glow to her, with the last shot of her deliberately calling to mind religious iconography.

Basically what this does is drive home the fact that most of the later characters do Sailor Moon better than Sailor Moon herself. Hotaru embodies the selfless sacrifice this week, and Chibi-Usa comes off as far stronger than her mother in general. As has been said before, this is in line with Naoko Takeuchi's original manga, and we can attribute this to her getting to be a better author as she gets more comfortable with the story and its themes – Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon was her first (and only) long series. Chibi-Usa makes a lot of comments towards the end of the episode about how she hopes she can be as strong as Sailor Moon, but it's fairly plain to see that she already surpasses Usagi as a superheroine in terms of her commitment and her inner strength. It's as if the original character of Usagi isn't so much developing as spinning off into other characters who grow in her place, or at least show the growth she ought to. (Although they all still need Tuxedo Mask to show up and say the equivalent of, “Guys? Big scary monster here. Might want to kill that thing quickly.”) In all fairness, both Chibi-Usa and Hotaru have had much more difficult lives than Usagi, which may have something to do with it – they had to become much stronger as themselves, never mind as their Sailor Guardian alter egos, simply to survive, something far removed from Usagi Tsukino's experience.

Alongside all of this are the usual issues – lots of calling everyone's names unnecessarily (which is a throwback to earlier days of anime; I feel like at least half of Fushigi Yugi consisted of “Miaka!” “Tamahome!”) and the Inner Senshi taking turns speaking to complete a single thought, as if they were some sort of hive mind. The subtitles are a bit better this week, which is very nice, and apart from one weird shot of Tuxedo Mask immediately post-transformation where his forehead looks huge the art seems to be more stable, although the usual bendy leg issues persist. The faces Mistress 9 makes while struggling to rip her way out of Hotaru's body are seriously unsettling, as are the attempts to physically tear into her flesh. That definitely emphasizes the urgency of the situation in a way that previous episodes haven't managed, so there's even some improvement this week. While Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto spend most of the episode forming a barrier to keep Mistress 9 out of the city, that feels like an appropriate use of their powers as she grows ever stronger and pointier.

This could easily have been just another “getting there” episode designed to barely fill the time before the promised awakening of Sailor Saturn next week. Instead it really zeroed in on Hotaru herself and the forgotten “rebirth” portion of her powers, showing that the messages of the past aren't always worth interpreting as strictly as Haruka and her group do. Sailor Moon herself is becoming increasingly irrelevant to this particular storyline, but that's actually just fine. Right now it's Hotaru who matters – and the imminent arrival of Sailor Saturn.

Rating: B-

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal: Season III is currently streaming on Crunchyroll, Viz.com and Hulu.