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animechic420 wrote:

I have absolutely no problem with SMC, but most of you people are so quick to bash it because it doesn't look like an anime from 20 years ago.

That's because SMC - which airs just twice a month and is made in 2014/15 - often looks worse than the first series. The transformations have cringe-inducing CGI, and then there's the god-awful animation in the rest of the show itself:

Whoever animated that should have been fired. And the animation supervisor for that episode should have been fired too.

In fact, just fire the whole staff - director and all - and bring in people who actually give a damn about the franchise. Because this current mob obviously don't.

The only legitimate complaint about this is the biweekly release. There's no reason for it other than to milk it to death, and it's really obvious that that's what they're trying to do.

I HATE fillers, so taking a look at the episode summaries for the original anime on Wikipedia made me cringe. They sound awful. And here I though the SC! fillers were bad... no, SM fillers take the cake. It makes me sad when magical girl manga get unfaithful anime adaptions. They have such good themes but they get ruined by the anime studio because all they care about is milking it to death and ruining them with fillers.

I'm not a fan of the series (the manga just didn't do it for me, I didn't understand the hype) but I'll give Crystal credit for sticking to the manga. Not a lot of anime know how to do that nowadays, the only recent example I can think of is Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. So I'm happy for the fans that are actually grateful for the new, faithful to the manga adaption. It even has better art! Honestly, what more could you ask for? Not a lot of manga get a second chance like this, and after those atrocious sounding fillers the fans deserved a better adaption.

And to those whining, you sound like a child.

mangamuscle wrote:

We can dismiss all of the above, but the simple truth is that SMC is a disaster because it has abysmal ratings, even after several TV stations started to broadcast (using the blu ray version, something unheard afaik) it in japan. Remember this series is a big 24 minutes commercial for sailor moon merchandise, if nobody sees it then it has outlived its usefulness.

Every time there's an unnecessary movie remake--whether Total Recall, or Tron Legacy, or that Yellow Submarine remake Robert Zemeckis wanted to do before Disney shut down his studio--there's a vocal minority of fans saying "Who cares, the remake will last five minutes, but this means they'll finally put the original on disk to cash in! C'mon, think of the big picture, we can take one for the team!"

When Crystal first came out, we weren't sure that Naoko was going to allow the original series back on disk again in the US, but...it seems she has. And not too badly either.
Okay, we've taken one for the the team, and it worked out nicely; mission accomplished. Bye-bye, Crystal.

This is more of a comparison between the old anime the new anime and the manga. If you don't like the old anime or the manga and you think the new anime is crap that is to be expected and not what this article is about. If you haven't seen the old series and don't like the new series then that's fine too, but not what this article is about. The points were basically showing how it's improved from the older series and how it's stuck closer to the manga. I saw many people say the new series is boring and I would assume they would find the manga to be boring as well so that doesn't contradict this article.

animechic420 wrote:

Sigh, you people... Forever complaining about the animation. The original being superior. The living up to the manga's story line. And whatever the hell else.

I have absolutely no problem with SMC, but most of you people are so quick to bash it because it doesn't look like an anime from 20 years ago.

You say that, but said folks here could give you very detailed lists about why Crystal isn't doing the Sailor Moon name any favors. While I don't necessarily agree with everything they've pointed out, they do make some fair criticisms. I mean, I'm only now seeing why imitating the original manga so closely in art style becomes an issue with Crystal.

Last edited by residentgrigo on Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:30 pm; edited 1 time in total

The now low viewership on piracy and legal sites is highly fascination to me as Crystal is one of the few anime that get a lot of coverege on non-anime sites. Crystal is further twice the anime the original show was (i saw the whole ride in the 90s) and a respectable adaption with room to grow over the next 2-ish years. Toei could have put more money into it but the same can be said about most tv format anime. Further reasons to the ones Rebecca gave would be a manga accurate Usagi / Rei or the lack of filler. 18 Vol. = 200 eps. Of course!

I also love how positive Crystal is treated on non-anime geek sites (IGN, ComicsAlliance and...) and how anime only sites treat it as a war crime. Rolling Eyes

The 90s show is also widely debated amongst the fandom so look forward to another equal discussion when the next re-adaptation comes or the next live-action show as the brand need to be keep alive.

The girls my library like it (aka the target demographic) and a "decent" from me it is. The manga is a "good" and the 90 show is a "week" due to shenanigans down the line with Hearts in Ice being the one truly good part about it besides the first opening.

I guess I'm a little crazy because I actually thought the music would be one of the main reasons Crystal isn't that bad. The transformation music is actually kind of inspiring and the opening for the show is really fun. If only the rest of the show had the same energy as the opening credits...

Other than that, characterization really is the main flaw for Crystal. Writing could have withstood the often unfortunate animation, but Usagi has been turned from the weird yet endearing airhead into the boring airhead.

Also, I think that the show could have benefited from being longer. I am not saying that it should be a hundred episodes per season (which is one of the flaws of the original) but each arc for the manga should be at least twenty-four episodes to really get everything in there smoothly.

But yeah, as a Sailor Moon fan I am still watching this show so what can I say...

Reading the comments on this article actually really irritated me. However, I love the manga.... It's a better story, it lacks "filler", and I LOVE the artwork. I enjoy Sailor Moon Crystal very much and feel like it is an amazing take on the Manga.

And before anyone bites my head off, I still have a lot of love for the original Anime. Sailor Moon is what got me interested in Anime and Manga in general.

As the author stated, nothing is perfect. And in my opinion people will always find reasons to dislike and speak ill of things.

However, for me.... I couldn't be happier with Sailor Moon Crystal and wish that they would bring all of the Manga Story Arcs to life.

Never been a fan of the manga, so naturally I dislike Crystal almost automatically.

Some points I dislike from the manga that Crystal followed faithfully by far:
- Usagi-centric. Well, I know she was the titular character, but most of the time the manga portrayed her as the strongest savior while her guardians were helpless without her. Hence all vows about protecting their princess were rendered as useless.

- Mamoru constantly kidnapped and brainwashed. I know this was supposed to be girls show, but come on! Both anime versions also followed these plots because it seemed they were unalterable.

- Everytime new characters appeared, they overshadowed the old ones (except Usagi and Mamoru, and later, Chibiusa). Example: Chibiusa, outer senshi, and a whole bunch from the last arc. Heck, I actually lost count on how many characters appeared on Sailor Star arc, and most of them were really useless.

- Incestuous Chibiusa-Mamoru relationship. I'm not Shonen Jump Weekly or anything, but at least they could tone it down.

Also, what's the point in having various attacks when in the end they were ineffective and thus made the sailor guardians except Moon look so weak.

Rebecca Silverman wrote:

Sailor Moon Crystal may not be the show everyone was hoping for or wanted, but it also isn't the total disaster that it's reputed to be.

Faint praise, indeed, which seems to only emphasize the negativity that that many users here hold against it. I've never seen Sailor Moon / Sailor Moon Crystal, so perhaps what I'm going to suggest merely demonstrates my ignorance of the series; but here goes nothing: Perhaps Sailor Moon is best regarded as a good representation of its time period, and perhaps it is impossible to update it without excessively changing those attributes that made it so popular back in the day.

My $0.02

Last edited by mangamuscle on Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:43 pm; edited 1 time in total

Aquamine-Amarine wrote:

The only legitimate complaint about this is the biweekly release.

dtm42 wrote:

In fact, just fire the whole staff - director and all - and bring in people who actually give a damn about the franchise. Because this current mob obviously don't.

I think that is unfair. No one in the anime industry does bad animation on purpose and the people here have done great work in other series. The simple truth is that the poor animation and biweekly schedule is because this series has little to no budget, otherwise this would have precure levels of animation once a week.

Which is the reason this should have never been animated, if this was not going to have the same budget/dedicated staff the original series had, this was a disaster in the making from day 1.

nobahn wrote:

Perhaps insert childhood series is best regarded as a good representation of its time period, and perhaps it is impossible to update it without excessively changing those attributes that made it so popular back in the day.

You heard it people, there is no use making modern adaptations for X-Men, Transformers, GI-Joe, star trek, maziner z, godzilla, etc.

Interesting perspective, I think MOST fans tried arguing originally that they loved the manga and they WANTED Crystal to be the animation they all hoped for, and obviously it is not. Unfortunately, I think the argument can be succinctly summed up as:

(Pro)
Sailor Moon Crystal is not bad because it is more true to Takeuchi's vision, thematically, plotwise, characters, designs, etc. If you wanted to see the manga animated, that's what you should look to Crystal for.

unfortunately...

(Con)
Sailor Moon Crystal is TECHNICALLY lazy and was either given to a third tier (or worse) team at Toei who were not up to task OR a team that clearly did not care what they were putting out. The quality control/on-model work is terrible with characters fluctuating wildly, the direction (especially the pacing) is awful and both drags on minutae AND flies past crucial elements so that it's nearly impossible to really connect with the story and characters. And on top of these and OTHER technical issues, the biweekly release is HORRIBLE to maintaining interest in a franchise.

Or, to sum up:
Good: More faithful animation of the manga
Bad: All the real world stuff involved in making it happen

It's like if someone said "I'm going to take (whatever you think is) the BEST Superman story ever and make a movie out of it", and then that person makes it a silent movie where all camera shots are shot at extreme close-up, the color palette is shifted (unintentionally) into the red side of the scale, and the 2 hr movie was released as a trilogy of 40 min movies. The story, casting and costuming might all be perfect, but you're still gonna wonder how this made it to the theater like this and what idiot was in charge of the project.

belvadeer wrote:

animechic420 wrote:

Sigh, you people... Forever complaining about the animation. The original being superior. The living up to the manga's story line. And whatever the hell else.

I have absolutely no problem with SMC, but most of you people are so quick to bash it because it doesn't look like an anime from 20 years ago.

You say that, but said folks here could give you very detailed lists about why Crystal isn't doing the Sailor Moon name any favors. While I don't necessarily agree with everything they've pointed out, they do make some fair criticisms. I mean, I'm only now seeing why imitating the original manga so closely in art style becomes an issue with Crystal.

.................those {Let's try to remain civil here, folks. ~nobahn} that want SMC to not be Sailor Moon.

I think it would've been a little better if wasn't a biweekly series. Even Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold, which is much better on every department is hard to follow because of that, but Crystal is much worse, because of it's problems.

animechic420 wrote:

Sigh, you people... Forever complaining about the animation. The original being superior. The living up to the manga's story line. And whatever the hell else.

I have absolutely no problem with SMC, but most of you people are so quick to bash it because it doesn't look like an anime from 20 years ago.

belvadeer wrote:

You say that, but said folks here could give you very detailed lists about why Crystal isn't doing the Sailor Moon name any favors. While I don't necessarily agree with everything they've pointed out, they do make some fair criticisms. I mean, I'm only now seeing why imitating the original manga so closely in art style becomes an issue with Crystal.

animechic420 wrote:

.................those {Let's try to remain civil here, folks. ~nobahn} that want SMC to not be Sailor Moon.

{Fixed your inline quotes for you. ~nobahn}

I'm sorry, but those designs are incredibly difficult to make look appropriate off paper and in motion. They look alien and ugly in Crystal.

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