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I found it a bit of a struggle to get through the first few episodes, but I think it's really picked up since then. My biggest issues with it was more to do with the lack of anything from Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus than it was with animation issues (which many animes suffer from). I would have liked the more episodes dedicated to each arc of the manga (probably would have given us more character development with the other senshi).

Sure Sailor Moon Crystal isn't perfect and there are some areas where it's deviated away from the manga that I wasn't thrilled with, but I'm really glad I've stuck with it. The Black Moon Arc has been particularly well done and I'm looking forward to seeing what season 2 has in store.

dark_tenshi17 wrote:

...I'm looking forward to seeing what season 2 has in store.

No second season has been absolutely confirmed.

dark_tenshi17 wrote:

The Black Moon Arc has been particularly well done.

Which is something you will not hear nowadays from any other series "Yeah, just watch 13 episodes, you will get used to the bad animation and by then the story will be about bearable" Shocked

Nowadays most animes are one cour (13-10 episaodes) and most people used to wait three episodes to decide if they will continue watching, but with so many shows per season out of sheer necessity many have started to give only one trial episode, not thirtheen. Even Maizon Ikkoku (another oldie but goodie) takes off around episode 9(?) (the trip to the beach).

walw6pK4Alo wrote:

dark_tenshi17 wrote:

...I'm looking forward to seeing what season 2 has in store.

No second season has been absolutely confirmed.

More like it was confirmed that the Black Moon Arc was season two. Cool

If they do the "S" season next hopefully they give more episodes for that arc. If it goes 13 episodes for "S" and 13 for "SuperS" there is even going to be less time for character development since screen time needs to be shared with the outer senshi. Who are very important in that arc.

Quote:

The Art is Closer to Naoko Takeuchi's Original Manga [...]The result is that Takeuchi's dramatic use of the whiplash line from the Art Nouveau movement is rendered even more beautiful by actual movement

This would be a good point if the people involved in this show had any idea of how to animate stuff and draw stuff, but since they don't, no matter how beautiful the art, it gets downplayed by all the derpy drawings, off-model faces, crazy anatomy, and still-frame "animation". The last couple of episodes have seen an improvement in the art, but still the overall product is a complete disservice to Naoko's art.

Quote:

Sailor Moon Crystal allows the Sailor Guardians More Than Just Two Attacks Each

This would be great if those attacks were ever worth something, but in the entire course of the series, the senshi have been completely powerless, neither of them has been able to defeat a single enemy aside from faceless minions. They didn't kill the Shitennou like their classic and manga counterparts, Venus didn't get to kill Beryl, and all the Ayakashi sisters were killed by Usagi, and Esmeraude and her minions were killed by Tuxedo Mask. With the exception of their respective introduction episodes, none of their attacks have been of any use, so even if they have a larger myriad of attacks, what are they good for if they never achieve anything? Besides, giving them more variety of attacks doesn't really compensate their absolute lack of individuality or actual personalities, even in the three episodes when it was only Usagi, Mamoru, Chibiusa and Minako, Minako didn't get a single moment to shine or be relevant.

Quote:

Chibi-Usa is Significantly Less Annoying and More Believable in Sailor Moon Crystal

While I didn't watch the classic anime, I definitely agree that ChibiUsa is the best written character of the series, although I'd contest people calling her "a scared child" when she's already 900+ years old and I find that a gigantic plot hole in the series. This is more a gripe with the actual plot (which I take comes straight from the manga) but the whole "The silver crystal gave everyone on Earth immortality" is easily the dumbest fanfictiony forced happy-ever-after I've heard. It's what a 12-year-old would think of "A and B got married and found the secret to be immortal and they lived happily ever after in a world were no one ever died". This is dumb, and it's not a flaw in Crystal itself but in Naoko's story.

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Sailor Moon Crystal Makes Mamoru an Actual Human Character

As I said I didn't watch the classic anime so I can't really make any comparisons, but honestly, the fact that Sailor Moon Crystal is actually The Tuxedo Mask Show is something that grates on me. I can't even count the times Mamoru has saved Usagi in the entirety of Crystal, the times Usagi has just straight given up and stopped fighting and needed Tuxedo Mask to save her sorry behind. And whenever Usagi is doing the saving, literally all she cares about is Mamoru. Her friends were kidnapped by the Black Moon for god knows how long, but she didn't show half the concern for them that she showed about Mamoru disappearing five minutes. I get that this is originally the story of Usagi and that her relationship with Mamoru is one of its most important elements, but Crystal (and maybe the manga?) have worked so hard to push him to the front of the action that he's completely overshadowed the other senshi and Usagi's friendship with them exists in name only.

I was drawn in to read this just by the fact that you're not so darn negative about the series! Great read, and highlights my points perfectly. Also, what makes this series so great is that not only does it stay faithful to Takeuchi's manga, but it also adds elements Takeuchi had originally intended to implement but didn't have time! AKA Shintennou x 4 Senshi! Woot!! Very Happy

Last edited by Sailor Sedna on Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:40 pm; edited 3 times in total

Unfortunately, there's a good amount of stuff I have to disagree with.

The art style doesn't look anything like Naoko's artwork (which is beautiful) to me; in fact looking at the link to this article, I can't help but to laugh at Usagi's face, plus most of the time their faces look blank with non-believeable emotions (though I do feel sad for that shot of Crystal Chibi-Usa Sad

).

Usagi's hair to me looks all messy in Crystal and doesn't look natural, and like I've been saying a good amount of times, the animation in Crystal is just jerky and choppy.

Plus the backgrounds most of the time look monochrome and flatly colored, like Gabriella said for her episode 1-4 review, very little attracts the eye, unlike what I saw with the first anime.

As for people saying whether the first anime had a low budget or not, it doesn't even look like it was a low budget to me (more maybe meager or something), but if it was, it's some of the highest looking low-budget animation for an anime I've seen, if that makes sense...

Second, I really have to agree with what ellephedre said about Chibi-Usa there; and honestly, Chibi-Usa acting like a brat is one reason I like her; and I think she gets too much hate. Mamoru was pretty much the same to me in the manga and anime, but he was a bit more harsher in the anime (and was also voiced by the great Toru Furuya); here though, Mamoru's just a bit creepy to me. He's probably the best looking of the characters in Crystal though to me, animation wise.

About the thing with 90's anime Mamoru unable to transform by his own volition, what do you mean by that?

I think Crystal has just been wasted potential sadly... Crying or Very sad

I actually have dropped after 3 episodes, but have read the manga, (honestly it's a case of what's the point of watching it if it's just a shot by shot adaptation of the manga) and kept up with blogs, and I will watch it fully eventually. I dunno if we'll adapt all the arcs.

Unfortunately so far, I would give Crystal a 1/10.

@CrowLia
I agree with what you're saying; I'd suggest watching the original anime if you've got time, trust me, it's WAY better, it develops all the characters as much as it can, and it doesn't try to make Usagi/Mamoru the end all, be all of Sailor Moon. The Sailor Soldiers in Crystal are the worst Sailor Senshi of all time to be honest. Sadly I think that was a bit of a flaw in the manga too, but Crystal amplified it.

@KaiserNeko

I agree with you mostly too, except for the part with Usagi's voice, she's mostly still good to me, and the old anime didn't look garbage most of the time. And all of the transformations, even with the new pens, were the exact same (and minor point, but I don't like how the ribbons don't wrap around Mercury's hands in her horrible transformation, they're not Precure gloves) but they had the new pens/brooch to fool the viewer into thinking they're different.

Here's a WAY better Sailor Mercury transformation that was FAN MADE (probably a lot of re-tracing and such though) came out at least 5 years before this, and it looks over 9000 (! Laughing

) times better than Mercury's Crystal ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMSYKbXutLE

Naoko actually did these changes? Shocked

Now I'm worried what will happen when Uranus and Neptune come onto the scene...if they do...

I don't even know what to say anymore...the original anime was way better than this, and I'm gonna say (to mostly quote someone), if Toei wants to continue it, they need to restart from scratch and go by the manga (but also include fillers and such to develop the characters). Otherwise, I will only stick to the 90's anime/original manga, and that's it.

One other minor thing (though you will see this below) I never thought Mercury's pose from the original was silly or something, I think it's nice; here Mercury looks like she has to pee or something Laughing

: http://33.media.tumblr.com/b780be3a379e13d871365dada2ed621b/tumblr_mu1zdc3w3U1qd4q8ao1_500.gif

Quote:

but it also adds elements Takeuchi had originally intended to implement but didn't have time! AKA Shintennou x 4 Senshi! Woot!! Very Happy

But that has been easily the worst plot element of the entirety of Crystal, bar-none. The forced romance between the Senshi and the Shitennou didn't add anything to either character or the story, the only thing it did was effectively cancel out both the Senshi and the Shitennou and rob the Senshi of their chance to actually show their strength by making them unable to kill them because "they were in love" or smth. And really, this whole romance thing had zero consequences, literally five minutes after the Shitennou were dead, the Senshi had completely forgotten about them and they haven't remembered them even once since, even though they were supposed to be their fated lovers

Last edited by Lili-Hime on Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:42 pm; edited 2 times in total

Quote:

why have poor Sailor Mercury still pose like she really has to pee after her transformation?

FINALLY someone else points this out!!! Lol seriously what is the deal with anime girls being all pigeon toed?

Do guys find that cute or sexy or something?? Moe shows do this a lot. If I tried standing like this I'd fall over Shocked

The new variety in the attacks would be great... if they actually worked. Half they time they're pretty useless and senshi are on the floor waiting for Tux or Moon to save them Sad

SMC may not be a total disaster, since some people do enjoy it, but I don't think anyone can deny it was a collossal disappointment.. especially considering they hyped it for two years putting out new merch and talking about the show.

Yes, Usagi, and Mamoru do get more emphasis like in the manga with their whole mirakuru lomansu... but they emphasize it so much it hurts the inner senshi (especially Minako, who never even got a proper intro episode like the others did). That's also a negative of straight up adapating the manga. The manga glossed over Venus's entrance because readers could also go to the Sailor V manga if they wanted to know more about her. The original anime added an episode about her life as Sailor V to compensate. SMC just has her show up and blandly go through her plot points.

To make matters worse, the senshi x shittenou pairing was the solution the writers came up with to solve the lack of development for the other senshi. (Interview near the bottom of the page here http://www.themarysue.com/how-sailor-moon-crystal-has-failed-me/

Quote:

"If they (Shittennou)are just wiped out in split seconds, it would be difficult to make the Guardians except for Usagi to stand out "

Funny because the original manga and anime did great making them stand out without their personalities being defined by their relationship with men>.>

I never saw anything wrong with Mercury's ending pose; I actually like it.

@mewpudding101

But to me, that opportunity was wasted and the Shitennou did nothing Crying or Very sad

Just wondering, have you ever heard of Sailor Moon: Another Story? That had an interesting thing with the Senshi/Shitennou, and there's even a PC Engine game that did something interesting with them, here are some screenshots from the game: https://40.media.tumblr.com/0defcc68683813cc6adb64587ea57e6b/tumblr_nf5rllZffJ1qdewlro3_r1_500.png

I loved the first few episodes, now it's hard to come up with anything really nice to say because it's either over written like some bad Anime adaptation of a light novel.

Or the animation looks like a late 90s flash animation or I'm to distracted by the dead fish eyes of the characters. The only thing that salvages for me are the occasional nice touches to the cinematography and the voice acting being almost universally superb.

The only exception to that is Hiroshi Iwasaki as Wiseman and half of that is because they decided to run his voice through some kind of filter. That makes him sound like an autotuned version of John Herbert from Family Guy crossed with one of the english dub voice of one of the aliens from Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight

@animechic420

Um, we're just stating what we think. I think it's because we're all die-hard Sailor Moon fans and we're just so disappointed with it.

Me, I wouldn't have minded because I wasn't thinking it wouldn't look like 20 years ago (animation has changed over time), but the problem for me is that the presentation for Crystal has just been very weak. And it's not just because of the way it looks either; it's the story and the way the characters are. I respect your opinion though.

Yeah, I'm not too fond of that 2 week waiting thing either; and even they screwed it up.

I definitely do agree that Mamoru is at least a bit more useful this time around. This image perfectly sums up the old Tuxedo Mask.

Honestly, I don't think Crystal is all that bad. It really hasn't hooked me like the old one, but with the old Sailor Moon, I saw S first, and then saw the others after that. S I feel is probably the best arc, and R was always pretty slow to me, so it makes sense to me that I'd have a harder time getting in to this one. But, I guess I didn't allow myself to have very high expectations of this, just because it had been several years since I saw the old Sailor Moon, so I realized that my memories of it might be a bit rose colored.

mewpudding101 wrote:

Also, what makes this series so great is that not only does it stay faithful to Takeuchi's manga, but it also adds elements Takeuchi had originally intended to implement but didn't have time! AKA Shintennou x 4 Senshi! Woot!! Very Happy

And that was handled terribly because of it's rushed pacing, let's look back here.

Act 10: They (Mercury, Mars & Jupiter, Venus already knew) remember their love for the Shittenou from the past during their battle.

Act 11: No mention of the Shittenou from them at all, not even a flashback of said past.

Act 12: They fight again, the Shittenou gets healed and gets killed by Metalia (who was also elsewhere at the same time), the girls cry and thanks to Kunzite, forgets everything and leaves to find Usagi & Mamoru. All of this happened within seconds.

I was so glad that this was introduced in 10 but then Acts 11 & 12 ruined the whole thing and that, along with other stupid changes (specifically Moon killing Beryl through her necklace, that was supposed to be Venus stabbing Beryl Mad

), pretty much ruined the Dark Kingdom arc for me at that point.

I know Acts 12 & 13 got many others to drop the show entirely but I stuck around and thankfully the writing did improve for Black Moon (and by improve I mean no major changes that would affect it's plot) and I even enjoy this arc more than R, which was filled with it's own problems (not counting the Doom Tree filler, that was actually decent for what it was).

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Why Sailor Moon Crystal Isn't a Total Disaster