Forum - View topicREVIEW: Sailor Moon S: The Movie
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 4817 |
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I enjoy the S movie but I think the manga is the better story. The manga goes into more detail about Himeko and Kakeru's childhood and relationship. There's also an interesting subplot about how Himeko faces workplace discrimination because of her gender that I'm disappointed the anime cuts out. I also think the fight scenes are generally more interesting in the manga. As an example, while Chibi Moon doesn't have an attack in the movie, she and Tuxedo Mask use a Pink Sugar Heart Attack combo move in the manga. The Outers are also more involved where the manga opens up with the Outers throwing a birthday party. I think Luna's relationship with Kakeru is the main highlight of the movie as I think they do a good job of showing the emotional pain Luna goes through. And of course Tuxedo Mask as Santa Claus is fantastic. The animation is also beautiful and I think it looks much more refined than the R movie, which while my favorite of the three movies, I don't think the animation has aged that well. The S movie was the first bit of subtitled Sailor Moon I ever owned as a kid. I remember getting the VHS tape one year for Christmas and I used to watch it to death all the time because the movies were the only subtitled Sailor Moon that was available then. I never owned the old Pioneer DVD, so I'm really excited for the Viz release and I can't wait to finally own it on DVD, even if I like the manga better.
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Xavon
Posts: 367 Location: Minnesota |
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Have just watched a double feature of this and the R movie in a movie theater, one of the biggest stopping points for me is how cheesy the transformation music is, and the animations for Sailor Moon's attacks are.
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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Yeah, I'm not sure how to properly articulate it, but where R felt like a theatrical release, S always felt like a direct-to-TV movie for me. I still have a real soft spot for S's movie, but I think adapting it from a side-story limits its dramatic impact in a way the other movies didn't really have to deal with. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4828 |
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For real? We see this every time the show decides to get serious. Usagi constantly puts her life on the line to save other people without a second thought! She even cries when some of the villains die, ffs! |
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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You do understand that 1) this is a kids' series; we put WAY too much of our older sensibilities into our interpretations of the series and we forget this series was aimed at preteen girls; of course, Japanese sensibilities are very different from the West and the show had older fans, too. 2) Toei spent very little money making this series. The movies were a LITTLE bit better done than the TV series but not by much! 20 years later, Sailor Moon Crystal doesn't have dramatically better production values, either! Heck, the Sailor Moon attraction at Universal Studios (Japan, Tokyo?) doesn't look that fantastic, either, but the kids enjoy it for what it is. Younger kids don't have the expectations you or I do and the storylines and animation kind of reflect that... Perhaps that simplicity is part of the reason why this series has lasted like it has. It's got enough quality to keep people's interest but it didn't innovate much of anything, either. It was just stylistically for its time and stood out from other series. They've done arguably better magical girl series since but one established its own standard just like Evangelion did for dystopic science fiction, too. |
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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Then perhaps the Magical Girl genre just isn't for you?
Yeah, it's Usagi's defining characteristic that we witnessed over and over from saving Luna from a bunch of kids in the very first episode that kicks starts everything to reaching out to countless enemies in hopes of understanding all throughout R to screaming her heart out and throwing herself over and over against a Lovecraftian Horror all to save Sailor Saturn from sacrificing herself in the finale of S and beyond. Heck, The R and SuperS movies that you are watched before hand already highlighted it to the heavens "Sailor Moon is everyone's mother." Ask for the S movie itself.... Eh, I don't care for it. It's not really bad but it's my least favorite piece of the 90s anime. Kakeru and Himeko as characters aren't really that compelling as emotional hooks. Princess Snow Kaguya is a boring villain and waste of a good idea that this could be the very same threat that caused the ice age that created Crystal Tokyo and the movie just doesn't tie thematically with it's respective season like the other two do. Still it nice to get some focus again on Luna who was pushed out of the spotlight after season 1 and to see the Inners and Outers battle together without any philosophical disagreements and Usagi's speeches about love and the preciousness of life while fighting Kaguya are quite moving. So again, it's least above anything from SM Crystal. Last edited by Zeino on Sat May 18, 2019 11:40 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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1dbad
 Posts: 709 Location: Texas |
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I'm really interested to see how the dub of this movie turned out. The DiC dub casting an older woman as Luna really worked against them here, and I'm sure Michelle Ruff sounds a lot more age appropriate in comparison.
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1746 |
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You can’t compare animation quality from 1994 to now, or even something from a decade ago in 2008. The Sailor Moon S movie was a cel based production. Making an error in a cel based series was more costly. You couldn’t just erase that frame or go into the saved file and make whatever changes needed to be made like you can now. You either had to get a new layer of acetate and paint in the color changes, or you needed to trash the original cel and remake the cel with the necessary corrections. Paint also has to dry. It took a lot longer to make a series than it does now. So keep all of those things in mind before you judge the movie based on its animation. Those bank sequences were largely designed to save the animators some time each episode. Also, they were cool AF and who didn’t look forward to seeing their favorite character’s full transformation sequence? Can’t think of too many magical girl series aimed primarily at elementary school age girls where the attacks didn’t look cheesy, even in more modern day series. A lot of the PreCure attacks look pretty stupid as well. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4376 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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uhhhh you really cant blame DIC for that! there was rarely any info on the series considering that in the 90's, the only thing that ever was mention about anime was uber violent and "not for kids" series like fist of the north star, guyver , mad bull 34 and others. not to mention that the English adaptation of the manga was kinda half assed at best. especially the tokyopop version which classified those cats excluding diana of course as much older than the other guardians so you really cant blame DIC for using an older British VA to voice her. and to be frank , there are some who think that even those the new dub is light years superior to the DIC version they should have kept luna's VA cause she sounds a lot more maturer. don't get me wrong, ruff is fine, but she makes luna sound a little too young (hell even younger than the guardians) for some people! |
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Sailor Sedna
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Weakest of the three Sailor Moon films to me, what I said in the SuperS review forum were my thoughts, otherwise I'd be repeating myself like a broken record.
@Xavon What GeorgeC, Cutiebunny and Zeino said (though I think the age range of Sailor Moon is debatable in itself, as whilst it was for kids in Japan, the uncut original version got a 13+ rating in the US, probably because of different TV standards, and TV PG is kinda the same as PG-13, both meaning "Parents Strongly Cautioned". But it's a show all ages can enjoy I say). Animation-wise though, though it is low budget it still looked like they put some effort to make it pleasing/good looking (obviously they weren't sweating bullets to make sure it looked Studio Ghibli good but you know what I mean)...especially the movies. |
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