Luna and Artemis have successfully revived the memories
of Usagi, Ami, Rei, Makoto and Minako.
The fight is on to stop Ail and Ann from gathering the energy of
everyone in the city to fuel the rejuvenation of their Makai Tree. But their Cardian Monsters are far more
powerful than anything the Senshi have faced before. Newfound strength, courage and a host of new
powers will be needed to take down these fearsome foes. And who is this dashing new all, the
Moonlight Knight, and why does he remind Usagi so much of Tuxedo Mask?
In my last review, I said the filler arc that’s opening
Sailor Moon R was probably going to go on longer than needed and man did it
show in this set.
While some episodes
tried to do something different, the general formula was always the same.
It’s strange living in a day and age when
Filler Arcs are becoming less and less frequent, with shows gaining enough
momentum and good will to risk taking some time off the let the Manga catch up
so it can be adapted more faithfully into Anime.
Season One of Sailor Moon had its fair share
of Filler Episodes but an entire Arc is another thing entirely.
The Hell Tree Arc isn’t anything special
right now, especially with a pair of boring villains and the general feeling of
this whole arc being a placeholder til the main story can continue…so yeah a
Filler Arc.
So let me break down the outline of each episode: one of
the Senshi gets drawn into a different matter (I’ll give these episodes that
much), Ail and An use up all their Hell Tree energy and have to get more, they
send in a Cardian to steal everyones energy, the Senshi transform and get their
butts kicked pretty easily, one of the Senshi unlocks a new power and Sailor
Moon gets to finish them off after each new attack has softened up the Monster
for her, rinse and repeat.
Oh and the
Moonlight Knight shows up to save the Senshi with a White Rose and dispense
some poetry that inspires the Senshi to unlock their latest special attacks.
Yeah I know I said I thought he looked cooler
than Mamoru’s other masked alter ego (Yes Moonlight Knight is Mamoru, how
exactly this is hasn’t been revealed yet but its way too obvious).
But at least Tuxedo Mask actually got in on
the action from time to time.
Moonlight
Knight has had maybe one good fight since he first appeared but now just serves
exclusively as moral support for Sailor Moon and the others, that’s it.
You’d think for an Arc dragging its feet that
it could dedicate actual time to the girls trying to figure out who he is…wait
that would actually be smart and this Arc is anything but.
I think I’m enough episodes in to official say that Ail
and An are far less memorable than Queen Beryl and the Dark Kingdom.
Their plans are always the same, targets
might be different but you could basically take all their dialogue and copy and
paste it from episode to episode, including the bits where they bicker over
everyone falling in love with them because they had to infiltrate Usagi’s
school as siblings and not as two different people.
Plus, these two are doing a pretty terrible
job of keeping their precious tree alive when it can barely hold a charge from
episode to episode.
The thing is, I know
at some point Sailor Moon R is going to try and make us care for these two
baddies.
But when they attack school
children and freaking infants in two back to back episodes…no, Ail and An
deserve zero sympathy and deserve the rightful smackdown that will come to them
when the series feels its caught up to the Manga and is ready for the Black
Moon Clan to step in and hopefully provide a set of more thrilling antagonists
for Usagi and company to face.
Was there anything to like in this sophomore set of
episodes for Season Two?
Yeah, it wasn’t
a total waste of time, just mostly.
It
was good to see Naru and Umino back for a couple of episodes.
It looks like theyre officially a couple and
are as cute together as you’d expect.
It’s sad that the show seems to favor pushing them off to the side
without checking back in with them (remember when Naru was Usagi’s best
friend?
Neither does Sailor Moon
R).
While I was mad that Usagi and
Mamoru hijacked a potential Ami centric episode, the infant they had to look
after was pretty cute.
We even got a
sort of “Look Who’s Talking” thing going as we could hear little Minami’s
thoughts as Usagi and Mamoru fumbled to take care of him.
Good on the little for knowing An was bad
news and embarrassing the crap out of her in front of Mamoru.
I’m always up for Rei centered episodes too
and the School Festival Episode was a good one for her.
Not only did it show how much of a hard
worker Rei is, she’s got a great singing voice too.
This is a definite highlight of the new
English Dub as Cristina Vee got to show off her beautiful vocal talents during
Rei’s musical numbers.
And while Usagi
is still a loveable scatter brained klutz, I did like the subplot where she
couldn’t access her powers because she was still torn between being Sailor Moon
and wanting a normal life.
It reminded
me of a similar situation Peter Parker found himself in Spider Man 2.
Usagi had to reconcile this inner conflict in
order to rejuvenate her powers and get a nice new transformation sequence.
It’s a shame moments of personal reflection
like this seemed minimal in a set of episodes that felt like they were on
endless repeat.
These episodes weren’t without their bright spots but
overall, Sailor Moon R needs to wrap up the Makai Tree Arc pronto because even
if it exists to kill time, it’s also wasting time by being nothing really
special.
Any attempts to build on
character growth from Season One are squandered.
The mysteries of the new characters don’t
matter because they aren’t memorable.
And, as I said, this Arc is really outstaying its welcome.
At most it could have been 5-6 episodes but
we’re what, 10 episodes in and it feels stretched pretty thin.
Sigh, I think next time we return to Sailor
Moon R, we’ll be putting the Makai Tree to rest and finally getting to the
proper sequel to Season One of Sailor Moon…I really hope so.
See you Monday for more Sailor Moon R, right
here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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