The race is on when Sailor Galaxia’s remaining Sailor
Animamates press the attack in their search for True Star Seeds. After Seiya receives a serious wound
protecting Sailor Moon from harm, things are even more tense now between the
Senshi and the Sailor Starlights. But
signs are becoming clear that the Princess sought after by the Starlights is
close. As the Starlights and Animamates
both close in on her, it’s Usagi making the ultimate sacrifice that could
provide the opening for the Princesses’ return…and an opening for Sailor
Galaxia to make her move.
As much as I hate to still think about it, Sailor Moon
SuperS is still a thing.
By the time we
got to that finale, I feel like nothing had lead to anything and the season
just rushed to its climax after a whole season of fooling around and wasting
time. You’ll find no such tomfoolery here, at least none that’s forced and out
of place.
This penultimate chapter of
Sailor Moon Sailor Stars felt like it was building to something big and boy did
it deliver.
I’m genuinely worried for
the girls heading into the finale battle but before we tackle that in the sure
to be beyond epic Series Finale, lets see how Season Five started to tie up its
loose ends and deliver some heartbreakingly excellent pay off to long running
story arcs…and repeat some dumb character beats in the process.
With 2/3 Starlights being fridged as ice and refusing to
listen to Usagi, the other Senshi decided to give it a try.
Having Ami and Minako be the volunteers to
speak with Taiki and Yaten respectively were really good choices.
Ami has always been Taiki’s intellectual
equal but clearly Ami’s the far wiser given Taiki hesitated to help her fight a
monster because they felt it wasn’t any of their business. As for Minako, she’s
had an actual storyline this season, finally settling on her goal to become an
idol and through her and the support of her friends, she showed Yaten its
possible to still be dedicated to the mission to save the world as well as stay
true to ones dreams.
Seeing Minako act
more mature than usual is scary but very welcome.
And for a moment it looked like Taiki and
Yaten were finally come over to Seiya’s side of seeing how valuable the Inner
Senshi are as allies…
Annnnnnd then Taiki and Yaten decided to threaten a three
year old.
Yep turns out the Incense
Burner Chibi Chibi’s been carrying around is connected to the long lost
Princess Kakyu.
And as we all know,
Taiki and Yaten don’t mess around when it comes to their Princess.
The fact that they were ok with trying to
scare a toddler is unforgivable and honestly, once Kakyu appeared and revealed
she’d been watching the Sailor Senshi from the burner, I’m surprised she didn’t
chew out Taiki and Yaten for being as cruel as the bad guys theyre supposed to
be fighting. Even Seiya had to call out their teammates on their despicable
BS.
Yeah this is definitely a retread of
Uranus and Neptunes cold and heartless approach to their mission.
Again, at least one out of three Starlights
isnt on board with this so that’s a good change from before.
Speaking of Seiya…God my heart weeps for them.
Theyre just such a good match for Usagi.
And yeah, I know that Mamoru is kind of dead
and Usagi and the girls don’t know that.
But hearing Seiya ask Usagi if they weren’t good enough for her is where
it all came to a head.
Usagi loves
Mamoru, for better or worse that’s not gonna change.
But clearly, she has a deep love for Seiya as
much as all of her friends. Usagi will stay true to her love for Mamoru even if
there’s a perfectly fine love interest right there who has been a far better
match.
Still, Seiya showed their
maturity by not only admitting their feelings for Usagi but also being ok with
those feelings not being returned.
My
heart really ached when they kissed Usagi on the cheek and said, “I wish I’d
met you sooner, Bun Head.”
Me too Seiya,
me too.
Between her conflicted feelings for Seiya, Mamoru being
radio silent, and Galaxia’s minions now after her Star Seed, Usagi has been
through the ringer these last few episodes and it all came to a head here. Her
tearful confessions to both Rei and Seiya about Mamoru’s absence were some of
the most emotional moments of the entire series.
Usagi’s been breaking with Mamoru not being
around and it was only a matter of time until she couldn’t hold back her grief.
I really like how Rei was the one to come to
her and plead with Usagi to clear the air with Seiya and their feelings before
Usagi told her Mamoru hadn’t been writing back to her.
This comes after a truly hilarious moment
where Ami gives Usagi a safety bag of supplies for fending off enemies…and one
item is a whistle Rei can hear from across town and come running furiously to
Usagi’s aid.
Think back to when Rei and
Usagi first met and you can bet Rei wouldn’t have been so keen to do this kind
of thing then.
But this is Season Five
and we’re seeing the beautiful payoff of such wonderful character growth
between two best friends.
Princess Kakyu did make her appearance at last, and no
she’s not Chibi Chibi in disguise…raising the question further as to who the
adorable little tyke is.
Her time on the
show was sadly brief as one could predict.
While she was around though she did share information about the galaxy
wide Sailor Wars, which explains why all of the bad guys and their Monsters of
the Week have the title of “Sailor”, even Galaxia. I’m starting to think
Galaxia isnt the main villain of the season but instead this unknown entity
called Chaos.
We learned that it has the
power to corrupt Sailor Senshi from across the cosmos and when Usagi
accidentally purified half of Tin Nyanko, her two sides fought against each
other for control until Galaxia finished her off (btw RIP Sailor Lead Crow, one
of my favorite villainesses ever for being so hot and loving of her best
friend, Sailor Aluminum Siren).
The
concept of the Sailor Wars sounds so cool and I wonder if we’ll see more of
them in flashbacks.
Fitting that this
war might reach its climax on Earth with Sailor Moon and the Senshi standing
against whatever comes to face them.
As Tolkein said in The Return of the King, “The board is
set.
The pieces are moving.
We’ve come to it at last, the great battle of
our time.”
We’re still missing some
important players from this party but I’m sure everyones going to be on call
Next Monday.
The situation has never
been this dire nor has the atmosphere been this foreboding (and this is in a show
where Rei, Ami, Mako and Minako had to hold back an Akira level
explosion).
This IS the final battle
we’re heading into.
THIS is how you set
up a Series Finale.
Now I just need to
hope Usagi and company can stick the landing of this year long journey.
The Series Finale of Sailor Moon Sailor Stars
arrives Monday, and just in time for Christmas too, right here at the Gundam
Anime Corner…buckle up.
No comments:
Post a Comment