Sailor Moon R Part 8 Episode 81-85

With time running out for Crystal Tokyo and her Mother, Chibiusa decides to return to the future and asks Usagi and the others to accompany her.  At long last, the Sailor Senshi gaze upon the ruins of Crystal Tokyo and learn the origins of their conflict with the Black Moon Clan.  Waiting for them are the most powerful warriors of the Black Moon Clan, including their leader, Prince Demande, who has his eyes set on Usagi.  But his most trusted advisor, the Wiseman, has other plans, plans that involve corrupting Chibiusa into becoming the most terrifying adversary Usagi and the others have ever faced.  The battle for the future begins now.

For the bulk of this Season, it’s been hard to ignore the plethora of questions the time travel angle has brought forth and I have been wondering if any of those questions would even attempted to be answers.  Thankfully, Sailor Moon R delivered in it’s penultimate chapter as the Senshi headed into the future to confront the Black Moon Clan head on.  This resulted in more great character work and some great action scenes and, more importantly, finally some freaking answers.  It wasn’t perfect though as I have some issues about a characters total makeover and the less than compelling motivations behind one of the main villains.  Let’s get to it.
 
We spent the bulk of this set in the 30^th Century and Crystal Tokyo looks even worse than anything we’ve seen so far.  The place looks like its been bombed all the way back to the stone age and only the central palace where Neo Queen Serenity sleeps is still standing, thanks to the barrier provided by the Sailor Guardians of the future.  The Black Moon Clan’s origins were delved out in full and this is actually their second attempt to attack planet Earth, the first one was repulsed by Serenity and King Endymion.  Part of the reason the second times been more successful has been because the bad guys got super charged on the hidden “Tenth Planet” in the Solar System, Nemesis.  But there’s one other reason and it coincided with the long awaited answer to one of my most burning questions about this whole ordeal: Where the heck is the Silver Crystal in the future? 
 
The answer to that hit as soon as I saw a particular look on Chibiusa’s face and put two and two together.  The poor kid went through a lot in this set.  Before the future trip, Chibiusa showed great bravery deciding to stay in her rage filled school to free her classmates and friends from a Black Moon Clan spell.  And she even aided the Senshi in destroying an enemy on the way to the future as well.  Kid’s got guts but even she has her own demons.  And the biggest of those is the reveal that she took the future Silver Crystal to be more like her Mom, only for the Crystal to suddenly vanish and leave Crystal Tokyo vulnerable to the Black Moon Clan’s attack.  Yikes, that is heavy and its easy to believe why Chibiusa was acting out so early in her first appearances.  That’s a pretty hefty burden for a five year old to bear, no wonder she’d try to repress it.  Sadly, that truth got brought to the surface and was the perfect ingredient for the Wiseman to corrupt Chibiusa and make her Dark Lady.
 
I have mixed feelings about Dark Lady.  I did like the build up to her, with a much more tolerable cackle (compared to Esmeraude’s) in the darkness teasing her arrival, it was chilling.  And she is a nice close to the end Boss for Usagi and the Senshi to contend with.  The problem is, the Wiseman is kind of perverse in a way, aging Chibiusa into a Goddess level grown up with a nice dress…you cant hide the fact that he’s still making a five year old do his dirty work.  To use another example, in the DCEU film Shazam, all of Billy Batson’s family are able to change into grown ups via the Shazam magic.  This includes Darla, the youngest of the group by a long shot, whose grown up version is played by Megan Good.  Megan Good is a talented and seriously hot actress and she looks good as a superheroine…but its wrong to find her attractive when it’s the mind of a kid inhabiting an adults body.  So yeah, the Wiseman’s kind of a sick pervert doing this to a kid.  I’d argue he’s even worse than Demande, who is so obsessed with making Neo Queen Serenity his bride he even abducts Usagi because of this obsession, lowering him from potential final boss to flat out creep who’s only motivation is because he got spurned by the past and future version of the same girl…lame.
 
Right, answers.  Lots and lots of answers were given to questions I’ve had all season long.  Why are Usagi and the Senshi still around in the future?...ok that one hasn’t been totally answered but allegedly some calamity put the world into a deep sleep and eventually Usagi woke up and restored it with the Silver Crystal, creating Crystal Tokyo sometime later.  She and Mamoru rule it was Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion and Chibiusa aka Small Lady, is in fact their daughter…which should surprise no one but I did laugh when Usagi and Mamoru realized that they did eventually move to third base at some point.  King Endymion (who hung out with the Senshi via a hologram) also told Mamoru he was sending him those apocalyptic dreams and warnings in order to test Mamoru’s love for Usagi.  Well in that regard he freaking failed because he spent most of the season trying to steer clear of Usagi.  Also, Future Mamoru never bothered to tell his daughter her mom was Sailor Moon once upon a time?  Guess what I’m getting at is, 20^th Century or 30^th Century, Mamoru is always a giant douche.  Actually the only question that didn’t get a proper answer is what the heck the “Calamity” was that put the world to sleep.  Maybe we’ll learn that in the Season Finale but for now, even Sailor Pluto said that’s enough answers for now.  Saving the worlds gotta come first.
 
Odds and ends time.  Sailor Pluto made a full in person appearance and even though it was brief, I cant wait to see more of her.  She’s even more gorgeous in person and has a very mature gentleness to her with how she speaks with the Senshi and treats Chibiusa (though she does need to do something about all the fog cause she totally attacked Usagi for a second before Chibiusa stepped in).  Also, she’s been guarding the Door to Space and Time for a long while, that’s such a sad position to have and it’s a story I’d like to know more about.  Esmeraude met her end this set as the Wiseman turned her into a freaking Dragon and set her upon the Senshi.  It kind of reminded me of the finale of Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent changed into one to fight Prince Phillip…ohhhhhhhh…ok ignoring that direct inspiration, it wasn’t as pretty as that Disney classic but the Senshi still got to fight a Dragon and that was awesome.  Meanwhile, Sapphir is onto the Wiseman.  He isn’t sure what the endgame is but he knows Wiseman couldn’t care less about Demande or himself.  What will Sapphir do in the end to help his brother see the truth?  Lastly, I’ll admit, I get that Chibiusa was in a bad place when she remembered exactly what she did to cause this entire catastrophe but maybe she went over to the Wiseman too easily?  Or how about staying in the castle like Dad said?  Ugh, ngl I know I started her story not liking her but Chibiusa’s grown so much and become a good character it’s hard to fault her for such a simple lapse in judgement.
 
Side Note: this entire season I cannot take the Black Moon Clan seriously when they call Chibiusa “The Rabbit.”  Every time they say they need to find, hunt down or capture, the Rabbit, it sounds like theyre about to make a Monty Python joke, like they need to after the Killer Rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Actually, how hilarious would it be if Chibiusa went berserk and bit off some poor monsters head that tried to come after her…pretty violent but still, Black Moon guys, come up with a less silly nickname, it makes you guys sound less threatening when you cant capture a five year old named after an adorable little bunny.
 
Well, the stage is set for a brawl spanning two time periods, definitely a step up from facing a wicked Queen at the arctic.  Where to things stand: Chibiusa’s been turned into a grown up weapon of mass destruction; the Senshi are back on their home turf; Demande wants Usagi no matter what and the Wiseman is really pulling all the strings for reasons unknown.  We’re down to our last few foes and the stakes are higher than ever before.  You’ve got two worlds to save Usagi…and you know, save your daughter too.  You’ve got this girl and I’ll be covering everything on Monday when we finally hit the Season Finale of Sailor Moon R, right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.