Sailor Moon Crystal Part 7 Episodes 27-30

A premonition of doom.  An illustrious new academy.  Students becoming Monsters.  A new series of strange events pull Usagi Tsukino and her friends back into battle once again.  But a new villainous group known as the Death Busters aren’t the only new faces in town.  Two beautiful new students, Haruka and Michiru, appear and start making serious waves.  Little do Usagi and the others know that these new IT girls are also a pair of mysterious new Sailor Senshi: Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune.  Can they be trusted or do these two rogue Senshi plan to fight the enemy their own way?

When it comes to TV Shows of any kind (Animated, Live Action or otherwise), growing pains can be expected.  Some shows hit the ground running and knock it out of the park first try.  Others either get off to a slow start or realize they have no idea what theyre doing and have to just carry on with what they have.  The best example of this is Star Trek: The Next Generation.  While the first two seasons aren’t without classics, they’re generally regarded as a poor beginning for the legendary scifi series.  Which brings us to Sailor Moon Crystal Season Three.  Kind of like with Star Trek TNG, the First Season was God Awful while the Second Season did show glimpses of the potential a new Sailor Moon series could offer.  As I said before last time, all bets are off at this point.  Which is why it’s a nice and welcome surprise to see some major improvements in the Season Premiere, even if I do feel they might be too little, too late to save Crystal overall.
 
From the get go, the changes to Crystal’s approach to Sailor Moon are evident.  The humor is returned in full with tons of the loveable sibling bickering between Usagi and Chibiusa and even a bit of Rei chiding Usagi for no reason.  The animation is vastly improved too.  Gone completely are the nightmare inducing transformation sequences and the character designs feel like a marriage between the classic 90s style and the questionable models in the first two Seasons.  Everyone just looks better and are moving around much more naturally rather than as stiff as they were before.  There’s also greater emphasis on letting the rest of the Sailor Senshi handle the action instead of either sitting it out altogether or having Usagi do all of the work.  Heck Jupiter and Venus tag team take down a Deamon in their first encounter with one and Mars and Mercury are handling the enemy far more effectively too.  Sure Usagi still gets in the finishing blow but its good to see Crystal is treating battles like a true team effort.
 
But regardless of much needed improvements, I know the question on everyones mind: How does Crystal handle the intro of Haruka and Michiru?  The answer is kind of a mixed bag.  They still give off that beautiful energy that makes them such a power couple in the genre and their deadly serious manner still persists with plenty of stern warnings given to the Inner Senshi.  But this isnt a complete retread of their Sailor Moon S intro either.  Haruka and Michiru might be joined at the hip (or in a lot of loving and teasing embraces) but they both have very flirtatious scenes with Usagi and Mamoru respectively.  The Michiru/Mamoru scenes go nowhere (figures, it’s Mamoru after all), but the Haruka/Usagi scenes, hooo boy.  Again, having not read the Manga, I’m not sure if this is how Sailor Uranus was meant to be presented all along but it’s both different from the 90s Anime and yet…kind of familiar.  I’ll go into greater detail in a second but I’ll just say that the girls do make a mysterious impression, even if they don’t do a lot as Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune in these first few episodes until the very end when they take out Mimette.
 
Ok, let’s talk about Haruka.  When I looked at Sailor Moon S last year, she was definitely someone I couldn’t really stand with her cold demeanor and stagnant character development.  Crystal is presenting her as something more of an enigma, especially when it comes to Usagi.  Like Michiru, Haruka can be cold but she also is a lot more flirty with “Bun Head” (again, anyone can make that nickname sound more endearing than Mamoru).  She even steals a kiss from Sailor Moon and admits she likes being around Usagi.  If any of this sounds familiar…it’s because this isnt a completely reworked character, it’s almost a copy and paste of Seiya from Sailor Stars.  Again, if this is how it is in the Manga, then maybe Uranus is a test run for the eventual arrival of the Sailor Starlights, right down to passing off as male but revealing her true female form as a Sailor Senshi.  On its own merit though, I’m not saying I miss the Uranus who was a total buzzkill in Sailor Moon S.  But I’m not totally sold on this new approach either.  I mean what does Michiru think of her lovers interest in Bun Head?  This is definitely something to watch out for and see if these two are handled better here in Crystal than in S.
 
While the Season Premiere leaves me intrigued about Uranus and Neptune, I cant say it has improved on its treatment of the franchises Villains.  I will admit, Kaolinite got a very sexy upgrade in the costume department (very Elvira: Mistress of the Dark).  But that’s really all the praise I can think of with the Death Busters.  All of the principle players are present including Professor Tomoe and all of the Witches 5.  But this is still Sailor Moon Crystal, which means the Witches 5 arent meant to have their own super enjoyable and hilarious character arcs (well ok that was only for Eudial and Mimette before the original series had to quickly off the rest before its Season Finale).  Eudial and Mimette are both eliminated in two episodes by the Sailor Senshi, which sadly means no Eudial speeding through the streets Initial D Style to get to her next objective.  Also gone are Professor Tomoe’s more excentric, dark humor moments that gave lots of laughs in the original Anime.  He’s much more menacing in his only appearance in the Premiere, so much so that I wonder if his original origin story is intact (and thus Hotaru’s as well).  It’s a shame that this series is so far 0 for 3 on recreating the dark magic that made the foes of the 90s Anime so beloved in the first place.  Oh and the Daemons, they’re just purple shadows that make various creature forms.  I guess Crystal was too lazy to create more elaborate Monsters for the Senshi to fight.
 
It's been a long review already but here’s a couple more odds and ends to go over.  Hotaru is here as well and her and Chibiusa’s scenes have lost none of their spark.  Chibiusa needing to keep Hotaru’s Dad evil experiments under wraps is a major red flag but dammit, she and Hotaru still work as friends.  Hotaru is also a student at Mugen Academy, not sure if that adds to anything but that’s happening.  Like I said earlier, I’m glad the other Inner Senshi have more time to shine and not just stand around being serious 24/7.  Minako’s fangirl mode is back and she even has her own transformation tool like Usagi does, makes me wonder why we don’t have a Sailor V Prequel Anime yet.  I also have to wonder why Mugen Academy is allowed to be open when its clear the Students are somehow being turned into Monsters.  It’s just as bad a plot and logic hole as having the Dead Moon Circus have their Evil Circus Tent HQ on top of a menacing looking stone pillar in the middle of town.  And finally, surprisingly not a lot to bash Mamoru on but only because his presence is negligible at best.  At least they’re letting Usagi hang out more with her friends than always being wrapped around his arm.
 
The Season Three Premiere of Sailor Moon Crystal is striving to be better and given what we have gotten so far, it is.  There are still a lot of Crystal’s usual problems when it comes to its Villains and new portrayals of characters like Haruka and Michiru.  Still, like I said about TNG, the promise of what Crystal can accomplish is shown much more than before.  However, while TNG went on to become a show with a healthy seven season run, another Star Trek Series barely made it to its Third Season before being cancelled a year later: Star Trek Enterprise.  Is Crystal really out of the woods or is its attempts to get its act together coming to little and too late?  We’ll find out on Friday when we check out more of Season Three of Sailor Moon Crystal right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.