Sailor Moon Crystal barely scrapped by to a mid tier
score thanks to the improvements of Season Three. That doesn’t mean it still
redeemed for the mountain of mistakes and mishandlings of the legacy of Usagi
Tsukino and her fellow Sailor Senshi.
There’ll be plenty of time for a more thorough breakdown once we get to
Sailor Moon Cosmos in November (maybe even a Top 10 special?). Today for the last of our Month long Sailor
Moon Top 5 Wedndesday’s, I’m looking at one of the more frequent missteps of
the new series: the Villains. Now not
every villain from the 90s Anime was perfect (looking at you An & Ail and
the Amazon Trio) but most of them were immensely entertaining and a genuine threat
to the Senshi. Just how did the reboot
manage to reduce them all to mere two dimensional letdowns? Let’s find out as I count down the Top 5
Classic Sailor Moon Villains Done Dirty by Sailor Moon Crystal/Eternal.
Eudial is one of the funniest and craziest antagonists
from Sailor Moon S and set a high bar for the rest of the Witches 5 to
follow. Her plans of the week were
simple but she excelled in her over the top execution of said plans, which usually
started with her taking her Initial D Car at top speed to reach her targets and
flee just as quickly once a lack of Heart Crystal was confirmed. However, she like the rest of the Witches 5
were reduced to mere Villains of the Week to be wiped out pretty easily by the
Senshi, both Inner and Outer.
Ironically, only Eudial and Mimmete got any real screentime compared to
their other Witches who were killed in rapid succession in Sailor Moon S just
to get to the finale.
#4-The Spectre Sisters
These four Siblings were the standout stars of Sailor
Moon R.
They made for a nice anti Senshi
team and even went head to head with Sailor Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus in
awesome team deathmatches.
What makes
them truly stand out were their redemption arcs as their rival Senshi managed
to bring them over to the side of good and show that even those on the wrong path
can be steered in the right direction.
But Sailor Moon Crystal isnt about such things (save for Hotaru but that’s
a different case).
No in Crystal, all
villains are evil and need to be taken care of swiftly.
Much like the Witches 5, all of the Spectres
are taken out one after another as Monsters of the Week and little else.
#3-The Four Kings
These guys are the four OGs who tormented the Senshi all
the way back in their debut season in 1992.
While Jadite might’ve been light on character, his fellow generals: Nephrite,
Zoicite and Kunzite all had solid story arcs that made them fun to follow.
While they aren’t brought down to the level
of easily dispatched Villains of the Week, the Four Kings arguably get it worse
of any grouping in Sailor Moon Crystal.
Rather than being stone cold evil, Crystal throws in a an unnecessary wrench
by making these four the former counterparts of the Senshi who served Prince Endymion..and
were apparently also the love interests of the Inner SenshI?
Not only does all of this come at viewers at
the last second but it feels just…ugh, wrong.
This was a pretty bad benchmark for any villains to follow in Sailor
Moon Crystal…and save for one they didn’t get much better.
#2-Professor Tomoe
This shadowy figure was scary and intimidating as heck in
Sailor Moon S.
Mostly seen in his dark
laboratory with his glowing white glasses, Horatu’s father maniacally
envisioned plan after plan usually while enjoying some kind of extracurricular
activity, like working out on an exercise bike.
This dark humor was surprisingly welcome and Tomoe’s unpredictability made
his next appearance all the more exciting.
Plus there’s the whole he sacrificed his soul to save Hotaru’s life and became
the envoy of the Death Busters.
Season
Three of Sailor Moon Crystal erases all of this in favor of a one note, generic
bad guy who’s evil to the core and only thinks of his ailing daughter as the
ultimate science experiment.
It makes him
so boring compared to the tragic figure he was in the original series who
managed to get an actual happy ending for himself and Hotaru.
#1-Queen Nehelenia
She’s my favorite villainess in all of Sailor Moon and
the main nemesis of my favorite arc of the original series…the one that showed
us Sailor Moon SuperS could have just been a movie but I’m not here to rant
about that. Nehelenia has one of the
closest and arguably most personal connections to Usagi’s past life, making her
the ultimate nemesis, a darker side of Sailor Moon that could have been
Princess Serenity. Such depth and
complexity made her appearance and usage in Sailor Moon Eternal all the more groan
worthy. Personally, if her story had
been edited differently, the setup of her beef with Usagi could be
perfect. However, Nehelenia simply feels
less like Usagi’s ultimate foe and more like the standard one off Villainess of
a Magical Girl Anime Movie, a true waste of one of Sailor Moons best baddies
ever.
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