In Defense of Sailor Moon

(Obviously "those things" are what it takes to get super-involved in any TV series -- comfortable unworried free time -- so possibly what I mean is that Sailor Moon just requires much more of a sinking-in investment than, say, Buffy, which is at least giving you old-fashioned jokes while you pick up the larger thread. Like plenty of anime/comics, an individual Sailor Moon episode doesn't offer much until you've unpacked the character relationships and overarching plots.)

this is a totally uninformed swipe and prob has nothing to do with sailor moon, thank you for your time.

anyways, another thing we're not mentioning is the MUSIC.
i thought the US dub music was fab, but was pleasantly surprised when the original (but different) music was fantastic too, particularly the two extremes of the transformation tunes(US version very floaty and magical, Japanese version kinda rocky with shifting vocal harmonies that make me all warm and fuzzy). even the comical incidental music is fab.
ah, sailor moon just pwns.

I'd take Mars over Mercury anyday

mars was the best sailor scout for sure

although always felt bad for jupiter, like some homely middle child

Sailor Moon folks also did Revolutionary Girl Utena.

The Utena movie is phenomenal.

...pausing..
http://www.otakusenshi.com/images/graphic/transform.jpg
..pausing..
http://www.sailorsystem.com/sm169/sm169-120.jpg
..pausing...
http://1e.img.v4.skyrock.net/1ee/mooncollection17/pics/1285162588_small.jpg
NOAW!!
http://www.smuncensored.com/images/screencaps/smovie-s4.jpg

kelpolaris which sailor scout do you think is the cutest?

i recently started watching the original japanese episodes w/subtitles while i do my hand-weight exercises, so that during the fight sequences i can be like "POW POW POW i too fight on behalf of the moon!!!" i will soon be thirty years old.

anyway watching the originals has been more enjoyable than i anticipated. i know it's old news that the english adaptations are so butchered they border on nonsensical, but even the jokes and interactions between the scouts seem far more human and believable in their original form. plus there's a lot more death and violence and awesome supernatural shit.

also great (tho off-color) is the sailor moon abridged parody series.

Sailor Saturn is the cutest but Sailor Moon is the best (all the later scouts are boring)

i never saw any of the episodes w/ saturn is she one of the lesbian scouts?

i used to love sailor moons so much

the lesbicons were neptune & uranus iirc.

jupiter was my fav when i was a kid before i actually started watching. she had a good color palette going on

i always liked sailor mercury.

when i was a kid ppl @ school called me 'gay' cuz i liked sailor moon more than dragonball z

this is an instance were everyone is right, i think

mars is ~beautiful!!~ imo but i like venus confidence. it did seem unfair that she got her own cat tho

venus was too much of a goody two shoes.

http://jaynin.hisdivineshadow.net/scoutsbeach.JPG

^^^ liking this does not make u gay

those ratios are so off

i am so aroused

http://puppielover2000.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/reiina_1.jpg

we need avators on ilx so badddddd

every time the dragon ball guys were powering up it was like they were having a raging boner

poor mars, her boyfriend turns out to be engaged to the moon princess ~IN ANOTHER LIFE~ and she has to be all "no it's okay you can take him sailor moon, because of destiny."

and then she went out and bought some bowler hats i guess

haha oh man i had totally forgotten that in the dub version serena's bff has a ridic jersey accent & the nerd is named meelllvin

every time the dragon ball guys were powering up it was like they were having a raging boner

― cold hands of monkeys on my heart (CaptainLorax), Friday, April 1, 2011 12:33 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

qft. Dragonball bad guys with pink flesh and big muscles and tight buns and long hair and voices like 80-year-old grandmothers. I don't know exactly what it is, gender/sexuality-wise. It's complex and more intense than I can really handle.

xpost

TUXEDO MASK

(tuxedo mask?)

TUXEDO MASK
http://dreager1.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/tuxedomask.jpg

(I *only* watched the dub version, considering this was on Toonami when I was whatever age... but remember his accent fondly. And the bewilderment that the girls had at his every appearance/vice versa.... I could never buy that the girls were unrecognizable in different clothes)

i recently started watching the original japanese episodes w/subtitles while i do my hand-weight exercises, so that during the fight sequences i can be like "POW POW POW i too fight on behalf of the moon!!!" i will soon be thirty years old.

love this post

qft. Dragonball bad guys with pink flesh and big muscles and tight buns and long hair and voices like 80-year-old grandmothers. I don't know exactly what it is, gender/sexuality-wise. It's complex and more intense than I can really handle.

― kkvgz, Friday, April 1, 2011 9:28 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah — often the strongest incarnations of any of the characters were also the smallest/most feminine. I think it's a weird play by Toriyama on viewers' (or readers' in the case of the manga) expectations.

I dunno if DBZ and SM are comparable though — DBZ is serial while SM is more contained within episodes (even if there is a larger story arc, but it's incidental).

also has anyone ever thought:

http://mangawidget.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/sailor-moon.jpg

+

http://www.angelfire.com/anime5/mnnw2/fanfic/images/tuxedo_mask.jpg

=

http://www.crammed.be/fileadmin/user_upload/cover/cboy4040.jpg

it feels so appropriate that people are linking to angelfire pics in a sailor moon thread

Moon Animate Make-Up is a crowdsourced group animation project to re-animate an episode of Sailor Moon shot-by-shot in each artist's personal style. From October 2013 to July 2014, over two hundred and fifty animators contributed at least one shot each to assemble a full length parody episode of Sailor Moon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orhh6TZ6qCE

hahaha cool

God I'd forgotten Molly's amazing OTT voice, someone should have just done her as Betty Boop.

amazing that both ile threads about sailor moon were started by nabisco

also whoa i don't remember making this post at all

it has been a blast revisiting this show two episodes a week on hulu. i fell in love with it in middle school on the verge of a wider engagement with anime, but the only other person who watched in in my class was this identically nascent genderqueer dude and we really bonded over the show (and, incidentally, dbz, but all of my friends watched that). i thought, similar to doctor casino, that it'd be a slog to get through again, but once the rhythms of the show are established even the slightest deviations in the monster-of-the-week form are oddly thrilling.

the trailer for the new anime is odd; the character designs are more faithful to the manga but the animation is so modern that it creates a strange dissonance in their movements. though it's only a trailer

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Monday, June 9, 2014 10:40 PM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

that's pretty otm, neat that i was using phrases like "nascent genderqueer dude" years before i even came out as nonbinary. sailor moon crystal ended up being simultaneously awesome and disappointing: great to see the manga adapted directly because the manga's great, but also... that's all there is? (the manga is also, somehow, less gay than the anime)

i also made that post before i saw the whole thing over the course of 2016!

and i'm rewatching it again! just finished sailor moon r, the makai tree arc fucking suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks

does anybody just straight up weep through the last two episodes of season one every fucking time, like i do

love all your posts itt brad, esp the one you just reposted <3

i oddly remember not hating the alien tree storyline (noted it upthread as blatant filler that still worked for me) but i also can't remember anything about it except thinking that human-form Ann was pretty cute. i think it helped that back then, the US broadcast got like five or eight episodes into the chibi-usa/black crystal stuff and then stopped, looping around to episode 1 of the first season. so at least the tree arc was *finished*. also the tree is like dying on them as the thing progresses right? i think I found that sort of compelling in terms of stakes and dramatic momentum. is there any good business or character stuff for the leads during this period, or is it all on hold until the black moon clan?

there is a straight up amazing episode right in the center of the makai tree arc, episode 51 "A New Transformation: Usagi's Power-Up." the monster is like horror-movie-cool (which, at least for the first two seasons, when this show is at its best, the monsters are fuckin scary), and there's a very strange lackadaisical rhythm to the earlier cherry blossom scenes that makes it stand out not only in the context of the arc but the entire show. a ton of great character moments for usagi too. it makes the rest of the arc look *pitiful*

one of the things i really hate about the makai tree story: the guardians all learn boring new powers that are immediately abandoned once the black moon story begins (during which they learn COOL new powers)

the makai tree ITSELF is cool, like the design of the show never really flags, but the whole cardian plot is such a xerox of season one that i find it soooo tiresome

also i think ail and ann have really boring personalities, their only motivations are energy and wanting to steal usagi/mamoru away from each other (BORING). awful villains

i'm so excited to get into sailor moon s, which i remember as the best season. like "even the filler is good"-good

also i have conflicted feelings about the black moon arc in sailor moon r, as 1) it's the storyline that made me absolutely obsessed with the show as a kid 2) on revisit it seems to tell the story way less well than the manga? like both way too stretched out and way too rushed at the same time. felt sort of the same way this time but enjoyed it more, i mean the time travel element of the story is just outrageous and charming, chibi-usa is great, sailor pluto is amazing, wiseman/death phantom is a formidable and interesting villain, yet... gets nowhere near the emotional peaks of the first season

i think i really hated the "mamoru gets an apocalyptic vision of the future and BREAKS UP WITH USAGI FOR NO REASON" plotline the last time but i just let it ride this time and it really grew on me

venus was too much of a goody two shoes.

― one dis leads to another (ian), Thursday, March 31, 2011 9:21 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this post is hilarious to me because minako does not have much of a personality besides always saying aphorisms incorrectly

she's definitely the weakest link, i remember fanfic REALLY struggling to know what to do with her. you'd think her previous work as a non-transforming vigilante hero would be good for some conversation but nope.

haha i'd forgotten about those half-measure powerup episodes! i think i thought they were cool because something was "happening." also we didn't have the rest of R, so we never got to any better upgrades.

i'd also forgotten about the "moonlight knight" plot, which is...... stupid

it's so dumb!!! the reveal that moonlight knight is some physical manifestation of mamoru's lost memories???? terrible!!!!

thread has inspired me to rewatch the first season again, a couple of episodes a night before sleep is just what i need at the moment

it’s really comforting!

i'm two episodes into sailor moon s and it's just as good as i remembered. everything's kind of at its peak: the humor, the character moments, the sick new sailor moon transformation sequence, maybe my favorite of the show

and for some reason they kept the ending theme from sailor moon r, at least for now, and it's my favorite ending theme so i'm pleased

all of the monsters are so wacky and cool in this season! in the second episode there's a cat monster that emerges from a puzzle and she keeps crumbling into puzzle pieces whenever she's attacked, it's awesome. and the car monster in episode three is hilarious. screech! vroom!

uranus' "world shaking" is the most badass sailor guardian attack

this is the BEST show

lmao chibi-usa's one power, "pink sugar heart attack," is so hilarious

brad you're really selling me on picking this up as my late night fall asleep viewing

i would argue sailor moon s is one of the best seasons of television ever

S was also my favorite season by far. The only season I actually owned on DVD

for some reason i'm only now registering how much sailor saturn's story is like a real fucked up abusive situation

also only now realizing that usagi sent chibi-usa back in time to "make friends with people in the twentieth century" SPECIFICALLY so she'd make friends with hotaru/sailor saturn. as usual, usagi is low-key really smart

friendship saves the world from the apocalypse... again!!!!!!!

really enjoying the rewatch. forgot how over the top cartoony the facial expressions are, like there will be three amazing expressions one after the other in one Usagi reaction shot that completely crack me up. was surprised that Sailor V was a thing from the first episode. also that meme about Tuxedo Mask showing up and then leaving after saying "my work here is done" without actually doing anything is so spot on haha.

ok spoilers for the third season i guess but when pluto saves uranus and neptune from a helicopter crash by STOPPING TIME???? that's the coolest thing i've ever seen

oh fuuuuck sailor saturn is here to kick ASS

i'm rewatching from the beginning again. i never got past sailor moon s on the last rewatch bc i got distracted by 1) discovering sailor moon s was directed by kunihiko ikuhara 2) watching revolutionary girl utena over and over again