When SAILOR MOON CRYSTAL was announced a few months back, I
must admit I gasped audibly and my eyes glistened, shoujo-style, in
anticipation. I vividly remember getting up early for school one day and
discovering the original SAILOR MOON anime on at 5:30 AM on my local WB
affiliate, and setting my alarm to 5:25 from then on to catch every single
episode. It was definitely a gateway anime for me, maybe even more so than
RONIN WARRIORS (which I could never
catch all the episodes for).
And sure, I knew it was a show for girls. I was a little
embarrassed to be caught watching it by my parents or younger siblings, but in
general I found that I enjoyed “girl” cartoons more than “boy” cartoons.
Cartoons aimed at boys featured a lot of problems that were solved by punching
or shooting, which I didn't find terribly relatable as I was taught that
punching is not a suitable way to solve problems and that shooting was simply
out of the question.
Girl-targeted toons, however, tended to feature emotional conflicts. Stuff like disagreeing with your friends, dealing with that annoying classmate, or even the general “you hurt my feelings” sort of stuff was much closer to what I experienced in my life. And sure it was acted out by pastel-colored ponies or princesses or whatever, but I didn’t really care about that because I could empathize. Feelings aren’t things you can punch.
Which is why I was drawn to original SAILOR MOON anime, also
called PRETTY GUARDIAN SAILOR MOON. “Serena” (who we now know as Usagi) had to
deal with anthropomorphizations of people’s negative emotions and thoughts. The
minions in the show would exploit an emotional weakness in someone and use it
to turn them into a monster. When Sailor Moon fought someone, she wasn’t
fighting that person but rather that person’s loneliness or self-hate or a selfish
desire. Sure that seems old hat now in a post-MADOKA MAGICA world, but this was
pretty different in the day.
In this sense, SAILOR MOON is a precursor to nerd favorite
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, which used the monster of the week as a metaphor for
growing up and dealing with all the crap the world throws at you.
So perhaps I set my expectations too high for SAILOR MOON
CRYSTAL. I tuned in to these first two episodes and realized that I was
remembering the show through the ol’ nostalgia filter as this is most definitely
a franchise for young girls. And while (as I’ve previously stated) that’s
totally OK, it didn’t have the epic impact I was anticipating. It’s well paced
and structured, with plot threads colliding at just the right times, but right
now the stakes are low.
I like the fact that they’re taking the best bits of the
original manga and the first series to make a sort of “remastered” version a la
JOJO’S BIZARRE ADVENTURE and HUNTER X HUNTER, but you’d think that with the
original material complete that there would be a more consistent delivery
schedule. For whatever reason CRYSTAL only airs on the first and third
Saturdays of the month, and if there’s a fifth Saturday I’m guessing we’re plum
out of luck.
I would have preferred they use that additional time to use
a more traditional style of animation for the all-important transformation
sequence. What we get instead is this janky, lower framerate CG sequence that
just takes you out of the experience (I know I’m echoing Tom and I’s recent
Vice Pit entry here, but it’s still true). And did anyone else feel like
Usagi’s arm is just a couple of miles too long in those first few shots?
But it’s still the same Sailor Moon we know and remember all
the same. Go into SAILOR MOON CRYSTAL with the right frame of reference and you’re
going to be transported, but perhaps the impact of this revolutionary franchise
has dulled a bit in the 25 years it’s been around.
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