'90s Sailor Moon Season 1 Review (Part 1) Script

INTRO:

A girl from the moon with extraordinary powers and a knack for crying! That’s right, today we’re diving into the classic ‘90s Sailor Moon anime! At least, the first half, cuz my god there’s so much filler! ‘90s anime, in the name of the Unicorn, I’ll roast you! God help me.

SPOILERS BEWARE.

CHARACTERS:

So here’s our main character, 14 year-old crybaby Usagi Tsukino, also known as Sailor Moon. Fun note, her name actually means “Rabbit of the Moon,” hence her hair style, rabbit bedsheets, and love of food. Okay that last bits from a Japanese story about a rabbit on the moon pounding rice cakes, but whatever.

Then we’ve got Luna the space cat, who serves as the group’s mentors who’s able to poop artifacts of great power. Cool.

Resident nerd Ami Mizuno, also known as Sailor Mercury.

Local psychic and bitch extraordinaire Rei Hino, a.k.a. Sailor Mars. Trust me, I’ve got a lot to say about her later.

The ever useless but still somewhat swoon worthy Tuxedo Mask, who’s totally not doubling as lover of purple pleated pants Mamoru Chiba. Totally not.

Queen Beryl, leader of the Dark Kingdom who… just kinda sits there. Holding an… orb? What does this orb do, exactly? We never know.

Jadeite, youngest of the Four Generals and a sexist piece of shit. Jadeite being sexist. Dude, you work for a queen.

Nephrite, a grown-ass man who uses the power of the stars to transform people into… tennis balls! The horror.

Zoisite, a very effeminate general with an ongoing rivalry with Nephrite. We’ll see more of him in Part 2.

Naru, Usagi’s best friend who’s kinda not that important most of the time.

And Umino, the weirdo. And that’s kinda it. ANYWAY!

PLOT:

Our story begins with Usagi waking up late for school. In her rush, she runs over a cat with a strange crescent mark on its forehead. Later that night when she returns home - after enduring her mother’s punishment for bad exam marks, of course (Crazy Ikuko) - Luna approaches her and reveals her ability to talk. Usagi transforms into Sailor Moon, then runs off when she hears her friend Naru in danger.

Naru’s mother has been replaced with a monster of the Dark Kingdom created by Jadeite. Their purpose was to gather human energy for whatever dark force they worship, but Sailor Moon steps in to… Sailor Moon crying. Well, cut her some slack, it’s her first hero job. Anyways, Tuxedo Mask throws a rose, gives some weird useless advice, and Sailor Moon saves the day by throwing her tiara. Woop woop.

We then endure several filler episodes where we have no real character development or foreshadowing whatsoever, each one beginning with a maddening recap video. Recap video. Well at least she knows her blood type, cuz she’s gonna need to know for when I send her to the hospital. But then FINALLY in episode 8, we meet Ami Mizuno, who becomes Sailor Mercury, and two episodes later we meet Rei Hino who is Sailor Mars.

After some more nonsense, the team takes on Jadeite once and for all, and after some sexist bullshit, Jadeite gets his comeuppance… by getting hit by a plan. I would play the Sailor Moon Abridged clip, but I cannot find that series anywhere on the internet, which saddens me. So here’s a recreation. Recreation of Jadeite’s “I GOT HIT BY A PLAN” “WELL YOU SHOULD’VE PLANNED FOR THAT.” Ah, the golden days. Fair use, Viz. Fair use.

Nephrite then takes over, and there’s even more filler! But along the way, Naru somehow manages to fall for him. Thankfully, Nephrite doesn’t feel anything back, though when he decides to turn against the Dark Kingdom, Zoisite sends some monsters to kill him. And the death scene is actually… Nephrite’s death. Oh it hurts. IT HURTS SO DEEP. YOU WERE SO CLOSE TO MEETING JUPES. SO CLOSE.

And that is where the first half of season one ends. Well, technically Nephrite's death is the beginning of the second half, but I felt weird cutting that huge event in half, sooooo screw it.

CRITICISM (Story):

My biggest complaints with the ‘90s anime, at least this section, are the major changes from the original source material (That being the manga), the flanderization and flatout mischaracterization of characters, and the repetitive, monotonous, and outright useless filler episodes, especially before Sailor Mercury appears.

Let’s start with the major changes from the manga. Changes for adaptations aren’t inherently bad. In fact, they’re sometimes necessary in order to better fit a certain medium. That resistance towards change was one of the major problems plaguing the first two seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal (Til they seemed to change random things for fun, but whatever).

However, some things are changed for seemingly no reason, or superficial reasons that reek of little to no understanding of the source material. My biggest gripe is with how Rei’s character has been completely changed. In the manga, she was indeed a psychic shrine maiden. However, she was incredibly poised, graceful, and ladylake, and even hated men because of issues with her distant father.

For some reason in the ‘90s anime, however, they changed her into an incredibly hot-headed, boy-crazy girl who seems to antagonize Usagi for - most of the time - no reason. That abusive relationship that most people remember as a fun rivalry? Yeah, that’s only the ‘90s anime. In the manga, Rei actually respected Usagi, and was even grateful that Usagi - unlike everyone else - wanted to befriend her. Rei even threw herself into danger when she thought Usagi and Ami needed her help.

This leads us into her relationship with Mamoru. This literally exists only to provide more bullshit conflict for Usagi. Rei and Mamoru have almost as little chemistry as Makkora. Granted, we all know Rei and Mamoru won’t last, but I honestly don’t even want this version of Mamoru to be anywhere near Usagi, namely because he’s an asshole.

First off, Mamoru in the manga was a high school student, meaning he was likely around 16 or 17, which while kinda strange considering Usagi is a 14 year-old middle schooler, is at least kinda believable. However, the ‘90s anime decided to age Mamoru up to a college student. EXCUSE ME? YOU’RE TELLING ME THIS 18 YEAR-OLD MAN IS GOING TO BE WITH A 14 YEAR-OLD GIRL? PLEASE NO.

Not to mention every time Usagi and Mamoru interact, Mamoru is outright awful to her. He actively antagonizes her, seeming to chide and belittle her at every appearance. I get that sometimes people love a romance starting on the wrong foot, but my god, this relationship is verging on emotional abuse, not to mention statutory rape.

Tuxedo Mask is absolutely useless. For some reason, the ‘90s anime has Mamoru completely unaware of his transformation into Tuxedo Mask. He just kinda gets a weird Spider Sense whenever Usagi transforms, and off he goes (Trust me, we’ll talk about his “transformation sequence” next time). That’s to say he has no agency in trying to uncover the secrets of his own past, which we get a nugget of, but nothing substantial in this half. Put a pin in this.

Luna is completely fucking useless. She prattles on about Usagi ignoring her duties of finding the other Sailor Guardians and the Moon Princess, yet Luna spends all the filler episodes not even bothering to try and find them. Episode 10 clip of Luna berating Usagi. Says the cat who let us sit through six filler episodes in a row doing NOTHING for the plot. NOTHING.

And Usagi… oh boy. Here’s the thing: she starts off kinda the same as she did in the manga, but there’s an immediate red flag. See, in the manga and in Crystal, her supersonic cry is used before Tuxedo Mask tells her “Crying won’t solve all your problems.” And in the next act, when she uses that same power, it doesn’t have any effect at all. In the ‘90s anime, however, right after Tuxedo Mask says crying won’t solve Sailor Moon’s problems, she immediately cries, debunks his useless monologue, and saves the day. Hooray for undermining character development.

It’s not so much that her character has been changed, as much as all her character growth has been scrubbed away and replaced with flanderization. That’s to say, her character flaws have been amplified, seeming to have even become glorified. Characters will berate her behavior - while they act shitty, nonetheless - but she’ll never really grow. There are moments where her true self shines through, like where she tries to make the fortune teller in episode 2 feel better when all his business has been taken, but these are few and far between. Also put another pin in this moment for later.

The only character who kinda survived the adaptation was Ami, but even then, the ‘90s anime keeps her kinda useless. She has the same mist power in the manga, but there were points she was able to actually concentrate it into an attack. Whereas in the ‘90s anime... she can only make fog. Great.

The Dark Kingdom plans are interesting from their premises. I’m assuming the other Generals -and the weird crowd of monsters that are always there for some reason but who even the fuck knows what they’re doing here - are searching the world for the Silver Crystal while one General is focused just in Japan, and these plans often rely on legit human flaws to gather human energy.

However, this is where the filler comes into play. The Generals will fail time and time again, but won’t face actual punishment til a ridiculous amount down the line. Not to mention the Generals’ backstories are completely done away with. Nephrite at least has a nice turn around, and they do his death scene justice, but overall I’m not a fan.

See, in the manga, the four Generals - Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite, and Kunzite - were tied with the Sailor Guardians. Of the three that matter right now, Jadeite is paired with Mars, Nephrite with Jupiter, and Zoisite with Mercury. In the ‘90s anime, Jadeite has little to no direct confrontation with Sailor Mars. Hell, the house of fortune plot would’ve been great for Mars to showcase her psychic powers, yet it happened before even Mercury’s introduction.

Nephrite dies before Jupiter even shows up, which is a severe injustice. Jupiter would’ve been a great addition to this plot, given she’s a huge hopeless romantic, and this would’ve been a good chance for Nephrite to actually form a genuine bond with one of the Sailor Guardians and see the Dark Kingdom for what it truly was.

Most of the filler episodes are straight up trash. They serve no purpose to the story whatsoever, and contrary to most ‘90s anime apologists, they do not develop the characters. Nothing is learned, and nothing is changed in the long term. The filler solely exists so that the manga could stay ahead of the ‘90s anime while both were being produced. Don’t even get me started on that weird vacation episode. Jesus Fucking H. Christ.

There are ways to do filler episodes right. As I said, that house of fortune episode would’ve been great for Mars and Jadeite to square off, not to mention we could do with an episode based on the Casablanca Memories side story from the manga that explores Rei’s strained relationship with her father.

Now as for those pins I mentioned. See, I don’t wanna go too deep into the origins of the Dark Kingdom and Sailor Moon’s powers. However, I will say they go back eons, and every chance the show had to acknowledge those roots - every chance they had to foreshadow what was coming - they ignored it. Any dreams Usagi might’ve had to serve as returning memories or premonitions - nope. Any chance for Rei or that psychic from earlier to get a sense of their Destiny or Fate - disregarded. It ruins the promise of a much greater meaning to the conflict in the show.

CRITICISM (Presentation):

As for the animation, it… works. For the time the anime came out, it’s nothing outright terrible. The anime originally aired in Japan from week to week with no breaks between seasons, meaning that odds are the budget was nothing spectacular. Still, the transformations, as well as the stock footage used for attacks, look nice. The effects the attacks have on the environment may leave a lot to be desired, but what can ya do?

The fights as well - across the board - are very stiff and dull. Honestly, they make most of the fights in RWBY Volumes 4 and 5 look amazing. Tuxedo Mask and Jadeite spinning. Wow, such riveting action. Would you look at that? Oh no, offscreen splash. Oh nooooooo.

There is this odd tendency for the backgrounds to either be unfinished, or to just randomly change color. Take for instance Naru’s shop in the first episode. The background goes from sometimes purple-pink, to green, to black and white, and then to blue. It’s incredibly odd, though I will admit it does work with the mood.

But don’t even get me started on the odd subspaces characters sometimes wind up in, especially that Windows 98 world Sailors Moon and Mercury enter in episode 9. Like… what is this? Did we just step into the Sailor Moon R opening? Some of the monsters designs are fine, but most are just… what? What the hell were the character designers smoking when they made these things? They look like Power Rangers rejects. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS THING’S SHOULDERS?

The music is very odd. It does stand out for its uniqueness, and there’s a certain charm to this strange elevator music. However, the violin tune at the very beginning of every episode used for the preview can become incredibly grating very quickly.

CRITICISM (Viz Dub):

This all said, I really enjoyed the Viz dub. I love all of the casting decisions they made, as I should, because they all had to get the creator Naoko Takeuchi’s stamp of approval. Stephanie Sheh is perfect as Usagi, and likewise, all the other actors do great jobs. I’m also appreciative that Viz is trying to stay as faithful to the original as possible, though they’re not afraid to sprinkle little references and jokes here and there. Over “9000!” (8) “Purple pleated pants.” (1) Umino making fun of Naru’s Boston accent (7).

The one thing about the dub that bothers me is that they didn’t do much for the language barrier, since the characters are Japanese students taking English, yet they’re speaking English fluently, but… oh well. It’s honestly not that big a deal til a certain episode way down the line in Sailor Moon S. Other than that, top-notch dub.

CONCLUSION:

So all in all, the first half of the ‘90s Sailor Moon anime’s first season is… meh. It’s passable so long as you stick to the plot-centric episode - I’ll leave a link to the plot only episodes for all the seasons for you because I love you too much to let you suffer - but the filler will drive you up the damn wall. You really have to be incredibly patient with this version of the story to give it a chance.

However, I would instead instruct newcomers - who for some reason decided to stick through the review EVEN THOUGH I SAID THERE WOULD BE SPOILERS - to read the manga. Sailor Moon Crystal may be more faithful, and much more efficient in terms of pacing, but its first two seasons are rife with their own set of problems. As such, the manga really is the best place to start. Then you can check out Crystal, and the ‘90s anime after. I’ve also heard good things about the live action show Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, but watch it at your own risk.

FUNNY MOMENTS:

And now it’s time to return to our much-missed funny moments sections. These were recently scrapped due to time constraints, but given I had to suffer through all of this again, there’s too much stupid to pass up on. BUCKLE UP, BITCHES.

• “Why does morning have to come so early?” Same, Usagi. (Episode 1)
• “I bumped into Umino earlier.” How? You’re a housewife. You know what I’m not even going there. (Episode 1)
• “I can’t breathe.” Luna, you can no longer make fun of Usagi’s weight. You hypocritical, useless-ass fucking cat bitch. (Episode 2)
• Usagi looking like Hillary Clinton. OH MY GOD. Oh, sorry. I thought she was Hillary Clinton for a second. (Episode 3)
• “Stop dreaming!” YEAH, TELL ‘EM TO STOP DREAMING. “Hey I was the one who said that!” Bitch, it’s called learning from the teacher. (Episode 3)
• “I guess I was right after all.” BITCH YOU THOUGHT SHE WAS EVIL. (Episode 8)
• “Like we’d ever wear these.” Your fashion sucks regardless. (Episode 9)
• “But how?” EXCELLENT QUESTION, LUNA. CARE TO TELL US HOW WE WILL WASTE THE NEXT 20+ EPISODES WITH USELESS FILLER THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING? (Episode 11)
• The “sentence of eternal sleep.” You mean death? (Episode 13)
  • “Never to awaken again.” AS IS THE CASE OF ETERNAL SLEEP. WHICH IS DEATH.
• “It’s not my fault if the other kids get to school on time.” Me. (Episode 1)
• “You’re really rude.” LOOK WHO IS FUCKING TALKING. (Episode 13)
• “Do you know how much an airplane costs?” DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL DIE IF THE SAILOR GUARDIANS DIE? LITERALLY ALL OF THEM. FUCK YOU LUNA. (Episode 13)

OUTRO:

Thanks to all the Patrons for the support. All of these guys help contribute to the channel. Links in the description.

I’m also publishing a book this August, so if you could check out all the book links down below, I’d super appreciate it.

Next time we’re gonna be covering the second half of season one. I’m the Unicorn of War, and this has a been a shit show.

Oh also, why does no one ever suspect these new businesses of being evil? It literally happens every time. Does Juban not have a police force? Does the general public just accept they could die by a strange evil force at any moment? Like yeah sure, let’s step into these alien pods for an evil liposuction, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA. Fuckin’ morons.