Sailor Moon SuperS Report Card

This Segment is brought to you by the A. Yoshi Patreon...

If the S in Sailor Moon S stood for Super, I have several questions on the title for this season. Why call this season SuperS? What does the other S in SuperS (SuperSuper? SuperStars (not to be confused with Sailor Stars)? Just plain S? WHAT?)? Is the term plural (refer to the first question for why even that doesn't make sense)? Anyway now that I've got my rambling out of the way, Here's the report card for the series...




EXHIBIT A: IS THE PRESENTATION ANY GOOD?

Short answer, yes. It has pretty pictures, it just goes to show how much the art for this has Improved since Sailor Moon Classic, I wonder why the art in that season was as poorly drawn as it was. Was it Intentional? Was it Time Constraints? Was it a budget issue? We may never know, unless a staff from the show has been interviewed regarding the issue, if so send me a link... Still I'm going to miss the simplistic charm from the early parts of the series. The Ending themes are pretty good, but unmemorable. The score is beautiful as always, but At any rate, this series gets an A- as far as presentation. That's all I've got because this part is hard to say stuff on other than it has beautiful art.



EXHIBIT B: WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS LIKE?

Most of the outer senshi are not in this season, and the main characters are basically the 5 main senshi, Tuxedo Mask, and Chibusa, much like how it was in Sailor Moon R. Like that season the biggest focus is Usagi, Mamoru, and Chibiusa. I admit that having fewer characters can give better a distribution of character development, but it pretty much makes the mistake of focusing too much on 2 or 3 characters that R made, heck Usagi isn't the main character or the star, Chibiusa is, which isn't a bad idea in theory, telling the story from an alternate perspective, but that only works if the story is already told. I'll be honest, I hate Chibusa. It's not that she's the comic relief (which doesn't help her being the main character one bit), it's she's really destructive and abusive to the older characters. Usagi and Mamoru aren't really that good, since they play parents to Chibiusa rather than being actual characters. heck when Chibiusa plays damsel in distress during the last parts of the season, Usagi isn't that interesting of a protagonist since she's interchangeable with the other 4 senshi. Pegasus/Helios is pretty much nothing more than a device, like imagine the silver crystal as a character in Classic or R. The villains (Dead Moon Circus) aren't much better Zirconia serves as an evil old wizard which I kind of like, but the Henchmen are pretty bad, stealing dreams from other people, that's the least of these villains problems I can sum up the Amazon Trio like this "OMG, We're So F**KING Fabulous", Yep it's a whole team of bishounen. And one is actually gay, like he goes after males, while the other 2 go after females. I'm not homophobic, but why do we need flamboyant villains? They're even more so than previous villains, like imagine Mimete as 3 people and the villains for half a season, yeah... The amazoness Quartet is better, but they're pretty much a whole team of lolis. The character with the most redeeming qualities is Queen Nehelenia, She's pretty much who queen Beryl should've been back in season 1, with an interesting backstory, to being in the shadows for most of the season, she's almost as good of a villain as Wiseman from R. So the Villains get a solid D.



EXHIBIT C: IS THE STORY ANY GOOD?

The Story's once again a straight up fairy tale like Classic was, but not quite as entertaining. Chibiusa meets and befriends a Pegasus named... well, Pegasus in her dreams, and the Dead Moon Circus are after the golden crystal which Pegasus has. Sailor Moon and Chibiusa get upgrades to their powers, and later the other 4 senshi get the same upgrades. The villains are rather incompetent since they always see Chibiusa summon Pegasus, but they don't go after Chibusa until the last fifth or whatever of the season. The series is largely episodic, like classic was, but it's mostly comedic episodes revolved around Chibiusa, and the stakes aren't really raised until the last few episodes of the season. But It's aimed at kids who buy the toys. Yeah I imagine that S got parents upset, so they decided to tone down the series, or it might be current events that have been going on during the time SuperS was airing. Either way, it sucks. The story gets a big ol' Z+.



WHAT'S MY FINAL SCORE:

It's the worst part of the Sailor Moon saga, At least Classic had decent writing. Heck, when S was good, it was great. I give this season a solid D. Watch only if you're a completionist. I want the Crystal version to improve this arc, but this season was downright terrible, other than the art. The series can't get any lower, right?



Anyhoo, Stay tuned in a few months when we take a look at the BIG END of Sailor Moon, Sailor Stars. A Season that hasn't been legally available in the US until now...