20 - The Summer, the Beach, Youth and Ghosts

We join our three heroines stepping off the train at the beach. It's summer, and in accordance with the immutable laws of anime, a beach episode is called for. The show had a few of these; if I recall correctly, three of the seasons had beach episodes and the other two had episodes that weren't strictly set at a beach, but still served the same purpose (which is to show the characters in swimsuits, apparently).

No swimsuits yet, though, and Ami is wearing her bizarre 1940s housewife ensemble from episode 18, but with a hat. They're actually here to train, Luna reminds them. Rei has made reservations at a nearby pension (which is an obscure term for guest house that got adopted in Japan and is being left as-is in this translation) that advertises blue skies and a private beach. Usagi's excited at the thought of a private beach, drifting into a fantasy in which she's surrounded by hot guys in swimming trunks, including Motoki, and, well...

You've got to hand it to him, windsurfing in a tuxedo isn't easy. After freaking out some locals with her drooling, Usagi joins the others on the trek to the pension.

About that... it turns out that Rei didn't quite know the way, and then for some reason everyone decided to listen to Usagi's directions, and soon the sun's setting, clouds are drawing in, and they're lost. It starts to thunder, but they encounter a strange little hooded girl who tells them to follow her. She leads them to an incredibly creepy house on a cliff edge... which turns out to be the very place Rei booked. While Usagi is distressed by the thought of staying in a house right out of a horror movie, Ami befriends the little girl, whose name is Sakiko.

They knock on the door. Welcome to Pension Adams! And just in case you thought the reference might not have been deliberate, here are the staff.

 

This whole sequence is great. Rei completely unfazed, Ami sort of bemused and Usagi and Luna freaking out in the background, while Sakiko just casually greets them and walks in. Next, we're introduced to Sakiko's father, introduced in such a way as to leave little doubt that we're supposed to think he's a dick.

In their room, Luna chides Usagi for making such a scene, but Usagi reminds Luna that she was scared too. Usagi wonders if the place is haunted, and there's immediately a knock on the door. The hostess's head appears at an alarming angle, and though she turns out to be up a ladder, repairing a light bulb, Usagi freaks out to the other girls. Sakiko and her father witness this through the window, in another wing of the building, and while Sakiko says she likes them, her father tells her not to associate with girls like that.

At dinner, Usagi is still frightened of the staff despite their friendliness. Ami says she likes their costumes... yep, they're just costumes, part of the pension's theme, which seems to be news to Usagi. Well, it's a good thing there aren't any real ghosts here, and... wait, what's this? They hear a ghostly moaning that scares the staff as much as Usagi. They follow the sound, and Rei opens the door to reveal an actual ghost.

It drifts towards the stairs and then disappears. While Usagi and the staff try to pretend they didn't actually see what they just saw, Ami wonders if it could have been a Youma. Rei says it's not, but there's some kind of strange power present here.

Meanwhile, in events that I'm sure are unconnected, Sakiko is being brought in and out of a hypnotic trance by her father, who's apparently oblivious to the distress it's causing her. Because, and this may have escaped your attention so far, he's a dick.

The next day, the horror movie weather has cleared up, and Usagi and friends visit the private beach. Yeah, it's private, alright... they're the only ones here. Poor Usagi, no hot guys for you. Ami wonders if Sakiko's alright, mentioning she didn't come out of her room today. Usagi and Rei are more concerned that Ami brought a textbook along; Usagi insists that Ami should join them in having fun. She agrees, and so begins a game where Ami and Rei throw a beach ball and Usagi is repeatedly hit by it. Sakiko watches them sadly from the cliff above.

Night comes again. Back at the pension, Usagi is preemptively panicking, and Rei is ofuda-ing everything in sight, though she feels that this isn't a true ghost, and that something more powerful is at work. She overhears the staff discussing something that they want to keep secret from the visitors.

Ami sees Sakiko outside, and goes to talk to her. It turns out that Sakiko watched the girls playing on the beach all day. Noticing how lonely she is, Ami tells Sakiko that they're alike, and that she used to be lonely before she met Usagi. She thinks Sakiko should become Usagi's friend too, but... well, here comes Sakiko's dad to disapprove. He drags Sakiko away, and says that the girls should leave, unless they want to be scared even more. This strikes me as no way to run a business.

Back inside, Sakiko's father scolds her, and starts talking about her immense psychic power, which he's able to bring out through hypnosis. As he hypnotizes her again, he tells her she'll be the world's foremost psychic and, more importantly, stick it to those guys who made fun of his psychic research.

Usagi, already doing a pretty good job of working herself up into abject terror, walks in on, well, this.

After plenty of screaming, Rei intervenes to tell Usagi that the staff really are just ordinary people trying to do something about the ghost... and that she senses the same power from before building again. Her ofuda are ripped from the furniture, and then objects in the room start to levitate.

Sakiko's father has her in a trance, and commands her to manifest her energies as a ghost, to scare off the visitors. Ami has been watching, however, and tells him to stop. The ghost appears, and knocks Ami away, but then, inevitably, it turns on Sakiko's father.

Seeing him knocked through the window, the girls transform in order to save him, to the extent that he merits saving. Meanwhile, Sakiko's father cowers, at the mercy of the immensely powerful ghost.

I think the problem is that it does recognize you...

Mercury tries to wake Sakiko, while Sailor Moon flings her tiara at the ghost, only for it to harmlessly pass through. Sakiko eventually wakes up, but the ghost is still there, targeting her father but attacking anyone else who gets near, including Sakiko herself. Her father tells her to run away, and that the ghost is beyond her control. Mercury realizes that the ghost has become a manifestation of Sakiko's desire for independence. Again, Sakiko's father tells her to run, but she refuses to leave him. He apologizes for isolating her, saying he always knew she wanted a normal life, but was too tied up in his own ambitions. As the ghost closes in on them, Sakiko stands up and blasts it with psychic energy, destroying it.

Sakiko's father admits that all of this was caused by his need for Sakiko's psychic powers to be acknowledged, and so he forced her to train them, using guests at the pension as test subjects. Again, I say: no way to run a business. He then allows Sakiko the freedom she always wanted, and while she plays with Usagi and friends on the beach, he assures the staff that the ghost will never be returning.

Monster of the day: Well, there was the ghost that wasn't a ghost. The premise is all very Scooby Doo until it turns out that the fake ghost is being caused by another, entirely legitimate kind of paranormal activity.

Most valuable person: Though her involvement is low-key, this is an Ami episode more than anything else, as she's the one who forges the bond with Sakiko that ends up saving them.

Least valuable person: Though he did apologize, Sakiko's father gets this for all around crappy parenting. 

This is undoubtedly one of the weirdest episodes ever produced. It doesn't have any connection with the current storyline other than the justification that the girls came to the beach to train, and has some uniquely odd guest characters in the pension staff. True, they're just regular people in costumes rather than the movie monsters they appear to be, but visually they're just not the kind of thing you expect to see in a Sailor Moon episode.

But even though it's a significant change of pace, there are a few nice callbacks to previous episodes, like Luna's fear of ghosts and particularly Usagi's iconic, hastily-repaired swimsuit. And the silliness is balanced by the fairly somber tale of Sakiko and her father. It's a familiar story: a parent controls their child's life because they know what's best for them, making them focus on talents they have but aren't especially keen on using, while the true motivation is the parent's bitterness over their own failures. It's a heavy subject, though Sakiko's father does seem to be taking the first steps along the path of making amends. This show is, at its core, optimistic about human nature, and likes to redeem characters previously shown to be evil, though effectively doing so can be a tricky business. Though I simply can't bring myself to like Sakiko's father, he does at least show contrition over his actions, and is pretty honest in his assessment of his own true motivations. For an episode frequently dismissed as the lightest, fluffiest kind of filler, I think that's pretty deep.

It's not easy assigning a grade to this episode, but I think it's enjoyable, and tends to be underrated by fans. So it gets four stars out of five, and now I have this song stuck in my head.
 
They're creepy and they're eerie
Depressed and scared and dreary
The hauntings make 'em weary
Sakiko's family

She likes to pick wild flowers
And help folks caught in showers
She's got some crazy powers
Sakiko's family

Her father was a villain
Sakiko was unwillin'
The ghost then tried to kill 'im
Sakiko's family

The panic in the pension
Resolved some family tension
Now I'll no longer mention
Sakiko's family.

15 - Usagi's Panic: Rei's First Date

For the most part, I've enjoyed Viz's approach to translating so far. It's less doggedly literal than subtitles often are, and makes for more natural-seeming dialogue, which is good. In this episode, though, one of the downsides of this approach becomes apparent.

The episode starts off with Ami showing Usagi and Rei a park that she visits often. She says hello to the groundsman, and this is the source of the translation problem.

See, in the original Japanese, Ami calls the groundsman "ojisan". This literally means "uncle", but is also an informal, friendly way of addressing an older man. This sounds odd in English, so the translators had Ami use his name, which sounds a lot more natural. But wait... where does the name come from? Neither Ami nor anyone in this episode actually speaks this character's name.

Well, his name is in the credits, and I assume in the scripts too. The problem with Japanese names, though, is that they can be read different ways, and without hearing the name, or seeing it written phonetically, you have no way of knowing for sure how to pronounce most Japanese names just by seeing them. You can make an educated guess, but that's it. And that's what the translators did here: they looked at the kanji for the groundman's name, which is 国立, and made a best guess, coming up with Kokuritsu.

Except they got it wrong. Thanks to the various Japanese guidebooks, which included a lot of production notes and materials, we know that the correct reading for this character's name is actually Kunitachi. Here's a scan from the first Nakayoshi Anime Album, complete with furigana showing the pronunciation of the name.

I mean, as errors go, this seems minor. It's not like the name is ever even spoken in the original episode. But having known this character's name for a long time, it's downright weird to see him referred to by a different name. And because of how Viz have chosen to translate this episode, with the name replacing "ojisan", this name shows up a lot. It bugs me.

Back to the episode - because I had more planned than complaining about a single botched name translation - the groundsman tells them that the park has been sold, and work crews are already starting to bulldoze it in preparation for a new office complex. Rei's reaction to the news is to realize she needs to quickly acquire a boyfriend in order to have a date in the park before it closes. I love her logic here, it says so much about her character's priorities. For most people, it's "boyfriend acquired, must find date spot", whereas in Rei's case it's "date spot acquired, must find boyfriend." Rei is the most ambitious of the main cast; she wants to experience as much as possible from life, and if some of that requires a boyfriend, then fine, she'll find one, but the boyfriend part isn't an end in and of itself.

That evening, Luna is walking the streets, and stops to wonder where everyone went today. Unfortunately, she stopped to wonder this in the middle of a busy road. She's almost hit by a truck, but someone makes a daring last-minute save!

Mamoru is out... uh, I'm gonna assume jogging; my nineties fashion-fu is weak... and darts across the street to rescue Luna. As the internet has proven, even the most irredeemably awful people still love cats.

Usagi, Ami and Rei show up a few moments later, and Usagi freaks out that Mamoru is messing with her cat. Everyone else sides with Mamoru, possibly because he's in the right for once, possibly because everyone other than Usagi always sides with Mamoru. Then Motoki appears. Hey, Motoki will stick up for Usagi, right? He's always been there to defend her. Oops! Turns out Motoki and Mamoru are friends, and go the same college.

In his personal creepy church in his personal creepy forest, Nephrite does his astrology act and identifies the groundsman as his next target. Meanwhile, Usagi and friends are at the arcade. While Usagi fails at the Sailor V game, Rei pumps Motoki for information about Mamoru. It turns out he's super rich, lives by himself in an expensive condo, and goes to a good college. Rei thinks this makes him perfect boyfriend material. Rei is also fourteen years old, so... well, yeah, there's that. Incidentally, though he's been around from the beginning, this is the first time we've actually heard Mamoru's real name. It's been in the credits since episode one, admittedly, but as we've discovered, that's no guarantee of knowing what his name actually is...

In the park, the groundsman watches the destruction, and wonders if there's any way to save the wildlife. Enter Nephrite as Masato Sanjoin, millionaire playboy and environmentalist, who announces, that, yes, the groundsman can save the animals. Save them with the power of evil. And you've just got to love a show that gives you lines like this:

With the power of a possessed hat, the groundsman summons the forces of nature to do his bidding and rise up against their human enemies. Unfortunately, a park in the middle of Tokyo doesn't have a lot of large animals, but damn it, he makes it work with what's available.

Watch out or they'll flap near you! Actually, these butterflies are pretty friggin' dangerous, as they can apparently destroy electrical equipment just by, uh, flapping near it. There's some poetic justice in seeing a butterfly destroy a lightbulb. While you could argue it's the Youma's essence giving them superpowers, I like to think that butterflies are actually this strong all the time. They just choose not to show it because they're pacifists.

The next day, Rei is engineering the perfect chance encounter with Mamoru. She's plotted out his route back from college, and is timing it so she will turn the corner and gently bump into him, which will of course prompt him to ask her on a date by way of apology. Rei has yet to realize that causing Mamoru even the slightest amount of pain or inconvenience will result in a stern lecture on what a terrible waste of a human being you are.

Rei puts her plan into action, but the goddesses of shoujo drama are fickle, and she trips on a loose paving stone, resulting in, well, this.

Rei says she's fine, and Mamoru, being Mamoru, hears this and just decides to keep on walking. Well, it was either going to be that or a fifteen minute lecture on clumsiness. Rei, undeterred, runs after Mamoru and latches onto him, proposing she make it up to him with a cup of coffee. Make what up to him? Why, making him step on her head. Well, if there's one thing Mamoru likes in a woman, it's apologizing for things that weren't her fault, so he accepts!

(Yes, I know I'm mean to Mamoru. I know he becomes a much more pleasant character later on. But at this point in the show, he's shown no indication of being anything other than a huge jerk.)

Usagi sees all of this unfold, and is shocked, shocked to see Rei walking off arm-in-arm with an attractive older guy. It's immoral! It's inappropriate! Where's her attractive older guy? She runs off after them to throw a spanner in the works. Strictly for Rei's own well-being, of course.

Rei and Mamoru are in a cafe, where Rei is trying to make smalltalk and generally behaving like a huge dork. Usagi spies on them, but can't go inside because she doesn't have any money. She could always use the disguise pen to pose as a waitress... But then another opportunity arises. Umino sees Usagi and wonders what she's up to, crouched down outside a cafe. Hey, wait, doesn't Umino have a crush on Usagi? Hmmmm.

Usagi asks if Umino has any money. He does! Usagi asks if Umino would like to go on a date. He... wait, what? Yes, yes he would. They get into the cafe, where Usagi spies on Rei and Mamoru while Umino behaves like a boy from the 1950s.

In the park, it seems that the construction crew all suddenly quit. The owner explains to the uncharacteristically surly groundsman that with nobody prepared to do the work, the planned construction has been cancelled, and they'll be keeping the park the way it is. Meanwhile, Ami explains to Luna how she noticed the groundsman's odd behavior, and they head to the park to investigate. After meeting with the groundsmsan, the owner mutters about those construction workers expecting him to believe they were attacked by butterflies, and tosses a cigarette butt on the ground, attracting the attention of a squirrel. Man, that is one pissed-off looking squirrel. Moments later, Ami and Luna are drawn to the cries of a man experiencing the full-on terrifying wrath of squirrels.

This might look strange, but in fact, squirrels are widely known to be badasses. I mean, just ask Doctor Doom.

While the owner flees, begging forgiveness and promising never to bother the park again, Ami and Luna take a look at the horde of possessed evil squirrels and wonder if something evil might be afoot.

In a different, less evil part of the park, Rei has taken Mamoru out on a boat. He expresses sadness that the park is going to be closed, saying that people should take better care of nature. A wind blows to signify Mamoru having said something non-jerkish for the first time ever. Usagi watches them from a secluded spot, wondering what they're talking about. And Umino, having been raised by dating sims, thinks Usagi must be totally serious about this relationship if she's taken him to this private place already, and, well, since she's going to be so insistent, he'll agree to a kiss. By the time he's done saying this, Usagi has already run off somewhere else.

Usagi meets up with Ami and Luna, who tell her about the weird things happening in the park. The groundsman sees them, and says that the penalty for trespassing in this haven of nature is death! Then his energy peaks, and is drained by the Youma in his hat.The Youma takes humanoid form, and her name is... Petasos.

This Youma apparently gets her name from a Greek term for a sun hat, that I think also refers to some kind of leaf. But it's just too perfect that a Youma created from the fervor of eco-terrorism has "Peta" in her name. Petasos commands the park's animals to attack, prompting Usagi and Ami to transform.

On the boat, Mamoru suddenly experiences a weird seizure. Hmm, where have we seen that before? Then he and Rei are attacked by birds, and end up tipping their boat over. Meanwhile, Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury are being menaced by butterflies, and Luna has a squirrel problem. Mercury casts Bubble Spray, and... this has an effect, somehow. It slows the butterflies and squirrels down somehow. I don't really get it, but hey, Bubble Spray did something useful so I'm fine with it. Petasos counterattacks, wrapping both Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury in vines.

Rei and Mamoru made it out of the water okay, but Rei detects the evil aura nearby, and runs off to investigate. Not a moment too soon! Sailor Mars uses Fire Soul to destroy the vines trapping her allies. Mercury's pissed off that the Youma took advantage of the groundsman, Mars is pissed off that her date was interrupted, and they both tell off the Youma, stealing Sailor Moon's thunder a bit. The Youma goes to attack again, but a rose thrown by Tuxedo Mask distracts her. Wait, would a rose even work on a nature-based creature? Anyway, this gives Sailor Moon a chance to use the tiara, and Petasos is destroyed.

As the groundsman recovers, a wet and confused Mamoru joins Usagi, Rei and Ami. Rei suggests that Mamoru could be Tuxedo Mask, an idea that Usagi finds horrifying. Mamoru overhears, and has apparently never heard of Tuxedo Mask, but Rei is convinced it must be him. Then Umino shows up, having apparently escaped the wrath of nature entirely, and embarrasses Usagi by asking if she wants to continue their date. The end.

Monster of the day: Petasos is pretty strong, but as a grass type she has an obvious fire weakness. She also likes to name her attacks, though the names aren't very good: "Petasos Rope" and "Hand Flower" show a distinct lack of imagination. This is why you can't be a magical girl, Petasos. That and the being evil thing.

Most valuable person: Even though a lot of time was spent with Usagi and Rei, it seems like this was really Ami's episode, and indeed, she was the first to notice that something was going on.

Least valuable person: It's a tough one to call, but Usagi spent a lot of the episode being petty and conniving, so I think she gets the award this time.

My complaints about the translation aside, this is an episode that falls pretty clearly in average territory for the show. The "victim of the week who's an unlikely friend of one of the main characters who we've never seen before and will never see again" format seems a bit more blatant than last week, but there's enough going on that it doesn't drag the episode down too much. Plus, you know, any episode with possessed evil squirrels has to be doing something right. Three stars out of five.

12 - I Want a Boyfriend: The Luxury Cruise Ship Trap

This episode's title doth protest too much. Naturally, the most lesbian-subtext-laden episode so far is the one with "I Want a Boyfriend" in the name. More on that later.

We open with Jadeite watching a replay of one of his defeats and looking frustrated. A woman appears from a sudden burst of water, and starts flirting with him. She's a Youma called... well, fandom has forever been split over whether her name should be Thetis or Tethys, and Viz gives us... Tetiz. Eh, fair enough. Anyway, Tetris here is a Youma who works directly under Queen Beryl, and her aim is to get into Jadeite's pants. Jadeite isn't interested... and, you know, maybe he has a point. I mean, she's in her human-like form now, but in their true forms, most of the Youma we've seen so far have been giant lizards or walking corpses or evil mechanical dolls. Hell, one of the more attractive Youma we've seen so far was a green bat woman with chest fur. It makes sense that Jadeite isn't looking to form romantic relationships with women whose main purpose is to scare the crap out of viewers, but this Youma has a proposition to make. She has an awesome plan to collect human energy that's guaranteed to get Jadeite back in Beryl's good books, or at the very least out of her "marked for death" books. She calls it... Operation Romantic Cruise.

Oh, there's just a little thing here that I find unintentionally hilarious. After Tetiz says the name of the operation, her eyes get all glowy and her powers flare up, then we hear a ship's horn. It's actually a transition to the next scene, where we see the ship making the noise, but for a split-second it's just Tetiz on screen, powering up, and the sound of a horn, and it's like... is she generating that sound somehow? Is she going to turn into a ship? Is that her true form? Anyway...

Usagi sees a romantic cruise in Tokyo Bay advertised on TV, and wants to go on it. At school, she and Naru look at a print ad for the cruise. Umino comes over and reads some copy from the ad, including that the ship can carry 666 passengers (which is in no way suspicious). Though he has a little fantasy of himself and Usagi on the cruise, it turns out he did actually have tickets... but he gave them away because, well, it's past his bedtime. He says that the local lottery is giving away tickets as prizes, though, and on hearing this, Usagi makes her way calmly to the exit.

Unfortunately, the problem with lotteries is that they suck. Usagi tries and tries, but all she has to show for her efforts is an increasingly large collection of tissues given as consolation prizes. Dejected, she sees Rei passing by and complains about her bad luck. Rei says they don't have the time to waste on things like this... then immediately walks up and tries the lottery herself. Then she proceeds to cheat with her psychic powers. By the way, the background characters in this episode look bizarre.

Rei wins the grand prize - two tickets for the cruise - because as unfair as lotteries are, they're not psychic-proof. Usagi, once she's recovered from hypocrisy-whiplash, proposes that Rei should take her along with her spare ticket. Rei says you're supposed to take a boyfriend... but, well, it's not like either of them have one of those. Then Ami shows up, and Rei quickly takes her aside.

Rei asks Ami to go on the cruise with her. I mean, practically begs her. Rei is so much fun in this episode, saying one thing and immediately doing the exact opposite. She says that she intends to find a boyfriend while on the cruise, sure, but don't recalibrate your yuri detectors just yet. Rei has tickets for a romantic cruise, and the plot hinges on which of her female friends she wants to take with her. You can take the talk of finding boyfriends at face value if you want, but this episode is just swimming in lesbian subtext. Even though the show introduces openly lesbian characters later on, this is the episode that a lot of people - including Erica Friedman, benevolent overlord of western yuri fandom - point to as the one where they first picked up on all that subtext.

So, back to the episode. Usagi overhears Rei and Ami agreeing to go on the cruise together, and resolves to get on that cruise no matter what. And how will she manage this without a ticket? Well, for times like this, she has the Disguise Pen! Over Luna's objections, she disguises herself as a photographer. Usagi with short hair is adorable.

Usagi stuffs Luna into her camera case and gets on the ship. Of course, Jadeite is disguised as the captain. Apparently he can change his hair and skin color, which does raise the question of why he never bothered in previous episodes and instead just wore a pair of sunglasses or something. Anyway, the ship is actually a rusted wreck that Tetiz transformed with her magic, and she tells Jadeite that that's not all her magic can do. Wink wink. If you know what I mean. Jadeite ignores her and instead looks forward to stealing the energy of all of the couples on board.

Speaking of couples, Rei and Ami notice they're the only girls who came without guys. Since everyone else here is part of a couple, it doesn't look like they'll be finding any single dudes here.

Usagi's having better luck, though. While poking around the suspiciously-quiet engine room, she meets a nice, single man: the captain! She says she got separated from her crew, and she's sure a hot guy like him would be able to help her out, right?

Luna immediately senses something evil about the captain, but she's in the box and can't communicate with Usagi. The contrast between Usagi and Jadeite's reactions in this scene is really telling.

Now, you could interpret this as a joke about Usagi's obliviousness in the face of evil, but the important thing here, I think, is Jadeite's reaction. Back when he first encountered Sailor Moon in episode three, he seemed so much more powerful than she was. Now, just being close to her freaks him out, while he isn't even a blip on her radar. One of the people in this scene is way more threatening than the other. Meanwhile, Rei wonders if she and Ami might be able to find guys if they just wait for some of the couples on the ship to fight and break up. Guys who'll hook up with you moments after being dumped by someone else are always top-tier, right?

Usagi is still hanging off Jadeite's arm and scaring the crap out of him for reasons he can't comprehend. He finally gets away from her when Tetiz shows up and needs him for important evil business. Luna finally gets the chance to tell Usagi that the ship is full of evil energy. They spy on Jadeite and Tetiz, who are discussing their plan, but can't hear what they're saying. Usagi has doubts that someone so attractive could be their enemy, but when Jadeite and Tetiz both disappear, she resolves to investigate.

In the dining room, Rei is channeling all of her frustrations into eating as much food as possible, embarrassing Ami. Who'd have thought that out of all our characters, Rei would be the most embarrassing date?

Then Tetiz makes an announcement about a show in the reception hall, and Ami is only too glad to get away. Rei and Ami join the crowds waiting for the show, and Jadeite and Tetiz appear on the stage. Tetiz welcomes them to the most romantic show in the world, and reveals her true form.

You know what, Jadeite? Maybe you should give her a chance. If you reject every woman you meet just because she's covered in blades or doesn't have a face, you'll be single forever.

Tetiz starts to drain the energy from the couples using the mirror ball on the ceiling: based on this and episode seven, I'm just going to assume those things are evil from now on. Everyone collapses except for Rei and Ami, because they didn't bring guys, and I guess the mirror ball was calibrated to hetero couples only?

How rude! Tetiz sends the crew - actually water monsters - after Rei and Ami, and though they fight some of them off, they can't transform in public view. Tetiz points out that these girls aside, they've succeeded in taking a large amount of human energy, and Queen Beryl is bound to be pleased, just as long as nobody comes in and ruins everything in the last few minutes. Outside the reception hall, Usagi transforms into Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon bursts in and tells off Jadeite and Tetiz for being so inconsiderate as to not steal energy from everyone: what about those girls over there without boyfriends? Tetiz charges Sailor Moon and they end up on the deck of the ship, where Tetiz summons and controls torrents of seawater, aiming them at Sailor Moon. Inside, now that they've had a chance to transform, Sailor Mars and Sailor Mercury deal with the water monsters, and prepare for some sweet revenge.

I've seen the "Damn right!" mentioned in a few places, and yeah, it's not a direct translation, but it really captures the mood, which has been a persistent feature of these subs.

Mars and Mercury come to assist Sailor Moon, and together they're able to wipe out Tetiz. Jadeite confronts them, observing that they're much stronger than they used to be, and they prepare to battle. Jadeite summons a ball of dark energy and... is abruptly teleported away.

Oh boy, Queen Beryl is pissed. On top of his previous failures, Jadeite just let one of her Youma get killed. It's not looking good for him right now.

With Tetiz gone, her magic fades. The passengers wake up to find themselves adrift in Tokyo Bay in a rusty derelict, with rescue ships surrounding them. And then... well, once again, the ending is a bit weak, with all of the characters reverting to their archetypes: Usagi and Rei squabble, Luna gets exasperated and Ami talks about studying. But since Usagi doesn't cry or fall over, it's forgivable.

Monster of the day: Tetiz gets more development than any other monster I can think of, really. She's strong, smart, and really her only flaw is the persistent desire to bone Jadeite that ends up getting her killed.

Most valuable person: Everyone was on fine form, and it's hard to pick a winner. Let's give it to Usagi for freaking out Jadeite so badly, even when posing as a regular person.

Least valuable person: Again, tricky. Nobody really annoyed me here. Jadeite gets it by default for being a bit pathetic and acting kind of dickish towards Tetiz, while proving to be a lot less competent than her in everything other than not-getting-killed.

I like this episode a lot. The characters are funny, the plot is interesting, and we even get a monster of the day with some depth. The lesbian subtext has plenty of "but we really want boyfriends" plausible deniability, but it's there. It's all kind of Class S - an older genre of Japanese fiction where girls crush on girls as a rite of passage before getting on with the important business of being attracted to men. These days, some elements of Class S can seem pretty iffy, as it carries the implication that lesbian attractions are a phase to be grown out of, but in its day it was pretty subversive, as it served as a means to acknowledge and celebrate same-sex attraction without falling foul of censors (though the genre was banned by the Japanese government in the 1930s). Maria-sama ga Miteru is an example of a modern Class S series, and in keeping with more modern attitudes, it has at least one canon lesbian among the many schoolgirl crushes. Sailor Moon would go on to be groundbreaking in its portrayal of lesbian characters, and this feels like a first, nervous step in that direction.

All in all, this episode ranks amongst the most memorable of early Sailor Moon, and earns itself a solid four stars out of five.

Oh, and I don't usually comment on the next episode trailers, but thank you, Viz for doing a better job translating the next episode's title than ADV did.

9 - Usagi's Disaster: Beware of the Clock of Confusion

"I'll bet even the cuckoo in the cuckoo clock is angry!" Sailor Moon has the best fighting talk of anyone ever. What did those cuckoos ever do to you, Dark Kingdom?

Queen Beryl isn't impressed that there's now a second Sailor Guardian running around and ruining their energy-harvesting schemes. That's like the opposite of progress. Jadeite pacifies her with talk of a plan to make people panicked and impatient, then taking that heightened energy. Beryl likes it so much, she does her Captain Picard impression.

Jadeite had better hope he's Will Riker and not Tasha Yar.

By the way, the art in this episode is... not that great. Sailor Moon had a lot of different art directors over the years, and some of them were less good at keeping characters on model than others. Two in particular are notable for having a style that deviated quite a bit from the standard: Masahiro Ando, and Taichi Nakamura (credited during the first season as Akira Nakamura), who was responsible for this episode. Ando's style is probably the most recognizable; his characters are chubby-looking with rounder faces, and he probably gets the most flak from fans. Personally, I think Nakamura is worse: his characters have large chins and look extremely flat, and his attempts at perspective resulted in some of the worst art in the entire series. Art isn't something that's going to impact review scores much, but it is something worth pointing out.

We catch up with Usagi and Ami, our temporarily oddly-drawn protagonists, on a shopping trip. Ami's lived a very sheltered life... to the extent that she's never been shopping before? Well, not in a consumerist utopia like this, anyway. What follows is a shopping montage, and... well, even though I just decided not to dwell on the art too much, the fact that they decided not to fully animate this section, combined with the dodgy art, makes it... kind of... sucky.

Okay, no more complaining about the art, I promise. Usagi and Ami notice a clock store having a huge sale. The saleswoman is creepy, and we all know what that means, but Usagi and Ami don't notice. Usagi sees a clock that looks a bit like Luna, and goes to buy it in the hopes of one day getting to school on time, but can't because she's broke. I do like how irritated saleswoman-who-is-blatantly-a-Youma looks during this part.

Ami cheers Usagi up by promising to call for her on her way to school. But when Usagi returns home, it turns out her mom also visited the store and bought some clocks. She got the Luna-like clock for Usagi, though Luna is kind of offended that they see a resemblance.

Personally I see this as justified retribution for that offensive caricature Luna drew of Usagi in episode four. Who's giving who body image issues now?

Anyway, Luna's misgivings that the clock looks sinister are vindicated when it starts emitting a weird light in the middle of the night, along with other clocks in the house. In the morning, Ami arrives to pick Usagi up, but is surprised to hear that she already left for school. Shingo left even earlier, dad sprints past, and mom quickly excuses herself because she has so much to do.

At school, it's chaos. Usagi, Naru, Umino and a few other students have shown up early, as has Haruna, who's getting impatient waiting for the rest. Usagi's already eaten her lunch (though that could just be Usagi being Usagi). Naru wants to find the other students and drag them to class herself. Everyone's going crazy, though Haruna has at least found a way to benefit from the situation.

Haruna leaves for an early morning date, and her students leave too. Ami heads to school, confused by the chaos around her, but there's an even more confusing sight in store for her...

What the... Why... Okay, I get that Luna, being a cat, might not be dextrous enough to carry the clock, and I guess the plot demanded she get it to Ami somehow. But you know what's a lot harder for a cat than carrying a small clock? Securely tying a small clock to its own body. Just look at this picture. It's ridiculous and lazy. Yeah, how would Luna transport something she couldn't pick up? I don't know, it's a challenge for a writer. Be creative! Come up with something... better than this. Better than a cat with a clock strapped to its torso. She looks like a cat suicide bomber.

Luna wants Ami to analyze the clock, and once it's been removed she's able to do the item-summoning dance. She gives Ami a supercomputer to help with the analysis, saying it would be too much for Usagi. Um... the computer clearly isn't meant for Usagi, seeing as it has the symbol of Mercury all over it, so it comes off as Luna just taking another opportunity to call Usagi dumb.

On a positive note, though, I really like the supercomputer. It's a sci-fi-ish computer in a show from over twenty years ago, and it doesn't seem dated. In an era when actual supercomputers took up entire rooms and even cellphones were big enough to club someone to death with, they came up with this powerful palm-sized computer that seems like it would be a cool thing to own even today.

It turns out Ami doesn't really need the supercomputer to analyze the clock, though. She opens it up and a pulse of energy shoots out, but otherwise the clock is empty, with no mechanism. Luna theorizes that the clock store is to blame, and everyone who owns one of their clocks is being affected.

Meanwhile, the mass impatience is causing people to ignore traffic lights, leading to a huge pile-up, though apparently we're to believe that the worst injury was some guy cutting his finger. Also, this guy decides he's going to be late for his flight.

Okay, that's pretty funny. Jadeite oversees the harvesting of energy from the frenzied population. The energy is apparently being collected by a giant clock in the clock store. We also get to see the Youma's true form. What is it with characters from this show looking like musicians from the eighties? Meanwhile, with Usagi...

Things aren't going so well. Ami and Luna haven't been able to contact her and wonder if they should try dealing with this themselves, but Usagi soon emerges unscathed from a nearby bus crash. I swear, the damage caused in this one episode has to be greater than all of the previous episodes combined. Ami and Luna tell Usagi what's going on, and Usagi is keen to help... but is still being affected by the impatience-magic and so decides the best tactic is just to storm into the clock store from the front. At least she takes the time to transform first, and I do like that they recorded a different, faster version of her transformation phrase for this episode.

Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury head through a smoking hole in the storefront left by Moon Tiara Action, but the hole seals itself up before Luna can get inside. They confront the Youma, and pose like they're a Conan the Barbarian cover.

 

Only with more clothes and fewer corpses. The Youma activates the giant clock, which creates a weird energy field that she escapes into. Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury follow her in. By the way, when the clock starts up, it's... upside down. At first I wondered if it was like that deliberately, but nope, in all of the other shots, it's a regular clock. It's just an animation error. That's another thing that bugs me about Nakamura's art: a lack of attention to detail. Yeah, I lied when I said I wasn't going to complain about the art anymore. Most of the art screw-ups of this nature that I can think of are in his episodes.

Our heroes emerge in Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory Experience, a weird dimension filled with clocks, because... time. The unseen Youma taunts them, Sailor Moon rushes off to find her, and Mercury switches on her visor and follows. They don't really explain it at this point but the visor comes with the supercomputer, and it's pretty cool. So they end up in another room made of screentone, and Mercury advises Sailor Moon to wait until she's analyzed her surroundings. She takes out her computer, so now she's looking at a screen through another screen, which might sound like overkill to you, but this is Mercury. Also, there are some Robocop references in the on-screen text. So while Mercury is investigating, Sailor Moon wanders off and gets de-aged, until Mercury pulls her back, reversing the process, and warns her than wandering around in a dimension created by a time monster isn't a good idea. Then we get to see Usagi's daydream of what else the dimension could do to her...

Which is disturbing, sure, but I'll still take it over the manga's obsession with showing people melting away into skeletons repeatedly.

Meanwhile! Tuxedo mask enters an empty building, and seems confused. Then it's back to our protagonists, and after an even more blatant Robocop reference, Sailor Mercury figures out where they need to go. They head off in that direction and do indeed find the Youma there, but there's a problem. Sailor Moon's still under the influence of her clock, and is suddenly weakened as her energy is drained away. The Youma then stops time around Sailor Mercury, except not really, because she's still aware and can move a bit, so it's more like she just paralyzed her. Like most of the 'time' effects in this episode, it doesn't actually make sense if you stop to think about it.

Tuxedo Mask is in the clock store, standing in front of the giant clock. Then he seems to notice something, and throws a rose at the giant clock, cracking its face (which is upside down for a second time, gah). This part just seems to come completely out of nowhere. How did he know what to do? What was he suddenly noticing? Having seen the whole show before, I'm pretty sure I know what they were intending with this scene, but the first time I saw it, it confused me. And not in a "they've set up a cool mystery here" way, but in a "huh?" way.

But however Tuxedo Mask knew what to do, it worked, as the stored energy is now released. Sailor Mercury can move again, and casts Bubble Spray. Sailor Moon, her energy now restored, aims her tiara at the gleaming Youma eyes visible through the mist, and kills the Youma. The entire store just disappears around them, leaving them standing in the street.

So, er, that's that, really. There's a tacked-on final scene where Naru runs up and tells Usagi that some cake store is having a competition for the fastest eater. Usagi runs after her and falls over, because the episode is just that lazy. I swear, Usagi falling over is this show's equivalent of "character makes a weak joke, everyone laughs, fade out." If you can't think of an ending for your episode, have Usagi fall over.

Monster of the day: Ramua. Her weapon is a spear shaped like a clock hand, she looks like an eighties pop star crossed with a member of a Kiss tribute band, and she has power over time... sort of.

Most valuable person: Ami again, who takes charge and assists Usagi (who was being affected by the clock and thus not at her most rational) through the maze.

Least valuable person: Luna is back to her unnecessarily bitchy ways. Knock it off, Luna.

This episode isn't terrible, but there's just such a lack of imagination when it comes to the evil plot. A Youma that can manipulate time? That should be terrifyingly powerful. There's all kinds of cool stuff you could do with it. Instead we get a nondescript pocket dimension decorated with clocks and a few tricks that don't even really count as time manipulation. Time wasn't actually running backwards for Sailor Moon when she de-aged, and time didn't stop for Sailor Mercury. Even the main scheme, collecting energy from impatient people, didn't rely on time manipulation so much as manipulating people's perception of time. Add in all of the other things that seem to have been done out of sheer laziness - tying the clock to Luna, the tuxedo ex machina resolution to the fight, and that ending, and this is an episode that just doesn't even want to try. There are a few good bits - a lot of the chaos resulting from the clocks is entertaining, and Ami is written well - but overall this episode gets a disappointing two stars out of five.

8 - Is the Genius Girl a Demon?! The Brainwashing Cram School of Horror

It's time for Ami's introductory episode. And I can't help but feel the irony that the title, the pre-episode teaser and the preview from the last episode all conceal the fact that Ami's a Sailor Guardian... when that surprise is kind of spoiled by the opening. But whatever, the teaser kept in the Einstein and Hawking references, so it's fine.

(By the way, even though I've always used Sailor Senshi, I guess I'll be using Sailor Guardian from now on as that seems to be the official translation now. That doesn't necessarily mean I'll be using every Viz translation; for instance, I use Youma rather than Monster because the show has plenty of other monsters, and it cuts down on ambiguity)

We start in the Dark Kingdom, where Jadeite and Queen Beryl are discussing cram schools and might just possibly be voicing the opinions of the writers here. Competitive parents are likened to Youma, pushing their kids to be in the top schools, then top universities. Beryl asks what happens when they leave the top universities.

Yep, I'll drink to that. And while the writers' previous attempts at social commentary resulted in the muddled message of episode four, this one doesn't get in the way of the rest of the episode.

In the Tsukino house, Usagi's mom is very keen to know how Usagi did on the recent practice exams. The results are due the next day, and Usagi... isn't confident. She laments to Luna, who isn't too sympathetic when she sees that Usagi is only pretending to study, and is in fact reading comics. The discussion moves to the mission to find the princess, and the nature of their enemies. Usagi, quite justifiably, wants to know exactly what it is she's fighting, and Luna doesn't know.

That night, Luna sneaks into the Crown arcade and consults a mysterious contact via a communications system built into the Sailor V game. She expresses frustration with Sailor Moon, and mentions sensing a strange energy from a girl she's seen recently. Her contact doesn't really offer her any new information, but tells her to prioritize her investigation of this girl.

At school the next day, the exam results are out, and Ami Mizuno scored first place - not just in the school, but in the entire country. Naru, Umino and that nameless sort-of-chubby girl from episode four tell Usagi how Ami attends an expensive cram school, but doesn't have to pay since they gave her a scholarship (it's common for cram schools to let extremely high-achieving students attend for free, because it's good publicity and helps keep their average scores high). Popular opinion of Ami is pretty negative, it seems, and Usagi sees Ami nearby, looking lonely. They make eye contact, and Usagi panics because her group was just gossiping about her, and tries to act natural, and fails because Usagi is a terrible liar.

Oh, and for anyone who's never seen the show but is inexplicably finding out about it for the first time via these recaps, Ami is totally the girl that Luna was suspicious of. Shock!

Usagi's exam results sucked, and on the way home she laments that her mom is bound to be angry... though the details of her daydream are a little... uh...

Anyway, Usagi notices Ami, just in time to see Luna drop from above and land on top of her. Ami's response is to pet her, because kitty! This isn't quite what Luna expected. Usagi makes her presence known, and Ami starts being completely adorable.

Usagi agrees with me. She starts to hit it off with Ami, despite Luna's whispered warnings that there's something not quite right about her. Usagi has an ulterior motive, though: a genius like Ami might be able to help her with her awful grades.

They visit the arcade, Ami mentions that she hasn't played video games before, so Usagi says she'll be her tutor. Usagi kind of sucks at the Sailor V game. Then Ami takes her turn, and... well, she's good. In fact, she gets the arcade's all-time high score, and draws a crowd of astonished gamers. Then she realizes she's late for her cram school, and pushes through the crowd to get away. Usagi expresses surprise that Ami attends cram school every day, but she sadly says that studying is the only thing she's good at. After she leaves, Motoki hands Usagi a floppy disc that Ami dropped in her hasty departure. Meanwhile, there's something evil at Ami's cram school, but it ain't Ami...

Ami arrives at cram school and realizes she doesn't have her disc. Side note: I just noticed that the Japanese for floppy disc is furoppii. That's awesome. Anyway, Ami shrugs it off, since she doesn't use the disc much anyway. The cram school teacher, who looks downright freaky, shows up and reminds her that she should totally be using the disc all the time, by the way. Ami smiles and nods, but once she's gone she mentions that using the disc gives her headaches.

So, what's on the disc? Usagi and Luna are outside the cram school reading their publicity, which says that using their disc can make anyone a genius. Then Mamoru shows up, making fun of the very idea that Usagi might be interested in studying, because, I dunno, for every one hundred times he deflates a teenage girl's ego he gets a free hideous jacket or something. More to the point, he asks, was that cat just talking? The reaction to this is just priceless.

Well, in their haste to evade questioning, they didn't get the chance to return Ami's disc. But Luna's suspicious of it, and asks Usagi to return to the school and find a computer so that they can study it. Usagi's no good with computers that don't have joysticks attached, but fortunately Luna is. They load the disc and get a literal blue screen of death, which emits a piercing sound while Jadeite's voice commands them to surrender their energy. Luna decides this must mean that Ami is their enemy, since of course she's the only one who attends that cram school. Right? Luna jumps to a lot of conclusions in this episode.

They return to the cram school, and Usagi uses the Disguise Pen to change into a doctor. She rushes in, claiming she heard someone inside needed medical attention. From the look of the students, everyone in there needs medical attention. Except for Ami, who tells Usagi to quiet down because people are trying to study. She accuses Ami of being a Youma, and transforms into Sailor Moon. Ami is understandably stunned...

Which allows the teacher to grab her. In a twist I bet you didn't see coming, the teacher is a Youma! Sailor Moon, a little pissed off at Luna for jumping to the wrong conclusion, confronts the Youma. Unfortunately, this is Garoben, the Youma of knowledge, and there's going to be a quiz. Sailor Moon fails the physics part of the exam and has to dodge razor-sharp test papers as a result. Then the Youma sets the hordes of brainwashed zombie students on her, while she prepares to extract Ami's genius energy. Only... it doesn't work, and Ami is unharmed, because she didn't use the disc. A symbol lights up on Ami's head, and Luna seems to recognize it. Yep, she's one of the Sailor Guardians, explaining the weird energy Luna had sensed from her. Luna spawns a new item with her magical stock footage of item spawning, but right now, Ami is preoccupied with a Youma that wants the energy from her brain, and is prepared to go to extreme lengths to get it. These include turning her arm into an axe to cut off Ami's head.

Holy crap, that is far and away the scariest thing this show has done so far. Luna tosses Ami her new transformation pen and tells her what to do. To her credit, Ami doesn't even act surprised that a cat is talking to her, and instead repeats the transformation phrase and gets down to business.

Sailor Mercury has joined the fight!

Sailor Moon's having a bit of a zombie problem, and Mercury's still being pursued by a Youma intent on decapitation, so Luna advises Mercury to use her attack. So, yeah, the attack is translated as Bubble Spray, which isn't inaccurate, but might piss off some purists who preferred Sabão Spray. Personally I always liked Shabon Spray, the compromise version that pissed off everyone. In any case, given the hawk-like supervision this translation is getting from the creators, things as significant as attack names are undoubtedly subject to approval from on-high, so this one probably comes straight from the top.

But let's talk about the attack. In the first season, Mercury has the suckiest powers. Bubble Spray is a debuff; it doesn't generally inflict damage. Still, it can be situationally very useful, such as here, where Mercury reduces her opponent's ability to see her in a room full of reflective computer screens. Sure enough, the Youma ends up attacking the screens. Sailor Moon uses the opportunity to send a tiara her way, and the Youma is killed. As the cram school students come to their senses, Sailor Moon and Luna welcome their new recruit to the team.

Back at school, Usagi is happy to have Ami as an ally, since there'll be all that help with studying she's sure to get from it. Ami, for her part, seems to be taking this Sailor Guardian business very seriously indeed, and Usagi has a sudden feeling that she's going to be outclassed in this field as well.

Monster of the day: Garoben, the Youma of knowledge, has a distinctive design and a pretty weird fighting style (questions followed by telekinetic paper projectiles?). Also, her arm transforms into an axe for cutting off heads. Yeah, she's memorable.

Most valuable person: How could it be anyone other than Ami? She takes on her new role with a surprising amount of ease and enthusiasm.

Least valuable person: A triple award for Naru, Umino and the sort-of-chubby girl for badmouthing Ami apparently just out of jealousy.

The addition of Sailor Mercury adds some much-needed analytical expertise to the team. I know that was supposed to be Luna's thing up until now, but look at how much her info gathering skills suck in this episode. I have some issues with how Ami's character was handled later on in the show, but in this first episode, she's interesting and sympathetic. For some great character and comedy, this episode gets four stars out of five.