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.

7 - Usagi Learns Her Lesson: Becoming a Star is Hard Work

Usagi is on her way to school, running late, when she notices a poster for an energy drink featuring a local celebrity, Mikan Shiratori. While she's looking at the poster, Naru runs past her and smacks her in the head with her bag. At school, Naru tells Usagi she ought to thank her, because the smack in the head prevented her from being late. Yeah... one of the themes of this episode is Naru being a terrible person, so brace yourself for more of that. Umino has a copy of the poster Usagi saw, which he obtained through the internet. It's kind of interesting to see a reference to the internet in a show from 1992, and though it makes sense that Umino was an early adopter, in this show he seems to be using it in school, with a laptop and no modem. The text on the laptop display is huge, so at least that's authentic.

Umino uses the early nineties internet to reel off a lot of biographical data on Mikan Shiratori: she went to their school, she's 17 years old and she's currently making a fortune. She was also supposedly discovered right there in town. Some of the girls wonder how the talent scouts have missed them, and say they must be blind. Umino replies that, no, they can evidently see very well. It's a mean thing to say, sure, but if there's one thing we know about Umino, it's that he tends to offend people without even trying. In fact, he's trying to pay a compliment to Usagi, who he says is the school's next undiscovered star. The other girls look pretty unimpressed at this announcement, and even Usagi, bless her, seems surprised.

Still, she ultimately seems kind of taken with the idea. Meanwhile, Jadeite is spying on Mikan Shiratori, who's signing autographs at the launch of her new TV show, called Rock! Paper! Scissors! Seriously, that's the name. I'd say it's the least interesting premise for a show imaginable, but we already have an international hit show that consists entirely of people guessing what's in a box, so I guess I just don't understand what sells.

At Usagi's place, Usagi and Naru have decided they'll become celebrities, and they start work on their singing act. So they put on a song to practice singing. Now, the show does sometimes have these moments where someone will start singing something from the soundtrack, but at this early point in the show's existence, there wasn't a soundtrack, so they try to sing Moonlight Densetsu, which is the theme song. I guess it isn't actually that unusual for characters in a show to acknowledge the theme tune in some knowing, wink-to-the-audience moment, but I've always found it to be a bit tiresome.

Anyway, Usagi and Naru suck. Their singing is awful, but their dancing seems to somehow be worse, and they seem unable to move around without hitting each other. Shingo comes in at one point to complain about the terrible noise. The girls blame each other for how bad they are, and then decide to split their act up, declaring that they will be rivals from now on.

Later, Usagi and her family are watching TV. Now, I don't know whether it's due to the cleanup job on this episode, but there's something in this scene that I managed to miss every time I've watched it before, and it kind of makes what follows make more sense. So, there's a guy on TV and he has this trained monkey wearing clothes that does stuff when he gives it commands. But you don't see the screen for very long, and when I first saw this episode, I totally thought that monkey was a little old man.

In my defense, I first saw this scene in a Real Media fansub, which is sort of like watching a show via animated forum avatars, such was the low resolution. I just always assumed that this was some impenetrable Japanese comedy show which makes fun of short people because being short=comedy gold or something. The scene is so short that I guess I never really looked at it after that first time.

The show is actually about performing animals, I guess, and the trained monkey (which doesn't even look that much like an old man, what was I thinking) gives Usagi an idea. Her singing career ended before it got off the ground, but she totally has access to a super-intelligent animal! So she takes Luna to her room, and... has her do the same super-basic trick the monkey did. Have some originality, Usagi. This cat is probably smarter than you...

Umino shows up at Naru's place and... oh right, this part. Well, I might have been too harsh on the show earlier when I just assumed it was using short people as a punchline. But hey, you know what's always funny? Men in dresses!

Okay, okay. This show is from 1992, and even in 2014, we're still at a point where "lol, man in a dress" is an oft-used punchline. Early-nineties Japan was pretty piss-poor on LGBT rights, and Sailor Moon was amazingly progressive for its time. But it's like watching old episodes of Star Trek: we can appreciate it for being ahead of its time on social issues, but there are plenty of bits that are just blatantly sexist by today's standards. And that doesn't make it a bad show, it's fine to like it, but it's important to acknowledge those dodgy parts for what they are, and not make excuses.

So yeah, the whole Umino-in-a-dress part is borderline offensive, but it's also just weird. Usually when a show puts a guy in a dress for comedy purposes, they'll go with something outrageous. But with Umino...

Naru dresses him like a Sunday School teacher or something. And then proceeds to be awful to him throughout the scene, reassuring Umino that this will make Usagi like him, while commenting to herself that he looks hilariously bad in the dress she made him wear.

Meanwhile, Mikan Shiratori is attacked in the shower by a genuinely freaky Youma that sprays her with... I think it's supposed to be a sort of liquid glass. It imprisons her in a cocoon of this stuff, then takes on her appearance, and we cut to...

Jadeite and Evil Mikan. Jadeite is barely disguised as some announcer, and they're on a mobile outdoor stage encouraging kids to join the Cinderella Caravan and become celebrities. Then the satellite dish on top of the truck starts emitting waves that make everyone present want to be famous. Question: if this plan is supposed to be feeding off the desire to be famous, why is it necessary to hypnotize people into wanting to be famous? I dunno, it's a minor complaint, I suppose.

At school, the girls are talking about the Cinderella Caravan, which Usagi hasn't heard of, so hey, it's another opportunity for Naru to be insulting. Usagi gets the idea of taking her "act" with Luna there in the hopes of being discovered. Then Umino walks past and acts effeminate because, you know, he wore a dress recently. Comedy gold!

The Cinderella Caravan is almost busted when the cops show up, and... wait, Tokyo has cops? Could have fooled me these past six and a half episodes. Okay, so it's just one cop, and he wants to know why all these kids aren't in school. Also, Mikan's manager shows up, wanting to know why she's cancelled all her bookings. But they're hit with the fame-ray like the others and become wannabe celebrities, forming some sort of entry-level gymnastics act.

Usagi tries to get Luna to go to the Cinderella Caravan with her, but Luna refuses, explaining that she humored Usagi with her act because she thought the change of pace would be good for her, but actually trying to become a celebrity would get in the way of their mission. It's a bit harsh, but I can't hate Luna too much for this, given that she's an intelligent being who's been made to perform one dumb trick repeatedly. Usagi is devastated, and runs off crying, but sees Mamoru. I guess he was away last time getting his jerk license renewed. He's also not wearing the jerk-shades he typically wears up until this point, and is, uh, smiling. This might be an attempt to soften him and make him more likeable, but most of his behavior is unchanged. He asks if Usagi is going to the Cinderella Caravan and then mocks the idea, rather than, I don't know, asking the clearly upset girl what's wrong. Usagi leaves in a huff, and Mamoru watches her go with a smile that isn't inherently creepy, except it's completely static and lingers on the screen for way too long.

So, back at the Cinderella Caravan, two of the girls from Usagi's class, Kuri and Yumiko, are doing a stand-up routine, and... okay, translation, you just impressed me with how you handled that untranslatable bread/pants pun. I mean, yeah, the joke is awful, but I think that was the point. Kuri's also speaking in a Kansai accent, which is Japan's comedy accent apparently. Evil Mikan stamps their hands and they advance to the next round, despite being terrible. The same goes for Naru and Umino, Umino having replaced Usagi in Naru's singing duo. The qualifying acts - which appears to be all of them - are told they'll be performing live on Sunday.

Usagi gets to school the next day, and finds her classmates completely preoccupied with their forthcoming fame. Kuri and Yumiko are telling more terrible jokes, Naru is practicing signing autographs, and Umino is distributing streamers because the rules of comedy dictate he has to be hit in the face by one later in the scene. Usagi wonders why everyone isn't getting ready for class, and you know things are bad when it's Usagi complaining that people are neglecting their studies. But the other students are too caught up in their fantasies to listen. Also, Umino gets hit in the face with a streamer.

While the students perform and then argue about who's the real star, Usagi and Luna discuss the strange behavior going on all over town, with people neglecting their jobs in an effort to become famous, and they speculate that a Youma might be involved. Hmm, you think? (Okay, I'm being a bit cruel - at least they figure it out beforehand rather than blindly stumbling into the trap...)

Usagi and Luna show up at the venue, and notice that there's no audience. Backstage, Evil Mikan tells the would-be celebrities that the audience is waiting, and sure enough, the seats are suddenly filled with creepy two-dimensional shadow people.The curtains raise, the hand-stamps the competitors received at the tryouts begin to glow... and the performances start. That is, all of them, at the same time. Evil Mikan starts collecting their energy via her microphone, and Jadeite supervises the process in the shadows.

Usagi and Luna, standing at the back, watch the performers and wonder what the hell's going on. Then Evil Mikan notices them, and rotates her head 180 degrees, because if you've got that skill, you might as well put it to good use.

Okay, that's pretty scary. Scary enough to make Usagi run off and hide in the bathroom, but after a few moments to compose herself, she transforms into Sailor Moon and returns to the auditorium.

All of the competitors are now drained of their energy and unconscious, but someone else is on the stage. It's Sailor Moon, who tells the Youma off. Unfortunately, the Youma still has the weird glass-blowing power it used to trap Mikan, and encases Sailor Moon in glass. Tuxedo Mask appears for his usual assist-and-distraction routine (actually, we haven't seen him outside of a dream sequence since episode three) and shatters the glass trapping Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon hits the Youma in the back with her tiara, and the whole auditorium gets a lovely shower of broken glass. The competitors all wake up, mostly back to normal, though Kuri hasn't quite managed to shake the Kansai accent. The real Mikan wakes up in her bath, looking confused. Then, back at home, Luna gets a bit of symbolic payback for her indignities earlier in the episode.

This is the last of the solo-Usagi episodes, and while it isn't the worst of the bunch, it's probably the least interesting. The plot doesn't do anything unexpected, the jokes are lazy, and while it does benefit from a scary Youma, even the fight scene plays out almost exactly as you'd expect. And what's with the title? Usagi Learns Her Lesson: Becoming a Star is Hard Work? Usagi doesn't even compete in the contest.

Monster of the day: Derella, who I don't think is named anywhere in the episode, and spends most of her screentime pretending to be Mikan. A good, scary Youma with a glass theme. I think the dress and wig make her way scarier, actually.

Most valuable person: Kind of a tough one, given that this episode was so generic, with everyone behaving pretty much as expected. I'm gonna go with Usagi, for taking things seriously and not holding it against Luna when she refused to compete. Also, that was a scary Youma.

Least valuable person: Naru, for jerkish behavior throughout the episode but especially her treatment of Umino.

The score for this episode is two stars out of five. Even leaving out the "Look! It's a man in a dress! Comedy!" stuff with Umino, this is an episode that just never seems to try that hard. It's not terrible, just ordinary and predictable. While the solo-Usagi episodes had some real highlights, maybe this was a sign she desperately needed some of those costars the opening had been promising for weeks now.

6 - Protect the Melody of Love: Usagi Plays Cupid

Of the early solo-Usagi episodes, three didn't make it into the dubbed version: episode two, episode five, and this one. Other episodes later on were dropped as well, but the large number of early episodes that got the chop is pretty striking. Various suggestions have been put forward for why these episodes were cut, such as Umino's delinquent behavior in episode two, or the animal abuse in episode five, but DiC cut stuff out of episodes all the time, and they could have easily done so with these episodes. I suspect they simply wanted to get to the introduction of the other main characters quicker. Also, a standard 65 episodes would have finished just a short way into the main arc of Sailor Moon R, so they may have dropped some episodes in order to have a more logical stopping point.

In any case, it's a real shame this episode was cut, because it's easily the best of Usagi's solo run.

We start in the Dark Kingdom, and for the first time, that crystal ball thing that Beryl's always staring at is shown to have a purpose. It's a cassette player! Beryl sits on her throne, stone-faced, listening to the cassette suspended inside her crystal ball. Jadeite stands nearby, hoping she'll like his new mix tape. After a few moments, the music causes some flowers nearby to wilt. Jadeite explains that the music contains energy-sapping ultrasonic waves. Impressed, Beryl gives him the cassette back. He summons a Youma named Kyurene, who appears in a cloud of bats, gives her the tape, and tells her to insert it into the humans' music.

A quick note here: Kyurene's name should arguably be rendered as Cyrene, but a straight romanization is still preferable to an inaccurate one, so it's fine, I guess.

It's a rainy day in Juban, and Usagi, Naru and Luna are in Naru's room listening to a jazz CD. I bet Beryl wishes her crystal ball could play CDs as well. The music is by Yusuke Amade, who Naru decides must be a sophisticated older man, the kind she'd like to go out with. Hmm. Let us know how that obsession turns out for you, Naru.

Yusuke Amade himself is standing outside the record company offices, telling himself that today's the day he's going to tell the little red-haired girl how he feels, definitely. Inside, one of the recording studios is temporarily out of order due to being full of bats. Kyurene appears with the cassette, musing that it will infect all of the music recorded here like a virus. The analog kind, presumably. The Youma has just put the cassette into the tape deck when she hears someone coming, and hides. A female employee walks in and takes the cassette, thinking it belongs to Yusuke. The Youma extends her nails, ready to strike, and there's some nicely creepy animation for this.

But before Kyurene can strike, a second employee calls the first down to the lobby, where Yusuke is waiting.

Downstairs in the lobby, Yusuke is greeted by the employee, Akiko, on whom he has a fairly obvious crush. He has a bunch of flowers behind his back, and seems to be waiting for the perfect time to present them. Akiko returns his demo, praising it, and Yusuke points out that it's her birthday today. The perfect moment approaches... and is ruined, when an employee runs over in a panic because someone's screwed something up. Akiko rushes off to fix it, telling Yusuke to try to come up with a title for his piece. He observes to himself that it already has a title, A Waltz for Akiko, which Akiko failed to notice. But he has bigger problems now, as the pissed-off Youma glaring at him from across the lobby indicates.

Usagi and Luna head home from Naru's place in the rain, but Usagi is unexpectedly knocked to the ground by a panicked Yusuke. She's pretty annoyed that he got her new outfit wet, but his apology is unexpectedly forthright...

Yusuke explains that he was on his way to a performance, when he encountered a strange woman surrounded by bats, who changed into... something. He decides it must have been a hallucination, so he hurries off to the jazz club that's booked him, leaving Usagi his card so that he can pay for her dry cleaning. As he runs off, Usagi sees that the name on the card is Yusuke Amade, while Luna says that he's most likely being chased by a Youma. They decide to follow him and help him out, Usagi expressing excitement at the chance to have a peek into the adult world.

Meanwhile, Jadeite is angry with Kyurene for losing the tape, and says she's as good as dead if she doesn't retrieve it. This is a short scene, but a good one: Jadeite communicates with his Youma through a pile of abandoned televisions in a junkyard, and he comes off as genuinely intimidating.

This episode makes a lot of small but interesting choices like this, and it might not be a coincidence that this was the first episode directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara, who would eventually be the series director for two and a half seasons, and go on to create Utena.

Usagi and Luna arrive at the jazz club, but Luna points out they're unlikely to let a kid inside. So Usagi uses the Disguise Pen to turn herself into a "hot musician", which turns out to look like something out of Jem and the Holograms.

Did you know that Toei actually did most of the animation for the Jem cartoon? Anyway, Usagi turns Luna's previous statement back on her, saying the club is unlikely to let a cat inside...

So, they get into the club with Luna posing as a scarf, though while Usagi looks the part - well, kind of - she doesn't do the best job of fitting in, such as when she's asked what she'd like to drink.

At least Yuskue seems to be safe, up on stage playing the piano, with nobody suspicious in the audience. Unfortunately, his playing puts Usagi to sleep, and when she wakes up, he's just left the stage.

Yusuke heads down to the underground parking lot to wait for his ride, but... well... um...

Holy freaking crap. Usagi and Luna get down there, but Kyurene has already taken the tape from Yusuke. She prepares to kill him, but backs off when Usagi challenges her. She adopts her true Youma form, which is an awesome bat thing, and flies off. Usagi sees the discarded cassette case, with the A Waltz for Akiko label, along with a photo of Akiko.

Moments later, they're in a car pursuing the Youma. Yusuke is driving like a man possessed, determined to get his tape back. Usagi correctly guesses it's because he's got a crush on Akiko, and there's a cute conversation where Usagi insists that even old people have a right to fall in love, and that, by the way, she's a champion of justice, which is why she's helping him pursue the monster. Yusuke just goes with it; it's not like this night could get any weirder.

As the rain clears, they track the Youma to the record company offices where Akiko works. Sure enough, Kyurene is back in the recording studio, Akiko and the rest of the staff unconscious due to more bats. She prepares to return the cassette to the tape deck, which will let it infect all of the music recorded there from now on. But suddenly, our heroes come running into the studio, Luna tackling the Youma and knocking the tape away from her. Usagi grabs the tape, and the Youma takes on her true form...

...which is really cool. Yusuke finally notices that, hey, this isn't even his tape! Kyurene grabs Akiko, and tells Yusuke to hand over the tape, or she dies. Usagi flings the tape over the Youma's head, Yusuke dives in to grab Akiko, and Luna leaps up to grab the tape, snatching it out of the air before Kyurene can reach it. Luna smashes the tape by stamping on it (holy crap, Luna is stronger than she looks), and Kyurene flies away out of the window. Usagi transforms and gets ready to follow her.

Kyurene lands in an empty open-air stadium, but guess what? Sailor Moon and Luna are already here, complete with spotlights and a crescent moon backdrop. Now that's making an entrance. Then there's a great bit where Sailor Moon tells the Youma that Haydn, the father of music, would be mad with her, only for Luna to point out that the father of music is Bach.

I love how this episode completely nails the interplay between these two. So Sailor Moon and Kyurene square off, and it turns out Kyurene has sound powers. She sends ultrasonic waves at Sailor Moon, who dodges them, then grabs a microphone and throws it into the path of the waves. The microphone is destroyed, but not before creating the mother of all feedback, aimed right back at Kyurene. Sailor Moon whips out the tiara to deal with the dazed Youma, and victory is hers!

Back at the record company, Akiko chides Yusuke for being so reckless, saying that if he'd injured himself he might not have been able to play the piano again. He says that if anything had happened to her, he wouldn't have been able to play the piano again either. Some time later, at Naru's place, Naru laments that Yusuke Amade got married. While she's disappointed, Usagi seems happy for him, particularly since she seems to have inspired the cover of his latest CD.

Monster of the Day: Kyurene is the best Youma so far, and really the first to have a distinct theme with powers to match. This would become the norm in later episodes, but for now it makes for a much more interesting character than we've been getting so far.  

Most Valuable Person: It's Usagi! This is another episode that shows her at her best, in terms of bravery, her eagerness to help, and her quick thinking during the battle.

Least Valuable Person: This episode has a fairly small cast, and everyone's on their best behavior. So in the absence of a main character to gripe about, I'm going to choose the record company employee who messed up Yusuke and Akiko's perfect moment. You don't have to go running to the boss every time there's a tiny problem, dude. Learn some initiative.

It's probably become pretty obvious at this point that I really like this episode. But do I like it enough to give it five stars out of five? You bet I do. It's an unusual episode, certainly, and it doesn't sound like much from the synopsis. When you heard that the three cut episodes from the early days were "Umino becomes a delinquent", "Usagi tries to adopt Luna and Shingo goes crazy" and "Usagi goes to a jazz club to help some guy", which were you most interested in?

But this episode just does everything right. The script is funny, the monster of the day is cool, Jadeite is scarier than he's ever been, the one-shot characters are likeable, and the characterization is all spot-on. The episode's smaller cast works to its benefit, as we get to spend a lot of time with just Usagi, Luna and Yusuke, and watching them interact is a lot of fun. It's also a great showcase for how Usagi's grown as a hero over the past few weeks: though there's still acknowledgement that she gets scared, she's so much smarter and braver in battle than the character we met back in episode one. Back in that episode one review, I mentioned that one of Usagi's defining traits is a desire to help people. Well, she did a lot of helping people in the last few episodes, but in every case, someone she was close to was caught up in the plot. Here we have her helping a complete stranger, showing that her compassion doesn't just extend to friends, it extends to everyone. This is by far the best episode of early Sailor Moon, and I regret I have but five stars to give it.

5 - Scent of a Monster: Chanela Will Steal your Love

Watching the opening teaser of this episode, I think I have my first real complaint with the translation. In the original, Sailor Moon lists various animals that are angry because of the Dark Kingdom's plan to use pets against their owners. It's just the kind of quirky thing Sailor Moon likes to do in her speeches. This translation just... doesn't mention them. This isn't a case where it's an obscure reference or a joke that wouldn't translate well. They just left it out, and that sucks. If the Martina Navratilova line in Episode 14 gets cut, I'm not gonna be happy.

The episode begins with Usagi having a nightmare where she's chased by an evil dark cloud. Then Tuxedo Mask appears to vanquish the demon using rose petals. The dream is just getting good, then Usagi hears a scream and Tuxedo Mask disappears. She wakes to discover that it's Shingo screaming: he has a fear of cats and Luna was sleeping on his bed. So naturally, Usagi picks up Luna and starts dangling her in front of Shingo, demanding he bow to her as the Goddess Queen of Space. Yeah, it's cruel, but Shingo's been so awful to Usagi in his last few appearances that he really had this coming.

At breakfast, Usagi asks her parents if they can keep Luna, but Shingo is opposed. Their parents tell them they have to work it out between themselves, which doesn't bode well for progress. On the way to school. Luna says that she was so tired after looking for the Moon Princess that she didn't realize she'd fallen asleep in Shingo's room. Usagi suggests that Luna should try to make Shingo like her. So Luna goes to a pet shop and observes the animals, hoping to pick up some tips on how to be appealing.

We get a brief scene in the Dark Kingdom, where Beryl and Jadeite discuss Jadeite's newest plan in the vaguest possible terms, then it's back to Usagi, who's discussing the Luna situation with Naru. Apparently Shingo's fear of cats goes back to an incident when he was a baby, and a cat bit his nose. Umino mentions that this is a trauma he can identify with only too well, as when he was a baby, he was eaten by an alligator (handbag).

Yeah, it's a joke so weak it's barely a joke at all, but it's worth it just to see baby Umino.

Outside Shingo's school, Luna tries to win his affection by jumping on his shoulder and being cute, but just ends up traumatizing him. He explains his problem with cats to his friend Mika, who takes him to Pet Shop Perfume, a new pet store selling a new kind of pet called a Chanela.

As if by magic, a shopkeeper appears! The slightly sinister lady extols the virtues of the sweet-smelling Chanelas, which convinces Shingo, though not half as much as the weird hypnotic light one of the creatures uses to put him under its spell. Mika, similarly hypnotized, says that she wants one as well. The shopkeeper says they can just take the Chanelas now and pay whenever they want.

The pets have an immediate effect on Shingo and Mika: as they're walking home, they're unable to concentrate on anything other than their Chanelas. Meanwhile, Jadeite lurks in the dark, harvesting energy.

At home, Luna tells Usagi that her mission to make Shingo like her has failed. Usagi insists she shouldn't give up, and here comes Shingo now! Luna tries to be affectionate again, but this time gets kicked away!

Ouch. Shingo announces that the Chanela is now his pet, so Usagi must get rid of Luna. Usagi responds to this outrage by crying, which drives Shingo away. It really does seem at this early point that they were going for "people under evil influence are hurt by Usagi's crying", but as a superpower, it sucks, and pretty soon it was forgotten about.

Shingo informs the family of how great the Chanela is: for instance, the fact that it doesn't eat anything. Dad thinks this makes good economical sense for a pet, but I personally make a point never to trust any creature that violates the laws of thermodynamics. Or for that matter, any creature that causes your child to make this face.

Mom and Dad decide that keeping both the Chanela and Luna would be the perfect compromise, but Shingo deems it unacceptable, and leaves to stare lovingly at his Chanela for fifteen straight hours. Not an exaggeration: when Usagi's getting ready to leave for school the next morning, Shingo apparently hasn't moved all night. As she spies on him, she notices the Chanela is glowing.

At school, a large number of students have brought their Chanelas with them. They hide them when Haruna comes in, but are unable to resist looking at them for too long. When Haruna sees one of them and tries to chastise the student, she gets attacked and knocked over. That's pretty harsh: I mean, it was only last week that she was almost killed by an unlicensed weight loss procedure. And the week before that she spent a few days in a coma. And the week before that, she was attacked and sexually harassed by demonic students. Wow, Haruna's had a terrible month. She'd probably be safer teaching at Sunnydale High.

Usagi asks Naru if she thinks something might be suspicious about the Chanelas. Well, they turned your brother into a zombie, caused a student revolt and glow eerily when they think nobody is looking... so yeah, I think something's suspicious about the Chanelas. It's a pet peeve of mine when the characters take forever to notice the blatantly obvious bad thing that's happening, so this scene irked me a little.

Anyway, Usagi decides to go and check out the pet shop selling the Chanelas. Mamoru shows up there too, because apparently his day isn't complete without annoying Usagi, but on this occasion she just tells him to sod off and carries on with her day. Luna is in the pet shop as well, apparently having come to the same conclusion as Usagi. Unfortunately, Usagi looks into the eyes of one of the Chanelas, and falls under its spell.

Usagi starts acting like Shingo, completely focused on her Chanela, becoming hostile to Luna and ignoring a little girl who's fallen off her bike. So Luna takes action, jumping on Usagi's head, and pulling the Chanela away from her.

With the spell broken, Usagi apologizes for her dickish behavior, but the more immediate concern is Shingo, who's still in his room, staring at his Chanela. Usagi tries to grab the Chanela, but fails. She slaps him to snap him out of it, which doesn't work either, and he runs off with his pet. Luna suspects he'll return to the pet shop and instructs Usagi to transform into Sailor Moon.

At the pet shop, a crowd of Chanela owners has gathered. The shopkeeper releases the remaining Chanelas and instructs her new minions to distribute them throughout the city. Sailor Moon bursts in and confronts them, and the shopkeeper reveals her Youma form, before sending her minions - who now look like lizard people - after her.

Sailor Moon doesn't want to use her tiara against the minions in case she ends up hurting them. So Luna tells her to shout out "Moon Tiara Stardust" instead. This makes the tiara do a few little loops over their heads, and... okay, it's a crappy power the writers pulled out of their asses for this episode that would never get used or mentioned again. But it works, and Shingo and the others are returned to normal. Then there's just the matter of the huge lizard Youma. Sailor Moon leads her out into the parking lot, but gets grabbed by her tail. Then she and Luna notice her "weak spot", at the base of her tail. You can tell it's a weak spot because it flashes as if she's a video game boss on easy mode.

 

Subtle, eh? Yeah, this whole battle is one cop-out after another. So Sailor Moon throws her tiara at the target, and the Youma is no more.

Shingo rushes out into the parking lot, hoping to get Sailor V's autograph. Sailor Moon hides behind a car, explaining that Sailor V and Sailor Moon are totally different. Shingo says whatever, Sailor Moon's cute too. Well, that's awkward. Still, Sailor Moon uses the hero worship to her advantage, telling Shingo that he has to be nice to Luna. He agrees, and is true to his word, spoiling Luna rotten from that point on.

Monster of the Day: Iguara has a simple but neat design. Her powers are being huge and wrecking stuff. Can't argue with the classics. It's a shame her fight with Sailor Moon ended up being so pathetic, though.

Most Valuable Person: Luna is back to being a pleasant character from her awfulness in the last episode, and she puts up with a lot in this episode without any complaints.

Least Valuable Person: Since it's going to get boring if I just keep putting Mamoru here every episode, I'm instead going to go with Mika, whose sole function in this episode was to lead Shingo into an enemy trap.

There are some bright spots in this episode, but it quickly becomes apparent that this is basically episode two all over again, but with pets instead of tarot cards and not as good. Seriously, the plots are exactly the same. Dark Kingdom opens new business run by a Youma. Youma distributes object to customers, including someone close to Usagi, making them evil. Customers become hostile to those around them. Haruna gets knocked on her ass. Customers are driven away by Usagi's crying. Customers return to business and are issued further instructions by the Youma. Sailor Moon bursts in, customers are transformed and sent after her. Sailor Moon must deal with them and the Youma, which shows its true form. Yeah, I know this show had a lot of formulaic episodes, but not usually to this extent. And don't tell me they were stuck for ideas; it's episode five. And just in case you think there's a chance this was all a coincidence... guess what? This episode and episode two have the same writer.

This episode gets two stars out of five. There are good parts, and it's nice to have an episode that shows us how Luna became an official pet of the Tsukino family. Sadly though, the good is overshadowed by a highly derivative plot and a fight scene that just plain sucks.

4 - Learn How to Be Skinny from Usagi

Right, this episode. I have very conflicted feelings about this one. It's a very clear case of "I can see what you're trying to do, but what you're actually doing is... not that thing."

The first problem with this episode rears its head in the very first scene. Usagi's in the bathroom, and steps onto the scales. We hear a scream, and...

Okay, does everyone see the problem with this picture? Usagi declaring she's out of shape, while depicted with those arms? Yeah, while this episode is about Usagi gaining weight, she's drawn the same way as always, which is, well, extremely skinny. Luckily there are no possible negative consequences of having a character with fashion model proportions complain to your young female audience that she's too fat!

But wait, I hear you say. What if that's the whole point? What if the episode is about Usagi's perception of her body rather than the reality? Maybe the "too fat" thing is all in her head, explaining why she's as skinny as always. It's an interesting thought, and I like your italics, but to you I say: Lower your friggin' expectations. This episode is not anything like as smart as that.

So, Usagi's family at first try to comfort her by saying that it's fine to be a bit chubby when you're young. So at least they're being supportive. But wait! Shingo says she eats to much, then both her parents agree that yeah, she eats too much, maybe that's why she's so fat. This brings us to the second problem in this episode, which is that most of the people around Usagi are dicks to her this week.

Usagi's confidence-building session with her family didn't go so well, so she's in her room talking to Luna. Luna who, despite having tiny paws and no opposable thumbs, can hold a crayon and draw with it! That's amazing! What's that you're drawing, Luna?

What the... Luna, when did you become such a tremendous dick?

So, the next day at school, Usagi is responding to the love and concern of those closest to her by not bringing any lunch and starving herself. Yep. She discusses dieting with Naru and two unnamed girls, one of whom is clearly supposed to be chubby, but it seems like the artists aren't quite sure what that looks like, so in practice she's just shorter than the others, with a rounder face. Just to show that Usagi isn't the only target for dickishness in the episode, every time the sort-of-chubby girl mentions how she's tried various things and they haven't worked, the others reply with "Yeah, we know." She does then get to be patronizing right back at the other unnamed girl about how she's never had a boyfriend, but the whole sequence is really just the girls being subtly awful to each other. Again, you could choose to interpret this as an illustration of how a culture of body policing turns would-be allies against each other, but that would be giving this story way too much credit. They're awful to each other because the writer thought it would be funny, the end.

So while the two unnamed girls square off for deadly combat, Usagi and Naru discuss how slim Haruna has been looking recently. Umino agrees, and has photographic proof that Haruna lost a lot of weight in the space of a few days. The girls wonder how Umino got those pictures, Umino realizes he's said too much and flees. Usagi catches him, but only wants to know about the gym Haruna has been using.

By the way, I'd usually comment on how out-of-character Umino is in this sequence: he's weird, awkward and has an odd sense of what's appropriate, but I have a hard time seeing him as a stalker. But in this episode, with everyone behaving horribly, it's barely worth a mention.

The gym is a place called Shaperin, proudly endorsed by Some Actress, and they're running a free trial. As Usagi, Naru and the two friends-du-jour go inside, Jadeite watches from inside the building.

The girls are met by a barely-disguised Jadeite. This week, he's barely disguised as a fitness instructor. They all think he's super-handsome, to the extent that he appears to be standing against a backdrop of roses.

Quit using Zoisite's magic without asking, Jadeite. So, he shows them to the exercise room, which is supervised by a bunch of huge bodybuilder guys wearing tiaras. Soon they're all exhausted, and Usagi sneaks off, but Jadeite says he'll reward the remaining three for their hard work by letting them use the gym's Shape Ray. And if that name sounds a little ominous, wait until you see it.

Usagi is in the spa, relaxing. While I'm sure this is supposed to be a comment on how lazy she is, she made a smart decision, because the others are now getting a look at the Shape Ray.

How is this not suspicious? Well, to be fair, the girls do express some caution at the glowing alien electric plants and their coffin-like pods, but Jadeite dismisses those fears by telling them "Hey, you'll get skinny!" Which is good enough for them, and in they get.

Jadeite appears via hologram to Queen Beryl, and explains that his energy harvesting plan is going great this time. Some of the comments in this scene illustrate my main problem with this episode, which is how the well-intentioned message actually ends up coming across. Because while it's meant to be "Fad diets can be dangerous, don't put your health at risk because of a promise that you'll be skinny," it comes across more like "Girls are stupid and will do stupid things if they think they will make them skinnier." Yes, large media company that produced this show, why is it that girls are so obsessed with their weight? Where did they get this crazy idea that their worth as human beings is dependent on it? If there was at least one female character who wasn't either acting like an idiot or feeding Usagi's fears, this episode might have been salvageable. It really needed someone other than the villains to act as the voice of reason.

Naru and the other two get out of the pods, and they look like crap, but Jadeite tells them they look beautiful, and if a hot guy said it, who cares if you look like a famine survivor after an unsuccessful boxing match? They agree to come back for more treatments. Have I mentioned how stupid the girls are acting in this episode?

Later on, Usagi is annoyed that the other girls abandoned her at the gym. She's also starving, and after weirding out a small boy, she collides with Motoki and faints. She then has a dream sequence where Motoki promises to revitalize her with the energy of his love, but she wakes up again before the good part. Motoki asks why she hasn't been eating, and when she says she's dieting, he laughs and says she doesn't need to, that she'd be fine even if she put weight on, and that he prefers chubby girls. This is the nicest thing anyone says to Usagi over the course of this episode, and it's clear the writers wanted Motoki to serve as the voice of reason, but the problem with having a guy in that role is that it still comes down to "Here's what I think is attractive, judge yourself by those standards." Motoki wasn't wrong to say what he said, but I think the show is wrong for giving his opinion such weight.

Usagi is glad that she finally has permission to eat again, and gets some pork buns to eat on the way home. Well, Usagi's happy, and we know what that means. Time for Mamoru to show up and bully her! This week, everyone's being awful to Usagi, so Mamoru really has to step up his game. He says she eats too much, says she'll get fat, takes one of her pork buns and struts off. And of course, Luna says that he's right. What is it with this show and nobody standing up for Usagi when this dick insults her?

Usagi says that she doesn't care, and that Motoki likes her the way she is. Luna argues semantics and says that Motoki likes chubby girls, not fat girls... except that Motoki pretty much said that Usagi isn't either, so what's the problem? After crushing Usagi's self esteem and sending her into a panic, Luna adds that something suspicious is happening at the gym and they need to investigate. Only Usagi isn't listening, because someone just convinced her she's really fat. Usagi runs off to the gym, which is coincidentally the source of the evil, so Luna just goes with it.

In the gym, Usagi exercises like crazy trying to work off the pork buns she ate. Luna sees a dazed, emaciated Haruna heading into the gym's basement. She follows her and sees Haruna in one of the Shape Ray pods, with Jadeite musing that this treatment will likely kill her.

Luna runs back to Usagi, who's still exercising and won't listen. They end up having a bit of a brawl with Luna coming out on top and threatening her with her claws if she doesn't listen. I think we're supposed to be on Luna's side here, but Usagi's state of mind right now is her fault, so screw you, Luna.

So Usagi is ultimately persuaded to transform into Sailor Moon, and confronts Jadeite, who flees, but not before setting his trio of mind-controlled bodybuilders on her. Being about twice Sailor Moon's size, they're pretty intimidating, but Luna tells her that fighting them will be a good way to lose weight. So she knocks the crap out of them and uses her tiara to destroy... their tiaras, which turns them back to normal. The Shape Ray is destroyed and Haruna is rescued, but Queen Beryl still congratulates Jadeite on the large quantities of energy he successfully harvested before he was found out.

At home, Usagi takes a bath, and her mom comments on what a lucky escape Haruna had after almost being killed by that weird weight loss fad thing. The episode comes dangerously close to delivering a genuine message that it's better to be any size and healthy rather than dangerously thin... but oh, wait, Usagi's happy again and we can't end the episode like that. So... oops! Usagi somehow gained weight and now she's sad. Perfect!

Monster of the day: There wasn't one, unless you count Jadeite's three Manly Dudes in Tiaras.

Most Valuable Person: Jadeite, actually. In an almost unheard of moment for a Sailor Moon villain, he got congratulated by his boss at the end of the episode.

Least Valuable Person: There's so much competition in this episode. Mamoru is awful, Shingo is awful, Usagi's parents are mostly awful. But the absolute worst is Luna, who's supposed to be Usagi's friend and ally but takes extra pleasure in bullying her, then when she finally breaks her has to threaten her physically to pull her out of it. I'll say it again: Screw you, Luna.

This episode comes so close to getting one star. Really, really close. But as much as it sucks, it was at least trying to express a worthwhile message. Kids' TV these days can't be openly discriminatory without catching some serious heat over it... except you can still make fat people the punchline and nobody will care. I appreciate that this episode was trying to do something different in saying that being skinny isn't the be-all and end-all of life. It ended up being vaguely sexist and reinforcing some of the same notions that lead to fat people - fat girls in particular - being looked down upon, but enough of the intended message limped through that I'm inclined to be merciful just this once. This episode gets two starts out of five and a stern warning to try harder.