CrowsCalling

Sure can! You can watch the modern English dub on Hulu as well if you have it. That’s the English dub of the series that has the purest translation of the original and has some great performances.

I think this was the first year this was the first year where Christmas felt distinctly different.

Not sure if it was me working on Christmas things at work 2+ months in advance or just being at the age. But things just kinda snuck up on me.

Here are the main gifts outside of some more miscellaneous things.

Made this meme in honor of Christmas and reaching the 100 episode mark of Sailor Moon

Happy Holidays everyone.

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Unrelated to my watch along, but I just watched an interview with Susan Roman (Jupiter’s original English VA from the Dic dub) and heard her call Jupiter “Jupes” and I think that’s the greatest thing ever.

— saving grace along with the inclusion of Chibi-Usa.

Now onto Sailor Moon S.

— her in Sailor Moon R, but maybe there’s more to her in the seasons/series to come.

With all that being said, I think I’ll give this season a B-.

It’s not a bad season and there are some good episodes for the other guardians, which I think is its biggest —

— Sailor Pluto voiced by the untouchable Veronica Taylor She does well in giving Pluto a motherly aura befitting of Chibiusa’s caretaker while still sounding like someone with the authority to watch over something as important as time itself. I wish we could have gotten more of —

— never fails to make a character cute. She also knocks it out of the park as Black Lady, bringing a maturity and wickedness to her that makes you wish she had more screen time.

We did get another guardian this season in the form of —

— the more enjoyable was @sandyfoxworld.bsky.social ’s portrayal of the character. She plays children/cute characters very well so it’s well within her wheelhouse, but she brings some great emotion to the role while still sounding believable as a child. That and she —

— could have been. Thankfully the main cast of heroes kept things entertaining for me, enough to still have it in good regard. Here’s hoping that they learn from their next season in terms of building up villains.

I think one thing that made Chibiusa all —

— that was the reason why Chibiusa was turned evil? Because the actual big bads at the end weren’t interesting enough and the creator thought the turn would make everything come together better in the end? Regardless, I think it still fell short of what it —

— been a bit more involved in the plot, maybe have him take the place of Rubius.

That’s only one example of what I feel was what held the season back as far as the villains were concerned compared to the Dark Kingdom, but there are a handful more. Maybe —

— they play his big episode up, but his arc is largely condensed into a single episode. I feel as though he should have had enough time to explore his relationship with his brother or be a more active character in the plot like Nephrite last season. He should have —

— only 4 episodes shorter (not counting the recap). What's more, some of the villains didn’t feel properly built up to or just all around weren’t interesting because enough time wasn’t given to them. Saphir seems like a villain who we should care more about considering how big —

— would have fixed those issues to a degree.

But I think the biggest flaw with Sailor Moon R is that it was a bit too ambitious. It feels like we have twice the villains in the same amount of time which makes things feel a bit rushed despite this season being —

— it was because of that, I felt things during it got a bit too repetitive for my taste, because, by the FOURTH time they tried bringing Chibiusa’s memories back, it was starting to feel ridiculous. If they had spaced everything out a bit more it probably —

— cultural osmosis, it was still intriguing to learn what exactly her backstory was and what initiated the whole story.

The Black Lady portion of the story was a bit of an upset for me, because I felt like her turn to the dark side was a bit too brief. And —

— love or hate. For me, I enjoyed her as an addition to the cast. I think her dynamic with Usagi allowed for some new stories to be told and brought out a side of Usagi and Mamoru we had yet to see up to that point. While I may have known WHO she was due to —

— the arc really got started, I understood why they did what they did, and it was worthwhile in the end.

Of course, we can’t talk about this arc without talking about its most important new character. Chibiusa is one of those characters you will either —

—

Now onto the Black Moon arc. There was some genuinely good drama in this arc, particularly with the relationship between Usagi and Mamoru. Initially, I thought that some of what they went through was pointlessly dragging things out, but once the final part of —

— time compared to who came before and after. I liked the overall themes of their arc, and it had some good episodes. I did enjoy the performances from Brian Beacock and Dorothy Fahn, who play off each other well and bring an elegance to their characters. —

— making Usagi a more aware and competent person who stands on her own and takes action more of her own volition than she used to.

I’ll say that Ail and Ann are characters I enjoyed for the time we had them, but they were such a small group that had little —

— like that they touch on Usagi still wanting to have a normal life and the tragedy that her call of duty brings to her livelihood, even though she knows it's the right thing to do. That’s one thing I think is good about this season, is that it is slowly —

This season weirdly has 2 uneven parts to it, the first really feels like a filler arc (because it is, I checked). It feels like the effects of the first arc of the season don’t have too much effect on the rest of the plot.

Let’s start off by talking about the Makai Tree Arc. —

Final thoughts on Sailor Moon S2 (Sailor Moon R) (🧵)

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— seeing the other two films of this trilogy.

— recommend it for fans who haven’t seen it (all 2 of you) and potentially as an entry point to give people a taste of what the series is like before delving in if they’re unsure.

I’ll go ahead and give the film a B.

I’m definitely looking forward to —