Anime: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal 49dn

Sailor Moon is a classic series which definitely left a mark on anime world and even by today it still is hugely ed by its iconic characters, memorable plot and attractive soundtrack, a true piece of work, in which effort, ideas and love were added to make it popular enough.
Sailor Moon Crystal was thought to be a remarkable show commemorating the anniversary of the series by making a loyal adaption to its origin material, the manga. however...it actually turned out to be a marketing selling series only for its animation company to obtain even more money by exploiting its content. This isn't anything new for the company in charge or in general for japanese animation nowadays, though. Still, there are some series that are also exploited with a moderate effort, this, sadly, isn't the case. I'll shall state why it turned out to be a huge dissapointment for most fans of the series.
Story (5/10)
I've got to mention first that story is probably the most acceptable aspect from this reboot, but only because it tried to follow the manga's storyline. This, however wasn't even totally loyal and even the manga contains mistakes or unappealing moments.
I won't enter in much details but I'll say that I find unreasonable to try to change a bit of the plot just to make some characters flesh out while making the other ones look pathetic useless, also this isn't even achieved, those fleshed out characters add nothing after changed a bit their contribution to the show, so it all ended in a failure. Now, as for the story itself, there ins't anything particularly bad regarding the ideas it showed. The main problem with this series is its rythm, pace and how it is told. This is because:
- The whole plot goes way too fast and told in a very boring way, filling pure information and no real emotion regarding how it's received. Also, there's no comedy either nor messages like the previous version.
- Though the ideas used are acceptable, they are all filled with ocassional convenient moments or too unreal to feel any sort of interest. This is also related to the characters and animation section.
All in all, I've got to recognize that it's still got its good moments, there's just no much blame to this section actually, it's just too plain to be memorable though. Oh, and one more thing, the conclusion is really forgettable, it's boring and too perfect, unlike the 90's counterpart which is actually one of the best ones I've seen in emotional value regard.
Character (4/10)
Here's where I feel it hurt me the most overall. Most of us I'm sure got attached to the characters in 90's due to their traits and enjoyable behaviors, development and bonds. Here...well, they almost feel like chess pieces, where Usagi is the queen, Mamoru is the king and the sailor soldiers are the peons. This, pardon me, sucked completely. This isn't a comparison review, but I've to give credit to 90's anime for actually given proper time to know the characters and to become close to each other. Here what matters is the convenient romance between usagi and endymion. In fact, this is so evident that even it is somehow revealed in the 1st episode. Well, there are many reasons why this suffered, most may come from the manga, but since it's a magazine format and has it's own artstyle, it isn't very noticeable. Some are:
- The whole team, except by the main couple, suffer in development and bonding. Somehow, everytime they appear, they suddenly become close to each other, this isn't believable all, it's too perfect to be true. Sure, they all got a background or premise before meeting Usagi, but that's it. After that, they all become like robots to only be able to talk when there isn't time for main villain or the couple. We don't even know what they're good at or their goals in life or how they actually feel about becoming senshi. This all goes to trash by becoming magically close. From my perspective, the one who made me sadder was sailor mars. I'm aware her manga's attiude is totally different, but that wasn't an excuse for the anime to literally rob her of any attention, she's weak in combat, doesn't get to shine in any particular moment, too silent and distant but somehow close. It breaks me apart, because the 90's version held a very irable relationship with the main character.
- Usagi and mamoru, they're the "stars" of this show, but not in a good sense. They're bond by destiny already so no beliavable romance is seen, they just follow their roles to fall in love once more to repeat story, very dissapointing indeed. Also, Usagi may be the main character, but that's no excuse to be the only one to be growing powerful, if so, then what's the need to have a 4 team to protect her?
- Dark kindgom organization: In the manga, the 4 generals act just like monsters of the week, appearing and being defeated in the same volume. Here's where I though there may had been a more interesting approach, since they aren't defeated so quickly. Well, that all went to the sink when I discovered that they're just alive statues without any background or development despite being added more time in the show for them. This worked against the sailor team, since they seemed useless in every fight due to this decision. In the end, it achieved nothing but to make us feel angry or dissapointed. Beryl may be the only one who's close to be acceptable this time, since her reasons for being a villain are at least shown and while not great or deep, made her an acceptable villain unlike metalia who's just a big mass of gas that wants simpler revenge and that's it.
- Black Moon : Same like the 4 generals, except Wiseman is again the only one who's worthy to mention, yet still not great either.
- Chibi Usagi: She's the most beliavable character in this series, since she keeps loyal to her role of being a small kid with fear. But, since there's no memorable moments either, except just a couple, she's also forgettable.
Art & animation (5/10)
Feels crude, too motionless, the CGI wasn't a good idea, it doesn't mix with the series feeling, and the abuse of recycling is simply an insult, the transformations are too long . I know this is due to the lack of a proper budget. Yet, you'd think that being aired every 2 weeks, sometimes they were 3, you'd think there would be at least decent animation. Nop, it's just a cheap intention to gain more money. it's also filled with drawing mistakes everywhere, this ihas easily become a trademark. The designs aren't good looking either, too skinny and barbie like, and though it's supposed to look like manga, it wasn't a good adaptation. You can notice this trait specially in the eyes of the characters. Classic sailor moon kept it original adding a white shiny oval in the center to the eye, coming from the manga. Here , that was forgotten and just added common type anime eyes. The action scenes, of course, are terrible, even the ones without recyclying.
Sound ( 7/10)
Oddly, but surprising, the sound is actually decent enough. Moon pride is actually a very catchy tune which fits the new series. It's not moonlight densetsu but it does a good job. The seiyuu are also pretty good at their job, I've got no complain with voices in general. Probably the most recognizable voice would be sailor mars' since it definitely fits her manga attitude. The OST is also pretty good, too. But, I still don't get why just 1 character theme was used and the others were released but not used throughout the show.
Value (3/10)
It offers almost nothing to the its genre, since the reason why it became recognizable was to fight against crime, but that isn't new nowadays. Also, it's presented in a more unbeliavable way, too magic like. 90's anime kept it real enough, even by today's standards. I can only save that its story kepts as a serious model of how to introduce good ideas without ruining too much the whole content. It's way more real than many other magical girl shows though, it's a real shame that it turned to be so dissapointing in other senses.
Enjoyment (4/10)
Being a SM fan, this series just frustrated to no end everytime I waited 2 long weeks to watch each episode. At first seemed promising enough, but then it fell through the sloppe quickly. It's not very interesting, fels rushed and action is mediocre. It's not memorable at all and it really leaves a sour taste and also gives bad reputation to the whole franchise. I'd just recommend it if you want to be a first timer to know the series and don't rely with time to watch the 90's version or read the manga, yeah, even the manga gives more feelings than this atrocity or if you're curious by nature, be my guess, but you've been warned.

The most important massage of this review is this:
Watch the original series!!!!!! and don ever see this Crystal after ..NEVER

Crawling lowly minions of darkness who made this series out of the original sailor moon “How could you fuck this up so much?”
In the name of a not sailor moon fan just a reg anime fan …who happened to saw the original series ate last 7 times….I punish you.
(and this rant will contains some spoiler you were warned)
Graphics: yes it was ok, at first it was even like “okey thy made it beautiful” that is an improuvement…ate last in the opening, and it probably would deserve some praise for it but…all those expression the characters made, thy blush so many time for no reason at all you might think they are sick or having strokes because that much blood in the head is just unnatural. As for facial expression, I don’t know if this was intentionally made to so wrong to troll the fans, but they made so many misunderstand able situations, this sires lost the last bit of seriousness, it was painfully laughable. ~ literally we with my friend watched this and we laughed our heads in pain how could they “failed” this so much 30% of the epic fails can granted to the to the badly made expression the characters made.
damn I felt like other animes even bad ones, the graphic makers are incredible artist for making so good expression…..compare to this…on the good side I can now have more respect for manga makers..GEEEZ so….background and things thy could do their job 6…character that they clearly had no idea who the characters what they doing -10. and the was just the expression, the movement …geeez….felt so unnatural but…still that was the least of my problems – 2. Thy also should have respect the original series by going that direction, the hairs were different and complete, Sailors moon, infinite ribbon pj set was one thng, but the tentacle reap hair? that is not twin tails. I know that mistress 9 was an important character in the original series but just because, Hair moving like it has its own life does not man, it must be given to the main character…Mistres 9 use her long hair a “weapon” so that was reasonable from the coulees villain in my eyes of the original series. ~ yes they left her out…
This was the wrist graphic wise I saw as characters are badly animated in my entire life. They had the opportunity to make it awesome and they did not live with it. The craters of the anime did not give a damn.
~ In the name of beauty and Venus I punish you graphics 1/10
Story
Try to put too much like (200 ep events/ or still lass) in 26 minute series and you get….shit. Like eating too much and then you have to go to the bathroom and get rid the w8st. Well…..thy picked 2 events so it won’t be that bad….and failed….
Reason for fliers : 1 A rushed story is not understood (unless you already know the original series and the manga), And clearly I did not read or cared for the manga….but the way they treated the villain was unforgiveable. Let’s start with the events of conflicts, the villain die like trash literally, 4 die because Sailor moon accidental destroy their crystals that was in Mamoru’s clothes….don’t even as why she wanted to slash him with a sword…
And they die in alike pawn like fashion, like trash, in the original series thy had good fights, one of them was defeated by run over by a plane that he controlled but was misdirected by team plan and Mercury’s “fog” ability YES a well played fog.…and that was just the first one…in this crystal thy die like irrelevant bugs from bug spray, the fights are badly made both animation, and both story wise, we will no almost nothing about them, expert thy are important but die without a struggle. I know it’s hard to put all into a 26 episode but you don’t have to. Just focus on impotent things. Like not having too many epic bosses as canon folders for one, ok have all of them 8 (four character) when they show off, two epic fights, and two quick intricate death. That would work in eight episodes; all of them at least show of a few of their favorite demons.
And the boss fights ohh god… thy were lame ass heel..no logic…no reason behind they events… all of them re evil because …we say so….and thy die …because we decide so…the character developed more random ability that had nothing consistent even in use. One point for one character uses a skill like “Venus love me chain” and a tie down spell, moments later she uses it like a energy beam….
AAAAAAHHHH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~ For ruining fights scenes consistency, and everything conflict related In the name of Mars I punish you 1/10
reason number 2 : story a normal viewer won’t understand this…It was rushed like Beryl demanding from his minion to find the “Silver crystal” that can destroy everything IN THE FIRST EPISODE. The story was badly told, did not make any since, In one moment they stolen Sailor moons Boyfriend, for mistaken him with the silver crystal, so let’s go to the moon the cat suggests, “yee sure well all go to the moon, and don’t forget to leave the REAL silver crystal on the floor so you father can find take it to a jeweler to make it a nice pendant to her daughter when you get back”. :D ~ this actually happened YES!!
~ For lack of reasons, brain cells, logic, and a proper story telling In the name of Mercury I punish you 1/10
Reason number 3 Love plot. Let me get into this to explained, the silver crystal is the manifestation of a “moon human” and an “earth human’s crystallized love. It’s a item with infinity power..like love…and magic…that is the logic behind it. So Sailor moon’s and Mamoru’s love = the silver crystal.
Now the reason this is important, the love relation sip should have been focused on a little more. Like how they fall in love, instead …we need to take it like this: “thy fall in love because we say so” It’s not relevant to the plot, like some date scenes, or going to a picnic. no no no no no.. its not important. Its only related to the most important magic item thy have that is the moving aim for all the bosses in the anime..it’s completely ignorable (Sarcastic smile)
~ In the name of failed love plot and the moon I punish you 1/10
Story all and all 1/10

Characters:
~ Okay Jupiter prepare, prepare those lightning bolts.
NOTHING
Original series, all characters had a personality related to their planet/astrology, in here
NOTHING
They are alike normal girls wit 0 relation to their original character
Mars was an aggressive, careerist feminist man hater, bit Tsundere in here Normal
Mercury was a shy introverted book worm analyzing anything and trying to think logically and being smart (she was the brain of the team), and planning to go to library to a date, to be honest I would love to have an alike girlfriend: P, in here: a cute cat patting moe crap with 0 personalities
Venus, she was a run after boys, and date maniac who even dated 2 males, on the same day in the same place, whom were both mini boss characters. She was a charming succubus whos dream was to become a model and own wealth fame with beauty (that is a Venus!!!), who evolved to a more mature level and hear character development touched me. At the beginner I hated her character, but ended up sympathizing with her in many ways. In crystal: thy made her a heroic klutz, …WHY?
(and again 0 personality)
Jupiter:
she was okay she was a dere-dere Oneesan , in the original series at least they kept that. I can epic moments, of her character that I like a lot. those were not wound here.
This is not a complicated thing guys. you have 26 episodes of series detector 8 to the main character and love plot 8 episodes to have scenes to the rest of the side character, they don’t have to be long.
SO WE CAN KNW THE A LITLE BETER AND WHY THY ARE MAINN HERORS FORR GODS SAKE
THEASE CHARACTERS ARE NOT FRIKEN PETS BACKGROUND DANCERS, THY ARE THE IMPORTAN TEAM OF HEROS SAWING THE FAKIN PLANET.
Positive side
Tuxedo kamen, finally had a magic attack….but why name it “tuxedo smoking bomber” that sounds like “lout farting ins a tuxedo?” and why is it a firkin energy beam, I know that throwing roses at demon to distract them so Sailor moon can blast them is miserable, but how about an earth element attack or a, or a knight-ish super sword slash?
The character was too submerse, he was the damsel in distress, who lead away by being grabbed on head hand like toddler by Dark lady, like. “okay Mamoru you played long enough the her time for you dark brain washing again….” WTF
Tuxedo kamen was the leas powerful of the series but his maturity was the main point of his character helping out moon, if things get out of hand. yust WTF!!!!
And why did he had to hold sailor moon like a beam gun in tha last fight sceen instead using her new lame attack that he had when thy al united there. So original and unlike KAME-HAme….I mean energy beam attacks….. just WHY!!!!!????
Okay sailor:
om she was OK I mean thy fucked her hair, the transformation, the power ups, but at least her personally was okay. Her most important quality that she never gave up, and beloved in good and love, always standing up. At least the was kept right? Aside one time when she had a tantrum in Crystal, slashing Mamoru up with a sword than stabbing herself. Saying “I had enough!”. But no weary she is a bumbling. Of cores she managed to fail both attempts with a sword that disintegrates diamonds, as they tested that, thanks to Mercury’s generality of stealing a big one form her mother’s shop.
But these are minor problem moon was ok…compare the rest of what tease bastards did to the characters.
- Okey Jupiter unleashes hell with your new final gestural-tensho-Rinnegan-Hame-HAAA of death fruits.
~ For ruining characters and failing to be loyal to the original ones In the name of Jupiter I punish you 0/10
Vale : 1/10 what can I say I wil watch the original series an 8th time and forget this b00lshizzle…
The only value in this ruin, is I will anorthic original series more, and I’m not a fan, just because Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn is my favorite character for all time and will remain so till the day I exist.
And I personally thank the creators of this crystal crap, for leaving out Sailor Saturn out of their Tr00ll series.
~ THANK YOU
just pls never more. Don’t ever make series again, kill yourself or quit for the worlds sake pls, and for your sake do the latter. Just quit, don’t make any more anime ever again. Try to make cartoon for a locked box or draw than burn it, or YouTube channeled, something less harmful. Away from anime-fans sight, just lock your work away behind the door of time keyset you gave to Pluto where it belongs.
~ For mocking the past, and making a junk out a good series in the past, In the name of Pluto I punish you. 1/10
Voice…well how can they be ruined….I still don know, and tha is something the crystal maker did not know eider. so the first and last value that is not a 1 or lass….
Voice 4/10 (4 because it could have been easily epic with the effect you had money for you bastards)
Enjoyment. Well I watched it with a friend and we laughs out heads of…..on the incompetence of this pile of trash.
The producers get an 8/10 for been hilariously failing on different level we ewer will see. This epic fail is art….of being a flier as a create….but that is not the outcomes value.
The anime as a Sailor moon series was not enjoyable. At all 1/10

Okay all and all Sailor moon is a good anime, the regional series. Unless you want to see the wrist remake of all time. Ignore Crystal. And go watch the original one, or read the manga.
Thank you for reading and hope you had some fun out of it.

Sailor Moon Crystal ended recently, and the general impressions the community had about it were negative. I defended it back when it began airing, calling it an average series that is still better than flashy trainwrecks like Zankyou no Terror and Death Parade, which get ridiculous amounts of undeserved hype. But besides all that, why did people treat it in such a negative way? Well, it’s a mix of different things.

As a remake it had very big shoes to fill. Because of nostalgia the older version is always considered to be the better version, and by having the newer one being constantly compared to the old, any differences it has makes it seem like it’s worse for deviating from the one true version. Which is silly, since it was supposed to be a more faithful adaptation of the manga, and thus should be considered better for being closer to the original version.

But even those who hadn’t watched the older version, still didn’t like the newer one, mostly because of the visual aesthetics. The 90s version was mostly hand drawn and although it had lots of quality drops, they were compensated by making the characters move in an elastic way. You know, like Looney Tunes, they were deforming, and stretching, and doing lots of exaggerated motions that were fooling the mind to accept them.

Crystal on the other hand is using a lot of cheap CGI, which makes the characters move in unnatural ways. It also doesn’t help how the artstyle of the manga looks very weird today. The Barbie doll faces and the skinny bodies look ok in manga format since the visual effects used in the backgrounds give them a fairy tale feel. But when you adapt the same thing with CGI, it looks creepy because it makes the characters look ugly and their motions bizarre.

But what about the pacing? One of the biggest problems most had with the older version, was how it was 80% filler. Crystal stays close to the manga storyline, and as such covers in only 26 episodes, material which the older version stretched out to 80. So, does that mean that at least the story is much better in Crystal for being much more tight, and filler-free? No, it doesn’t. Things are moving so fast that it becomes very hard to believe the characters became close friends or fell in love with each other in a single episode.

The chemistry amongst the Sailor Scouts feels like it came out of nowhere, Tuxedo Mask feels like a creepy stalker following Bunny anywhere she goes, and Sailor Moon instantly has the hots for a guy whose face she doesn’t even see. Yeah, ok, they say it’s because they all knew each other in their previous life. It still feels forced and unnatural because we don’t see them together long enough to accept that. It’s the exact same thing as in SAO where we are supposed to believe Kirito is in love with Asuna just because we are told they were together for two years, even though we never see anything regarding that.

The exact same things had happened in the older version of Sailor Moon, but because of the inserted filler episodes, there was a huge gap between major events, which was making you feel like the characters were slowly becoming friends, or slowly falling in love. It wasn’t simply there to stall time, it was used to make the relationships amongst the characters to feel more natural. Especially when it comes to the bad guys, they were a hundred times more fleshed out than in the manga, where they were simply introduced and killed off in the same chapter like typical monsters of the week.

Crystal tried to flesh out the villains far more than the manga did, by not killing them off right away. But because the story was moving from one major event immediately to the next one, there was not much time spent on any of them. Without much downtime between events, there was no build up, so when the villains are talking and scheming feels like dead time instead of fleshing out of their personalities.

Speaking of talking and scheming, not even the major events felt interesting to the most part, because of too much infodumping going on. It feels like all they do is having someone talk for 10 minutes as the rest of them listen while gasping in a silly way, and then exchange a few energy attacks before the whole thing is over after a few minutes. This was also happening in the manga, but you didn’t know how much time it was taking to say all that stuff, because it was in written form.

And I might as well add how all the cool ideas Sailor Moon had, have been reused way too many times since it first came out, to the point they mean very little today. Yeah, it was the magical girl show that took the genre into the teenage demographic, but after Princess Tutu, and the Precure franchise, and that piece of milking shit Madoka Magica Rebellion, we got used to magical girl stuff full of action and dark themes. Crystal came out at a time when all its innovation was no longer innovating. With its formula being dated and the presentation coming off as dry and ugly, you can excuse most of the negative opinions the community had about it.

What you can’t excuse though, is how the same community was hyping the hell out of Fate Stay Night, even though it is a decade old eroge about a typical shonen story mixed with harem and bad sex scenes. They got distracted by the pretty colors and their critical thought went out the window. So it all comes down to Sailor Moon Crystal being disliked for not being mostly flashy, poser, shallow style, than a subversion of the magical girl formula, something the older version was.