Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal Season III

Sailor Moon is a rare example of a story that benefits greatly from filler and a meandering pace. The original series from the 90s may not have followed the manga as closely as the new hotness, but in a weird twist, that actually greatly improved the quality of the show.

Sailor Moon Crystal season 3 blasts through the manga faithfully, but loses much of the charm in the process. Whereas the original series gave ample time to develop each Sailor Scout's quirks and personality, SMC has only a hint of that charm. Season 3 is an improvement on the first two seasons, thanks in part ... to the pretty character designs of Akira Takahashi. It also makes token attempts at adding individuality to the characters, but sets that aside in favor of plot progression. We miss the klutzy Usagi, the bookwormy Michiru, the temperamental Rei, the boisterous Makoto, and the goofy Minako. Instead we are left with stoic fighters in different colored skirts.

While this series does a competent job at hitting plot points, the real magic of the Sailor Moon series comes from its lovable characters. Unfortunately, Crystal did not deliver enough in that area.

I told myself I was giving up on Crystal after the conclusion of the first arc. But after seeing the new art, the previews and the revisited character designs for the Infinity Arc, I decided to give it one more chance, and have been catching up with it every few weeks.

We'll start with the good: The art has improved pretty drastically. The animators had the good sense to ditch those awful CG henshin sequences and make some nicer hand drawn ones. Fight scenes are punchier and the artwork is overall more expressive. The portrayal of the Outer Senshi is about the best you could ask ... for from a direct manga adaptation. In fact, most everyone's characterization has improved, including Usagi; they have personalities and actual lines now that aren't just repeating what someone else has said or collaborating on a single sentence together. Some of the humor is back, at least at the beginning, and I feel like even the music has improved by a few notches. Also, all the gay is dialed up to eleven, and that warms my little bi heart.

Here are my complaints: Someone on the animation team really needs to Google "what do cats look like?" The writing is still pretty lazy; I always thought a straight adaptation of the manga was a bad idea, and I stand firm on that. It makes for bad pacing and stifles character development. There's still some Art Weird. Episode 35 in particular looks like nobody cared much about it, and there's an ongoing problem with Usagi and Chibiusa's heads being drawn with giant, misshapen craniums in every profile view. Late in the season as we move into the final conflict, I'm definitely noticing that we're falling back into that pit where it's constant drama with almost no emotional resonance, which I think is a consequence of the rushed pace.

In conclusion, the Infinity Arc of Crystal is... okay, in that it is easy on the eyes and not a catastrophic destruction of everything that made Sailor Moon good [insert pointed look at seasons 1 and 2 here]. There are some parts that are worth watching for, but it can't at all rival the 90's anime for soul and charm. It's definitely still not the Sailor Moon we deserved from the 2010s. It's not really doing anything particularly new or exciting with the IP. I would call it ornamental, for the most part. It's a nice, pretty thing to look at for a while if you like Sailor Moon, and if you're particularly attached to the manga you'll probably enjoy it a lot more than me.

**Warning: English is not my first language**

Sailor Moon S3 shows itself as an improvement from its previous seasons (Both art and music were certainly something to work with, CGI was ruining everything this thing stands for) and a remake of its classic 90s counterpart. Working with such a classic as Sailor Moon will get high expectations from everybody, and it did keep us hype about possibilities.

So, it's quite disappointing to find that Crystal S3 couldnt handle that hype properly. Instead, S3 seems a lot rushed (It's only 13 episodes, so of course pace will be faster), even though it had a really nice arc to ... work with that could be delivered in a better way, by properly developing characterization and wrapping up all the previous events from S1 and S2. Instead, we are faced to just getting little pieces from everyone and forced to like it in order to find any emotional sense. And plot holes, big stupid plot holes that basically ruined S2.

It also fell into turning each and every Sailor senshi into, basically, cannon fodder. Something quite repetitive in S1 and S2; and it was a fresh feeling that they finally served a purpose for themselves, rather than doing it for plot advancing. But then it happened, and it's like they thought the Sailor Senshis were just there to make some filler. Characterization was a high point in the classic 90s series, and I understand that you can't get that done in 13 episodes per arc. It actually forces you to make the best writting ever so you can get to exploit the best of this. It's quite obvious they didnt do it.

While animation got improved, there is still room for improvement: Minako's transformation sequence and animation after episode 35 is pretty much a good example. Even though, it still shows us better animation than S1 and S2. Music is something I cannot complain, specially the last 2 episodes; but it was quite irrelevant and there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Overall, Sailor Moon S3 feels like a clickbait article, that you find useful initially; but the more you keep reading, the more you notice it's voided of any good content. While it's good that they try to be faithful to manga (A change from that cartoonish and lightheart tone from the 90s), it's quite sad that they couldn't exploit the vast and rich characters this franchise offers.

I hope any other sequel, remake or reboot will notice how important are these characters in order to get something worth of watching.

While perfectly serviceable on a technical level, this third season of Sailor Moon Crystal is the perfect counter to the oft-repeated idea that the quality of an anime adaptation lies in how close it sticks to the original manga.

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III is a workmanlike production that inadvertently highlights the flaws of its original material and the improvements made to the same material in the much less faithful 1994 version by Kunihiko Ikuhara. By ditching the frankly atrocious art and animation of the first two seasons in favor of attractive character designs by Akira Takahashi and competent if unexciting direction by Chiaki Kon, ... the show removes the veneer of awfulness that obscured the flaws in the manga story in the first two seasons, making them all too clear.

The visual presentation here is well-rounded and perfectly decent, but lacks the artistic flair of Ikuhara's earlier adaptation of the same material. Backgrounds and framing is by-the-numbers, adding a realism to the show's look that is at odds both with Takeuchi's whispy manga art and Ikuhara's theatrical directing style, and the result is a loss of the dream-like quality of both prior versions which served to make the events seem larger-than-life, instead rendering events in a clear but underwhelming fashion.
The character designs are a highlight, modernizing Takeuchi's originals without losing their distinct shojo flair, while the animation is serviceable, especially for a modern Toei show, possibly due to the use of stock footage for transformations and attacks. While the use of stock footage in a magical girl show is perfectly normal (and in fact can be seen as a nostalgic callback to the 90's series) the transformation scenes here serve as a microcosmos of the problems with SMC III: Replacing the off-putting and cheap CGI transformations of seasons one and two, we get a set of remakes of the originals that don't bring any new ideas to the table and while perfectly decent lack the rock-solid animation of the originals. Frankly speaking, the 2016 versions don't look better than the 1994 versions, and they should.

Music is, again, serviceable but not memorable, serving its purpose but lacking standout themes like the Outer Senshi transformation music of the 1994 show. The OP by Etsuko Yakushimaru is a real highlight, though I'm at a loss as to why her version was replaced not once but twice, since the song was very clearly written with her rather peculiar singing style in mind (by herself under the pseudonym Tika α no less) and the versions by other singers sound like they're awkwardly trying to marry her style with their own and failing.

The main problem, however, is the story. Like the two seasons preceding it, SMC III is an almost panel-by-panel adaptation of Naoko Takeuchi's original manga, and while that is something many fans of Sailor Moon have wanted for over a decade, now that we have it, the end result is a shining example of 'be careful what you wish for.' The manga has always been breezy, held up by Takeuchi's ethereal art and the mythological scale of the story, but put into full color and grounded by a typical anime presentation, the story is revealed for the skeletal blueprint it really is, more an outline for a full story than an epic in it's own right.

To be fair, it's a pretty great outline: A soldier of destruction awakening in the body of a frail girl who should have been dead, a conflict between allies over the morality of killing, a friendship that changes destiny, an organization of evil alien scientists, a lesbian couple in a story for little girls. All of that is great and could make for a wonderful story, but the rushed presentation and Takeuchi's more than shaky grasp of character writing drags it down, reducing the story to a breakneck rush through a not fully thought out plot. Character moments and world building are pushed to the side in favor of Big Events and a narrow focus on the two or three characters central to a given story arc (in this case, Chibiusa, Usagi and Hotaru), a result of the manga having to tell a full story in twelve monthly chapters.

Where SMC III goes wrong, then, is in adapting this outline into a full series, but without filling in the gaps of that framework. The end result is a story that feels like a summary, with dozens of characters that have no role beyond being there and a storyline that seems impersonal and cold. Things happen, characters are there, but we are given very little reason to care. The story is so focused on destiny and duty that it forgets to show us that these are still /people/, teenage girls at that. One thing the 90s anime was great at was showing why these girls were friends, why they would fight for each other and why we as viewers should care. In the manga and by extension SMC, meanwhile, the answer to all of those questions seems to be 'because destiny', and the blind devotion everyone shows to Sailor Moon others seems borderline cult-like. Likewise, the villains are evil for evil's sake and never feel like a real threat, a faint shadow of the comical, selfish and even tragic Death Busters of the 90s anime.

SMC III is a perfectly decent show that stands on its own as well as the third season of a nostalgia revival could reasonably manage to, but it lacks the flair and scope of something truly memorable. There is a great anime to be made from the Sailor Moon manga, but following it this closely is not the way to go about it. A straight-forward adaptation like this can work for some manga, but the Sailor Moon manga is too fast-paced, too uncinematic and, frankly, too flawed to be adapted one-to-one, and Sailor Moon Crystal Season III suffers for it.

*English is not my first language! Review will be edited... eventually.*

Babysteps. This sequel, is like a babystep on the right direction, by it's improved arts and characterization, but, in the end, falls flat right to it's face.

Super Sailor Chibi Moon... I know it happened in the original too, but still... c'mon! Does this really have to be so close of DBZ-levels of stupid?!

Sailor Moon season III The Death Busters was always my favourite season in the original Sailor Moon, because of it's multicolored characters - both heroes and villains... whom are fairly plentiful in this season - and the final intorducion of three ... outer senshi, which I always found much more deeper, interesting and all in all more fascinating characters, than the first five girls of the Sailor-set. Since I was honestly dissapointed by the quality and the overall end-product of the first two seasons of SMC, I wasn't hoping much when turning the third season on to 'play'... and even though this was better than the prequel, as much as it pains me to say, I just can't fully enjoy this one either!

Of course, it's always deligtful to see, that the animation is much more pleasant to look at, and they took away those horrible CGI-effects that plagued the first two season! The music is still one of the two biggest saving graces for the entire season, but the other inner senshi - including Usagi - are actually growing to resemble more of those girls from the original SM, that I really used to love and appriciate. That being said, this pretty much covers all the good stuff in this show for me.

My biggest gripe against this show, was - surprise! - the outer senshi themselves. Why? Because this show is only 13 episodes long! The original SM took way more time to truly build up and develope the first two outer senshi, Michiru and Haruka, who for the longest time, played this complicated masquerade with the inner senshi, of whether or not they're the enemy, or the ally. This one... yeah. No time for that one, since the whole season itself was already packed full with storyelements and plotpoints, that it was almost essential to cut something out... and, unfortunately, that something was indeed characterization and development of character-chemistry, if you will.

In the original SM, the premise was as such. This dangerous, mysterious evil from outer space, Messiah of Silence, was heading straight to Earth, and because that something is indeed evil, it wants to destroy - no surprises there. The only way to defeat it, is this Holy Grail, that, depending of the hands it falls, can either destroy everyhting, or save everything. Again, fairly simple. But, in order to contain that Holy Grail, you must have these three talismans, that are hidden inside of living human beings, and if you distract those talismans out of them, they'll die. Now, that's way too dark for our five little girls to handle, so, on the spotlight steps these two, mysterious senshi, that are voluntarily ready to soil their hands in the blood of innocents, in order to save many, and so fulfill their destiny before the prophezised dooms day.

This is the story that I really enjoyed in the original show, since it created this unavoidable conflict between two groups of senshi, with the same goal in mind, but with different means to achieve said goal - save the world and do not sacrifice anyone in the process. This both alienated the outer senshi out of inner senshi, since they couldn't work together because of their differing ideals, and made them these unvoluntary villains, since their destiny being to kill somebody, in order to save many, was something that the inner senshi just couldn't get behind. This was great to watch in the original searies, but in this... no! Just... no!

Firstly, the talismans are already found. Yeah! All the three of them! All there, in their hands, and already in good use, when in the original, it literaly cost a life and limb to obtain them! And instead of these unvoluntary villains, these Michiru and Haruka - Setsuna too, I guess... - were more like these Messengers of Doom, all dark, eary and mysterious... stalkers, but, in the end, always ready to stand behind Usagi and her believes, when in the original series, it was never truly brought up directly. They were still fighting together, but unlike the inner senshi, outer senshi took themselves a bigger picture to take care of, and I really appreciated that about them too.

Another gripe of mine was the character of Hotaru. No, wait... not the character herself - she was done beautifully in this! - but her... eh, that scene, were she makes Chibi-usa cry, at the balcony. The death scene! That was stupid.

Don't get me wrong, now! It was beautiful, but it was also stupid! Really stupid. Kinda like those notorious DBZ-moments, when a character dies, they're all yelling and screaming into the skies above, and all I'm asking is, "why do we even care?"! Why do I have to care, if the senshi of Death and Rebirth is dying, but will later return as a baby?! Way too sappy way to create more drama, if you ask me, and I could've managed easily without it, thank you very much!

Overall, this season of SMC isn't perfect... in fact, it's not even good. But, it was still way more enjoyable, than the first two seasons, if only because of the improved arts, still breathtakingly beautiful soundtrack, and characters. Other than that, I wouldn't recommend this to... well, anyone, really. It doesn't please of those who like the original SM, it sure as hell doesn't please of those who'd like to learn more about Sailor Moon, and I can't think off any scenario, in which this series would please any regular anime-fans either!

This series was just marketing - nothing more, nothing less. Watch if you're still interested, but don't feel bad for droping it. Trust me, because I wouldn't.

Story: 6
Art: 8
Sound: 7
Character: 6
Enjoyment: 6
Overall: 6