Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R: The Movie

If the season of Sailor Moon R was arguably better than the first, then the same is true of the Sailor Moon R movie for the R season itself, which improves on the season in a number of ways; namely, the focus seems to be primarily a remake of the Makaijuu arc, with the theme of an alien from outer space and the concept of a bizarre interpretation on love being the most direct influences. Please note that during this review I may not discuss certain plot elements in detail so as to avoid spoilers.

The Sailor Moon R movie's main focus is on Mamoru, and ... more specifically, the origin on how he got his roses and what they may symbolize on a greater scale. While Mamoru's roses did play a significant role in the first anime season, this movie shows how he got his roses and what it means and signifies to another to receive one, and the movie appears to tell a tale of a gift that is able to touch affections across time and space. Along the way to this message, there are many themes covered: the most prominent are loneliness, symbolism, and love, and each of them plays a key role in gleaning the movie's primary message, which may be less obvious than it seems. Fiore's loneliness in the movie is the primary and most striking aspect and is the primary motivation for the events of the movie, which seems to be fueled and manipulated by the jealousy of the evil Xenian Flower. Throughout, Fiore rants about not being betrayed by Mamoru and how everyone else is being deceived by Usagi, which as we know from the series, is wholly incorrect by our current perception. This creates an interesting dynamic that breaks up the usual dynamic (that of Sailor Moon being bailed out of trouble, by this time having Mamoru in a unique contextual situation with Fiore), which results in some much different scenes, such as Sailor Moon being forced to come to terms with her relationship with Mamoru. In a way, this scene also successfully draws parallels between itself and the first season, as they share many of the same themes, messages and even scenes that appear to be NEAR a 1:1 of those found in the series (such as Mamoru being impaled, Usagi's desire to not have more human life be put at risk for her sake, and others). While I am unsure if this was intentional, I believe this works well to reinforce that Usagi is in a similar yet different position to where she was in the first season; the Sailor Senshi also have their backstories before meeting Usagi expanded, and we see their past lives without her, in particular: their loneliness and how being with Usagi shaped them into the type of people they are, which was a really well thought-out addition. While the animation, music, and direction all got a massive step up, I believe the best aspect of the Sailor Moon R movie is none of these and is simply the fact that it feels much more special than a simple movie, likely because of how much care was put in to show the girls' bond and care for each other. Beyond a simple "season-finale"-esque moment, the series perfectly embodies the girls' relationship with each other very quickly and is very easy to become invested in, the same being true for Mamoru and Fiore despite his absence in the series up to this point. One of the most iconic scenes in my opinion is Usagi and Mamoru's decision to refer to each other as their family, which isn't just a sweet moment: it ties back into the core of the latter half of the first season, Mamoru's own struggle with loneliness and Usagi's desperate resolve to save him.

I believe that the Xenian Flower was a wonderful enemy as well for the movie: manipulative, controlling, and seemingly evil, it served perfectly well as a vehicle to drive Fiore's actions and emotional state without one of them overshadowing the other, and it can even be represented as a stand-in for his own conscience. It also works on a symbolic level beautifully, with flowers being an object of nurtured beauty and growth, which is wonderfully inverted.

Overall, the Sailor Moon R movie makes several welcome changes and improvements upon the original, and is a recommendation not simply for all of these elements, but for the fact the movie is enjoyable even without them, and feels right at home, setting a high standard for the anime to upkeep, which it no doubt will. 10/10.

Wow It is better than seasons. It is serious and sad. I never see it before, and it is beautiful. Fighting actions are better than seasons. It changed scenes too. I love the ending part because it made me to be interested, and part is sad and keeping to not give up until protect earth. It is good movie! I am not finished yet. I am on three of five seasons.

Sailor Moon is one of those franchises that you're almost certainly familiar with. It has five anime series with a sixth currently airing. I already looked at the first series, which was great if you watched the original and terrible if you watched the heavily censored Eglish dub. It also has a live action series, over a dozen video games, a musical version and a trio of anime films. Today, we'll be looking at the first of them. Sailor Moon R: The Movie.

Story:

We open with the sailor soldiers going to a greenhouse/ garden to look at flowers. Everything seems to be going well ... and laughter is in abundance. That's when a strange guy approaches Mamoru and takes his hand in a very suggestive fashion while telling him that he's brought a flower like he promised. Usagi notices and tells him that Mamoru is her boyfriend. He responds by pushing her away, shifting appearance to look very similar to Ail and Ann & teleporting away with a flowery effect. But he vows to bring Mamoru lots of flowers. Mamoru mentions the name “Fiore” and goes off on his own. Leaving the soldiers to contemplate what it all means and Usagi to try to deal with her boyfriend's probable bisexuality. Although she really has no room to judge given that she's attracted to at least three other women over the course of the anime.

Now, I actually do like that they use their words and try to reason with the antagonist rather than just going into a long fight scene. I also do like that they make Fiore sympathetic, which is pretty common for Sailor Moon villains, instead of evil for the evils. The film also has some good comedic moments, some with Chibi-Usa, although I only begrudgingly admit that I liked some of her scenes. I also like that the film's story is self-contained, giving you enough information that you can easily understand it even if you haven't seen the series leading up to it. The film's major narrative flaw is the ending. A lot of the stuff leading up to it is good, but it moves into an obvious fake out scene with a cheap resolution. Now, it really needed a little time after that scene to wrap things up properly. Instead, the movie just ends abruptly. It feels like they couldn't think of a good way to wrap things up and just decided not to bother.

Characters:

The sailor soldiers remain fun, entertaining and interesting characters. Some of the best scenes in the film involve the five of them just having fun or explore their bonds with each other. Fiore is also a great character and I did, overall, like what they did with his story arc. The weak links are Chibi-Usa, who gets some funny scenes but is still a pretty annoying character, and Mamoru, who is just as bland and generically good as he's always been. The difference is that in the series he stayed largely on the sidelines as a secondary character and in this film he's one of the major focus characters. It does make his dullness more noticeable.

Art:

The art is good. The character designs look as nice as ever. The action sequences flow better than they do in most of the series with some of the stock attack animations being replaced by more active scenes, although there are certainly plenty of the stock animations present. The backgrounds are lively and nicely detailed, certainly moreso than was present in the first series at least.

Sound:

The vocal cast is superb, as it is in the main series. Mitsuishi Kotono, Hisakawa Aya, Tomizawa Michie, Shinohara Emi and Fukami Rica are joined by Touma Yumi as the Kisenian flower and Midorikawa Hikaru as Fiore. Sailor Moon fans may recognise them as the same duo who played Ail and Ann in R. Which is a little confusing given that the film's story really has nothing to do with the main R storyline in spite of the title. Still, they all give great performances. The music is really good. Sure, some of it is recycled from the series but it was good music then and it's still just as good.

Ho-yay:

Given that the plot revolves on another man with an obvious crush on Mamoru and that Mamoru does respond to his feelings pretty favorably in spite of Fiore's feelings being arguably one-sided, I'm going to give it a ho-yay factor of a 5/10.

Final Thoughts:

Sailor Moon R: The Movie does have a lot to recommend it. The characters, aside from a certain two, are really good. The story itself is compelling and features a lot of good moments. The voice acting and music are great. It's not a great film, however. It suffers from a weak ending. It feels incomplete. One of the focus characters is Generic Male Love Interest #403. If you're a fan of the Sailor Moon franchise and you haven't seen it, check it out. You'll probably like it okay, at the very least. My final rating is going to be a 7/10. Tomorrow, a film from a different famous Toei animation franchise. Yes, this one is probably the first one you thought of.