So after reviewing seasons one and two, here is season number three. As always my Review is split into two parts, and is highly subjective. The fist part is about the structure, aesthetic and characters of Sailor Moon S. The second part is the conclusion where I write down what I thought worked or didn’t work and rate the anime. Also I tried to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, so if you for some reason didn’t watch it feel free to read.
Structure:
The structure is on the first view pretty much the same as the structure of the prior seasons. The story can be divided into 2 parts.
The first part follows the usual formula of Sailor Moon, with an episodic monster of the week structure while slowly pushing the main story forward. Just as season one and two three minor antagonists get about ten episodes where they collect this seasons equivalent of life energy in their own unique way, which just as before helps sailor moon to not become too repetitive. As in season one and two the first half of each episode focuses on daily life experiences of the girls, while the second half is all about the action. What is different from the prior seasons is the tighter focus on the narrative of each individual episode. This basically means that the characters who are present for just an episode get a bigger focus and are more developed. But more on that later. Another important remark here is that the first half of the episodes seem also to focus more on either character development and a more serious mood or on the opposite have an influx of slapstick and comedy as whole.
The second part of season three is where the focus on the main story and the main villains begins. And as such the episodic nature is disregarded to conclude the story in a fitting way.
Aesthetics: In terms of aesthetics Sailor Moon definitely improved in the animation quality. But there are two key improvements even more important than just the jump in animation quality. The first one is the way this season is presenting its characters. Especially the two new scouts, the minor antagonists and the monsters of the week. From the character designs, the soundtracks used for the new scouts and the use visual elements really helps in creating a mood surrounding these characters. Also the monsters or Daimons got some pretty crazy designs fitting the aesthetically theme of the episode., like a female (all of them are female) Daimon in the observatory wearing nothing but a star and boots. (quite sexualised compared to season one and two though) The second improvement I want to give credit to is how the defeat sequences are animated. I think these short sequences are incredibly satisfying to watch. And even if the Sailor Moon action sequences are full (one might even say overload) of reused animations the defeated sequences always felt like a small highlight of the episode.
Characters: Starting the characters off with the main cast the only thing I want to say is that this season does a good job showing the growth of the main cast, which got evident in the few character focused episodes in the beginning. Also Usagi seems to be more mature compared to prior seasons. I have earlier pointed out that the side characters for one episode were more developed than before. But on the flip side, recurring characters of season one and two get a episode of screen if they get any at all. (looking at Naru, Umino and Usagis family) But there for this season introduced two new scouts (but wait there’s more! Spoiler its kinda three and a half new scouts) who add on probably the most interesting character dynamics (plural) of the season. The minor antagonist (which were really good in season one and two) are pretty quirky and certainly funnier than prior ones but not as complex as them. They also lack the character interactions of season ones and twos minor antagonists. But don’t get me wrong they are still pretty good and do what they should. With that being said the character interactions that do happen are really interesting, ranging form silly fun to the clash of different philosophies. Oh and also there are some really important, well build up and inherently interesting character interactions with Chibiusa and a new character. Oh minor !SpoilerAlert! skip this following sentence and jump to the conclusion if you want to be completely blind. This season follows the good Sailor Moon tradition of turning a good character into an enemy for two episodes or so.
Conclusion:
Story: Good to very good 7,5/10
While still being a bit repetitive at times, the stricter focus on the once a episode characters and quirkier monsters really helped in keeping every episode fresh. The season finale also felt a bit underwhelming but this season still got a lot of interesting developments to be considered interesting.
Art: good 7/10
A pretty considerable upgrade compared to prior seasons. So that’s appreciated. Special shout-outs to the Daimon designs, (the little bit of fanservice is also appreciated by me) the defeated animation. And their unique abilities.
Sound Very good 8/10
Yeah as always, good use of the score and nice new soundtracks.
Characters: Good to very good 7,5/10
While providing interesting new characters this season also manages to show to personal progress the main cast has made. The minor antagonists are quirky and all, but lack the complexity of former antagonists. But this season has some nice (meaning no really great but a lot of good and ok) character interactions, reaching from funny to quite serious ones.
Final thoughts: I really enjoyed this season and would say that this is my favorite season of sailor moon so far. But I enjoyed this season for different reasons than season one. (Which does a way better job in building up characters and character moments I would say.) The reason I liked this season more is that each episode is interesting on an intrinsic level. The small stories of those characters who appear for just one episode where actually interesting. I was looking forward to see how the Daimon of this episode would look like and what unique ability or even character it would have. And I enjoyed seeing the Daimons getting defeated. So the main quality of this season compared to season one and two is in my opinion the lack of uninteresting episodes.
With that being said I have a problem 30/40 -->7,5/10 so 7 or 8?
tbh idc... I´ll give it a 7 to be consistent with my Sailor Moon ratings. But as always those numbers are the least important part of a review so feel free to disagree.
Feedback is appreciated.
Greetings,
Ilieas
