the crystal hate still goes strong

hey lovely people still looking up at this blog even though I haven’t updated for long

the purpose of this post, is for ONE MORE TIME, point out that crystal still gets hate

like

90s thumbers

GET OVER IT????

it’s been 9 fucking years

you got what the fuck you wanted, a nod to the 90s

we crystal fans got fucked over and lost

you won

shut the fuck up,

let us live

the fuck is wrong with you?

you’ve been so exhausting since crystal dropped and 9 years later you keep on diminishing people for watching/liking/loving crystal.

move the fuck ONNNNN

nobody took away your nostalgia, it’s there in all its glory go watch it, you do claim after all it is the greatest thing that ever happen to humanity.

stop being a little whinny bitch baby, because there is a second version you don’t like because it followed the source material closely.

[News] Sailor Moon Cosmos

hey everyone long time no see

I come with good news.

today they held a live stream and they announced STARS!!!!!

it;s going to be a 2 movie setup again, and the name is Sailor Moon cosmos

the art is LESS moe, THANK SERENITY!

but you know me I will have things to say once I see it

it comes out next summer

here’s a trailer

cc for eng subs

Queer characters in Sailor moon

I have talked about this multiple times, and I’ll talk about it once more

This analysis is going to be touching on manga, crystal, the musicals, and PGSM, and NOT the 90s anime, a.k.a: all the works created and approved by Naoko herself and not what the 90s production delivered.

Toei and the 90s producers stripped all the characters of their queer identities, and straight coded even HaruMichi, so there is no reason for me to speak about THAT. Also Toei is disgusting on how they treat their queer employees so literally FUCK them.

Back to the topic:

I’ve been enjoying some cartoons lately that have massive queer rep (GOOD REP), and they are rightfully praised for it, which made me think a lot of how Naoko treated her characters and why that was so significant.

The cartoons in question are the new She-ra(Netflix), and The owl house(Disney). Both, by queer creators which is important, have brought good rep on kids programs and that’s fantastic (Also these shows have amazing stories so go enjoy them)

• She-ra’s creator had to fight to get her protagonist to be a lesbian and include a romantic kiss at the last scene of the last episode between 2 women. There were more characters who were queer, one of them had two dads, he was also bisexual, a legit lesbian married couple, and multiple other character who were queer, including a character who was non-binary.

• The Owl House’s creator had to also fought, and sadly the show will be shortened and pretty much cut as the third season will only have 3 long episodes instead of full seasons the two prior have gotten. What she managed was to get two girls to confess their love and start dating in the middle of season 2, which means that we will get to see them date. Also there is already a non-binary character who is also older(in their 40s) and another one hinted, in the magical world she has created there is no homophobia or transphobia, also a main character again like in She-ra she had two dads. Another main character and the non-binary one have dated in the past, and nobody bats an eyelash.

As I said about the Owl House we are in a magical world(everyone is an elf or demon, the same happens with She-ra, it’s a magical world everyone is an alien. Which means the creators can build the worlds however they want without bringing homophobia into it.

Now if we look at Sailor Moon, which was written in the 90s and how literally every character was effortlessly queer, and how nobody ever questioned that. Usagi having heart eyes for all her guardians, Rei being either ace or a lesbian(PGSM made her canon lesbian in love with Minako), Ami being in love with Usagi (especially in PGSM, even the actresses commented on that), Makoto the only one who leaned more into being attracted to just boys, Minako who was never boy crazed, heavily queercoded by the end of the manga and canon in PGSM. Mamoru extremely homoerotic with his generals especially in PGSM, but also in the manga. Setsuna was more adoring the Queen than the King in the manga, but they made her admit being in love with Endy in the old musicals which were heavily influenced by the 90s anime so, meh. Hotaru clearly showing only signs of attraction towards Chibiusa, saying the typical in yuri manga confessions “even though we are both girls, I love you”, even Mamo commented that he felt he was sending his daughter to her wedding lol, of course Chibs being queer as fuck like her mama and papa. And then there is HaruMichi, shown as a couple, through and through, all the characters know they are a couple, they live together, they raise a CHILD together, it cant get any clearer than that.

Seiya also a lesbian in love with Usagi. Many character do crossdress including the 3 lights, Haruka, and Hawk’s eye, but there is no reference of them being non-binary, the 3 lights are women they only crossdress for their mission, Haruka does the same for a fraction of the manga, as for Hawk’s eye they do appear as amab and they use fem pronounces and appearance, but they don’t live long enough to touch on that.

Even though Sailor moon is also a magical world, it is very slice of life, with regular people with no powers and in the middle of Tokyo, a real city in the real world. Naoko didn’t build a world without prejudice, she removed prejudice from a real world. I don’t think Naoko even understand the concept of heterosexuality to begin with, but she still grew up in a society with a lot of pre-decided roles of what women and men should and shouldn’t do. The entire concept of Sailor moon was to show her bosses (who were men) that girls can be girly, and cute, and still be bad asses and save the world. and she did THAT in the 90s. of course her work was heavily censored all over the world, but with crystal/eternal and the new musicals it’s a second chance to show the world how having queer character in your show doesn’t have to be all about homophobia and negativity.

and I love that for Sailor Moon

ScreenRant article about Haruka gets it wrong

as if that’s surprising😒

The article in question supposedly answers questions about Haruka

and while many of those are insignificant and trivial easily found in sailor moon wiki

there is of COURSE the question on her gender

first of all, Amanda, if you don’t know how to separate gender and bio sex please STFU about gender identities you probably have no idea about. Also Amanda unless you understand Japanese society, and actually don’t have to base your so called answer in english mistranslations, then kindly STFU about Haruka’s gender, and listen to the damn creator of the character instead. Also stop misgendering Haruka by using “they/them/their” in one of your answers, you don’t get brownie woke points for doing so,

For the bazillion time, Neptune said that “URANUS is a warrior who has the strengths and qualities of both men and women” NOT that she is both. Also “male” and “female” (a.k.a biological sex) was never in the original text that’s the translator’s inability to separate gender and sex.

Furthermore Haruka crossdresses, for a fraction of the story, for the mission. At the time of crossdressing she presents ENTIRELY (pronouns, attire, gender expression) as a boy, unlike the 90s anime where she does present masculine but she tells the inners instantly that she’s a girl. AFTER the undercover mission goes to shit because they have to save Amichan, so they transform, and it’s revealed that she’s a girl, they state “we can’t return to this school after this” and she instantly adopts fem pronouns, wearing mini skirts/makeup/crop tops/high heels as a civilian(she was using fem pronouns as Uranus already) and walking down the streets with her girlfriend, later on also the girls school uniform of the Juuban high school, and her entire gender expression is that of a girl, unlike the fucking 90s where she kept on presenting masculine, so the producers didn’t have to explain that she was a woman therefore her and Michiru were in a homosexual relationship. 🖕

Haruka even apologizes to Usagi for “confusing her”, why would she apologize if that’s who she was (a.k.a non-binary)?
Haruka is not the first non-binary character, and being referred to as a “she” from her friends should be answer enough to you, Amanda! I’m non-binary and no Haruka doesn’t represent me in that respect because she’s a cis-woman who uses She/her pronouns, and is also quite fem in appearance. Also non-binary is not a term known in Japanese and has no value whatsoever with Japanese people. The term that can mean non-binary in Japan is either “genderless” or “gender free”, with the second one the newer of the two. Neither was ever mentioned in any of the works, so Haruka is a woman, and that’s it.

I’m so tired of this😩

What to watch Before Eternal films

So for many it’s pretty obvious, but for some it’s not, and there are multiple suggestions out there that make no sense and will confuse viewers even more.

Are you new to Sailor Moon and interested in watching the Eternal Films that dropped on netflix, but don’t know if you need to watch anything else before?

you came to the right place lol

and I sound like an infomercial don’t mind me

anyway

let’s begin with the basics:

should you watch Eternal Films without watching/reading anything else prior to the viewing?

Short answer is NO. Long answer? well be my guest and do whatever you want, but keep in mind that there is a story continuity that these films are linked to.

So what to do before watching Eternal?

there are several options, from most convenient to least convenient to complete unrelated

• most convenient is to watch the 3 sailor moon Crystal seasons, and you will be good to go, it’s an anime format and Eternal is the direct progression of Crystal, and it’s only 39 episodes you can binge it in few days.
• less convenient but the full experience, is to both watch the 3 Crystal seasons, AND read the manga, that way you not only get the anime format, but also the tiny differences and the few things that were excluded from the anime due to artistic decisions and run time.
• even less convenient and up to personal taste, you can watch 3 crystal seasons, read the manga, and add to the mix the recent musicals which are also based on the manga, and can offer more character development.
• a notch less convenient than before, watch all 3 seasons of crystal, read the manga, watch the recent musicals, and watch the PGSM live action, for a character development to the max (it only covers the first arc but it’s Naoko’s vision through and through)
• least convenient is to do all of the above and then add the 200 episodes of the 90s anime. The 90s anime is completely unrelated to the eternal films.
• Complete unrelated waste of time that wont help at all with the films is to just watch the 90s anime. And here’s why. The 90s anime only follows the core idea of the story, but characters and plots have been altered a lot to make it a unique product, almost unrelated to the original work which is the manga. so if you are new to sailor moon watching the 90s wont help you understand where the films are coming from.

If you watched the 90s as a kid, in a censored dub version, and just saw the films on netflix and want to watch, you can as you understand who is who, but nothing will make sense as the 90s version of this season and the manga arc are very different so you wont get a nostalgia fix, all you will get is confusion so even in your case I suggest watching crystal first. or read the manga.

So what about the 90s anime then

wanna spend days to watch 200 episodes that are not meant to be binge watched? that’s on you, and you spend your time however you like, but don’t expect to find relation of the 90s in Eternal.

In conclusion

watch crystal as a preparation for Eternal, then after watching Eternal read the manga, to get the few bits that were not in the films or crystal. Musicals (old and new), the PGSM live action, and the 90s anime, you can all enjoy later when you have the time and want the full Sailor Moon experience. Keep in mind that the 90s anime is the only product that the creator of sailor moon had no say in. That means she was not happy at all with some of the changes they made to her beloved characters, and it has not aged very well.

If you like the 90s anime more than the original product which is the manga, then you might not enjoy crystal and Eternal, or the musicals and PGSM.

[Sailor Moon Eternal] review

I finished watching both films and I find them okay, not exceptional, just good enough.

So let’s start with the basics:

animation
I’m gonna be real, scenery and animation are two different things, you can have the most beautiful scenery in the world and the animation on top of it to suck hairy balls.
So Eternal had amazingly beautiful scenery, and the colour palette is breathtaking (just like it was for the entirety of Crystal) but the animation was mediocre, it was better than SMC3, but worst than SMC2(black moon arc) (SMC2 had the best animation in the entirety of sailor moon, it was SPOTLESS).
If you follow this blog you already know that I despise Moe artstyle, and I continue to do with Eternal too. I just can’t with having large tits, and thigh gaps paired with a face that belongs to a toddler. Also Moe doesn’t allow for much of facial expression and Eternal lacked on that significantly in comparison to Crystal 1-2. regardless of Moe I didn’t like the artstyle of characters at all.

whatever they were thinking with Ami’s mama

It’s not it…

I chocked when they called her stunning and showed her in THAT artstyle. it only proves why Moe has no lips, because moe artists SUCK at drawing them.
Also hair styles I will never not be upset about simplified moe hair, crystal 1-2 had such beautiful hair. enough roasting the art style lets go to plot,

plot/pace
So pretty much identical to the manga, they skipped couple of pages, but it was to be expected since the run time of 2 films is shorter than a full 13 eps season. I will forever say this that it would have benefited with 2 more eps than arcs. Pace was kinda messy, at some points it felt too fast that the scenes couldn’t breath and neither could I, which is understandable when you take a periodic story and turn it in an one off(two in this case that served as one), at other times the story dragged too long in some scenes that it felt boring. The runtime of both films are 160 minutes that divided by 25 m(which is a runtime of an anime episode) it gives approximately 6.5 episodes, but for the sake of the argument I would say 7 episode, we are 4 episodes short of the 11 arcs. so yeah at the end of the day, not enough time to breath. as expected.

translation
The subs translation was ok, way better than SMC3 which was bellow normal standards. I could do without the reversed names since they used honorifics, like Kaioh Michiru san would have been better than Michiru Kaioh san that went into the subs. Also why changed mama and papa to mommy and daddy, WHY? Don’t english speaking people use mama and papa? ever? also they reversed it and it was annoying, at least leave it as Michiru mommy, not mommy Michiru. They left Michiru sensei intact, so why change everything else, it’s inconsistent and annoying. Also With subtitles sometimes you need to sacrifice syntax to makes it work, for example when Zirconia introduces herself she says: “I’m so and so of Nehelenia, I’m Zirconia” In Japanese, but the english sub decided to go with “I’m Zirconia, the so and so of Nehelania” which is unnecessary and confusing. But other than that the translations were accurate. A friend of mine watched it with subs in our language, and he said the translation was localized so much it was ridiculous and he laughed a lot. So overall English subs were okay with few localization hick ups. I don’t fuck with dubs so I don’t know anything and I don’t care, dubs can chock.

characters
I LOVE THEM ALL! finally what Naoko wanted it came true. The inners struggling with not being able to transform, their back stories, theirs dreams, Rei being queer as fuck, Minako having an outburst because of her own insecurities but finding herself in the end, Ami breaking out of the spell on her own. Chibiusa growing emotionally, realizing Mamochan is her papa, and moving on, Loving Usagi and aspiring to be like her, thinking she’s beautiful, longing to grow up precisely because she wants to be like Usagi, strong and loving and beautiful. And then there is Mamo and Usa, like holly shit they are so adorable, Mamo being affectionate all the time, hugging/touching Usagi unprompted, like Naoko’s Ideal Man should. Also character growth for Usagi, realizing that her dream is not what real Mamochan is, so she asks him what he wants, COMMUNICATION PEOPLE, Even when he asked her to leave him alone because he didn’t want her to see him puking cancer, as angst at it was, there was so much maturity from Usagi. if she was 90s usagi she would throw a fit and go complain to whoever that she going to break up with him, while he’s literally dying. There are a lot of people who push away their loved ones when they are this severely sick, it’s unreasonable and heartbreaking, but it happens. but hey they have matured both, so much that they solved it together.

UsaMamo have been the best part of these films and that’s a fact.

Now to the outers, boy oh boy, their pain, their sadness. always stoic Michiru to outburst like that, all they wanted was to protect their Princess, from Sil Mil to present. Their duty was that always. They got a chance to be part of her team in Infinity, but then they lost their powers, just like the inners they lost theirs, but the difference is that the inners are always with Usagi, always protecting her, the Outers felt like, that since they have no powers no more, their duty have ended and they have no place to be close to her, yet again they are isolated from her, sure they have each other, but if anything Haruka’s tear and her “I want to see them” that uncertainty of whether their princess needs them or even misses them at all, is heartbreaking, which is why when they all meet and Mamoru tells them that they will ALL go together to face the enemy, is the best reassurance the outers could ever get. Hotaru’s “I came back to fight with Sailor moon and also to fight along side you sailor chibi moon” is just so powerful. Their unity of course shown again when they turn eternal, and when they turn into princesses. This is the best part of the dream arc. because after that when we go into Stars, the outers become part of Usagi’s life, they hang out with her, granted that inners drop dead one by one in Stars but still they are there before that happens.

These were the good parts, now for my pet peeve which is the alteration of Haruka, like, Toei, say you hate lesbians and move instead of trying to change Haruka AGAIN.

back when the films were playing on Japanese cinemas I got some spoilers about the opening scenes of HaruMichi and their significance, I talked about it in this post

But things are a bit worst than that. they altered Michiru’s scene as well which paints Haruka as this jealous possessive gf who doesn’t want men to approach her Michiru in 3 meter radius.

Here’s what went down the drain with this scene and why it was important to stay intact.

This is what we get from Eternal, no annoying asshole trying to get Haruka on a date like in the manga and Haruka being rightfully upset about it.

As I said in that other post, this showed 2 things
1. with a simple seconds long observation a random can see that Haruka is a woman
2. men being entitled to women’s time and attention. If that dude thought Haruka was a man he would have just say “cool car bro” and move on instead of asking him to go have tea with his ass.
Haruka’s response to his entitlement was justified and perfect. But Toei doesnt want to picture cis het men as assholes unless they can redeem them later.

so we skip all that in the film and we go straight to Michiru’s scene

What do we have here now you ask, a noisy fan, but how noisy? He’s annoying and all but all he does is to ask for a handshake. And suddently Haruka comes in with her man envy (because of course she has man envy it’s a Toei animation they can’t let lesbians be lesbians and not cis het fragile men) and hugs Michiru to show that dude that he has no chance. NOT to show him he’s annoying, not show him that he is not entitled to women’s attention and time, just to show him that Michiru is taken and he should respect Haruka not Michiru. (I fucking HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS)

in the freaking Manga now and how Queen NAOKO made this scene what it should be

Now the fan is not just annoying he is fucking invasive, he doesn’t just ask for a handshake, he asks where Michiru lives, what’s her routine, it’s borderline creepy and Haruka knows that, so she comes in and grabs his hand, she crashes his hand actually while saying “we thank you for buying the CDs” meaning this is to tell him that he has no right to cross the line and be a creep, not because Haruka is Michiru’s partner, but because being a creep is bad, AFTER That Haruka hugs Michiru and being affectionate to her. If Haruka didn’t go to Michiru after it, she could have just seem like a shop clerk who saw the interaction and stepped in because a creepy asshole was bothering their famous customer. Haruka is affectionate to Michiru, who was VISIBLY upset (she wasn’t in the film) but not possessive. Haruka has no man envy, she knows Michiru loves her because she’s Haruka, and she trusts Michiru and understands that Michiru is a lesbian and has no interest in men whatsoever.

So Yeah FUCK THE 90s bullshit that made it into Eternal, because Toei is trash.

emotional engagement
So…it was fine, it had its moments, but moe didn’t allow for much of emotion to come through. I didn’t cry because I’m a monster. I don’t think anything will ever top Chibiusa crying over dying Pluto for me.

Notable curiosity

why Ami sees her interaction with Setsuna being fully dressed

But Rei and Makoto see HaruMichi naked?

Setsuna and Michiru are both dressed in the manga, but Haruka is not

but Makoto is the only one who sees the rest of the inners naked as well.

Anyway, it was good, they need to drop the moe bullshit style it really makes the outcome less enjoyable. and I need to see my HaruMichi in manga style for Stars please and thank you.

We finally have the manga version of dream arc unaltered, no other version has done it that well (I was so disappointed with the myu for Dream arc with the pondering to the 90s thumpers).

I need a full season for stars though cause the arc might be short but it’s packed.

[SMC]binge of SMC3 is done, we were robbed

Don’t get me wrong, story wise it was exactly like the manga and that is not what I feel robbed about.

so let’s start

Animation: moe, moe, moe, moe, quality exactly the same as 1-2 in terms of frame by frame comparisons, and at times worse, stock animation for attacks and transformations, distorted legs all over the place, but hey, the fandom didn’t tear it apart so, nobody cares suddenly. Hence why the moe element that aged down the girls for no reason, gets on my nerves, I have seriously stopped watching anime that sound great from a plot aspect because they are moe. I HATE MOE! The animation in this case was also slow when there was not much action, it only included the so called funny faces, that were not funny if you are not 5, and added nothing to the story whatsoever. there were so few of them in the manga, and they were not stupid distorted faces and giant mouths. I ended up skipping the transformation sequences of SM and the inners and their introduction speeches after the second time, because of how long they were.

Pace/Plot: it was the exact story from the manga, with all the effed up elements the infinity arc has, an absolute marvel, the pace was identical with 1-2 the only difference is that in SMC3 they would put 1~3 minutes recaps of the previous episode before the opening theme, something that 1-2 didn’t, they had new story before the opening theme each time. Then the transformations and introductions would take 2-3 minutes from the episode, unlike 1-2 were they would take less of a minute. 1-2 invested more time in showing new things each episode, than SMC3 did.
One of the reasons why the final fight felt longer than it should.

We learn so much about how Sil Mil functioned in this arc, Outers explained that the Moon kingdom was their homeland, not their planets, the planets were basically deserted. The solitude part we knew all along, but damn the depth of their pain breaks my heart.

Hotaru being so abused by her father is one of the darkest elements of the Sailor Moon story.

Translation: this is a new one, I didn’t have to comment on 1-2 because the translation was actually good, with very few hiccups that didn’t take away from the story, just sounded a bit grammatically weird. but with SMC3 the translation created a load of misconceptions, they added things that were not there, and of course westernized the subs even more (no honorifics) which is overall meh. As I have previously analyzed here the biggest problem is how they fuck up majorly with Haruka’s gender, watching again I noticed few more things: When Usagi in particular realized that Haruka the woman presenting and Haruka and man presenting and Uranus are the same person, she stops referring to her as “he” (kare), she always says “あの人”(ano hito) “this person” but the translator insists to include “he” regardless if it is needed or not. More on Haruka’s gender on the character section.

Characters: Usagi is still bi/pan as fuck, When Uranus kissed her, she daydreamed of Haruka (as a boy) kissing her but then saw Haruka as a girl ending the kiss.
When she asked Haruka if she’s a boy or a girl, Haruka questioned Usagi’s boundaries by asking her instead if gender really mattered.
Minako bi/pan as fuck as well as she thirsted over Haruka (as a boy) and Mimette.
Ami and Rei have been a bit mean to Usagi this time around but nowhere near the 90s, just a a bit of banter about “you are late” or “study more”.
I forgot to be honest but I think both Ami and Makoto commented on how gorgeous Michiru is, Ami definitely admires Michiru’s violin. Also can we talk about how fucking badass Ami is? going alone to Mugen, then jumping off the window and dives into the swimming pool while transforming?

Hotaru is an abused child, her feels for Chibiusa are real, she even says the typical in anime “I know we are both girls but I love you”

The three outers and their motives are very clear to me, have always been but many misunderstand them. They have always been in solitude, they don’t know anything but duty, they feel guilt that they couldn’t save Sil Mil, even Pluto in the precious arc she said that all she wanted was to fight even for once along with Sailor Moon, to contribute to the saving of the world. That’s why HaruMichi have been harsh, that’s why they used shameful means to keep the inners and Usagi away from them. Setsuna explains this to them, when they are saying that they will go kill Hotaru, and the Usagi pleads with them, they tell her, this is why they didn’t want them involved, not because they think they are weak, but because they want to keep them from staining their hands. Their ideals were different because they are different.

it is their talisman giving their power willingly to Sailor Moon when they realize that they got it all wrong, that what they needed to do was to protect her, and not try doing things alone.

When Usagi asks them if they are afraid of being alone like she is, Haruka tells her that she would lie if she said she wasn’t, and proceeded to explain that all they always knew was solitude, but there was one thing that they looked at to give them hope and courage to continue their duty and that was the light from the moon, the moon kingdom and the light of the princess.

When Haruka was still a Mugen students, and Usagi questioned her why she doesn’t tell them anything, Haruka told her that she wished for them to know each other before all that, without all that baggage. Usagi cried, and explained to Mamoru that she felt Haruka’s pain, that’s why she couldn’t stop crying.

All Haruka, and the other two outers for that matter, always wanted was to be close to their princess, to receive the warmed of her light, the honestly and beauty of her love. It was not romantic, but a desperate need to be able to love her and for her to love them back, and to exterminate their loneliness.

in the end when all hope is lost after Usagi jumps into Pharaoh90 Uranus admits that, all she wanted was to protect her, that was it, to save the world so she could protect her princess, and for one more time she couldn’t, they couldn’t.

Emotional Attachment: I obviously love the story or this arc, I didn’t cry because I’m a cold hearted asshole, but did I have feels about everything in this story arc? Oh you bet I did. Sadly, some Haruka and Michiru moments felt flat from a voice acting perspective, which is not entirely the fault of the actors, but both the direction, and how both actresses had such huge shoes to fit, and frankly for me, having Shuuchan acting out some of these Haruka moment in SeraMyu, have made everything else obsolete. Tomoe abusing his own child is one of the darkest themes for me in the entirety of the Sailor Moon story line, and SMC3 didn’t disappoint.

Haruka’s gender: I think with crystal because of the atrocious translations this is a matter that needs to be addressed.

for the first 5 acts/episodes Haruka and Michiru are undercover in Mugen, until Ami is attacked and they transform so their cover is blown, they even say they can’t return to the academy after that. During those five episodes/acts/about 80 pages of manga, Haruka presents entirely as a boy to everyone, inside the Mugen academy, when she’s not in Mugen she is dressed in dresses, and uses the feminine pronoun “atashi” and feminine Japanese speech. (also when transformed into Uranus, she does the same). When she is in the helicopter with Chibiusa, Chibiusa addresses her as “oneesan” (big sister/young woman) the same that she does with Michiru as well. Haruka doesn’t object nor correct Chibiusa, she is after all presenting fully as a woman in that instance. (all these are sadly lost in translation since the SMC3 didn’t include the honorifics in the english text, and oneesan is a honorific that distinguishes gender very clearly).

This lasted FIVE(5) episodes from the 13 that consist the infinity arc. After the cover is blown and they can’t return to Mugen, Haruka is presenting fully as a woman, pronounce, fashion, fem speech, everything. (which by the way continues into dream and star arcs as well, but I only use the SMC3 for now since that’s where we at).

When we come to that point where Neptune talks about Uranus, the translation goes and adds things that are not said at all, it goes like: “Uranus is both a man and a woman, and possesses the quality of both sexes and genders” That is an overkill, as I have explained to that other post I linked above, that was not what was said in the Japanese text/speech. In fact, every Japanese I know, and everyone with knowledge of the language and culture, never thought of Haruka being transgender/intersex/non-binary/man. Haruka is a cultural phenomenon, unique to Japan in its approach, which is the culture of crossdressing, it is similar to the drag we see in the western world, but different in the sense that drag is purely performative and exaggerates masculinity or femininity, while crossdressing in Japan, can be both performative (a.k.a exaggeration) or simply an aesthetic thing. In SeraMyu the old ones there was Ono Hikari, the actress who played many man roles, as well as women roles, and there was that one man actor I dont remember his name who plays Petz on the same stage that Hikari played Prince Demand and another actress played Saphir. He was possibly the best Petz ever, not made for laughs just perfect fit for the role. Crossdressing in Japan is more of a “I can pull it off” thing than anything else, see the Visual Kei bands for example, or the model AKIRA.

Now if we want to put a gender label on Haruka, she is pretty much a cis woman, and a feminine one at that, she doesn’t even try to be she just is. remember also that in Japan labels such as “genderfluid” “non-binary” and the likes we have in western world, do not exist, at most we get the label “genderless” and that’s about it. But Haruka never assumes that label, never claims to not be a woman. And if you insist on not using “she” as her pronoun you literally misgender her.

because Haruka outside of Mugen and after episode/act 5 she presenting like this:

this

I just realized it’s not even the exact same outfit 😒

and since these two are the only outfits she gets for the rest of SMC3

When I say WE WERE ROBBED I MEAN IT!!

NOT TO BE THAT PERSON BUT THAT’S THE SAME SKIRT AND MY LESBIANS ARE SHARING CLOTHES

ALSO HARUKA IS NOT THE ONLY ONE HAVING THEIR FASHION STOLEN

Look at this Michiru not even presenting feminine

Also HaruMichi both have large busts but the SMC3 decided to make them flat chested for whatever reason. Anime boobs are only reserved for the Evil minds I guess, the good girls are not allowed to have them

bonus from that Chibiusa side story after the end of the infinity arc

Haruka in the girls Mugen uniform.

Crystal Hate robbed us from Haruka’s true fashion

[SMC] binge watch of SMC 1-2 is done, I cried ;_;

here’s the verdict:

Animation: while the first few episodes had noticeable issues, after episode 7~8 things improved so much so that unless you were to pause you didn’t notice. The pastel colour palette was beautiful, and I adore the old fashion art style, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to you if you read this blog.

watching scenes that have been torn apart by this fandom, I also noticed that said people took perfectly fine frames and distorted them, to convey their point.

the animation outside of fights was slow, but that didn’t take away from the plot, the fights were amazing, and the hair flowing is my favourite. All attacks were also unique, instead of a stock footage animation like in SMC3 and 90s.

to shield this argument once and for all, the SMC1-2 animation was not as bad as 90s thumpers wants you to believe by tearing it apart frame by frame, and photoshopping perfectly fine frames to look distorted.

it is not a masterpiece, but is not the worst thing that ever happened to humanity either. in fact quality wise, especially the second season, is far better than smc3 or 90s will ever be.

Plot/Pace: binge watching something helps a lot with pacing, especially in this day and age where pretty much everything is binge watched, and people have shorter attention spams. Not pausing every 3 seconds to find an animation flaw also helps to understand the plot.

The plot follows the manga, and while there are minor changes, which were input from Naoko Takeuchi herself, she wanted them there, they do not take away from the overall plot.

You gotta love those few people claiming to love the manga, and hate crystal with passion because of TWO(2) plot changes, Venus not stubbing Beryl, and the generals coming back and dying. But then go about how the 90s was the best, even though the changes were as dramatic as personality changes of core characters.

there was no pace issue, I never felt that I needed more of this or less of that, could the story have benefited by a couple more episodes? absolutely, time for character development is always great, it’s what made the 90s so special after all (even if I don’t agree with a lot of things the 90s did or how they developed certain characters, the multiple episodes did make up for a lot of those things).

Characters: Usagi is very bi/pan, Ami has only showed interest in girls so far, so has Rei, Makoto is the only one shown interesting boys, Minako is not boy crazed like in the 90s, very far from it, Rei is not a complete bitch to Usagi, that was romanticized in the 90s. Mamoru is an actual sweetheart, yeah me putting a good word for a dude, imagine THAT. the ’90s has destroyed his character, but Crystal brought him back to his roots, the worst thing he did, was to be slightly annoyed at having trash thrown at his face. He is a teenager like Usagi, unlike his adult ass in the 90s. I don’t give 2 flying Fs about the generals, unless they are in a 5some with Endymion or something. (then again I never give a fuck about them ever.) Konzi-Zoi are not an item like in the 90s but everyone else is fucking queer so I don’t care, Asanuma thirsting over Mamochan-senpai for the win is what I say!

Prince Demand is not redeemed like he shouldn’t!

Black lady was twisted to the bone.

PLUTO is the biggest sweetheart

emotional attachment: Let’s be real, I’m a HaruMichi fan, season 1 and 2 were never among my top favs, still love them, but yeah, s1 especially, I was interested in Beryl, and the introduction of the inners but that was about it, season 2 had me on edge though way more, a lot of extremely disturbing themes going on, Usagi’s Utopia didn’t work, she neglected her child, that child grew to have a very twisted version of reality. I cried when Pluto sacrificed herself, and when she said that sailor moon was her “akogare” I combusted because she had us believe she was in love with King, but then she gives us her bi vibes in the end there!

I cried when Black Lady screamed Pluto’s name too. and I cried when Usagi and Cibiusa were crying because Chibiusa was going back to 30th century.

That’s how good it was!

SMC has done its plots right, and the hate it got was uncalled for, and all it did, was to fuck things up for us fans.

SMC3 bad translation is a result of Crystal hate

I have expressed my disgust for Crystal haters before, I have addressed the hate in a long post in the past, but what I’ve never spoken about is how that hate resulted in a mediocre translation for the 3rd season of Sailor Moon Crystal.

There are lot more things I dislike that were results of the hate such as:

– the generic moe animation

– the copy-pasta attacks/transformation

– the lack of outfit changes for everyone but especially Haruka

– the lack of lips

– the girls look like 8 year olds instead of teenagers with said moe animation

– the lack of uniqueness in the art style

– the fact that there are no more anime series but 2 movies instead, let’s see how much more character development they will manage in 3 hours, than they did in 13 episode (that apparently was not enough for the haters)

I can go on and on, but there is one thing that has created more controversy and misconceptions about the characters, than anything else before, and that’s the HIDEOUS English translation for the 3rd series.

Sailor Moon Crystal 1 and 2 where an official international release, with English translation being done by professionals who actually understand Japanese culture and reviewed before the release.

Because of the hate, things changed, Sailor Moon Crystal 3 was not an international release, there was not official translation from the Japanese side, it was sold on crunchyroll and they did their translation or whatever I don’t really know, it was not one that was supervised by TOEi.

We ended up with lazy mistranslations used for the manga decades ago, instead of something that was true to the original material and not bastardized by ideologies and ignorance.

I personally know enough Japanese to not need much of a translation, but since it was provided with English subs I could see all the mistakes that got on my nerves but also created the biggest misconception of all time in this fandom.

if you haven’t figured out what I’m referring to yet

Of course I’m talking about the whole “Haruka is both a man and woman” bs

the mistranslation of what Neptune says is so frustrating, I’m tired of trying to explain to so many people.

and then seeing them going back to the same bs because of the stupid translations.

I HATE EVERYTHING!!!

「ウラヌスは男でもあり女でもあるどちらの性もどちらの強さもあわせもつ戦士なのです」

“uranus wa otoko demo ari onna demo aru dochira no sei mo dochira no tsuyosa mo awasemotsu senshi nano desu”

“URANUS has both a man’s and a woman’s strengths as a WARRIOR”

it is one flipping sentence, not two, not separate, said in one breath, not with a cut.

now if you take the first part only

「ウラヌスは男でもあり女でもある」 “uranus wa otoko demo ari onna demo aru”

then you have “Uranus is both a man and a woman” (which at the very least would mean that she is non binary, not intersex)

but that’s not what is said, it is not how it’s said.

because that is not the end of the sentence, it is just the first part that is in one dialogue balloon and the rest is on another, but there is no period closing the sentence therefore there is no ending there.

25+ years, not one, not two TWENTY FIVE WHOLE ASS YEARS

people try to invalidate Michiru as a lesbian, they have tried everything from “Michiru flirts with men!!1!!” when she has just spent 30 seconds talking to Mamoru in the entire manga. To “Haruka is a man, because the dub I grew up with said so” and everything in between, including disgusting things like “Michiru is too pretty to be a lesbian”

Haruka has been confirmed by the creator herself that she is a woman, we can clearly see her naked body as a female one, so ciswoman if I may add.

In the manga especially she also presents as a woman for the better part of the story, with the only instance that she is not is during the stupid mission at the beginning of their introduction arc, before Usagi figures it out and their cover is blown.

THAT’S IT!

the only man in the show is Mamoru and even though he has Earth’s crystal he can’t be a sailor warrior because he is a cis man!

Michiru is a lesbian and she is in a canonical relationship with Haruka ANOTHER cis woman lesbian

[Sailor Moon Crystal]: Addressing the hate

It bugs me for a long time now, and every time I had tried to reason anything in favour of Crystal, in public forums mostly, I was met with name calling. From a little browsing on the web, and especially on sites such as tumblr, I have seen many posting similar situations to mine. So I felt it’s time to address the issue on my blog.

Before I continue, I would like to say that I do not suffer from nostalgia, for the following reasons: (if this is tl:dr just skip to the main objective after the ***)

I’m almost 32 years old today, and sailor moon anime came to my country in early ’90s, along with dragonball, I was barely 10 years old then, and Bunny was not my idol, in fact the translation was so terrible, that at times it didn’t make any sense, also I was scared of Metalia and the Dark Kingdom hideout. With all those in mind, I have no memories of sailor moon from my childhood. It was around mid ’00s I decided to marathon dragonball and sailor moon, it was the first time I saw both in their original (Japanese audio and all) form. It was THEN I fell completely in love with the sailor moon story and plot, it was then I found Usagi to be a goddess, it was then I actually started reading and writing fanfiction about Haruka and Michiru. Then the manga was my next stop and I loved it, and the musicals came along and I adorn them, and even PGSM has a very prominent place in my heart. The downsize on all these was that I got involved with the English speaking fandom. Bullying, backstabbing, who is larger fan, who deserves to be a fan, and other such “fun”(not) things. After that fiasco I decided to never get involved with the fandom ever again, hence why I keep myself in my own blog, and I hardly interact with other fans directly. In the end the hate Crystal gets and the ugly behaviours do not surprise me at all. But because of how far the hating has gone, it just feels that there not a single place on the interwebs that I can be happy for these series, that I want to write the following blog.

***

Addressing the Hate

The Animation

The most common complain, is that the animation for Crystal is terrible, there are gazillion of blogs, posting again and again the same frames from the same episodes, and they nitpick frame by frame every single scene. Which is highly unfair, because yes there are mistakes, but when you take pretty well animated scenes, and look at them frame by frame, of course there are going to be in between frames that only appear on the screen for one millisecond, that look weird. One example is the frame from the Chibi Moon’s transformation, which is ripped apart on the purpose to show ONE frame in the whole sequence that shows her face and limps in a strange dysmorphic state, only for the hater at time to claim how bad the animation is.

The fact is that the Dark Kingdom arc, was not funded highly, it was an internet release even, so the animation was of lower quality than the Black Moon arc, which received an offer to be licensed on TV and from that point to the end, the animation was of higher quality, including the Chibi Moon transformation I mentioned above which was flawless.

When anyone dares to say that the ’90s animation had a terrible quality, and for years fans have been complaining about it, or try to nitpick the same way the Crystal haters do, all one comes face to face is the all mighty “HOW DARE YOU!” “the old anime is my childhood” “they drew with hand back then” “and the animation was amazing” “how dare you nitpick!” “you evil bastards”. And other more colourful replies that range up to death threats…

At the end of the day, the Crystal animation was just a good animation, not a great one, but what can anyone expect from Toei seriously? They had done a mediocre job with the 90s anime they did quite a better one now. The reason always have been and always will be the money spend on it. And I will address funding later in this post.

To the point, the frame by frame analysis, will always going to be unfair. Have you ever seen the slow motion photo finishes of track runners? Their faces are the weirdest, are you even able to see those weird faces smacked by the wind while in full speed video? No, you can only see them on pictures or slow motion videos.

How many times have you paused a live action movie with real people in it, and you have landed on a weird face or weird body anatomies because the actor is either in between talking, or moving fast(martial art moves, dancing, etc). I know I have. I have even made pictures frame by frame for scenes to make them gifs later, and the weirdness has skyrocketed even for recordings of live performances. Me being a geek, and having used a software to extract pictures frame by frame, for my gif creations, one such software can give up to 300~400 frames for  4~5 seconds, depending on the quality of the video, so if you have that many frames and you can only find one or two weird looking ones in a sequence of movement, you can not really classify the sequence as badly animated, gloriously animated yes, but not bad.

I will continue with Body Anatomy,

it is linked to the animation, since most complains for “bad animation” include frames for supposedly strange anatomy, one is Mars’ arms. To me those frames instead of bad anatomy, they look more like camera angles. Even though there are no cameras, you do have a director to direct the angles things are drawn from, and in that picture of Mars’ arms apparently the angle is focusing on the tip of her arm, which gives an overall not common optic of her.

The one complain that most haters are careful about is the Art Style.

You wont hear many to complain about the art because, the manga lovers can tell them off instantly with the whole “this is how Takeuchi Naoko has drawn the manga, so basically you are calling her Art Style ugly”, and they keep their vile for sensei’s art to themselves, but the masks fell the moment the art for the third arc came out, and everyone was like “this is so much better” etc. And the hate for the artistic style of the original creator, commenced. Most of the haters fail to understand that the aesthetics of an artistic style are up to individual opinion. In my very personal opinion, I find the long limps, long sharp faces, small lips, more aesthetically pleasing, and with a sense of elegance, than the old anime of more comical, round face, etc style. The 3rd arc new art, shows that all they did was to take the sense of elegance from the previous style, by making their faces more round and their lips are now thin lines rather than full lips. Does that make my opinion valid, not at all, it is just compatible with what I was given in the manga and crystal.

So at the end of the day, those who were trying to justify their hate on the animation, it comes out they were also hating the art as well, and if confronted about their hate on the original work, they go back on hating the animation.

And we come to another argument about the Budget.

It was obvious that Crystal was not highly budgeted, and it was only funded well once the TV bought the license for broadcast. So Toei is accused that has not given the proper glorifying to sailor moon as they should. That they only looked out for profit, and to sell overpriced merchandises. That it was their ONE and ONLY duty to give sailor moon everything the fans have asked for. But was it?

Lets take things from the start from a business perspective. Toei is a corporation, and of course their first priority is profit, what else is new in corporations? Is that bad? In my honest opinion, it is not, since they are registered as a profit corporation and not a humanitarian organization. Simple math.

The merchandises are part of the overall anime industry, give me one reason why they shouldn’t sell them and profit from them when people ask for them and PAY for them.

And last but not least, the whole “they should have budgeted highly because sailor moon!!!” , and I’m wondering why should they? It is a 20 years old product, they do not know if the new generation is going to respond to it, so why in the world should they risk budgeting something higher than they have, when it was a risky business decision. They went the safe way, made a product not spending way too much for it, gave it a safe online broadcast, and waited. When they got TV’s attention the quality changed. More money, more honey.

And if you felt that sailor moon needed more budget, why didn’t you put your hands in your pockets to fund it, and make sure that you get the highest of highest qualities? And when you are told that the blu-ray release has fixed the animation mistakes, why are you complaining that you don’t want to pay for it? So basically you make no effort for what you love, but complain day and night about the delivery of a FREE product.

When all the above are somehow justified then the hate travels to the Plot and Pace.

“Crystal goes too fast” “the old anime had character development” “it is different than the 90s” “well I never liked the manga”.

Every single one of them, has a point, everyone of them is truthful. But that was the point. Fans have been asking for the manga adaptation for a decade now, it follows the manga down to detail, with 2 or 3 exceptions. On one point you have them scream and yell about being way too truthful to the manga, and once a tiny change happens they scream and yell that that was not how it happened in the manga. Basically this type of haters can not decide what they want.

On the other hand we have those who hated the fillers in the 90s (even though to me they never felt like fillers) but Crystal goes too fast for them. They can not decide if they want 200 episodes with fillers or 50 something without them.

The only ones who have a point and their opinion can be taken seriously, are those who didn’t like the pace and plot of the manga, therefore Crystal is not of their taste. The few such cases I have talked to, have also stopped watching all together.

As for the plot and the fact that the inners do not have much screen time, or deep character development like in the 90s anime, is because, 1. most people compare the entire series of 200 episodes (not just the first two seasons) with the 26 episodes on Crystal, 2. the episode count being that small adds to the fact that there is not much time to develop them in depth, but they still got separate episodes each. 3. The story has always been like that, in the manga, the focus was Usagi, in the musicals (if we can talk about other mediums too) especially the first stage ones which covered 1,3,4,5 seasons/arcs, only Ami got some stage time, and later Ami and Rei, Makoto and Minako were like either dead or just not in scenes for reasons, but then again Setsuna and Hotaru got so much more stage time than any inner and any other outer, contrary to what the 90s anime did to them. The only medium which gave the deepest character development to inners was PGSM and that was possible because, first of all you had real actors who could express moods better than drawn characters and 40+ episodes for just Dark Kingdom.

Those who complain about both the animation and the plot, well if you didn’t stop the video every 3 seconds to spot the slightest mistake and you were actually watching from start to finish without interruptions, you might have probably made sense of the plot.

Next on my list of points is your Nostalgia.

But let me break it to you, Crystal is not your childhood, the 90s anime is. Crystal is not supposed to be your childhood, it is supposed to be a more mature version, closer to the manga adaptation for 13+ years of age viewers. If you want the comedy, the silliness and all the hilarious things 90s had to offer then watch the 90s, Crystal is not for you. And you don’t have to watch it, and no it didn’t destroy your childhood simply because you still have the 90s to go back and watch. If you think you were deceived because they announced it as a “close to the original”, well that is entirely your fault for not realizing that the actual original is the manga not the 90s anime.

All that being said, my last point is about the New Low the fandom has reached.

Apparently people who hate crystal so much, they try to make up rumours and ill predictions about the 3rd arc even though they have no evidence whatsoever for their claims.

It started with the beginning of the Crystal but it extends to the yet to be broadcasted 3rd arc as well. That rumour is that the creators are homophobes and they have excluded what LGBT representation the old anime had, based on the fact that Konzite and Zoicite are not a couple. Well bummer they were not a couple in the manga, as much as I would have loved them to be in Crystal, it is not following the old anime but the manga, so it is what it is.

What bothers me is how much everyone avoids to comment on how much of a fabulous queer* character Usagi is in Crystal, they basically kept everything from the manga in, like her heart shaped eyes when she first saw Rei, and followed her because she was “oh so pretty ♡”.

The haters based on their own misconceptions about Crystal, go as far as to assume that Haruka and Michiru are not going to be a couple. They go as far as the call Haruka an abusive character for kissing Usagi in the manga.

Haruka and Michiru have always been and always will be a romantic couple, they were and are in ALL version, they were already a couple in the manga when they appeared, they even kiss (off screen), it was hinted that they were couple in the Silver Millennium time, through the song “destined couple” in the musicals. There sexual innuendo in Stars in the 90s anime, is everywhere.

And most recently the biggest proof for everyone, that these two have not been seen as anything BUT a romantic couple. is the latest musicals Un Nouveau Voyage, where they are shown as a couple in both civilian and warrior forms.

And even a larger proof if that is not enough for you, is the new Voice Actresses for the 3rd arc, saying when asked what is the difference between the 90s and the now Haruka and Michiru, and they both said that these two have come even closer.

Haruka and Michiru’s relationship can not be portrayed as anything else but a romantic one.

About the whole Haruka being an abuser and a cheater thing, I have written something on my facebook and I’ll copy paste my explanation on Haruka kissing Usagi scene.

Now to address the whole sexual assault a little bit and the supposed cheating.
First and for most the hater projects western and tumblr ideals to a 20 years old story. Also fails to see anything beyond a kissing panel.
Let’s analyze the kiss first:

As we can see in the above picture, Uranus gently raises Sailor Moon’s chin and kisses her (pretty much lands on her lips as she jumps off a tree). She is not holding her in anyway, and SM can stop her anytime. Previous to that kiss she has warned SM to not follow her, The purpose of the kiss is to intimidate SM, is that a good way to do it? Absolutely not, but it is a way. Before the kiss Haruka and Michiru have a very important talk, questioning their ways. So it is very clear that, Haruka doesn’t like her ways, but the mission demands extreme measures and possibly it also fuels her self hate.
That also was the only instance Haruka ever kissed Usagi. The other panel we see them kiss is in Usagi’s dream. Later when Usagi asks Haruka if she is a guy or girl, Haruka just goes very close to her touches her hand and asks if that is such an important factor.
Haruka is not forcing herself in any way to Usagi, sometimes Usagi initiates the intimacy and Haruka just plays along.
Another important factor is that, Haruka and Michiru have decided to play as seduction tool to Usagi and Mamoru, for the shake of the mission.
Therefore, “cheating” is out of question since Michiru is fully aware of what Haruka does.
Michiru is way far from a silent damsel in distress, she is not weak nor abused, and Haruka never dictates over her.
The so called cold hearted personalities are also part of what makes them warriors of the outer solar system. They have a mission that the inners can not complete, because of their innocence, and loving traits. The outers, know they have to do it, know that what they have to do is ruthless, and that the ideals of the inners will only get in the way. But because of those ideals, they hate themselves and they want to be hated by Usagi and the inners, so to somehow justify their actions as being pure evil. They don’t want to stain the inners, so they play the ill natured to convince the inners that they are bad news and they should stay away from them.

with everything as explained, non of these show that Haruka is a sexual predator, nor a bad image for an LGBT+ character. On the contrary she is indeed a hero who uses every desperate move to save the world.
Do I like her ways, or agree with them? No I don’t, but I understand her perspective.

 

In conclusion, the fandom has reached a new low and I’m pretty sure they can go even lower, what I don’t get is why they watch Crystal if they hate it so much. It is not the first time people disliked a Sailor Moon medium and they avoided it. It has happened with the musicals, it has happened with the PGSM, why don’t they do the same with Crystal as well, but instead they try everything in their power to make it impossible for the rest of us to enjoy it.

 

*I use the umbrella term queer to include any attractions Usagi expresses throughout the series.