Tuesday 8 July 2014

Sailor Moon Crystal - My Thoughts on Episode 1 *SPOILERS*

The locket from the original anime that I fell in love with thirteen years ago

Ok so a few things to start with, I have seen the original anime in both it's dubbed version and subtitled several times through, although I'm really bad at remembering the Japanese character names so I'll be referring characters as their westernised names within this post, I have also read a few of the mangas but not all because I've never had the cash to be able to justify completing my collection when I have so many other things I want or need to get first. I have unfortunately never managed to find a dubbed or subtitled version of the live action Sailor Moon. from what I've read Sailor Moon Crystal is a lot closer to the manga than the original anime is.
In order to compare the first episodes respectively I watched both the original anime and Sailor Moon Crystal ( you can watch the first episode of SMC on Hulu in some countries, I couldn't get that to play here in the UK so I googled and found a stream of it on another site, however I'm not sure how legal the stream is so I'm not going to link to it).
From this point onwards THAR BE SPOILERS!


SMC goes straight to Serena being late for school, it completely misses out the part in the original anime that explains Queen Serenity's decision to send the scouts to earth, and while I like this because I always felt it killed the mystery a bit in SMO I do kind of miss the hint that there are more than the initial Sailor Scouts from the first season out there (and the flash of Neptune's hair!). There is also no mention whatsoever of Queen Beryl in the SMC episode (though she does appear in the opening titles), and even Jedite is not named and remains fairly mysterious, presumably we'll only learn about them when Serena does.
I'm not hugely into the new opening credits, I kind of miss Moonlight Densetsu and that short period of time when I was in my early teens when I didn't realise that the English version wasn't a direct translation from the Japanese lyrics and just sang "FIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHTING EVIL BY MOONLIIIIIIIGHT!" over the top when I watched the subtitled ones. I do quite like the "We will fight on our own without leaving our destiny to the Prince" line though.


I also prefer how SMC introduces Luna, we don't hear her thoughts as we do in SMO, therefore to anybody new to Sailor Moon it's not immediately that Luna can talk, I also prefer that Serena falls over her than seeing the young boys attacking her.
Actually I over all prefer SMC's way of introducing characters, Melvin and Molly don't really get very much of an introduction in SMO, they're just sort of there in the first episode, are briefly named in conversation and you're pretty much left to figure out the rest, whereas in SMO they are given slightly more of an introduction.
I'm not hugely taking to the animation style, some of it is kind of odd and I'm not really sure they they've made her so thin, I know that anime is heavily stylised but in SMO the girls figures seemed a lot more realistic, also I'm in two minds about the lack of the fat woman in the jewellery shop, I mean I don't like how SMO uses her to play on the "pushy fat rich woman" trope, but the lack of her in SMC leaves even the extras in the background all with exactly the same body type as each other, and that seems kind of lazy I guess?
Having said that, I do prefer SMC's reason that Serena didn't buy any of the jewellery, and I also like how this moves into introducing Darien (although why the heck is he wearing a tuxedo during the day? I know that the whole "WHO COULD TUXEDO MASK BE?" mystery of SMO was pretty ridiculous because it was so obvious it was just Darien in a suit, but just how meatball headed is SMC Serena if she doesn't connect "mysterious guy in suit" with "arrogant guy in suit I bumped into earlier") and then Andrew, also I love how they included a small piece of the Sailor V video game.


I really dislike the SMC transformation, maybe it'll grow on me, maybe not, right now I think it's bloody awful, sorry about that.
I don't like how flimsy the new tiara looks but I do really like the new broach. One thing I prefer from SMO is that the reason the hypnotised shoppers are at the shop is because they all passed out there, in SMC they just sort of appear when Molly's possessed mother tells them to attack.
I do however mostly prefer how the fight goes in SMC, the fact that Tuxedo Mask hangs back and mostly avoids getting involved makes me wonder (and hope!) that perhaps SMC will live up to it's theme tune and they won't just rely on the Prince of Earth to save them all the time. Could this be... Sailor Moon the champion of... Feminism?
Heading for the end, I really liked the quick glimpse of Ami in school the next day and the end credits are incredibly sweet.
*looking forward to episode 2*

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