Sailor Moon manga or anime

[MartyMuppets]

I've watched the end of disc 9 and here's the start of the third story arch.

The basic gist is that Serena and Darian are enjoying a romantic date together when suddenly a little girl bearing a striking resemblance to Serena suddenly falls out of the sky landing on top of them. She even has the same hairstyle as Serena and she begins demanding that Serena give her the Imperium Silver Crystal.
When she refuses she says that she has other ways of getting what she wants and disappears back up where she came from.

When Serena gets home later she finds the girl at her home and Mother, Father and Brother Sammy all claim that she is Cousin Rini come to spend a holiday. Serena can't believe it and she and Luna constantly get their peace disturbed by "Cousin Rini" bursting upon the scene demanding for the Silver Crystal.

In desperation Serena gets together with the other girls at Raye's Temple but the magic fire cannot give Raye any clue as to who Rini really is. While they are discussing the matter further Grandpa appears with milk and muffins for their afternoon tea but Grandpa is really Rini magically disguised and after drinking the drugged milk the girls all collapse asleep. Except for Serena who was busy munching on the muffins which were not drugged. Having realized what has happened she pretends to be knocked out as well and surprises "Grandpa" when "he" comes back to gloat turning back into Rini. While Serena is demanding to know what her game is trouble turns up.

The fact is some strange people have arrived in a UFO-like spaceship intent on capturing this little girl. The captain of the vessel is a red-headed man named Rubeous and four women who are all apparently sisters to each other, are his crew members. Rubeous announces the arrival of an important visitor and a mysterious figure with his face completely concealed from view by the hood of a full body robe rises from the middle of the main deck. His hands constantly wave over what looks like a crystal ball and they address him as the Wiseman.
The Wiseman appears to be their boss and he tells them they must track down that brat Rini and get the Crystal from her that she's after herself if their plans are to succeed.

One of the four sisters named Katzi (no connection at all to our forum friend Kathy ), has traced Rini to Raye's Temple and chases her. Serena says whatever Rini is up to, she doesn't deserve this and transforms into Sailor Moon to help her. With some timely assistance from Tuxedo Mask Serena manages to save Rini and she zaps Katzi with her Moon Scepter. But apparently Katzi somehow ducked the deadly magic energies, for she re-appears in another position declaring to Sailor Moon that she'll be back and teleports herself back to the spaceship.

For some reason he cannot explain Tuxedo Mask feels strongly attatched to little Rini and Serena begrudgingly allows her to stay at her home though she cannot imagine who she is. She tells Luna with a smile that she really is kinda cute in a way though.

Meanwhile as Katzi reports back to Rubeous the new enemy prepare to plan their next move and so the third story arch begins.
My friend said he thought they may have been working on re-building their Moon Kingdom Queen Beryl had destroyed now that they were finished fighting Alan and Anne but apparently the peace was simply not to last. So he certainly had many questions out of this last episode. So he had to watch disc 10 to see how things would go and hopefully he'd find out the secrets as it went along.
He could see my point though that it is a great fantasy although there is some itsy-bitsy sloppy story-telling in that the English version attempts to make out that the Negaforce is somehow responsible for bringing all the further enemies to Earth by occasional incorrect references to the Negaverse. Seriously speaking Alan and Anne had nothing at all to do with the Negaforce, and nor for that matter do these strange new people. Not that it really affects the enjoyment of it in any way at all of course.

Well Ed Happy New Year to you and whoever else is enjoying my reviews though they haven't replied as such. And I look forward to bringing you the rest of my commentaries in 2007.

 

[MartyMuppets]

I'm sorry I know things have been at a bit of a stand still. But the commentaries are coming back very soon fersure.

 

[MartyMuppets]

All right. I've seen all 6 episodes on disc 10 and the basic theme of them is all pretty much the same.

Rini has hypnotized Serena's mother, father and brother into believing that she is their neice and cousin so Serena has to reluctantly put up with her living with them though sometimes she has to admit she can't help liking her. But Rini is still hoping to find the Imperium Silver Crystal and searches for it any chance she gets. Apparently Rini comes from the future of the 30th century and in one episode we see her communicating with somebody whose image appears blurry in the eye of a bouncing ball that's cast in the image of Luna's head and face. She asks the figure why she can't go back to the future and the strange figure tells her it's imperative that she find the silver Crystal to take back with her if she wants to save her mother's life.
Rubeous and the four sisters named Katzi, Bertie, Prisma and Avery are evidently sent from the future by the Mysterious Wiseman who appeared in the first episode at the end of disc 9 in order to capture Rini and the Crystal to take them back. However at the same time they have to try to capture energy from people in the past. The sisters take turns at taking over certain areas of the city masquerading as proprietors of shops such as ice cream parlors and beauty stores selling goods laced with special sorcery that zaps energy from un-suspecting customers. Somehow this helps the conquest plans of the Wiseman back in the future though we don't clearly know how at all. And they always have a strange assistant with them. These helpers are presumably on the spaceship though we only ever see the sisters and Rubeous in the control room. We only see the others one-by-one as they are appointed to aid whichever sister takes the mission in each episode be it Bertie or Katzi or Prisma and Avery who for no disclosed reason usually always work together as a pair. Unlike the monstrous helpers of Queen Beryl's society these minions usually appear as humans with strange individual powers. The Scouts oppose them and Sailor Moon exterminates the helper with her magic moon scepter. The sisters always manage to escape back to Rubeous by teleportation into the spaceship hovering above the city though.

The final point of significance is that Darian suddenly shocks Serena at the start of this DVD by declaring that their relationship is over. She is bitterly upset and cannot understand this though he still keeps becoming Tuxedo Mask to fight alongside her and the other Scouts. One does get the impression he hates doing this to Serena but he's doing it anyway for reasons as yet undisclosed.

So my friend was very curious about it all. When would the Wiseman make another appearance? And how would he react to the failure of his minions mission so far? And who exactly was Rini and why did she need to steal the Silver Crystal? And what's up with Darian now as well?

He had many questions to be answered and so it was on to disc 11. He hoped the answers would be made clear as soon as possible. Wait and see when my reviews continue.

 

[MartyMuppets]

Well now I've watched the first two episodes on the 11th disc. Things have been very interesting.

First the Wiseman has been in contact with Rubeous once again in the first episode. He says that the invasion isn't going so well in the future and it hasn't helped that they haven't succeeded in gaining energy here in the past. He tells Rubeous that four female warriors have been keeping the invasion force back with a mystic power source. Rubeous says they must be the Sailor Scouts future selves. The Wiseman stresses how urgent it is to capture Rini and take her back to the future and he promises to get the four sisters onto it.
So Rini is chased around town by Katzi, Bertie, Prisma and Avery and Sailor Moon and her friends turn up to the rescue. While the sisters pair off in a battle with Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and Mars, Tuxedo Mask and Moon fight against Rubeous himself. In the end he is blasted by the Moon Scepter but like Katzi in the first installment, Rubeous somehow ducks the fatal magical attack and re-materializes in another place calling the sisters to retreat and they all teleport back to their spaceship.
Earlier Rini had been talking to the strange blurred figure in her toy's eye again. She wanted to know why she couldn't go back home without the crystal but she was told once again that the crystal is necessary to save her mother. My friend had come to the conclusion that whoever Rini is, she is truly innocent, but he was not sure she should get her hands on the crystal. It could be an agent of the Wiseman trying to deceive her so they can get the crystal for themselves. And the Wiseman at his headquarters has come to realize that Sailor Moon looks so much like the queen of the future world they're trying to conquer and so the child could be her very own daughter. There have been subtil hints occasionally however Darian still insists that it's all over between him and Serena.
In the next episode we learn that he's been having dreams in which a weird ghostly voice keeps telling him to stay away from Serena or something dreadful will happen to her. He is so worried and upset because he wants no harm to come to her, yet he cannot explain the matter to her and he knows it hurts her. But when Prisma and Avery send another one of their assistants to hypnotize Sailor Moon into a permanent deep sleep he listens to Luna's call for help and comes zooming on his motorbike as Tuxedo Mask to where the other Scouts have her lying in the park. They have all been so very worried but they are overjoyed when Tuxedo Mask breaks the spell with a deep passionate kiss just like Prince Charming woke up Sleeping Beauty. The terrible hypnotist re-appears and is killed in battle with Sailor Moon.
Sailor Moon's happiness is knocked badly when Tuxedo Mask says just because he came to her rescue doesn't mean that he truly loves her. He roars off on his motorbike leaving her crying and the other Scouts all perplexed and confused. But he has a weep of his own afterwards because it hurts him to hurt her.

You can see the illogicality of Rubeous and the sisters because as I pointed out to my friend, they could have used all their assistants in a colossal gang-up against the Scouts in the first place but instead they only use them one-by-one and they get terminated. They didn't even let the hypnotist help them in the first episode. The baddies are often rather silly in Sailor Moon. It kinds of helps the goodies to win.

Stand by for more when I tell you what happens next in the saga.

 

[MartyMuppets]

I'm ready to talk about the middle two episodes on disc 11.

The Wiseman has made his next appearance telling Rubeous that he's getting very annoyed with the constant failures by them in the past. If Rini and the Silver Crystal are not captured soon he warns that nobody is irreplaceable. Rubeous swears success and sends Katzi after Rini at Raye's Temple where the Wiseman has foretold she will be at sometime that day.
Apparently all the other people who were present in their spaceship have all been destroyed so Katzi goes it alone. But when as usual she is defeated by the Sailor Scouts, with some assistance from Tuxedo Mask, Rubeous appears to tell Katzi because of her incompetence she is banished from his team. She is devastated when he teleports back to the ship leaving her alone and wails that nobody cares about her. Mars stops the others from hurting her because she has a strong sense that Katzi is really good at heart, she's just been misled through Rubeous use and abuse of her affections. She asks her if she'd like to give up her life of evil and through tears in her eyes she says "Yes".
Sailor Moon uses her Crystal in a special way calling upon healing power to cleanse Katzi's body of the last effects of her negative poisoning and she begins a new life as a cosmetics saleswoman and beautician.

Meanwhile, her other three sisters think she is a traitor to their cause and want nothing more to do with her. Though Bertie isn't really like the other two and says she'll miss her. Rubeous snaps that he won't and sends Bertie to a chess tournament to capture people's energy. It turns out that Amy is a contestant in the games and Bertie discovers her secret identity as Sailor Mercury while prowling around the building.
Later during the tournament Bertie poses as a contestant and wins all her games just like Amy. So they become the two finalists. Amy's friends are in the audience watching on camera since the game room is sealed off by sound-proof windows to avoid distracting noises for the contestants. Their new friend Katzi is there too and nervously recognizes her sister Bertie.
Suddenly Bertie freezes up the cameras and the entrances to the game room with magic ice and challenges Amy to a magical duel using chess. The scouts somehow burst inside and Bertie seals them up inside a force-field so Amy must play to save them. Bertie is cheating and slowly starts to freeze Amy in ice from her toes to her head every time she loses one of her pieces. Avery and Prisma suddenly appear saying they want to tell Rubeous they had a small part to play in this, however Tuxedo Mask puts a stop to Bertie's terrible magic chess game by throwing a rose that bursts the piece she is about to checkmate Amy with. She and the other Scouts are set free.
Bertie begs Prisma and Avery for help but they leave saying that she'd better not show her face to Rubeous again. She is so upset she begins to freeze up herself but her sister Katzi appears pleading with her to allow her to show her a better way of life. She listens when she realizes how sincere Katzi is and Sailor Moon heals her too. Katzi promises Bertie she will always guide and support her in their new life together on earth in sisterly love.

This was certainly another surprising twist for my friend. He said they really made a complete turn-around with the first two girls. So until next time wait and see what he found out happened next.

 

[MartyMuppets]

Now I have watched the final two episodes on disc 11 and the first episode on disc 12.

First of all the Wiseman has appeared one more time to Rubeous expressing concern over the desertion of Katzi and Bertie. He tells Rubeous he wants to lure them back to their side and gives him a mystical strobe with the power to negate all of Sailor Moon's poisonous healing effects. Rubeous sends the two remaining sisters Prisma and Avery on the mission to kidnap Katzi and Bertie to win them back and they snatch them in front of the scouts eyes at Raye's temple. Serena puts Rini inside out of sight but unbeknownst to the Scouts she peeks through the door and watches them transform. Realizing that they're the Sailor Scouts she follows at a distance when they head off to rescue their friends tracking them down with Amy's computer.
Katzi and Bertie have to be willing to change or else the strobe will just destroy them and they argue pleadingly with their sisters that the side of good is better than the path they are currently following. When the Scouts turn up Prisma fights them with the strobe's laser blasts. As she fires it over and over her mad ego gets worse and worse and to Avery's horror she turns upon her blasting her and her sisters saying she's had enough of her pesky, bickering siblings. The Scouts grab them as they fall including Avery who can't believe that her own sister could do such a thing to her. Pooling their resources the Scouts finally succeed in knocking the strobe out of Prisma's hands and stunning her. While she groans on the ground Rubeous appears and declares the four sisters all a bunch of sorry traitors or failures and sets off a terrible vacuum generated by the strobe that he says will suck them all away to another dimension forever. Then he teleports back to his ship. Tuxedo Mask shouts encouragement from a distance to the Scouts that they can use their magic to halt the vacuum and combining their powers they destroy the strobe while Tuxedo Mask leaves.
When things are settled the two remaining sisters are ready to submit to healing and Rini hiding nearby realizes Serena has the crystal she's been after all this time when it is used to heal Prisma and Avery. The sisters all forgive each other and open their very own cosmetics business while Rubeous swears revenge.
However a woman named Emerald suddenly appears and tells him that in 24 hours Prince Diamond is going to call him back to the future in disgrace and she will take over command of the mission to capture Rini and the Crystal. When she departs Rubeous swears to redeem himself in Prince Diamond's sight. Meanwhile Rini has snuck into Serena's bedroom where she sees the locket left behind on her bed and steals it running away from the house. The Wiseman contacts Rubeous telling him where he has predicted Rini will be with the Crystal and this is his final chance. He tracks down Rini where she has unsuccessfully tried to use her magic to return to the future but she is saved by the other Scouts who were alerted to the theft of the locket by Serena.
Rini runs off again rather than return the locket and Rubeous tracks her down again and tries to beam her up into his spaceship but Serena's friends manage to intercede again and Tuxedo Mask shows up to take Rini away from danger but Mercury, Mars, Venus and Jupiter are sucked up into the spaceship and taken prisoner. On this cliff-hanger note disc 11 ends and left my friend with a big question I asked him about. The leader of the invasion force is the Wiseman so we've assumed, so who is this Prince Diamond character we've heard mentioned now? My friend gave a very astute answer. He said just as King Arthur had Merlin, so maybe in the same way Prince Diamond has the Wiseman.
Also there is a flashback scene while Rini is sleeping earlier which shows the future selves of Serena's friends taking Rini to a place of safety in the future while the battle is raging around them. There are ships shooting laser fire that are presumably being operated by people of the likes destroyed by Sailor Moon in the fights against Rubeous and the 4 sisters. And there have been strong hints that Rini is the daughter of Serena and Darian in the future. I said maybe although the Moon Kingdom has stayed in ruins perhaps they have somehow constructed a sort of new version of it on earth itself that's now under attack. He said that would make sense though there will still many unanswered questions yet. And so it was onto disc 12

In this episode Darian persuades Rini to give Serena back her locket so that she can transform into Sailor Moon and save her friends. Rubeous has declared she'll never see them again if she doesn't surrender to his demands. She sets off on her own but Rini secretly follows and to her dismay Rini is beamed up into the ship with her. Darian, Luna and Artemis were following her but they arrive too late. They cannot get into the ship so it's all up to Sailor Moon. As Rubeous fights a magic duel with Sailor Moon, Rini manages to help sabotage part of his spaceship's power source, in process freeing the other scouts from the force-field that held them. The ship is badly damaged and will shortly explode but using all their combined power the five Sailors are able to teleport themselves and Rini back to earth. It takes their greatest efforts because the ship had already been in outer space on automatic pilot during the battle. Rubeous is so drained after the fight he doesn't have the energy to teleport himself out of danger. Emerald shows up briefly to mock him for his failures and departs laughing callously while he screams in despair before the ship self-destructs.
Later we see Prince Diamond for the first time upon his throne as Emerald reports in to him. He warns her not to repeat Rubeous' disgraceful failures and she swears she won't. But I told my friend afterwards I had a feeling that that was exactly what she was going to do and he said he had to agree with me.

So now it's onto the rest of disc 12 in future reviews. I bet you're on the edge of your seats my friends.

 

[MartyMuppets]

I've watched the next single episode on disc 12.

In it poor Rini is in a coma at Serena's house having a terrible sort of nightmare. What's terrible about it is that Prince Diamond has sent one of his agents known as the Grim Man to take her prisoner in her dreams and enable them to capture Rini's spirit and get it to lead them to the Silver Crystal. For the first time we see a man named Sapphire, who bears a striking resemblance to Darian, and he asks the Prince why are they spending so much time and effort into chasing after Rini and the Crystal anyway? Wouldn't they be better off pressing their attack here in the future since they have the advantage? Also for the first time the Wiseman materializes alongside the Prince and says that Sapphire is wrong. Getting the Imperium Crystal is essential if they are to maintain their power over the kingdom in the future overall. So that's why they need Rini to lead them to the Crystal. Emerald is also standing nearby thinking to herself how much she wishes failure upon the Grim Man so that she can have her chance to prove to Prince Diamond that she can do the job better than Rubeous handled.
I pointed out to my friend that this contradicts the previous episode where Emerald was slated to take over from Rubeous immediately straight after, and while it's not impossible that the Prince changed his mind the continuity is still slightly disjointed but it's enjoyable never-the-less.

Meanwhile Serena and the other girls are all watching Rini in her bed along with Luna and Artemis worriedly when suddenly Rini's toy ball shaped like Luna's head floats up above the bed and turns into a transparent sphere housing the figure of a tall, darkish-skinned woman who says she is called Sailor Pluto and she knows the dark moon conspirators have invaded Rini's dreamworld. She holds up a strange looking rod and transports the girls and the cats into Rini's dream where they transform and go searching for Rini. When they find her she doesn't recognize them in her dream and initially runs fearfully away from them. Fortunately Sailor Moon succeeds in persuading Rini they are her friends and she trusts them and through the strengthening power of her faith they are able to overcome the Grim Man and Sailor Moon terminates him. Afterward they all find themselves back home next to Rini's bed and she wakes up completely liberated and well again. Sailor Pluto appears in the sphere just long enough to thank the Scouts and to say hello to Rini. Rini asks her if she can come home yet but Pluto's answer is not yet. The danger in the future is very great still and she must stay in the past a bit longer with the Sailor Scouts to protect her. The best way to save the future is to protect the current present she is now living in. Having said this she fades away leaving the ordinary ball inside poor Rini's arms as she gently sobs. The Scouts have more battles yet ahead of them.

My friend said well Rini was still a question-mark to him, but she's definitely an innocent question-mark.
Also he wondered about this Sailor Pluto character. Whose side is she really on, though he had to admit she certainly came across as good in the story of this episode. I also pointed out that while this is nominally her first appearance when you think about it, there are implications that Sailor Pluto has already appeared in two previous episodes in the form of a blurred image communicating with Rini by reception through her toy ball. He said that is a most interesting point to think about. He had plenty of things to wonder about in this third story arch rully fersure.
So I'll talk about what happens in the rest of disc 12 next time.

 

[The Count]

Good... Sailor Pluto, one down and three to go.
Of course, Sailor Pluto appeared in Reni's toy crystal ball as a tall dark-skinned woman... Which would be Pluto's form in her present, which would be the future to the other scouts in the actual present. So I'd hope they'd go and find the girl here in their own actual present who would become Sailor Pluto in that future reality and get her to join the team.

Also, another thing to note is that the main baddies/generals are all named after precious jewels: Prince Diamond, white; Rubius, red; Emerald, green; and Sapphire, blue.
Rully interested in finding out how this progresses and if the team gets filled out.

 

[amyprismgirl]

live-action Sailor Moon

I've seen the japanese live-action Sailor Moon. I even have Volumes 1 & 2. I don't have Act 0 with Minako's origins as Sailor V.

 

[MartyMuppets]

Now I've watched the remaining four episodes on disc 12.

Prince Diamond has already lost quite a number of his team as my friend has pointed out. First of all he's lost Katzi and her sisters through their reforming their wicked ways and staying behind to start new lives back in the past. Then he's lost Rubeous left behind by Emerald to perish when his spaceship blew up. And he's lost the Grim Man destroyed by Sailor Moon inside Rini's dream world plus 6 or 7 other members of his team who perished in battle with Sailor Moon while helping Rubeous and the Sisters earlier.

Now Emerald is given her commission to go back to the past in place of the original deportation. The man named Sapphire has invented some wedges infused with negative energy from their own Dark Crystal power source (no relation at all to Jim Henson's Dark Crystal) The plan is for Emerald to drive these wedges into certain receptive points in the ground and the negative energy will thrive and multiply itself spreading their negative influence all over planet earth bringing it under their control in the past and subsequently also in the future. Sapphire tells her not to come crying to him if she underestimates the Sailor Scouts the way Rubeous did and she vows once more before the Prince that she will succeed and she travels to the past in her own time spaceship.
She also apparently has other team members to assist her but she always appears on her own summoning only one to help her at a time just like the sisters did. Her assistant is always terminated in battle without mercy as usual and interestingly somehow the death of the assistant also causes the wedges to blow up though we never know the reason why.
Emerald is failing miserably yet her egomaniac attitude of "I'll get you girlie scouts next time" seems to blind her to the inevitable wrath of the Prince and the Wiseman.

Some interesting points:
In the second episode Serena has a similar nightmare to Darian where he is warned that if he gets too close to her something terrible will befall her. She goes to see him about it and he admits to being worried about her because of the dream. After defeating Emerald's plan at the end of the episode they decide they're going to listen to their hearts no matter what happens as a result and they pledge their eternal love for each other anew.
The funniest episode is the third which has all the scouts sick except for Mina and she tries nursing them one by one making a mess of their rooms and driving them bananas. She gives the treatment to Amy and Lita offscreen. The story opens with her at Raye's temple making disaster to her cat Artemis' embarassment. Eventually Raye tells her to get out yelling loudly and she goes to Serena where Rini, who isn't sick, acts as assistant Nurse. Eventually it is revealed that Emerald has induced this flu epidemic all over the city as part of her plan when Rini goes to the hospital to get medicine for Serena and her whole family. She is captured by Emerald and her assistant and Mina, who accompanied her hears her scream and calls the other scouts. They actually feel much better thanks to Mina's nursing as pathetic as it was and show up to help Venus destroy another of Emerald's well-laid plans.
Mina gets a taste of her own medicine literally when she catches an ordinary cold shortly afterwards and Serena gives her bungling nursing with Rini helping in the episodes epilogue.

My friend was really enjoying the story and so it was onto disc 13 to continue the fight against Prince Diamond. What would happen after Emerald was eventually taken off the job for abysmally failing herself?