New ‘Sailor Moon’ Series Not New Enough
It was one of the most anticipated reboots of any rebooted popular media in the last few years. Sailor Moon Crystal was announced last year, and the hype meter pinned, driven by the squeeing of millions of fans of the original Sailor Moon series.
The new series debuted this past weekend, and more than one of my Facebook friends was watching it at a viewing party. I didn’t, and one of the reasons is that I never watched the original series, and wanted to watch the first episode with no influence from the many, many superfans. That way I could review it as I might any other new series that debuted in the Summer anime season.
So here is my review. And if you don’t want to read through the whole thing, here’s the TL;DR version: It is too retro to attract anyone not already a major fan. Sailor Moon Crystal is astoundingly bad for an anime released in 2014.
The now-cliched anime tropes like the school girl always running late and the clumsy school girl may have been innovative in 1992 when the first version of Sailor Moon debuted, but in 2014 they are, well, cliches. The setting is completely anachronistic (find me a middle school girl in Japan without a cell phone) without there being any statement about it being set in 1992 or any pre-cell phone period.
And then there is Tuxedo Mask. Even in the original, he is first seen wearing regular street clothes, but in the new version he is wearing a tuxedo in the middle of the afternoon on a busy street in a shopping district. To the writer’s credit, Usagi (the human identity of Sailor Moon) comments on how silly that is. But when we next see the young man in the tuxedo, Mamoru, he is in full Tuxedo Mask outfit, which is exactly what his name describes it as — a tuxedo and a domino mask. Seriously? I understand that the name is classic, but can’t the writers come up with some other name and use Tuxedo Mask as a joke name?
These days, having a character state his name to nobody in particular, just so the audience can find out who he is sounds like nails on a chalkboard. That is exactly what Tuxedo Mask does when he first appears. Even Space Dandy has the robot QT to make his stupid exposition moments to.
Look, I am not expecting a complete Christopher Nolan reboot with a dark and brooding Usagi. But this is 2014, and the magical girl story has evolved into a post-Madoka Magica world. Maybe if the animation was up to 2014 standards, I could look past a lot of the cheesy early anime elements. Alas, the animation is very slightly updated with some modern technique, but mainly that is the addition of CGI elements. And in light of how dated the rest of the animation looks, the CGI parts are like suddenly finding a Skrillex song in the middle of your Best of Chicago playlist.
I will continue to watch Sailor Moon Crystal for at least a few more episodes to see if it evolves into something more modern, but if it stays on course, it will be a complete pass for me.
