It's a Sailor Moon Summer!

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As many of you know, I was @ Anime Expo 2014 in Los Angeles this past weekend, and the weekend was a celebration of Sailor Moon.

With that said, there's a NEW series called Sailor Moon Crystal that just premiered on Saturday. My thoughts: I liked it. It is more faithful the original manga, and by god, the designs....... they look great!

So, here's the rest of the return of Sailor Moon. A quote from me from Anime Expo 2014: "Don't just have a good night, have a Sailor Moon night!"

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I think its impressive how they've blended CGI and hand drawn animation into something that is identical to the actual manga. Even better if they actually follow the plot of the manga too.

The only thing I didn't like was how the lips were drawn... it just looks bad in an animated format.

I had watched this anime when I was a teenager and it was the only foreign cartoon shown in my country at the time so I got to watch it in spanish dub .. and I certainly don't remember it being this girly-ish in spanish....but then again it's been a looong time.

I saw the first act, and it's like wow! It's what I've always wanted to see. It's the actual manga! I liked the 92 anime, but this looks better. I can't wait for the next act. OMG, I can't wait for the act when they find Sailor Mars! And Sailor Venus!

I've also been keeping up with the Figuarts Zero and the proplicas. I've already pre ordered Sailor Mercury and Sailor Venus. I check every single day to see if the second proplica is ready for preordered. They said sometime this month, and it would be just a disaster if I did miss it!! ! It's available for preorder on Jlist, so it's got to be soon!! !

I, EquestriatoLA, proudly proclaim this THE SUMMER OF SAILOR MOON!

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The Canadian Football League - What We're Made Of

Feel free to talk to me, if you wish.

Every day is a gift- cherish it!

"A true, true friend helps a friend in need."

I will wait to see the second ep of SMC soon.......

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The Canadian Football League - What We're Made Of

Feel free to talk to me, if you wish.

Every day is a gift- cherish it!

"A true, true friend helps a friend in need."

sailor moon makes me unhappy.

Speaking as a long-term Sailor Moon fan, I have to say I'm rather... concerned... please bear in mind these opinions are mine and aren't to be taken as fact, nor as an attack on those who do like the new Sailor Moon Crystal series insofar. That said:


TL;DR version: I'm dissapointed and expected better of Toei after Act 1, but I'll remain hopeful things will improve.

Long version:

I was initially very excited to see a new Sailor Moon series after all this time. Sailor Moon, arguably speaking, was one of the first magical girl anime to make the successful leap internationally, and pretty much defined the shoujou genre for a lot of us Westerners in our impressionable years (or at least it did in my case). But... as time went on, I started seeing and hearing things that started worrying me...

Relatively very young and new director Munehisa Sakai, who only previously worked on One Piece and Dragonball Z movies mostly.

Equally as inexperienced series composition director Yuji Kobayashi, who barely worked on a 1/3 of a PreCure series before.

Yasuharu Takanashi as music director, whose work mostly emcompassed shounen material (stuff aimed at teenage boy, ie. Fairy Tail, Naruto Shippuden, One Piece, Ikki Tousen) with the exception of a not-well recieved PreCure series.

And so on and so forth... (I'll leave out the rant against Momoiro Clover Z)


In addition, I kept a close on Toei's productions in the past year and have noticed a gradual downturn in the quality of the animation produced. I don't know whether this is because of the massive overhaul of staff, or the fact animation in-betweening is now done outside of Japan, or Toei is overstretched right now dealing with One Piece (ongoing), Dragonball Z Kai franchise (ongoing), Marvel Heroes Disc Wars (ongoing), Doraemon, Saint Seiya Omega remake (just ended I heard), Rowdy Sumo Wrestler Matsutaro.... (ongoing)... and many other projects I've not heard of or don't know about yet...

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So all in all... watching Act 1 two weeks ago pretty much realised that ill-at-ease feeling into general dissapointment and apprehensiveness.

Maybe I'm being too harsh-tongued, and let my visual expectations of Sailor Moon run away with me. Maybe I should've been more lenient with Kozue Komatsu and Yukie Sako (the animation directors for Act 1; the upcoming Act 2 will be handled by Miho Tanaka)... after all, Yukie Sako has provided key animation for the likes of Steamboy, King of Thorn, Ghost in The Shell....

In fact, thinking about it, I do feel rather sorry for the new Sailor Moon staff in the same way I felt sorry for the Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood staff when BONES announced a second adaptation of Hiromu Arakawa's manga. Veterans who remember the first series would compare and contrast, whilst though relatively new and unfamiliar may be browbeaten either for liking the newer interpretation, or they'll be comparing it to the older original and be unfairly criticised for it... kind of a lose/lose situation as in comparison to the Dragonball franchise (which is older than I am now), there isn't that pre-existing familiarity of being an established concious entity in mainstream society (at least in Japan, not sure about elsewhere).

Still, I couldn't shake that creeping feeling of disappointment when I saw how... awkward Sailor Moon Crystal was turning out to be. It wasn't unwatchable but it didn't look or sound like something Toei had purposefully delayed by a year to polish... that opening was so.... oh dear...

BUT, in Sailor Moon Crystal's defence, they at least tried hard to keep with Naoko Takeuchi's original art-style (she did always tend to draw her females like model mannequins, which makes sense - she wanted to do fashion once). Maybe the struggle in animation was in trying to keep with a not so typical art-style of anime these days? One Piece had a bumpy time of it when the anime first started. Or maybe it was just too early for Yukie Sato to handle a big 1st episode on his own? (My apologies but I felt Usagi's new "In the name of the moon..." was a little jerky and stiff compared to Hiromi Matsushita's iconic original series cut)...

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Still, dodgy animation editing and stumbling first steps aside, I choose to remain optimistic for Act 2. As mentioned before, Miho Tanaka is handling the animation, and Tanaka has a world of experience doing key animation for many a movie. So we'll see...

And it'll be the first speaking role for our new Ami voice, Hisako Kanemoto. I'm kind of hoping she uses her Yui Kiriyama voice (Kokoro Connect) rather than her other Amy voice (from Gargantia and the Verduous Planet) or Makoto Saeki (from Gingitsune) voice. And definetely not her Ika Musume (Squid Girl),... urgh...

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And there you go really.... fingers crossed. As stated before, the opinions above are my own and are not said to deflate anyone else's enjoyment of the series; I'm just simply stating my thoughts.

So for those excited by Sailor Moon Crystal's next outing, please enjoy!

Oh, and heads up for those waiting for the inevitable English dub -- VIZ Media confirmed Studiopolis will be handling the dubbing.

Stephanie "Orihime" Sheh will be Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon
Cristina "Homura Akemi" Vee will be Rei Hino/Sailor Mars

... I don't really know much about the other voice actors, either because they're very new or they've not done much outside of Bleach (never cared for it) and video games or stuff I don't care about, but you can read the full article here http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/intervi ... oon/.76730

Seems they're in it for the long haul as it's practically confirmed they'll be redubbing the original series footage too. Ouch, poor Lynda Ballyntyne (Sailor Moon S and Super S in English).

Next Sailor Moon Crystal ep will air on the 19th.

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The Canadian Football League - What We're Made Of

Feel free to talk to me, if you wish.

Every day is a gift- cherish it!

"A true, true friend helps a friend in need."

VIZ just confirmed Michelle Ruff will now be Luna. I'll laugh out loud if "Usagi, you fool," slips out (Ruff is the English Rukia Shichiki from Bleach)

Preview of Episode 2: http://youtu.be/MEPcAZ8Vi94

(No idea how to actually embed videos in posts like everyone else so the above will have to suffice. Sorry.)

I think they did a great job. It's perfect! It's almost like as if I was watching the manga itself! I can't wait for the next episode!

Just watched episode 2 and... I can see a lot of improvements over episode one. In places, there was a ton more detail on the props, more dynamic lighting, more varied backgrounds and camera angles, so kudos to the team. I especially loved that last part foreshadowing Rei.

But frustratingly, I recognise a lot cost-cutting/labour-saving manovueres taken (frozen crowds; Usagi's transformation pen; Usagi running to save Ami; Tuxedo Mask intervening). I'm strongly reminded of the latter part of Evangelion where you'd get long static shots, or extreme close-ups of things, just to save on not having to animate anything moving.

In this episode for example when Usagi notices Luna pouncing on Ami. This wasn't shown on screen at all - just a shot of Luna in a tree; an overly-long shot of Usagi looking over; an off-screen "Oh"; and then the camera cuts to Ami suddenly patting Luna who's sitting on a bollard --- which kind of makes Ami's "I thought your cat was an angel" remark kind of... weird...). I didn't see a shot to indicate where Ami was in relation to Usagi or Luna in the first place...

Also I noticed a lot more off-model key animation shots too (like Usagi trying to not to identify herself as Usagi; and it looked like the animators weren't sure of how much hair Ami has... I blame the overly fussy art style).

And it looks like the CGI henshin is here to stay... urgh...

On the plus side, Hisako Kanemoto was absolutely brilliant as Ami! Perfect! Ami's henshin sequence was a lot more visually exciting than Sailor Moon's and Ami's speech animation (£Douse yourself in water and repent!") wasn't as stiff as Usagi's either. And it seems Mamoru/Tuxedo Mask is a lot more aware of what's going on a lot more quickly, which I have no problems with either.

And I thought I saw some more hints of expressionism too (Usagi chatising Naru for being blunt; Luna cottoning on about the disc). Not quite ground-breaking but definetely a nice improvement of the Kinoshita-esque look of mild surprise that Usagi only seemed to use in episode 1.

Roll on episode three!

^ Agreed. It was a solid ep overall.

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The Canadian Football League - What We're Made Of

Feel free to talk to me, if you wish.

Every day is a gift- cherish it!

"A true, true friend helps a friend in need."

I'm cautiously optimistic about episode 3 - Kiyoshi Matsumoto's first stab into a girly anime wasn't his most graceful animation move (most people would be more familiar with his Dragonball Z, One PIece and Fist of the North Star work) so Mars's original anime debut was rather clunky in places.

This time around, we have Hiromi Ishigami as the animation director, a relatively newish animator but famous for her fighting sequences --- she's mostly known for her tendency to go for the 'moving the camera around the fighters as they duke' work, as proven by her short foray in Naruto and her ongoing work in One Piece.

She's not unfamiliar with more shoujou material, as key animator for Wolf Children Ame and Yuki, Natsume's Book of Friends, and xxxHolic.

So I'm confident she can make this episode work for her.

And here's the preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2JOKkaHKpc

Still don't know much about Rina Satou, the new Sailor Mars -- apparently, she's mostly known for her work as Negi from Negima... um..? I only really know her as Makoto from the "A Certain" series... well, at least we know she can shout.. anyway, we'll see how she fares as Rei Hino...