After a chance encounter with a talking cat, 14-year-old Usagi Tsukino is
transformed into the superhero Sailor Moon. She is charged with defeating the
sinister Dark Kingdom alongside her allies Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, Sailor
Jupiter and Sailor Venus, while also looking for the mysterious Moon Princess
and the mystical Legendary Silver Crystal. Along the way she meets the dashing
Tuxedo Mask, an enigmatic figure whose motives remain unknown.
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Crystal is the 2014 anime reboot based off of the manga series by Naoko
Takeuchi. Its first season consists of 14 episodes and features the voice
talents of Kotono Mitsuishi, Hisako Kanemoto, Rina Sato, Ami Koshimizu and Shizuka
Ito.
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Crystal is the most faithful adaptation that’s been produced from Naoko
Takeuchi’s seminal manga series. It adapts the original story
chapter-for-chapter, using the dialogue and panel work from the first arc as
its blueprint. This works wonderfully in order to set the tone and create a
consistent pace. Tonally, Crystal is
more dramatic than its predecessor and comedy is seldom utilized. At times this
hinders the first season, particularly as it hinders character growth, but it
also keeps things cohesive. It is also much darker in its imagery and finer
plot details, particularly as we see the destruction caused by the enemy. This contributes
to a feeling of maturity within the series, thus allowing audiences to take the
characters more seriously and increasing the stakes and tension.
The narrative of the first season of Crystal unfolds seamlessly and without interruption or unnecessary subplots,
unlike its filler-riddled predecessor. In the first episode, Usagi transforms
into Sailor Moon in order to save her friend Naru from a monster. From there,
Ami (Sailor Mercury), Rei (Sailor Mars) and Makoto (Sailor Jupiter) are
introduced in rapid succession. This moves the plot along at a brisk pace and
allows the audience to warm to these characters quicker. Their mission is clear
from the onset as well – they must find the Moon Princess and the Legendary
Silver Crystal. The Sailor Guardians don’t waste copious amounts of time merely
reacting to enemy schemes nor do the villains embark on assignments that only
serve to decelerate the plot. The original anime was most frequently caught in
a monster-of-the-week storytelling formula that created uneven pacing and saw
the introduction of numerous (often inane) villainous subplots. Where it took
34 episodes in the original to reveal the identity of the Moon Princess and the
location of the Legendary Silver Crystal, it takes a mere nine in Crystal. This does mean that Crystal benefits from being binge-watched,
since it is purposely plotted so that each episode leads into the next and not
a second is wasted on filler. By following the manga more closely and through
the benefit of retrospect, the first season of Crystal plays out like one long film. This is further emphasized by
its explosive (stock footage-free) action sequences and timeless orchestral
score.
While Crystal is very
faithful to its source text, it also deviates in ways that help the series to
feel fresh and new. For instance, many of the hyper stylized comical character
reactions have been excised in favour of portraying the characters more
realistically. The biggest change though is that the Shitennou are not killed
off individually early on in the story. Instead, they survive the attacks
lobbed at them by the Sailor Guardians and remain as a unified team until close
to the season’s finale. This helps to contrast them against the versions we’ve
seen in both the original anime and the live-action, where they were prone to
in-fighting and never quite managed to work in unison. Crystal also makes canon the notion that the Shitennou and the
Sailor Guardians were lovers in their past lives, which adds an interesting
layer to their backstories. Additionally, it complicates matters for the Sailor
Guardians. In their past lives they loved these men, but are now forced to do
battle against them. Another change, which I found to be less effective, was
made to Queen Beryl’s demise. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that I
prefer her (rather gruesome) death in the manga rather than the somewhat
contrived one she’s given in this series.
While its storytelling is on point, Crystal
struggles with character development. On one hand, this series gives us one
of the most organic and relatable versions we’ve seen of Usagi and Mamoru’s
relationship. Usagi as a character feels much more tangible than other
portrayals, as she grows tremendously from the first episode until the season’s
conclusion. She’s not a walking caricature who vacillates from comic relief to
fierce warrior at the drop of a hat. Similarly, Mamoru doesn’t come across as a
one-note character whose sole purpose is to provide pep talks to the lead
heroine. He’s a complex and tortured character, but he’s also warm and caring. Since
both characters are portrayed more realistically, we’re able to take their relationship
more seriously. As you can imagine, the scenes between these two characters are
some of the best in the first season. On the other hand, every other character
feels tragically underdeveloped. The dialogue and voice work do absolutely
nothing to hint at distinctive personalities for the Sailor Guardians. Ami and
Minako fare the best. Ami’s intelligence is utilized throughout, while we get
to see Minako’s take-charge attitude and a bit of her goofy side. Even still, Crystal would have benefitted from
injecting personality into their words and actions. This would mean making
Makoto’s lines gruffer and having her be more impulsive in battle, while also emphasizing
Rei’s distrust of men (which is mentioned in passing, but not elaborated upon) and
playing up her cool girl demeanour. This personality problem is also relevant
to the Shitennou. Since they’re given more screentime, it would stand to reason
that the writers and producers would make more of an effort to actually flesh
them out. Sadly, they don’t. They would have done well to heed Naoko Takeuchi’s
character notes for them – Jadeite is the serious one, Nephrite is the
emotional one, Zoisite is the manipulative one, and Kunzite is the quiet storm.
The elephant in the room when it comes to Crystal is its animation. Its rushed production seems to have
translated into some rather rough work that does the first season absolutely no
favours. The characters are so often awkwardly drawn that it makes it difficult
to appreciate how good this first season is. It’s unfortunate since the
aesthetic of the series is actually very strong and is far more cohesive than
its predecessor. The character models are elegant and feminine while the
overall look of the show is achieved through pale tones and more detailed
settings, all of which help to contribute towards a whimsical feeling. The
original anime was notable for featuring numerous animation directors, all of
whom had very different styles, thus creating differing quality from episode to
episode. Crystal has the same style
throughout, but it’s undermined far too often by its aforementioned sloppy
animation. As a side note, it also would have benefitted the animators to
actually depict the Sailor Guardians with more meat on their bones. Naoko
Takeuchi herself said she wished she’d depicted Usagi a bit chubbier and giving
them larger frames would have actually fixed many of the awkward poses we see
the girls in.
Overall, Pretty Guardian Sailor
Moon Crystal’s first season is massively entertaining and rather addicting
to watch. I admire and appreciate its adherence to the manga, as no other
adaptation has been this faithful before. It allows wider audiences the
opportunity to appreciate Naoko Takeuchi’s hard work on her epic and poignantly
romantic first arc. In doing so, Crystal has
the best pacing and narrative structure of any other adaptation of Sailor Moon.
It also smartly improves upon some of the manga’s weaker points as well. The
manga’s rather weak action sequences are elaborated upon and transformed into
high octane spectacles, while its quick disposal of villains is ignored in
favour of keeping the Shitennou around for a much longer period of time. If I
judging Crystal solely on its story, then
I’d say that it’s the best adaptation we’ve got thus far. Sadly, its animation
and poor character development are glaring flaws that cannot be ignored. The
first season is pretty damn good, but it’s also not the best it could have
been.
RATING: B+
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