Tag: Naru

Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 26 (Restore Naru’s Smile: Usagi’s Friendship)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara

We’re back with another episode of The Naru Diaries!  Part five I think…  Anyway!  Now that Makoto has officially become a member of Team Moon, we can back to that whole “Naru being emotionally destroyed” thing that was left kinda hanging after episode 24.  Will they manage to sew up that loose end with care and satisfaction, or is this an afterthought to fill out the number of episodes this season?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Mamoru having another one his Silver Millennium dreams where a very obvious Usagi is asking him ONCE AGAIN to find the Silver Crystal.  So wait, are these actual visions he’s having that someone is putting into his head?  If so, who else COULD it be besides Usagi considering the Princess here looks just like her no matter HOW much fog they use to try and obscure it?  I mean, I GUESS it could be part of his subconscious trying to give him a message, but this isn’t really a memory or something like that, so his subconscious is being REALLY unhelpful by giving out vague commands with no real direction!  Also, you may recall that the Tuxedo Mask persona is ACTUALLY a separate consciousness (I think) because Mamoru has no memories of being Tuxedo Mask, yet they made it clear in episode 19 that Tuxedo Mask has no memories of who HE is (Prince Endymion), so these dreams must not be coming from him specifically but yet another layer of his subconscious… or something.  He’s getting orders from a memory of a split personality with amnesia.  Did Christopher Nolan write this shit!?  It’s a memory of a memory of a memory of a taco!

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“And why was Marion Cotillard in my dream?  She’s only supposed to be in there on Friday nights!”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 24 (Naru’s Tears: Nephrite Dies for Love)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Junichi Satou and Takuya Igarashi

If the title wasn’t a good enough indication, this is gonna be the last time we see Nephrite.  Not only that, but it also kind of spoils HOW he’s gonna meet his end if the whole “dying for love” thing isn’t some red herring.  Still, there is potential here for a solid conclusion to this subplot that, despite my misgivings, is certainly an interesting diversion before we get back to the actual story line.  Will this be a satisfying way to capstone the end of Nephrite’s career, or will his tenure as the big bad guy fizzle out the way pretty much all of his evil schemes did?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Naru and Usagi at nearby park; the former of which is still feeling distraught over the events of the last episode.  She now knows that Nephrite is a bad guy but has also bought into his (obviously phony) story about trying to quit the Evil Organization, so now she’s faced with the prospect of never seeing him again which… I guess would be a bad thing.  I won’t continue to drone on about how bad of a relationship they would end up have if they ACTUALLY got together and about how much of a manipulative prick Nephrite is, but it does make it hard for me to care whether or not they will be an OTP by the end of the episode.  Usagi, not feeling too different from what I’m feeling, has the problem of having to see her friend suffer over her current situation which means she’s feeling pretty bad about it herself but knows what the right move would be which is to keep them apart.

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“I’m sure he’s doing what’s best for you.”     “He didn’t even bother to send a good bye letter though!”     “A goodbye letter… that could work!”     “What was that Usagi?”     “Nothing!”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 23 (Wish Upon a Star: Naru’s First Love)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Harume Kosaka

We’re back with another episode of The Naru Diaries!  Before we ran off to the beach, visited an animation studio, and attended a fancy ball, there was a subplot brewing about Naru loving Masato Sanjoin and Nephrite planning to use that to his nefarious advantage!  While it was brought up a bit in the last episode, this is the first time that that will be the focus of its own episode!  Will the fact that Usagi has to protect someone she cares about change up the formula and give us a fresh look at the series, or was this story dead on arrival three episodes ago?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Naru who is still pining for Masato Sanjoin and is not in the least bit deterred that, in her short time knowing him, he accused her of being Sailor Moon while wearing a stupid outfit and then following that up with possessing her to assault an international figure head.  It MUST be true love!

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“Who DOESN’T love a bad boy?”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 19 (Usagi’s Joy: A Love Letter from Tuxedo Mask)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 5 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Takao Yoshizawa

We’re back with another episode of Everybody Loves Nephrite!  He certainly seems to have a way with people, though I’m guessing at least forty percent of his charm comes from being a monster spawned from the depths of hell.  Everyone loves a bad boy!  That is except Queen Beryl who’s getting just a tad tired of his failures and is itching to dish out some punishments!  Will he be able to finally take out the Scouts before Beryl has him sleeping with the fishes?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Nephrite in his personal command center where he’s desperately searching for a way to defeat those pesky Scouts before Queen Beryl ends up Jadeite-ing his ass.  The stars come to his aid once again (I imagine that he’s accruing quite a debt with them by now like Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog) and show him that the one weakness is the same weakness that all heroes have; their heart!  The key to defeating the Scouts (and Sailor Moon in particular) is to go after Tuxedo Mask!  Sadly, he can’t jump on his new project just yet because he’s being requested to return to the head offices of Hell Corp for a performance review.  Needless to say that Queen Beryl has had it up to here with the lack of dead Sailor Scouts, but doesn’t seem to have any ideas other than to blame the underlings.  To be fair though, they can be QUITE sassy with her.

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“YOU FOOL!  How hard is it to kill a couple of teenagers!?”     “Harder than waving your hands in front of a crystal ball.”     “What was that?”     “Nothing.”     “WHAT WAS THAT!?”     “…I’m sor-“     *ZAP*

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 17 (Usagi’s a Model: The Flash of the Monster Camera)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Yuji Endo

We’re back with another episode of Silver Millennium’s next top model as we once again have to watch Usagi fail to win a contest that is obviously set up by the Dark Kingdom for nefarious purposes.  You’d think she would catch on at some point.  Anyway, now that we are several episodes deep into Nephrite’s rule, I have to say that I’m still pretty lukewarm on him as a villain.  He has a solid premise behind him (focus on individuals rather than groups), but in terms of execution it has been very much hit or miss.  The last episode had a pretty decent transformation for the victim of his plot, but the monsters behind these corruptions have been bland across the board.  Will this episode be the one where they finally manage to balance an interesting villain with the standard Sailor Scout shenanigans, or will the show continue to not live up to its true potential, at least until Nephrite is out of the picture?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Usagi doing what she always does which is to get INCREDIBLY involved in some sort of hobby or interest that she had no prior knowledge of or inclination towards.  She’s like a pop culture goldfish; chasing whatever trends tickle her fancy until she forgets about it half an hour later.  This time around it’s about a very accomplished photographer who is still in middle school and JUST SO HAPPENS to go to an all-boys academy that’s close to Rei’s all-girls academy.  She desperately requires this guy’s autograph… for some reason, and tries to rope Ami into going with her who is too busy solving some silly looking equations (how hard is it to write REAL functions to have the characters work on?) to indulge Usagi in her latest obsession.

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“Look!  I’m using the derivative of pi to find the circumference of a hyper-plane!”     “That’s not a real thing, is it?”     “Fine.  I’ll go with you on this adventure of yours if you can tell me WHY that’s not a real thing.”     “…have fun at cram school.”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 14 (A New Enemy Appears: Nephrite’s Evil Crest)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Junichi Satou

We’re back with the first episode of Leave it to Nephrite!  After the untimely demise of everyone’s favorite woman-hating boy in a man’s suit, the show now has the uphill battle of selling us on the guy who will take his place.  Sort of like how Spin City replaced Michael J Fox with Charlie Sheen and got canceled two seasons later.  Okay, bad example.  What about The Office?  They replaced Steve Carell with Ed Helms… and got canceled two seasons later.  Huh.  Well at least we know this show goes on for quite some time after Jadeite leaves, but can the Nephrite episodes hold a candle to the Jadeite ones or are we doomed to villains with diminishing returns for the next two hundred or so episodes?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins on Nephrite’s first day as head of project management at Hell Corp and is giving Queen Beryl his latest proposal to acquire greater quantities of energy in the coming fiscal quarter.  Unlike Jadeite who took energy from as many people as possible, Nephrite’s plan is to pick one person and milk them for all their worth because the FIRST thing you learn about investing is to put all your eggs in one basket.  Apparently I’m not the only one taking the piss out of Nephrite’s scheme because Zoisite (another one of the Kings of Dark Kingdom) just floats off to the side and laughs at him.

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“Why don’t you put all your money in Facebook while you’re at it?  Oh, I am SO deliciously sardonic!!”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 4 (Learn How to Be Skinny from Usagi)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Harume Kosaka

Oh good!  I was hoping we’d run into some dated nineties storylines at some point!  We all knew we were going to reach this point eventually.  You can go back to pretty much anything from any time period and find stuff that’s woefully outdated, especially when you think of how fast things have changed with the onset of social media.  Still, we can allow ourselves to overlook some less than ideal moments if everything else in the episode manages to pick up the slack.  Can this episode succeed despite it’s less than precise handling of the subject matter?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Usagi realizing that she gained a few pounds since her last weigh-in and she’s having a panic attack over it.  Rather than her parents telling her that it isn’t a big deal or Luna telling her the weight she gained is probably due to the muscle she’s built since starting her career as a warrior for justice, everyone around her gives her shit about it.  Her parents TRY to reassure her but fail miserably at it, and Luna seems intent on giving her Body Dysmorphia!

“I’m thinking Sailor Chubs.  Fatty Moon maybe?  I could really use your input here Usagi!”
“I’m thinking Sailor Chubs.  Fatty Moon maybe?  I could really use your input here Usagi!”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 3 (The Mysterious Sleeping Sickness: Protect the Girls in Love)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi

We’re back with another episode of Sailor Moon Origins!  The last episode was by no means perfect, but it did show that just because they weren’t working directly from a story in the manga doesn’t mean they can’t make the filler in this show enjoyable.  Can this episode keep up with the level of quality we saw last time around, or are we already headed for a downward spiral until Sailor Mercury shows up in this?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Jadeite’s performance review in which he embellishes his accomplishments I’m the last two episodes.

“Our energy collection efforts are up three percent!”     “You lost two highly trained demons in the process.”     “I like to think of it as creating new openings for fresh faced monsters to hone their skills and become valuable members of our organization!”
“Our energy collection efforts are up three percent!”     “You lost two highly trained demons in the process.”     “I like to think of it as creating new openings for fresh-faced monsters to hone their skills and become valuable members of our organization!”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 2 (Punishment Awaits: The House of Fortune Is the Monster Mansion)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Takao Yoshizawa

We’re back with another episode of Sailor Moon Classic!  With the first episode out of the way, we are now plunging headfirst into the filler episodes which Sailor Moon Crystal did not choose to use, so we won’t have anything really to compare it against and we’ll have to see how it holds up on its own.  Will this episode give us what was so desperately missing in Sailor Moon Crystal, or will it just go to show that Crystal was right all along to streamline series the way it did, even if it did so poorly?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with… a recap of the episode we’re about to see?  What!?  Yeah, it’s that thing they usually put at the end of the PREVIOUS episode to get you excited for the next one, but they put it at the beginning of the episode its advertising!  Not only that, but it has some serious spoilers in it!!  Oh, and after THAT is a recap of the previous episode where Usagi, after just explaining what she’s GOING to do as Sailor Moon, tells the audience that she is in fact… SAILOR MOON!!  I’m assuming this is going to be the case every episode, but I’m only going to complain about it here.  Is this how the original dub or the original Japanese version was done!?  It’s just so out of place to put these two things back to back like this at the very beginning of the episode and just starts things off poorly.  Anyway, the episode begins with a group of women lining up around the block to see a fortune teller.  Apparently this guy is famous and has been on TV, but he still operates from a card table in an alley.  Does he have a permit for that!?

“I hear this John Edward guy is the real deal!”
“I hear this John Edward guy is the real deal!”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 1 (The Crybaby: Usagi’s Beautiful Transformation)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Junichi Satou

When I first started watching Sailor Moon Crystal, I vowed to not watch any of the original series or read the original manga while I was writing recaps for it.  I felt that I was in a unique situation where I had always wanted to give Sailor Moon a shot, but never got around to actually watching it which means I would be in a perfect position to WANT to like Sailor Moon Crystal without having the original to compare it against.  I think it ended up serving me well, not that reviews of comparison are bad, but I figured plenty of people were going to do that already and I wanted to see if it was any good from a newbie’s perspective. After a year of watching Sailor Moon Crystal though, the season has finally come to a close and I’m now gonna start watching the original series and giving you my thoughts on it!   To start with, let’s discuss which version of the show I’m watching.  I’ll be watching the modern dub of the series.  Not the original dub which many Sailor Moon fans started off with, and not the original Japanese sub with all the original content unperturbed.  From what I understand, the Viz Media dub is supposed to be an uncut and unedited version of the original Japanese version so I guess it’s the best of both worlds!  Still, I am gonna miss the fact that I won’t get to see the nineties special effects, the Sailor Moon Morals at the end of each episode, and that Luna won’t sound like an old lady.  Unfortunately, if this version DOES miss certain aspects of the original Japanese version, I won’t be able to spot it but that’s what the comments section is for!  So now that we got that out of the way, will Sailor Moon live up to the hype, or is it just another nostalgic property that’s not as good as people remember it!?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with our main character Usagi waking up late for school and having to rush through her morning routine.  Wait, isn’t this how EVERY magical girl show begins!?

“Are you going to be late AGAIN!?”     “I’ll try NOT to be!!”     “Well say hi to A-ko, Yohko, Ranma, and Madoka if you pass by them.”
“Are you going to be late AGAIN!?”     “I’ll try NOT to be!!”     “Well say hi to A-ko, Yohko, Ranma, and Madoka if you pass by them.”

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