Pretty Guardian Sailormoon Crystal Ep 1: The Moonlight Returns!

 

 

Our story begin with Usagi having a dream of a beautiful princess meeting a prince and was about to kiss when she was awaken from by her alarm clock. Usagi rushed to school and met a black cat whose forehead was covered by a band-aid.

 

 

 

 

 

She removed the band-aid and the cat jumped off although a strange moment was felt by Usagi. We were later introduced to Usagi's friend, Naru and class nerd, Umino who mentioned about a mysterious crime fighter, Sailor V who has become an urban legend in the city.

 

 

 

Naru brought Usagi and two of her classmates to her mother's jewelery shop where they were having a big sale. Usagi didn't bought anything and threw her test paper (She got 30 marks) at a young man. The young man mocked her about her test paper and even called her bun head. Usagi was furious although she felt something strange about the young man.

 

 

After playing the Sailor V arcade game with another friend, Motoki and meeting Luna again, Usagi returned home but was reprimanded by her mother about her test paper. Usagi went to her bedroom and had the same dream again. Meanwhile, Naru's mother is revealed to be a Youma and tried to kill her off.

 

 

 

 

 

Luna woke Usagi up and told her she is the chosen warrior to protect the city. She gave her a special brooch and asked her to shout her transformation phase. Usagi was surprised by her new appearance and she could heard Naru is calling for help. She rushed to help her with a masked man watching her every move.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Usagi introduced herself as Sailor Moon to the Youma but the Youma summoned the girls who bought the jewelery in the day as mindless zombies. Sailor Moon tried to run away from the girls and began crying loudly, creating a sonic wave to immobilise the Youma. The masked man told Sailor Moon not to give up and Luna instructed her to use the Moon Tiara Boomerang and defeated the Youma.

 

 

 

Sailor Moon spotted the masked man fleeing however he introduced himself as Tuxedo Kamen. She was infuriated by his appearance. At the same time, Jedite who created the Youma was observing her too.

 

 

The next day, Naru told her classmates about the mysterious Sailor warrior however Usagi was wondering to herself if all these is just a dream. At the same time, Ami is rushing to her class...

So after twenty years, did Sailor Moon bring a sense of nostalgic when you first see it in 1992? For me, it is a mixed feeling as I was only a teen when it first aired. Sure, the artwork is redone to be similar to the manga and you can tell the background arts is paint work rather than CG.

Usagi is perhaps the series' strongest point and weakest link all together. I agreed that Usagi reminded as one of the most unique female leads with her naive beginning till her maturity as a leader in future seasons. If Sailormoon was created with the current anime traits, she will be a silly, clumsy girl with a kind heart.

But in the first episode alone, Usagi almost whine in every scene she is in. It might worked in the 90s since henshin anime heroines were still in it's infant stage with many traits yet to be experimented. However in current contact, Usagi will be immediately brush off as an annoying brat who whine about everything and she is suppose to be the main heroine. Sure, it took 5 seasons to make her good but I doubt Toei has the energy to do so if Usagi leave such a bad impression already.

Although I respected Mitsuishi Kotono as an excellent seiyuu to reprise her role that make her a household name, somehow, it was kinda of painful to hear Usagi's high pitched voice especially when she was running away from the controlled girls. I do give props with her updated transformation sequence with CG although the ending pose has yet to be desired.

 

Toru Furuya who did the original Tuxedo Kamen/Mamoru in the original series did not return but instead we have Nojima Kenji who was pretty okay since he is well known for doing cool handsome leads. The rest of the cast was all right since most of the seiyuu are current well known plus we have yet to see the rest of the inner senshi spoke.

The opening and ending song was pretty all right for a modern audience although no sign of Moonlight Densetsu or even Sailor Moon transformation BGM instead we have a BGM which is similar to a Precure series.

 

Anyway, we have 25 more episodes and only two episodes will be aired on the first and third Saturday every month. But with a shorter amount of episodes, the pace will be faster with lesser filler and it seems we will be seeing Ami/Sailor Mercury in the next episode. Until then, see you in two weeks time!