Sailor Moon R: The Movie Pioneer 60 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 02/08/2000

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I have one thing to say before I start all this off. If you say she's gonna die, let the bitch die. I'm tired of hearing that and when the movie ends the girl still isn't dead. Cartoon characters have to learn what a sacrifice is. If the only way that she can save her buddies is by using a super special crystal that drains your life energy, fine...I can deal with that. But I can't stand that fact that literally -every- time this happens in any show the person who did it ends up, through whatever circumstances, perfectly fine. At worst they're in need of a short nap and a cup of soup. I mean, what the hell? Why even act like it's something tragic at all? If Andrew was standing in front of an out of control car I probably wouldn't save him, because I know I'd die. If I was in a shoujo drama I'd be jumping out in front of cars left and right...at worst I'd get a nick on the cheek that'd leave a scar, which in turn would make me look pretty damn sexy to all the girls with pink and orange hair. That out of the way, let me tell you that my feet are freakin' killing me. I don't know what it is that possesses me to wear six year old formal shoes when I could just go out and buy a new pair, but I'm stupid like that. Jesus, they're so tight on me that after twelve hours of standing up yesterday the nail on my little toe had actually dug INTO my other toe. If you've never experienced that, it -really- hurts. So what do I do when I get home? Pop in anime that I don't want to watch just so I can hold up the tradition started two years ago when I wrote my first review. I love you guys. I really do.

And since I love you so much, I'm only too willing to buy/watch things that you never ever should in the hopes that it'll provide you with some sort of entertainment like the show or movie I watched never did. Such is the case with Sailor Moon R : The Movie. I'm sure it's quite enjoyable to those who have yet to finish grammar school...but, unlike Card Captor Sakura I just can't bear to give something so Sailor Moon much respect. Not so much a movie, this thing is more of a doubly long episode as other people have noted, and just reeks of mediocrity. Nothing in it made me say, "Hey, this movie makes me re-think my idea to punch everyone who lives in Japan." That's kinda sad. I suppose it's a solid thing, in it's own right, but it really just didn't do anything for me. The terrible English dub really didn't help things either. As I'm sure many of you know, Sailor Moon is pretty much the achetypical showing of how bad Americanization can be. The dub is mangled, the art is mangled. They really isn't much in this show that they left in tact. I'm not gonna cry about it because it doesn't much affect me either way, but I don't like to see anything chopped up so much. Especially something so benign like this.

Yeah, benign. Sailor Moon isn't exactly challenging racial prejudice or fighting for the rights of abused women...but it's not filling your children's minds with violence and sodomy either. As far as kid's shows go, you could do much worse. It preaches a message of peace and love, admittely a bit too fervently. But I guess that's just the way it goes. If I was a teenage girl I'd probably love how empowered the ladies are in this. Since I'm not, all I really can say is I like girls who wear white dress shirts and ties. Animated or not, that's plain sexy. Let me tell you exactly what I liked. In the extras menu (I didn't look at the extras, of course, faithful readers know I never do) they use the little super deformed characters featured in that Sailor Moon beat 'em up game for the Super Nintendo. Those things are pretty cute. And I realized I just can't get enough of Mamoru, or more specifically, Tuxedo Mask. Maybe it's just because we both like to dress up in formal wear, but I feel that he and I have a certain sympatico going. His theme music is pretty catchy too. As I've mentioned before I'm a big fan of jazzy Mexican stuff.

But the rest of it isn't exactly my cup of TV. A flower that travels from planet to planet and plans to devour the energy of Earth's inhabitants? I mean, come on. Sailor Moon's villains were never very insightful, but this is just plain stupid. I guess it doesn't really bother the little kids who watch these kinds of shows...but I honestly wanted to hurt someone over this. Giant flowers?! What were these people thinking? Aside from what I mentioned at the beginning, the ending is probably the best part of this... provided it's the subbed version you're watching. The writers really know how to evoke some emotions in people once you get past what they think passes for "comedy" and the afore mentioned stupid bad guys. The scene of all the senshi whispering Usagi's name is well done...though in the end...I wish the creators had some balls about it and let the girl die. I hate it when people lead me on with false promises.