Sailor Moon Eternal

Link to the review in Polish, but different from the English one. This text (not the one under the link) contains more interesting facts about Japanese society and their culture. https://peakd.com/hive-134382/@herosik/recenzja-sailor-moon-eternal

And after a few years of waiting, we finally got the movie I had been waiting for so much. I do not know what it is like in the world, but in Poland he collects extremely different opinions, I do not see too many neutral opinions - either they approach him with enthusiasm or criticism ... And the latter prevail, which does not surprise me. The titles of mahō-shōjo (a subspecies of shōjo - a genre intended for 7-13 year-old girls) are sometimes even more infantile than the usual, romantic titles intended for the same audience. Perhaps it has changed over the years, I don't know. For a long time I have not watched these anime for this reason, if I showed ignorance, please correct it. Sometimes this stupidity is so strong that even when I watched "Sailor Moon" or "Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne" alone, I felt cringe. The stronger the older I am. In the case of those "Eternal" movies it was a bit easier, because we got a really good line, animation and graphics (compared to previous series, do not confuse it with SM: E's praise for all anime!). True, I had already forgotten most of the story of the old anime (because I saw those episodes for the last time before high school graduation), but a few years ago I saw the entire "Sailor Moon: Crystal" so I knew what to expect more or less. In terms of the script, it was a bit worse than in SMC season 2, but in my opinion this is due to the fact that the action was packed into 2 hours and 50 minutes (about 8 anime episodes) - if the Japanese made it a 12 episode anime series, it would have been better.

Oh, I would have forgotten - I watched these movies with my girlfriend who, like me, remembers the old TV series. She didn't like the first one, she thinks it was hopeless - in her opinion it was too long and boring. As for the second, she liked it more. While I do not agree with her objection regarding the length, I understand what it means and generally agree with her opinion. It wasn't too long, just overloaded with exposure, kind of like the movie from the third season of "Initial D". We didn't have time to rest, we were just bombarded with them. In a sense, there were no fragments during which we could rest, compose our newly learned information in our head (even if it was not too difficult to understand or assimilate), but we had too much exposure - throwing strange names, translating them, introducing characters etc . Although the director did her best to present it in the best possible way, well ... Not everything can be realized in accordance with the original assumptions and sometimes you have to make concessions. I will elaborate on this in one of the following paragraphs.

The plot of "SM: Eternal" begins shortly after the events of season 2 (technically season 3, but season 1 of SMC includes Ark 2). This is an adaptation of a 4 story arc from the manga, this time the Sorceresses and Tuxedo have to defeat the Circus of the Dead Moon. An organization led by the Zirconia under Queen Nehelleni. The task of Zirconi and her warriors is to obtain two crystals - gold and silver. Thanks to the golden Nehellenia, she will escape the prison where she was locked up by Queen Serenity, the mother of the main character. Thanks to this silver one, she will be able to conquer the Earth, the moon, and then the universe. To do this, they will have to defeat the guardian of the land of Elysion, ie Pegasus, and discover who is the owner of the silver crystal. As you can see, it cannot be said that the script of these films is extremely complicated. Just a fairy tale that will not cause too many problems for little girls. However, this does not make her easily portrayed in two movies equivalent to 8-9 anime episodes. As I wrote in the previous paragraph, we are overloaded with information, relations between heroes and heroines, short stories of individual sorceresses, and we also need to outline the profiles of opponents, which are not enough, because in addition to Zirconia and Nehelleni, we have the Amazon Quartet. Not to mention the fights, the development of the SM universe ... It's supposed to be a simple fairy tale for little girls, it can be presented in a simple and quick way, but it's just too much! The first film focuses on the presentation of most of the heroes and heroines, exposure, generally placing the figures on the board, while the second focuses more on action. There is also some exposure there, but the movie is definitely less talkative, but we have more spectacular scenes and the characters travel from place to place. Turning on the 2nd part of "Eternal" I was afraid that I would be dying of boredom, as in the first one, but it was enough to cut off most of the story's fat to have a noticeably better fun, and even feel moderate joy next to the cringe.

I would add that the plot is ... Hmm how to say ... stupid, but that would be too simplistic. Contrary to what some people say (including me a few years ago), just because something is simple doesn't mean it's stupid. I am saying this not only in relation to cartoons for children, although of course this fact is not insignificant - after all, it is a simple story that is meant to be understood by the youngest. We have elements that are highly controversial from the point of view of our culture, but are quite normal for the Japanese (or at least they were, because fortunately Americans have partially changed their sexual preferences). I do not mean queer characters, although people with a conservative worldview (or those who have forgotten the plot of the comic book) will probably be bothered by it. The Amazons were presented to IMO in a good way - I expected it to be worse, but after a short thought, I find that they fit the climate. Their sexuality is unobtrusive and not exposed as by radical LGBT, left-wing or feminist activists (e.g. during parades or in the form of provocations). Another thing is the painful thread of incest, which is understandable to some extent (the point is that daughters are sometimes jealous of their father, and even sometimes feel towards him like love. Before someone says that this is an idea of ​​a progressive society - this phenomenon is known for hundreds, if not thousands of years - the Oedipus complex etc.), they should change it. I understand that fans do not like the changes and often complain about them, but let's be honest - it was controversial several decades ago, when the comic was published, and today especially. I am very surprised that this thread did not cause any shitstorm on the internet, especially after a movie like "Cuties", which caused a lot of controversy around the world. Incest should be eradicated, not presented in a positive light. I know, a different culture, Japan is much more liberal when it comes to sex with children and their nudity (referring to a sentence I wrote earlier - Americans forced them to make some changes to erotic magazines where pictures of naked young teenagers of both sexes were published ), but they could let it go.

Going back to the Amazons, a lot more cringe was caused by the rest of me. If I had to cut out everything (dialogues, ideas by Naoko Takeuchi) that either made me laugh or made me feel a bit embarrassed, I would have thrown out a lot of scenes. And among them there would probably be none concerning topics that some may perceive as controversial. These would be, at best, some dialogues that were repeated several times for reasons I do not understand. On the other hand, however, why should we be surprised? It's a fairy tale for children, plus the action is ... Let's say "fantasy" for lack of a better word, and I'm a 30-year-old guy, so no wonder I'm a bit embarrassed watching a fairy tale for little girls. Similar stupid things show up in DB manga and yeah, they're not that stupid either, but it's partly because I'm a guy and I have more tolerance for this kind of action in glamorous Hollywood action movies or comic books for male teenagers. . Such a feature of this convention. So I won't be watching Sailor Moon anymore. Perhaps I will watch the whole thing again (or rather review, because I will scroll through boring or less important parts) as Toei Animation adopts the entire manga to have a "full picture", but after that I will close this chapter in my life for life. Perhaps, because if it will be, for example, in 5 years, then I will be before 40, so ... You understand what it is like. One more sentence on how good an adaptation is - I've never had any contact with manga, but I talked to two friends I've known for years and their knowledge of lore MS is much greater than mine. They generally agree that this is a faithful adaptation that brought almost everything we could see in the comic to the screen. Literally a few scenes were missing, maybe a little more. Besides, according to them, most of the content is presented in the same way as in the comic.

The question is, do we need anime like this these days? I am not an expert on this genre, so I base my opinion on the opinion of people with whom I discussed many years ago. Unlike me, they follow the mahou-shojo genre and SM a decade ago (and probably even earlier), it was quite an archaic title. I did not understand it back then, today I can guess where it might be. The characters are flat and one-dimensional in character. They have nothing meaningful to say - either it's a display or a dialogue that you can write on your knee during an extended stay in the toilet. I know that this is a fairy tale for small children, but even for them it is too simplified even in relation to other titles intended for this age group. As I said, I am not an expert on this type of cartoons, but their fans, whom I knew from forums or groups for manga and anime fans, wrote long elaborations listing what fairy tales from the "Pretty Cure" series do better than Ms. Naoko's comics. Even if some of their arguments were wrong, there were still a dozen of them that I was unable to reflect. Even "Dragon Ball Z", which I criticized recently in my text, has aged in a better style and I see elements in it that could win the recognition of viewers today. Not to mention "Broly" who squeezed the best out of this brand. Yes, this is not a very fair comparison, because in the movie DBS did not have such restrictions (it was not an adaptation of a specific story), but it was enough to make some changes that would modernize SM a bit to improve its reception. This fairy tale has nothing to offer for a contemporary viewer, except for nostalgia, which young people will not feel, because they were not brought up in the 90s and for reasons beyond their control, they cannot turn a blind eye to some imperfections. We, old men, can remember, be happy to see something we know from the times of freedom and carefree, when the problems of adults were completely alien to us. They do not.

Also, answering the question that I asked myself - no, we don't need it. Sailor Moon is a relic of its time, kind of like games that were playable 20-30 years ago, and today we're wondering how it could have been played. Or movies like "Space Jam" that were acceptable a long time ago and would not be made today. And even if - they would certainly be appropriately changed and modernized. Just like the Pretty Cure series, which are less infantile, are more relevant to today's times and tackle the problems of today's teenagers. "Sailor Moon" would need a major overhaul, especially in terms of plot and characters. Even bigger than "Dragon Ball Z", to meet today's audience expectations and story-writing standards. Several decades ago, we did not pay attention to such things - back then, there was greater consent to such stories, and the requirements of the audience were much lower.

As I wrote right after the screening on my private Facebook account, this is not a "Broly" level in terms of graphics, animation, etc. but I would be lying if I said that there is not much improvement from the show with the subtitle "Crystal". There is nothing strange about it, it is a cinema film after all, and these still have to meet minimum standards (greetings CDProject Red, which released "Cyberpunk" with a lot of errors). This is due to the fact that viewers may demand a refund if poor production is allowed to the screening. In addition, it would affect the reputation of Toei Animation, which has been criticized for many years for its poor cinema films and bad line in the TV series "One Piece" and "Dragon Ball". I compared it in this post to a 480p video to a 1080p 60 FPS version. Why? Because the line and style of the animation are the same, but they have been drawn noticeably better, the smoothness and quality of the animation were not spared. In fact, I did not notice any ugly drawn characters of heroes and heroines, or major errors in the background. I don't deny that they were, but if they were, then like the Saiyan movie, they didn't last very long and were carefully covered with well-drawn drawings. When it comes to animation, I have no complaints, the same with 3D graphics. Unfortunately, this is not a "Dragon Ball" or other battle-shounen, but a comic book aimed at little girls for whom romantic themes are more important, so battles in SM are very simplified and limited to colorful attacks. If you want spectacular fights, you'll find them in film 2. There we have a substitute for the ones in 1 are uglier, less glamorous, so they don't have the only advantage they can offer viewers .. I'm a bit disappointed, but fights have never been a strong point of this comic, so picking on that would be unfounded in my opinion.

I had higher expectations and expected something better than what I got. Let's say the 2nd movie is still acceptable, but this is due to lower expectations. Perhaps I would have rated this movie higher if I hadn't seen Sailor Moon since the teenage years, but since I watched it a few years ago and remembered the feeling of cringe tasting like old moldy cheese, I didn't feel an ounce of nostalgia. Don't get me wrong, it's not tragic, but I certainly wouldn't say it's a "must watch" anime. Well, unless you treat SM: Eternal as a continuation of a series that was once cult in the old days. If you treat it as a curiosity, ok. Toriyama's title may surprise even today, whether it is in terms of plot (arc from Namek, Saiyan Saga, 1 half arc with cyborgs and androids) or fights. "Sailor Moon", in my opinion, offers nothing but nostalgia. I estimate the first part at 5.5/10, the second at a slightly stretched 7/10