Anime Hajime Review: Sailor Moon SuperS (Part 4 of 6)

***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Sailor Moon SuperS. Reader discretion is advised.***

Season Synopsis – Sailor Moon SuperS

A buzz permeates throughout Tokyo with the arrival of a rare solar eclipse. Usagi and her friends, Rei, Ami, Makoto, and Minako, are joined by Mamoru and Chibiusa to witness this once in a lifetime event. Unfortunately, as the Earth is cast into momentary darkness, an enemy makes its move.

A large and ominous circus tent appears in the middle of the city. Coinciding with this arrival, Chibiusa has an odd dream.

Inside a mysterious forest, a voice calls out to the young princess. Chibiusa comes across a beautiful white horse with a pair of wings. The creature introduces itself as Pegasus (voiced by Taiki Matsuno) and warns of a coming danger – the Dead Moon Circus.

With the arrival of this new foe, Usagi and the other Sailor Scouts, including Chibiusa, stand ready to fight once again. However, there is little they can do against this enemy. That is until Pegasus arrives and provides the Sailor Scouts with his power.

From this point on, Sailor Moon and her friends must prevent the Dead Moon Circus from stealing people’s dreams and locating the powerful Golden Crystal. Failure to do so will result in the return of the Dead Moon Queen (voiced by Yoshiko Sakaibara).

Season Positives

LUNA AND ARTEMIS MAKE A KITTEN, AND IT WAS SO GOD DAMN CUTE.

Her name was Diana (voiced by Kumiko Nishihara), and she was adorable.

Ten out of ten. Best season, best series. Review over, moving on to season five. Here we go.

If only it were that simple, and in all seriousness, there are several things I want, or rather, need to point out.

Every season of Sailor Moon, thus far, has managed to differentiate themselves from one another. One was one, R was R, S was S, and you get the idea. Sailor Moon SuperS continued this trend but in a very different way.

Unlike the previous three seasons which built on each other, SuperS, for the lack of a better phrase, focused more on lore building.

This allowed this season to basically do whatever the hell it wanted to do. Compared to seasons one through three, SuperS was a lot sillier, and that’s saying something since this series has never really taken itself that seriously most of the time.

Granted, SuperS was free of dark moments, but it was still very 0easy going. And for the most part, this worked in the season’s favor.

The Amazon Trio Arc

Like the others, SuperS split itself into two arcs.

The first was the Amazon Trio Arc, and it was the much stronger of the two. This storyline took many of the elements that worked before and used them to its advantage.

This arc was fun, entertaining, and for the most part, didn’t have a lot of tension. Despite that, peppered throughout this story were episodes that got a little somber. Well that, and for the first time since season two, Sailor Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus got a stronger transformation, as well as, stronger powers.

This was a very much welcomed chance since, for a while, its only been Usagi and Chibiusa growth. It makes sense why the main character would get a lot of the attention, but in a series that relies on teamwork, it's nice that the team gets something as well, especially since the other Sailer Scouts were starting to feel like dead weight.

Had this not happened, SuperS would have crumbled in its second half.

Chibiusa and Pegasus

Ever since her introduction in Sailor Moon R, Chibiusa has been nothing except a great character. And in a way, you can think of SuperS as Chibiusa’s season.

Here, Chibiusa got a boast with the introduction of Pegasus. And unlike other characters who withheld information, Pegasus did so with a legitimate reason to do so.

Do you hear that Uranus?

Pegasus doing this may have been frustrating, but that frustration worked for the story. And it worked because of Chibiusa. She desperately wanted to help Pegasus, but he won’t let her. Although she had put her faith in him, he refused to do so. This causes poor Chibiusa to grow a little disillusioned.

However, this led to a powerful scene where Pegasus finally said everything. He explained who he was, what had happened to him, what he needed to do, and why it was he couldn’t say anything. Chibiusa takes this to heart, and thus, this moment created a strong bond that was on par with what was between Usagi and Mamoru.

Season Negatives

Everything I have said up to this point was how SuperS' separation from the previous season worked in its favor. That wasn’t the case during the entire season. For the first time in this series, there was no apparent progress.

The silliness of SuperS may not have totally removed the show’s tension, but it definitely overpowered it. The Earth was never in bigger danger, but the Dead Moon Circus still came off as more of an annoyance rather than a threat.

This was odd since this was also the season where all the Sailor Scouts got an upgrade, Chibiusa grew as a warrior, Usagi took her first real steps into becoming the future Queen of Crystal Tokyo, and we dealt with a power that could have destroyed the entire world.

Before I move on, there was something that kept bugging me throughout the Amazon Trio Arc. It was how the three villains went about looking for Pegasus in dreams. What they would do was restrain their targets. From there a mirror would come out, allowing the villains to peer inside the person. This action caused a lot of pain and discomfort and can easily be construed as unwanted. Every time this would happen, it was very unsavory, almost as if it was conjuring up images of -- OH MY GOD!

After I made that connection, I could never unsee it. Thankfully this got dropped in the second half of this season. And unfortunately, that was one of the few things this second arc did better than the first.

The Amazoness Quartet Arc

Before getting into the negatives, there is one more positive to this season that occurred place in this arc. We got a main villain.

A final boss has been in each of the seasons, but they only came into play near the end of their season. Usually, these foes were some deity that we never get to see, and the show just sort of told us about their existence. SuperS fixed this by giving us the Dead Moon Queen, Queen Nehellenia.

While still introduced rather late in this story, we get a backstory for the Queen. We got to see why she was doing what it was she was doing. We saw her fall from grace, as well as a little insight into not only the Dark Moon Circus but the Moon Kingdom. It was nice to finally have a confrontation between the Sailor Scouts and a bad guy we knew something about.

This was what the Amazoness Quartet Arc got right. For the rest of this section, let’s focus on what it got wrong.

The first problem, the Amazoness Quartet. It was like we went back to season one. Unlike the Dark Kingdom, the four Quartet members, VesVes, CereCere, JunJun, and PallaPalla (voiced by Junko Hagimori, Yuri Amano, Kumiko Watanabe, and Machiko Toyoshima), had personalities. However, just like the Dark Kingdom, they never realized that they were always losing to the Sailor Scouts. And like it was before, this was once again annoying as hell.

Next, there was Zirconia (voiced by Hisako Kyoda), Queen Nehellenia’s right hand. This person was just terrible. SuperS played Zirconia up to be the extremely powerful, not-to-be-messed-with ringleader of the Dead Moon Circus. The problem was, was a complete pushover.

The Amazon Trio sort of feared Zirconia, which kept the four in line for the most part. However, that didn’t stop the Quartet continuously disobeying, undermining, and arguing with her.

And my final issue with SuperS was the climax of all things. It was still good, but unlike the other three season, its focus wasn’t entirely on point.

SuperS had been building up Chibiusa. Why then was Sailor Moon the one who delivered the final blow and did a lot of the endgame work? While this was a strong mother-daughter, mentor-mentee moment, Chibiusa once again needed saving. Why?

This was a missed opportunity, which is something I can say about the entirety of SuperS. This was a fine enough season, but many of the mistakes of the past reared their head again.

Sailor Moon SuperS Finale: Synopsis

The Dead Moon Circus finally locates Pegasus in the dreams of Chibiusa. The enemy captures the young princess, and the Sailor Scouts must fight their way through the Circus’ minions.

Afterward, they face off with Queen Nehellenia herself.

To save Chibiusa, Pegasus reverts to his human form as Helios. Unfortunately, this gives Queen Nehellenia the opportunity she had been waiting for. Sailor Moon and the Sailor Scouts appear powerless to stop the evil Queen.

With the world on the brink of conquest, the Amazoness Quartet realized they were being used by the Dead Moon Circus and betray Queen Nehellenia. With this opening, Sailor Moon and Chibiusa manage to throw the Queen back into the darkness she came from.

With the world saved, Helios regrets to tell Chibiusa that he must leave and wishes her a tearful goodbye. After seeing her friend off, Chibiusa finds comfort in the support she has with Usagi and the other Sailor Scouts.

Thus, ends Sailor Moon SuperS.

Come back tomorrow for Part 5 – Sailor Moon Sailor Stars.