Impressions: Sailor Moon Crystal Episode 1

So I finally got a chance to sit down and watch the new Sailor Moon Crystal. I also recently started re reading the manga. Since the whole point of this project was to make an Anime that was closer to the manga, I decided to judge it based on how close they got it. Since the new show literally rips some angels straight from the manga, I would say they definitely hit that mark. It seems though that the show is going to follow the manga so closely, that each act of the manga will be an episode of the show. If that's the case then this will be a short lived series, clocking in at 52 episodes. Compare that to the 165 episodes of the original anime, I won't be surprised if some older fans experience a bit of whiplash.

However, anime has been making a move towards shorter show runs lately. Most anime's will have about 13 episodes and will usually be self contained pieces. Or course there are some notable exceptions, for example Naruto is currently clocking in at 477 episodes at the time of writing this. (That combines both the original show and Shippuden)

I think though that if people want a lenghtier show, there is nothing wrong with the old anime. It may have deviated quite a bit from the manga, but there were a few things in the anime that I liked a bit better. For example, the fact that the Spectre Sisters decided to live normal lives as humans in the anime after their defeat. Compare that to the manga where they get blown away by sailor moon in 1 hit.

Although just as there are things I liked better in the anime, there are things I like better in the manga as well. For example, does anybody remember the Amazoness Quartet of the Dead Moon Circus? They were the girls who shot billiard balls into people. 

In the anime, after they are betrayed and join the good guys, they simple leave. In the manga, it turns out they were actually the girls destined to be Sailor Chibi Moons guardians and made up the faction known as the Sailor Quartet who were each named as an asteroid previously thought to be a planet. 

Pictures here.

Damn it, I got side tracked with even more Sailor Moon trivia.

Anyway, I liked the first episode and I can't wait to see how the series goes. I do get a little peeved though when people start talking about things like "but that's not how it was done originally." Actually, that's exactly how they did it originally. They changed it for the anime. Do your research you twank. (I have no idea what that word means.)

As always, feel free to leave a comment. Make sure to follow me over Google + or Twitter  and email all your love and hate to alternatetrigger@gmail.com.

Sailor Moon factoids!

For those of you not aware, Sailor Moon Crystal will be premiering this Friday, July 5th. Most of you will probably remember the anime from when they were kids and quite a few of you already know the trivia behind the show but there are a few things for those of you who haven't really done there research.

In the original manga/anime, Sailor Moon's civilian name is Usagi. 

It was pretty common to change the names of anime characters in the 90's when they were being localized. I can't be too picky about this though since Anime culture was just starting in the US and the localization team thought that kids wouldn't understand the cultural differences. Originally her name was Usagi, which literally translated from Japanese means bunny. She was named this because of her double pig tails. Fun fact, two of my favorite fictional characters are named Usagi. 

Although this Usagi is a little more bad ass. 

The original leader of the Sailor Scouts was Sailor Venus

One of the common themes of the Sailor Moon franchise was reincarnation. All of the planetary sailor scouts were actually reincarnated from a previous life. In fact, most of them already had there sailor powers in there past life. That is except for Sailor Moon. You see, Usagi was never meant to be a sailor scout, she was meant to be the future queen of the Moon Kingdom. Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus were tasked with being the princesses body guards and Sailor Venus was the head commander. 

In fact, she kind of still is in the Manga. While technically the team answers to Sailor Moon, when she's gone or has gone bonkers for her man, it's Sailor Venus who steps up and gives the orders. She was even the one to kill Queen Beryl. 

Sailor Neptune and Uranus were lesbians in the original version of the story. 

If you didn't know about this one, then you've been living under a rock. 

Sailor Saturn never had a transformation sequence in the anime!

As a person who loves transformation sequences, I was super pissed about this. If they were to fix one thing in Crystal, it has to be this. The closest we got was one that was featured in the video games and it sucked. It's not even worth putting it up. 

Season 5 of the anime was never originally translated

Season 5 was actually a little weird in that it flipped the Sailor Moon universe on its head. This season introduced a bunch of new sailor scouts. The three big ones were the Sailor Starlights. In the manga, they posed as a male pop group. In the anime though, they weren't just cross dressing. They literally swapped parts when they transformed. 

THEY'RE JUST SO DAMN SASSY!

This season also introduced the idea of Sailor Scouts as the enemy. Below you can see some of the major villains.

Iron Mouse

Tin Nyanko

Lead Crow

Aluminum Siren

And the Queen bitch Galaxia

The anime went a little crazy with it though, each time the enemy stole a star seed from a human, I'm not going to explain what a star seed is here, they would transform into a sailor scout monster. My favorite was Sailor Guts.

His attacks were all sweat based.

Final thoughts

I have always been a huge fan of Sailor Moon so I hope this gets you excited for the new show coming out. For those of you who don't know, the manga have been re released and you can buy them here and here. They are also streaming the original anime on Hulu and there are even plans to redub the original series to closer resemble the original language. With that, I leave you with one last video, a compilation of all the anime transformation sequences.

There is still a lot I didn't mention. If you have a factoid you would like to share, please leave it in the comments and as always, share with your friends.