Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
Date of last revision: 01/21/03

Genre: Shoujo | Action | Romance | Fantasy | Comedy
Company: Toei
American Liscensing Company: Pioneer Entertainment | Dic
Format: 200 episodes
Dates: 03/07/1992 to 02/08/1997
Original Creator: Naoko Takeuchi
Age Rating: Meant for young girls; occasionally 13 and up

Synopsis: Usagi is just your average, rather lazy 14 year old Japanese school girl. Usagi loves video games and boys. She's also a crybaby, a klutz and a poor student. One day a talking cat named Luna reveals that she is a reincarnated warrior from the past named Sailor Moon, and she must be the leader of the other Sailor Senshi of the solar planets. She and her team must find the princess of the destroyed Moon Kingdom and the Silver Crystal before the forces of evil do.

SCORE: 63%

If you want a pretty girl anime with a ditz, here you go. You'd think that since this is one of the anime I started watching first during the late 90s anime craze and that I have loved this series and use to have a section on my website devoted to it, that I would be more nice in my review of the series. THINK AGAIN.

Plot: In reality, the intial plot wasn't bad. True, Usagi is a rather dense bimbo, but there are some people out there like that after all, right? Sure enough, the senshi prevail and the princess and her prince is found. This is originally where the story was suppose to end, and that would have worked very well. But, popularity was so high, the series continued into the second season, the R (Romance) season, and the original writer of the manga had to quickly pick up her story. Because of this, the first half of the second season wasn't even created by the original creator.

The second season wasn't so bad, and the third season S (Super) wasn't bad either and even a bit morbid :D. The fourth season was horrible, and the fifth was better. However, the entire series could have been made in fewer episodes, and it stretched on far too long.

Every single damn episode was the "defeat-the-monster-of-the-day" with a fight that's length goes on for just one episode, no more, no less. At least in series like Yu Yu Hakusho, the fights' lengths could go on for one episode, several episodes or have more than one fight in an episode, thus having some variety.

The reuse of the animation made the episodes extremely slow and boring. Most often the oridinary, everyday problems the girls had were more interesting than their monster problems.

Each character had their own definite personality, and in reality this anime was just about how Usagi learned to grow up, but the needless episodes made it easy to miss whole months of episodes and still made it possible for a viewer to just come back whenever they wanted and they would still know what's going on. This might be nice, but it's a rut and it's boring. Tuxedo Mask is such a wussy; seriously he could have done more and been much cooler if the animators didn't just include him as a "token" male character for the female fans. Just to tell ya, he kicks more bad guy ass on his own in the manga.

All in all, the series should have stopped with the first season like it was orignally intended.

Visual: The mid-90s animation worked very well, and the series after all, was eye candy. The transformations and attacks were of course very well animated, but then again they were used repeatedly. Nice eye candy, but this animation sure didn't push any boundaries whatsoever.

Sound: All the main themes of this anime was Jpop. The soundtrack was usually good for the moods, and the rest of the music was techno. Considering, the soundtrack was very good, but like the animation, didn't really push boundaries of any sort. Then again, that's kind of hard to do in music. Some of the songs from this series are my favorites, so it's not so bad.

The sound effects were kind of bizarre but very unique. Each sound for each senshi was unique for each one, so the sounds almost had personalities of their own. The sounds worked.

The voices fit the characters well, and well Kotono as Usagi worked too well, because she sure hit Usagi's whininess just right. The voice actors were actually very good. Too bad the plot tends to suck.

The Dub: The series does not get in better in the dub, and stays at about the same level of stupidity. However, any kind of reasonable respect for this series is lost in the dub, as it is butchered for mainstream audiences according to culture taboos. Voices are constantly changed from person to person as the series gets juggled between licensing companies. If you're going to watch this series, at least watch it in subtitles.

Dub Letter Grade: D

Extra Rants and Bitching: My biggest problem that I have with this anime is how these girls think they have to get married and have a boyfriend. What? This kind of reasoning is what made me feel insecure as a little girl, and this series wouldn't have made me feel too wonderful if I had watched it at a grade school age. Luckily I saw it in junior high when I wasn't as impressionable. Usagi is lazy and never ever mentions doing anything for herself in the future as an independent woman. This series had good lessons, but the treatment of women makes me puke! That sometimes makes me wonder if this is part of the reason why guys like this series (besides the fact that these girls run around it those stupid mini-skirt sailor suits all the time).

Seriously, the series can be enjoyable, but there are so many better anime series out there.

Score Comments: Quite honestly, I'd like to give this series a higher score. But I just can't. I do regret loving a series that is kinda demeaning to woman, but I have enjoyed it. The only thing saving me from despising this series is that it was introduced to me during junior high, and it was much more interesting then since there was so little anime in the American market then (ya have to go with what American companies give you). Just to tell ya, the manga was better.

Websites:

Have a website about this series, or do you know of a good one? Want me to link to it on this review? Well, the feel free to email the sucker to me! Just make sure to put "Review Link" in the subject.