Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal

Personally, I was a bit on the edge when watching the trailers. The first couple of episodes really put me off as I am a big fan of the older series and manga, a remake was music to my ears. The artwork takes a load of time getting used to. Not to mention the 100% CG transformations making the characters look like rubber dolls being stretched to fit their costumes properly. There was really little effort put into every frame in terms of animation that I felt sick to my stomach just watching it, but... as a loyal fan, I swallowed that and continued anyway. As it progresses,they improved on the artwork which was a huge relief for me, after all, this IS a remake no? And then here comes the big punch. Yes, they are trying to do justice and provide as much fan service possible for the blockbuster series but I feel that it's rushed and they focused more on Usagi and Mamoru compared to the rest. Every other character deemed pretty much useless. It's all 80% UsaMamo 15% Random story 5% on the other sailor scouts. Overall, it's quite enjoyable. You get to see many scenes and fan service from the manga and the music is amazing, hands down on that. If you are going to compare this to the older series AND manga, please do yourself the favour and do NOT watch it. But if you would love to relive your childhood, please do! Plus, this is only the first season. I am DEFINITELY looking forward to the following seasons, especially the final Sailor Stars season; that's IF it reaches that.

I tried not to mind it. I tried to overlook the always-changing faces, the weird camera angles, the god-awful direction. I tried to stay optimistic, and episode after episode I just told myself I'm overreacting. But no more lies. Time to say it - this anime is bad. Before anybody get's angry - don't get me wrong. Sailor Moon Crystal isn't bad because of the new look, CGI transformations, new voices or new theme music so many people are angry about. These things really don't matter, regardless whether you watched the original 90 version or not. Sailor Moon Crystal is bad because, to put it plainly,it's very poorly made. VERY. As I mentioned at the beginning, the faces just can't stay consistent. Very often they look weird and out of style, like they were drawn in few seconds just to push the work through. Maybe the very subtle, delicate designs based on the manga are hard to present in motion within the tight budget and strict deadlines the series has (I assume). Maybe they've only have interns working on this. Maybe they thought nobody would notice. Or maybe they don't care. In general the animation is very low quality - sometimes during the fights we can see some actual, nicely done moves, but other than that it's mostly static shots, moving mouths, some jagged running, little gesticulation... you get my point. This also hurts characters emotions, as they mostly look like they are half-surprised, half-curious all the time with half-opened mouths. But that's not the worst of it. The absolute, most horrid aspect of Sailor Moon Crystal is the direction. Jesus. It's so bad. Sometimes you don't even know what's going on due to the confusing and cheap camera angles. Even the important scenes, and I mean really important scenes are done so poorly it's sad. Nothing about the camera angles and montage to highlight them. Nothing.There are so many mouth shots - and for what? It's not like they show any amazing expressions. No, they just don't really have to be animated so they chose them over anything else. Hell, sometimes I'm not even 100% sure where the characters are standing because I only saw shots of faces, hair an mouths. Oh so many mouths. It's really sad - both for dedicated Sailor Moon fans from the 90' and the new viewers. This could have been something good. I don't know what happened. Is it really the budget? If so, why was it so low for a series so highly-anticipated? Is it because it's distributed online? Does Toei think that if they release a show for free it can basically be crap? I jut don't get it.

One thing that's good about this anime is that there's a story, but although things can be mixed, it turns out well in the end. I watched the whole series and it seems to be a good way of seeing off the past and start making plans for the future. That's one sentence for the story that I liked most. I hope others watch this, and I don't mind if others would have a lot of comments no matter what side. The anime can have its own great moments and its flaws. Anyway, let's get to the story itself. First off, it's outstanding. The originality ofthe timeline is always there and should remain there as usual. Since there's a small interference from another dimension in the anime series, it turns out as a good timing, I guess. The main characters definitely had an adventure. The art is not so much appealing, but it's still catchy no matter what angle you look at it. The thing I thought was good with the characters were their eyes over the rest of their bodies and it seemed to catch the attention of the rest of the Crystal fans. And it caught my attention, although there's not much to it, though. The sound is modern and it used good theme songs my way too. I can't say anything else and they've nailed it. Nice. The character edition was interesting. Seeing the main characters joined by completely new ones on this series makes a new excitement. So... for this kind of anime series, there are two sets of stories. That's why I made sure the story was indeed outstanding in my rate, but characters seemed to be only a few, though. The enjoyment in my case was based on the story and the sounds of the anime itself, but what I look at more are the physics in the anime combined with fantasy. THAT is new. Although there's a comparison to what science and magic does to a person (which I think was illogical at first), I think it paid off. Because I actually saw in the series that science and magic in my case was made possible. That's something to kick off the whole series and brings smiles to me. And for the overall, I must treat this anime as one of the most memorable animes I have watched. Why? Although the story and enjoyment seemed to be there the most, let's not forget the minor factors, which can bring both positive and negative reviews. Although it may bring some negative vibes to others... my variety can kick off as to how I look at it, included with its content. If the animators read this, keep it up. For the fans, make fiction, read manga... don't care. In my personal opinion it deserves a sequel. ロングライブオタク. (Long Live Otaku) :)

I'm a big fan of Sailor Moon who's been into the series for years now as it was my gateway intro to anime. I've seen all of the original anime in both Japanese and English, read all of the manga, seen the live action musicals and live action TV show, and I have all of the Sailor V manga. I know there's a lot of cynicism towards Sailor Moon Crystal, but I honestly think it's actually very good and probably my favorite adaptation of the manga. I had always anted an accurate adaptation of the manga as that was always my favoriteversion of the story and Crystal succeeds in giving us the most faithful adaptation yet. It follows the manga almost scene for scene and word for word, with the only real changes being some additions like making the relationship between the Sailor Soldiers and the Four Kings canon. This was something only hinted at in the manga and explored in some of the musicals but it had never been made official in a TV adaptation before, not even in the live action version they made for the 10th anniversary, so I was really excited they made it canon for Crystal. Other additions I loved were how they gave us more details about Makoto's past and what happened to her and her sempai and actually showing us what Ami's father looks like. I love that Crystal is more faster paced and that the characters and relationships are much more faithful to Naoko Takeuchi's vision. Rei is her more serious and elegant feminist warrior as opposed to her more Betty and Veronica type personality she had in the original anime. Minako is more of a hardened leader with a serious mission rather than her stereotypical bubbly dumb blonde stereotype in the original anime. Mamoru is also not a total jerk to Usagi and actually respects and supports her and Chibiusa is much more sympathetic and not as bratty. The music in Crystal is beautiful from start to finish. The opening theme, Moon Pride, perfectly captures the feminist message of Sailor Moon and I love how the ending theme portrays the tragic fate of the Moon Princess. The background music is also very catchy and has this grandiose epic feeling I love. Probably the most controversial aspect of Crystal is the animation quality. There are unfortunately some episodes where the the animation budget does suffer some, with characters going off model and some episodes where there are some obvious animation errors. Having said that, I do think some critics are over-exaggerating the animation issues and for all the problems it had, there were plenty of beautiful moments in the show too. Most notably there's the episode where Makoto is introduced, the episode where Ami confronts Berthier, and and episode 21 were probably the most beautifully animated episodes and I feel like the animation quality in general improves a lot in the Black Moon arc. The ending to the Black Moon arc was very emotionally powerful and moving and overall I feel like the positives of Crystal far outweigh the negatives. Besides, most of the animation errors are being fixed on the Blu Ray releases and the original anime had far worse animation errors and inconsistent art styles but it seems to get far more praise than Crystal does even though it has all the same problem.s. If you're a big fan of the manga and always wanted an accurate adaptation of it, I say give Crystal a chance but I can see how fans who prefer a looser adaptation like the original anime might be disappointed. Still I really enjoy Crystal and I can't wait until the Infinity arc is adapted as that is my favorite arc of Sailor Moon and I'm so glad we're getting more of it made.

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