I recently watched the entire run of the 90s Sailor Moon show, I am going to be honest and say that the reasons why I even watched this series at all especially when I am not even the target audience or demogrpahic for this story is due to two reasons, I vaguely remember watching it when I was a little kid all though my memories of watching SM isn't as vivid compared to something like Dragon Ball Z and Yugioh and that I have seen more fan art, cosplays as well as refrences and throwbacks to this franchise over the years than I care to count especially my years of going to conventions of even stuff not even fully dedicated to anime so in a sense, I got curious if a series like this resonated with so many people and including people that don't seem to be in the target demographic, I am wondering if it would appeal to me.
And well, it kind of did? In a rather backhanded way, I find SM to be interesting in that it is both remarkable and unremarkable at the same time. Remarkable in the sense that the writing peaked in the early parts of the show and it manages to remain consistently average and harmless throughout the whole series and unremarkable in that despite me watching the show and even somewhat paying attention to it, I also never got a strong sense of apathy or attachment in any way. I may have dozed off during some of the episodes but I never played video games while the show was playing in the background like with other anime.But that is the thing regarding this series, if I were to rate simpily as a show to listen to in the background while doing other things or just as a background noise show in general, I'd say SM gets the job done extremely well. The story never requires you to really pay an overwhelming amount of attention to it, and most of the episodes are basically just episodic "monster of the day" standalones where the monster fights only happen in the last 5 minutes of every episode.
Even stuff like Dragon Ball Z by comparison requires you to pay attention to what happened previously while most of SM's content is just monster fighting that doesn't last overly long and with a loose overarching plot connecting everything.
Chances are a season of SM plays out like this: a new threat shows up, there is a big bad as well as two if not more underlings that constantly antgonize the citizens of the Juban District in a rather vein attempt at trying recon where they try to help the big bad's goal which is mostly likely to rule the world, then the underlyings get killed after failing so much, get replaced by new underlying then the last few episodes consists of the Sailor Guardians fighting the big bad, then Usagi transforms into Queen Serenity and beats the big bad, generally speaking a story arc of every Sailor Moon season plays out like this with different subplots here and there.
The standalone episodes involve an underling failing to accomplish their goal summon a monster to fight the Sailor Guardians and then they win in less than 5 minutes after Usagi gets bored fighting them and doing her sealing attack. The fights aren't anything special either since it's just special move spamming until Usagi gets bored. It doesn't even do the Naruto or Saint Seiya thing of having the villains have weaknesses to their attacks and the characters have to figure it out.
SM in a sense is more so a saturday morning cartoon more so than a show with a continous plot thread and I wouldn't mind this so much if the series wasn't so lengthy and if there was some long term character development throughout it's lengthy run but that never really happens.
All of the Sailor Guardians may have goals and dreams of their own and some of the standalone episodes may address that but nothing in SM ever lasts long term.
For example does Usagi and Mamrou Chiba get married? No. Does Mako Kino ever find the love her life she always wanted to find? No. Does Ami become a doctor? No. Does Minako and Rei become famous Idols or celebrities like they wanted to? No. Does Mamoru accomplish his dreams of graduating college? Never happens. Since there are no consequences or long term character development throughout SM's 200 episode run, it's even harder to be engaged by the series long term. Then there is a fact like various side characters get ignored the more the series goes on like Luna, Artemis, Usagi's father, Shingo, Haru, Rei's grandfather and many more.
Compare this to Dragon Ball and Z. Goku might remain static as a character but the characters around Goku grow and change despite that series lacking in the long term consequnces side of things. Piccolo becomes friends with Goku and Gohan and even patches things up with Kami, Krillin marries Android 18 and has a child, Vegeta learns humility and even in some ways puts in pride behind him and marries Bulma and has two children, Gohan becomes an adult after watching him struggle as a kid even Goku himself gets married has two children.
Sailor Moon lacks this and as a result, the series in general feels less like a serial narrative in it's 200 episode run and more like and I said this before a saturday morning cartoon. It never rises above the decent writing shown in season 1.
I have criticized SM so far but I will say if you are like me and are curious to watch it, I say watch season 1. It has far more going on then most of the seasons in the show, like how new underlings are getting introduced every few episodes and it uses it's side characters in more involving ways like Nephrite having romantic tensions with Naru. That and Mamoru and Usagi being more interesting when they are antagonistic towards each other since when they are hooked up, their relationship is more one note since Mamoru has no agency after season 1. Also, a big reason why S1 works so well is because of that said agency since Tuxuedo Mask is my favorite character due to how mature he is as well as him having his own sub plot of trying to find out about his past put this season much higher above the rest.
Season 1 does have it's issues like the last few episodes being pretty rushed and having an underwhelming conclusion that wraps up too quickly or plotholes like Jedite getting killed by Queen Berril before the latter can learn of Sailor Moon's identity. Other things like the Sailor Guardians getting killed off just for that to be a red herring. They get brought back and they don't even summon Shenron to do it which is even weaker writing. Also, Queen Berril herself also being an underwhelming villain despite being a key player to why everything in season 1 even happened.
The last season is by far the weakest since Tuxeudo Mask is barely in it and how the villain is supposed to be a galaxy level threat yet she relies on incompetent underlyings or how its the final season that seems to be the darkest yet it personfies all the issues I have mentioned throughout this write up. Plus all the Sailor Guardians die, get brought back out of nowhere and then the city somehow gets fixes despite getting destroyed beforehand. It also becomes a war arc out of absolutely nowhere. It's 200 episodes and yet the ending just has the status quo being back to the same it always was. Which further tells me that SM is really just a saturday morning cartoon.
Overall, while I didn't dislike the series, I find it remarkable in that despite watching so much content I don't feel apathatic or a sense of any attachement at all. Sailor Moon is a series that is impressive and both unimpressive is that it's the most harmless piece of fiction you can ever find and stays that way throughout it's whole run. You could nitpick and mock for it sure but since I have rarely seen the series ever get put on a high pedestal, and I mainly watched it because of its massive impact on popular culture, so in a sense while I did finish all of it despite me thinking it's average, it's like I said many times before, its impressive that it made me to do it at all while unimpressive that I have no overly strong feeling towards it either despite me going through all that said content.
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