Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is one of my favorite stories. Be it the original book, the 1951 Disney movie, the 1999 Nick Willing movie (which is the most faithful to the book albeit minor changes), and I even enjoyed Tim Burton's version despite it being different. I have not read Alice Through the Looking Glass yet but plan to and know some concepts of it. Sadly however, there are bad versions/adaptations of Lewis Carroll's work, like The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland, which had a great concept executed poorly, falling victim to corny silliness and bastardization of classic Caroll characters, and this anime
...
right here, Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, a shitty two episode OVA which had great potential but unfortunately is not only so bad it makes the Care Bears version look like a Disney/Don Bluth film/faithful adaptation of Alice, it is probably the worst adaptation or interpretation of Alice in Wonderland I have ever seen. What went wrong with it? Well...
Story (0/10, but had to choose 1 because this website does not allow 0 or negative numbers)
The first problem with the story is, well...there really is none in this version of Wonderland!! The story begins similar to the classic tale, Miyuki (who in this version is running late to school) notices a rabbit who is late, then falls down a hole into Wonderland, she encounters a door with a woman on it, but when she can't find the knobs, it turns out they're on the woman's....and I'm sure you know where this is going. Remember how in Sailor Moon Crystal Season III I hated that scene with Uranus assaulting Moon with that disgusting kiss? That's basically the problem with this, all this version which combines elements of Wonderland and Looking Glass, is just a bunch of lesbian/yuri fanservice (which I normally wouldn't mind) where Miyuki is sexually harassed by any character of Wonderland in the first episode and Mirrorland in the second. What the fuck, like literally, what the fuck? Is this what should count as "storytelling"? There literally is no plot to this anime at all, it's just random events where Miyuki has to do sexual acts or almost get sexually assaulted that come out of nowhere and happen for no rhyme or reason, it's creepy and bordering on rape, or stuff when Miyuki has to face herself and see herself strip, sex, sex, SEX!! It's like what's happened to MLP in a way, all the animators did was take Lewis' story and turn it into an oversexualized environment. Sure, they have some elements from the stories like the Drink Me shrinking thing and the chess game Alice partook in, but any of these elements are ruined by the hypersexual and creepy vibes that this anime spews out, and makes you feel like you took some weird drug trip. Each episode, of course, ends with Miyuki waking up and realizing it was a dream, but then she has to go out, leave her mirror, and we realize...it never ends....and Lewis Carroll is forever rolling in his grave (also forgot there is a manga but it's equally bad).
Even Magical Mystery Tour had more of a plot than this. And you know they totally screwed up when in the chess game they broke the rules by having black go first instead of white (that's not how the rules go!!) The only good thing about this is that it's very short, both episodes are only 15 minutes, making only a half hour long anime, and it's one of those OVAs where if you saw the first episode (or vice versa), you saw the second.
Art/Animation (7.75/10)
We now come to the best part of this entire anime: the art/animation actually are quite good. The characters are mostly well drawn and proportioned, the animation movements are fluid. The colors are decent and bright, and though some backgrounds (like when you just see a moving wall when Miyuki's running) are bland, I liked the designs of the card painters and the butterfly fairy, some of the places in Mirrorland look interesting (the land with waterfalls in the sky), and the sign also makes for the only funny joke in here, the "danlrorriM ot Emoclew" sign. But that's where the upsides end.
Downsides:
Miyuki looks like your typical average sailor suited schoolgirl, but about 85% of the scenes in her are just used as excuses to see her get groped (or grope something), get her midriff and panties exposed, she literally is a walking fanservice object.
The Wonderland characters have none of the charm or wit from the Lewis Carroll versions: the Rabbit (not even the White Rabbit) is just some Playboy like girl in a bunny suit on a skateboard, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum have been turned into Chinese twins named Cho Li and To Li (reference to Chun Li?), The Mad Hatter looks like a scantily dressed magician, and the March Hare, Dormouse and Chesire Cat with their female human bodies in skimpy clothing (Chesire Cat looking like a cat girl crossed with Lum from Urusei Yatsura, in fact) and animal ears look more like something some weird furry would draw than actual animals, and the Evil Queen like some pin up girl. The characters in Mirrorland are nothing special, Don't expect to hear the Dormouse tell the story of the three sisters in the treacle well...
And for fanservice, there's a lot of it, groping, peeking slapping, detailed nudity (including nipples). If you're a fan of yuri fanservice or lesbian fanservice, or like seeing assaulting, you'd like this but I felt sick and very uncomfortable. I find it shameful that CLAMP, the same company that made Cardcaptor Sakura, would associate their name with this, and how they wasted so much paper, ink, paint, clear plastic for this...
Sound (2/10)
(This anime only was released in Japanese, there was never an English dub.)
This is another big failure. The voice acting was subpar, not even the names of Emi Shinohara, Rica Matsumoto, Megumi Ogata, Masako Katsuki, Kikuko Inoue, Ai Orikasa, nor Sakura Tange could save this. Mariko Kouda (Miki from Marmalade Boy) tries to have Miyuki sound like your typical, high pitched, cute and energetic school girl, but her high pitched screaming just becomes annoying after a while. I can't blame any of the voice actresses though, they had to read terrible scripts.
The music is even worse. Aside from one forgettable ending song and one in the beginning/end of each episode, all that plays throughout this anime is this annoying, wacky, jazzy-tune-you'd-hear-if-somebody-tripped-and-fell-down-a-bunch-of-stairs-and-banged-and-bruised-their-body-up-and-caused-internal-injuries that plays over and over and over and over and OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN...till you can't stand it and shut the anime off.
Characters (0/10, but had to choose 1 because this website does not allow 0 or negative numbers)
The weakest part of this anime entirely, this anime goes by with its random scenes so quickly it has no time to establish the characters, none of them, not even Miyuki herself, has any character traits or personality at all. That's all I can say.
Overall (1/10)
Remember how WatchMojo claimed in their "Top 10 Worst Hollywood Remakes" video Tim Burton's version "added nothing to the legacy of Alice in Wonderland" (because we clearly saw Alice slay the Jabberwocky in other versions of it!!)? They never saw this. If you ever wanted to see how NOT to make an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice stories or show people what the worst adaptation of those stories, or to anyone who needs a quick session with fanservice, show them this, or play a drinking game if you want to have fun with friends. Otherwise, avoid, avoid, avoid. You're not missing anything by missing this, and with it being only 15 minutes per episode, being basically just half an hour, it's not worth buying for like say $20-40, or however much it was back in the day. You could just look it up on this FantasyAnime website I found, but no, don't. Like I said, don't waste your time.
Though this anime seems to have fortunately drifted into obscurity mostly, it should have met its true fate. What is it? To quote a certain Queen...OFF WITH ITS HEAD!!!
And now I gotta go drink some bottles of hard lemonade that say "Drink Me" on them...
Jan 19, 2018
Fushigi no Kuni no Miyuki-chan
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is one of my favorite stories. Be it the original book, the 1951 Disney movie, the 1999 Nick Willing movie (which is the most faithful to the book albeit minor changes), and I even enjoyed Tim Burton's version despite it being different. I have not read Alice Through the Looking Glass yet but plan to and know some concepts of it. Sadly however, there are bad versions/adaptations of Lewis Carroll's work, like The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland, which had a great concept executed poorly, falling victim to corny silliness and bastardization of classic Caroll characters, and this anime
...
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Jan 6, 2018
Sailor Senshi Venus♥Five
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
WARNING: THIS REVIEW TOUCHES UPON STUFF THAT IS INAPPROPRIATE FOR ANYONE UNDER THE AGE OF 18.
For my first review of 2018, I shall touch upon Sailor Senshi Venus Five, or Venus 5...good fucking God. This 2 episode hentai OVA by Daiei is a shitty parody/rip-off of Sailor Moon, my favorite anime of all time (though I can recognize it's not perfect), though even on its own this is one of the worst anime I've ever seen, and it comes from Central Park Media, the company infamous for releasing a catalogue of shitty anime. Why, should you wonder? Well, since I'd like to get this over ... as quick as possible, I'll explain why, though it was really painful to watch. Story (2/10): The plot is basically five girls are summoned by a talking cat (been there, done that) to fight against an evil empire known as the Inma Empire, and they fight for the Goddess Aphrodite. What are the dastardly evil deeds that the Inma plan to do? Turn into the world....into a place for orgies, yes. Believe it or not, that's really all there is for the story, and if you've seen one episode, you've seen the other. They may have some plot points like trying to find the golden statue of Apollo or something but really, the only thing there really is to this is lots of sex and...rape. Is your stomach churning yet? This already sounds like a bad fanfiction from a fetish crazed basement dweller with no way to get a job or make a living. That's a problem I have with hentai stuff and such from what I've glimpsed of the genre: it's just sexual stuff over and over again and they don't add much of plots or anything to garner interest at all. I'm not really a fan of hentai in general with some exceptions (though that exception was more of an adult romantic drama than a porno) but if I had to do one I'd try to have it mostly be story driven with an actual story and tone down the naughtiness, but I digress, the story sucks, moving on. Art/Animation (2/10): The art and animation are piss poor for a 1994 OVA. The art style is very rough looking, proportions are slightly off, the character designs are rip-offs/uninspired copies of the Sailor Moon characters: Venus Pink/Hikari is Usagi/Sailor Moon, Venus Blue/Kiyomi is Ami/Sailor Mercury, Venus Red/Moyu is Rei/Sailor Mars, etc. Aphrodite and the other characters look uninspired and like they were taken from other fantasy anime. The animation, with the exception of the first set of transformations, is stiff, choppy and jerky, relies on speed line backgrounds, and they clearly cut corners when they could considering a lot of the movements don't look believable and clunky, and some action scenes/movement (like the Venus Crash kick) are just a single non-moving cel over speed lines, clearly budget saving costs. The Inma aliens/monsters for most of the villains are poorly designed, truly hideous and look like they were taken from a poorly done bootleg or Go Nagai wannabe anime rather than stuff like this. The backgrounds are noting to write home about, the colors are all washed out and faded the art/animation are just pathetic for an OVA. Sailor Moon S was out the same year as this, was a TV anime, and it looked hundreds of times better than this, along with Shin Cutey Honey, which was also an OVA and was amazingly animated too (plus it didn't rely on the below all the time). Oh My Goddess came out the year before and was spectacular looking too. If you love fanservice/porn, you're gonna LOVE it here. Everywhere there's naked bodies with full detail, nipples and genitals and sex scenes and body fluids galore, nude transformations that are inferior in terms of quality to Sailor Moon's and rip-offs (water/fire forming suits, Hikari getting butterfly wings). However, none of this is attractive looking because most of it just involves schoolgirls and young women getting raped by monsters, even the Venus 5, who are all 18/19(? I'm guessing 18 as 19 year old college students do not wear seifuku uniforms), end up getting stripped against their will, ending up in all sorts of BDSM situations or sexually assaulted. Ugh. I'll admit, I wouldn't mind looking at R34 of say, Urd, Mihoshi Kuramitsu, Kiyone Makibi, or Reiko Mikami, but not if there's stuff like this, the Atari 2600 porn games (minus a certain one) looked more appealing to the eyes. And one of the worst parts is, for a parody anime that's based on Sailor Moon, an anime which had excellent action scenes, there's literally only about 1-2% action in here, all of the fight scenes in both episodes are poorly animated, over in under five minutes total and not very exciting or engaging at all. One other thing about the talking cat Buccha, you're not going to believe it...they gave him naughty bits too, and this leads to a certain thing that I will not mention but will say is a thing common on websites like e621 that whoever finds enjoyable needs to get locked up. The animators clearly had too many fetishes to count. And they also tried to add in some annoying "pause at the right moments" thing in between certain scenes (explosions). In conclusion, you may need a bottle of Clorox Bleach when watching this. The only reason I have given it a 2/10 is because after all that, this STILL looks better than Sailor Moon Crystal, but that's not really saying much. At all. Sound (3/10): The voice performances are weak in both the Japanese and English version, no one's voice sounds like they suit the character (mostly with the Venus Five). Junko Asami (Sayako from the Oh My Goddess OVA, and the only recognizable VA here), who seems to be a well known hentai actress, is wasted as Hikari, and doesn't sound like she's into the role, like the other VAs (though I can't blame them). The English dub is like a lot of dubs, particularly hentai ones: cheap, horrible Japanese name pronunciations, stilted, awkward performances, though the actors were given shitty material to work with but entirely laughable and able to give a few chuckles. The music is forgettable and the ending song is mediocre. Character (2/10): I couldn't care about any of the characters here because the anime didn't give me a reason to. Most of them were just parodies/rip-offs of their Sailor Moon counterparts anyways, the only one I almost liked was Aphrodite but she still failed to convince me as likable. Enjoyment (1/10): I couldn't even watch both episodes all the way because I was so disgusted and sick by a lot of the content of what is going on. I am not a feminist, but there is something I will say once, but not again: RAPE IS NOT ATTRACTIVE NOR SEXY. That is the biggest thing that turned me off (and I'm sure a lot of others) of this, stuff like that is Dormcat, the Encyclopedia editor of Anime News Network, was right in what he said, if you're going to do any adult anime like this, like he said, quote, sex should be an enjoyable experience, not meaningless raping. Doing the latter just makes it look immature, childish, tasteless, offensive and repulsive, no matter what the gender, and it makes the director look immature and tasteless. The only people who would probably enjoy this would be repulsive sick in the mentally ill head scumbags who enjoy seeing girls/women get violated by weird crazy ass beasts, and probably wanna touch some women wrongly themselves, go to a shrink to fix your fucked up heads. Not to mention, a lot of the other humor in the show just is not funny at all. I didn't even crack a smile nor giggle at anything I saw, and I'm usually an easy/nervous laugher. And when you've got an unfunny anime that has no likable characters, bad art/animation, nonexistent story, and you're wondering what you're doing with time you'll never get back and wish you would have done something else. While there are horrid anime out there you'd want to finish no matter, what, this is an example of an anime that makes you wish you NEVER saw an anime in your life at all... Overall (1/10): Venus 5 is a dismal, abysmal, unattractive, repulsive, MISERABLE anime. All I'm going to say is, unless you have biastophilia or you need to see anything that parodies or resembles/rips off Sailor Moon, avoid, avoid, and avoid!! Good night, and let's hope I don't have to review any other anime like this...
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Dec 31, 2017
Aa! Megami-sama!
(Anime)
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Recommended
For my final review of 2017, I shall review Oh My Goddess!, the OVA anime. This anime version is a 5 episode OVA from 1993 that is loosely based on the long running successful manga by Kosuke Fujishima. Usually short OVAs are not much and don't contain much for character development, but this is a rare exception? Why? Well, let's delve deep into here and see why this anime OVA is a classic and favorite among many:
Story (9/10): One day in a college dorm, a student named Keiichi Morisato calls on the phone to get some takeout for lunch, but accidentally dials the Goddess Technical ... Help Line and is visited by a goddess from heaven herself called Belldandy, who is there to grant him a single wish. Keiichi, who's never been successful at getting a girlfriend, wishes that Belldandy could stay with him forever and it is granted. After being kicked out of the male only dorm, Keiichi and Belldandy begin a series of events where they find a place to live, try to help each other out, meet Urd and Skuld, two other goddesses who are sisters to Belldandy, and when Belldandy receives a call from the Almighty himself, the two discover that their relationship may be more than they thought it would be... While I am currently reading the manga and am not finished with it yet (I may update when I finish it), I will say this: this version is not accurate to the manga at all when comparing it (certain characters don't appear in the second chapter and events in the last two episodes are original to this OVA), but that doesn't mean that it's bad at all. The writers were able to do their own interpretation of the love story of Keiichi and Belldandy actually make it work in two hours time, and have a satisfying conclusion, something that some other OVAs I've seen have failed to do. What also makes this story work is the balance between the romantic, drama and comedy elements. Even though this is only two hours long, the romance felt between our two leads feels very genuine and realistic, their relationship grows easily over the course of the five episodes and in the end you can truly feel that it was earned. The comedy is also hilarious, relying on fanservice but also some slapstick here and there. The dramatic parts shine especially well in the last two episodes where the show successfully manages to shift from comedy to drama without effecting it in a bad way, unlike shows like Voogie's Angel, you might need the tissue box at the end. It does have flaws though. The aforementioned fanservice part of the comedy may turn some viewers off, and some of the problems Belldandy and Keiichi deal with may only seem minor or stuff you may see in other romantic stories, and some people familiar with the manga may complain about it not being too faithful but whatever good this series has, far, far, far outweighs the flaw. Art/Animation (9/10): AIC, or Anime International Corporation, mostly has great, if not good looking anime in their library, and this is one of their best looking ones yet. The art and animation are absolutely beautiful for a 1993 anime and OVA; all of the characters are very well drawn, the clothes the goddesses wear are imaginatively lovely, there's lots of bright colors in the background and characters, the backgrounds look full of life and easy on the eyes, and the animation for the majority of the time is fluid and smooth. The comedic expressions aren't as hilarious as Fujishima's art, but they still do their job very well. Belldandy and Urd look attractive and ravishing (Urd especially looks sexy), Skuld looks adorkable and cute, and a lot of the minor characters like Keiichi's dorm-mates all look unique and you can tell every character in here has their own personality to them based on their looks, no two characters here look the same. I will admit though, I did funnily think that Aoshima looked like Harry Potter (sans the scar) if he were an anime character. The only minor nitpick I have with the art is that some of the sunny backgrounds have a lot of white in them to the point where they look unfinished or not colored in completely, but other than that this anime is one of the best to look at, I'd even hang a still frame of some of them on my wall. The endings are also all unique as they all have their own animations to them, I liked the ending animation with the super deformed/chibi versions of them best. In terms of fan service and such, there is a good amount, mostly in the second episode; Urd is seen posing in a sensual way when she first appears and has a skimpy swimsuit and cheerleader outfit in the third episode, and Belldandy is shown nude briefly when transforming into her goddess form in the final episode, but it's no worse than a naked Barbie. Sound (8/10): The voice acting is spectacular in this anime. Kikuko Inoue (Reika from Battle Skipper, Shiori from Voogie's Angel, Sailor Aluminum Siren from Sailor Moon Sailor Stars) practically IS Belldandy, she gives the goddess a lovely, sweet, angelic, maternal, practically perfect voice that is so beautiful and makes one charmed by her. I don't understand why some people think it isn't that great, this really is one of her best roles. Masami Kikuchi captures Keiichi's silly, but kind, friendly nature very well. Yumi Touma (Kisenian Flower from Sailor Moon R movie, Reiko Takagi from Graduation, Marriage and Sailor Victory) is perfectly cast as Urd, giving the second-class goddess a sultry, passionate voice that fits her character. Aya Hisakawa (Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury from the Sailor Moon franchise, Voogie from Voogie's Angel, Lisa from Bubblegum Crisis) captures Skuld's childish, bratty, yet likable characteristic. Other highlights of the cast are Junko Asami as Sayako, and Nobou Tobia (Kamille from Zeta Gundam) as Aoshima. All of the VAs in the Japanese versions are excellent, well cast and do a great job delivering their lines and becoming the characters they play as. I have not seen the English dub, but will update when I do. I've heard it's actually good. The opening and ending themes are excellent, being performed by the VAs of the three goddesses, but unfortunately the rest of the music is sadly forgettable. It isn't bad, but not particularly memorable. Character (8/10): The characters are where this anime also shines through, a lot of the characters, while they may seem stereotypical or just tropes, are more than just that, they all have their own unique personalities, grow over the course of this OVA and are mostly likable. Belldandy lives up to being a kind goddess, she is very kind, sweet, and caring for Keiichi, doing her best to help him out and be happy no matter what happens. She could be seen as too perfect by some people, but it's not in a horrible, bad way; she proves why she is such a lovable character and displays so much positive qualities and energy she's earned it. Keiichi may be clumsy and isn't always perfect, but he too tries to make sure Belldandy is always happy and shows that he loves her too. Urd (who in the manga tried to seduce Keiichi when she first met him) is impulsive and tries to come up with plans that don't usually succeed and meddles with things, but it's usually with good intentions and though she does anger easily she does soften up near the end. Skuld's dislike of Keiichi, childishness and clingy nature may annoy some people but I still found her funny and to be fair, she is a child and children tend to act out if they're feeling alone and she acts more caring towards Keiichi . She is basically the tech member of the goddesses, building inventions and using technology (kinda like Mercury). For some of the minor characters, Megumi, Keiichi's little sister, does act like a typical little sister but isn't as childish as Skuld is. Sayako is jealous of Belldandy, loving Keiichi himself but does change a bit towards the end, Aoshima is the typical cocky rival, and even Keiichi's dormmates are goofy, not the brightest bulbs but still likable, even after they kick him out of the dorm. Unfortunately some characters you see in the opening (the girl with the blond hair and Sora, the girl with the short brown hair and glasses) either don't appear in the OVA or have more minor roles Overall (9/10): This has become one of my favorite anime series and makes me glad I discovered this amazing romantic slice-of-life comedy. The story is romantic and charming, the art/animation are wonderful, the characters are charming, funny, and sweet, it doesn't overstay its welcome and you don't even have to read the manga in order to watch this great anime, it is another perfect way to introduce you to this story. If you want a great classic anime series, like anime with magical goddesses, romance, slice of life, comedy, or any of those, check this one out, you don't wanna miss out. If that's not the case, then stay away. Now to check out the movie and hope, or in this case, pray, that it will be great...
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 21, 2017
Seishoujo Kantai Virgin Fleet
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
"But you know...nobody believes in that Virgin Energy..."
Wow. Just wow. Besides one other anime, I don't think I've ever known what the definition of "bad anime"/"shitty anime" meant until I saw Virgin Fleet. Created by the same guy who brought us Sakura Wars, It is the second worst anime I've ever seen in my life besides Sailor Moon Crystal's first two seasons and Jungle de Ikou. How bad is it? Well, let's see: Story: The plot takes place in an alternate Pre World War II era where there is a naval academy for girls who are virgins that can unlease a power known as "Virgin Energy". It ... focuses on a girl named Shiokaze Umino trying to learn to unlock her energy whilst dealing with two jealous rivals Satsuki and Komachi, wanting to marry her boyfriend named Mau when she graduates, and the nation must prepare for war, resurrect the 36 Virgin Minstrels or whatever they are and deal with....gender conflicts, spies, and death. The concept of girls having their own powers from being a Virgin is stupid enough, but it gets worse. Being one of those 3 episode OVAs there's not much development in it, but no one would really care about the characters anyways, you'll see what I mean. There is not much of a story and it has a very conflicting tone starting from unfunny slapstick that wildly changes to tragic/seriousness way without much breathing time. And yes, the "humor" in here is extremely unfunny and mostly consists of the anime picking on and abusing poor old Mau, whether it has him getting his face stuck in his girlfriend's chest or him getting tied up and nearly contracting alcohol poisoning, but also has stuff like Wakamoto the Gaston lookalike at one point going all "HULK SMASH" after having a bunch of people fall on him. Does that sound like fun to you? Well, it gets worse. The way the characters are portrayed literally makes it feel like this anime was not written by Ohji Hiroi, but instead Anita Sarkeesian, Chanty Binx, Kevin Smith and Kathleen Kennedy. The males in this series are portrayed as blow hard, power hungry misogyntic assholes who constantly insult, disrespect and deman the female characters (even with a bunch of guys yelling "WOMEN CAN EAT SHIT"), especially characters General Tastugawa and the female characters are just as bad, being annoying idiots who are misandric to the male characters, even going so far as to have Komachi claim "men are the enemy" and assault Mau with rocks with the help of students she's brainwashed, and her and Satsuki trying to rig each others' planes to fail so they can get the 36 Minstrels spot and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....oh, I'm sorry, was I supposed to be awake and reviewing this? Does anything, any of this this sound even remotely interesting to you in the slightest? No? Well let's check the art/animation... Art/Animation This is just appalling. The art and animation are absolutely horrendous for a 1998 anime, an anime OVA, even for an AIC one. if one word could describe it in a nutshell, it would be ugly. The art is very rough looking and the characters mostly are poorly drawn, especially the girls, with generic looking hair styles, ugly looking faces, and the color schemes for them are tacky and don't bode well at all, with the exception of maybe Kohka and Nikola, and some of the character just all look the same because of matching colors and it can be hard to tell them apart sometimes. The guys aren't much better looking, especially with Tatsugawa, who looks like a poor man's Dr. Robotnix, making those creepy ass faces in episode 3, and Wakamoto looking like an uglier version of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. The animation is choppy and stilted, and though there are SOME moments that don't look bad and some of the backgrounds are alright looking, this anime obviously did not have a good budget at all and all three episodes suffer and look horrible. The only good art/animation thing I saw was when Mau pulled off a pissed off Chris Bores/Irate Gamer look, that was funny. But overall, it looks like a rough/first draft that didn't get checked over. If I hadn't looked up the date, I would have guessed that this anime came out in 1990 by some obscure no name studio, not by the same company that distributed/helped produce anime like the Tenchi Muyo and Ah My Goddess franchises, which came out five to six years before and looks far superior. Fail, fail fail. Sound This was seen in both the Japanese and English versions and I'm just going to state this: both versions sucked, though I'm not blaming the actors, more the terrible scripts the actors had to work with. Considering their role of talent they had for both versions that's just shocking. In the Japanese version, with the exception of Yoko Soumi as Nikola Paupilo and the wasted Mami Koyama as Kohka Hirose, the voice acting is just terrible or nothing to write home about with the seiyuu sounding like they're phoning it in. Sumi Shimamoto, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind herself (was she so desperate for voice work here?), is wasted as Shiokaze and doesn't have the charm of the warrior from Ghibli's film, Satsuki Yukino (Aquila Yuna from Saint Seiya Omega) sounds like she's doing a (very poor) Michie Tomizawa impression trying to voice the character with the same name as her and comes off more as utterly obnoxious, and Komachi, voiced by Chinami Nishimura (Saori from Battle Skipper, Reika/Cure Beauty from Smile Precure) is beyond annoying, with her screeching voice just being too obnoxious for words. Same applies to a lot of the other voices. While Yoko Soumi (Arachnea from the Yes Pretty Cure 5 series) and Mami Koyama (Shaina from Saint Seiya and Esmeraude from Sailor Moon R) put passion and effort into their roles, they, along with the other voices seem to just be doing it more for a job and Mami doesn't sound as good as she normally does in other anime she's voiced, must be because of said script. Norio Wakamoto, aka Cell from the Dragon Ball franchise and Kagato from the Tenchi Muyo franchise, is also terribly wasted as the unfunny comedic relief general who happens to share his actual surname. The English dub is also terrible, and a lot of the big name dub actors here weren't too good here, probably because they realized how shitty the script was. For some characters, Jessica Calvello (Honey Kisaragi/Cutey Honey from New Cutey Honey, Mink from Dragon Half) is not at her best here and makes Shiokaze sound too cutesy, irritating and her screeching grates on the ears, Megan Hollingshead (Mai from Yu-Gi-Oh!) is too old for Satsuki and makes her even more insufferable than she already is, Angora Deb (Jo Diamonds from Ja Ja Uma Quartet/Wild Cardz and Hikaru from Hyper Speed Grandoll) makes Komachi even more ear splitting. And one will recognize Crispin Freeman as Mau. He actually isn't that bad compared to the others (along with the other guys), but I haven't heard much of his other roles (sans Prince Justin from Howl's Moving Castle), so I don't know if he was at his best here. The other voices are nothing special also, Rhonda Ayres' Russian accent she gives Nikola also is pretty bad. The music is mostly terrible also, the music comes off as generic, forgettable and like they just played keys randomly and once something sounded like a song they released it. The best parts of the music are the opening song "Aitsu", performed by Sumi herself, which isn't too bad, and "Go! Virgin Fleet", sung by Sumi, Satsuki (the VA) and Chinami, which is catchy but sounds like a silly national anthem for a country of virgins, especially when you read the lyrics: "Cutting through the wild waves The Virgin Fleet goes forth Embracing the sea breeze, Go forth, go forth Into the great sea The blue of the sea And the salty red of blood Burns again today Proof that I'm alive It is a pledge The cheerful virgins go forth For you as you sing of love Raising our voices to the sky Let's sing, let's sing The song of love Go forth, go forth, higher and higher As we shout in victory The Virgin Fleet goes forth Catching the sea breeze Run, run With all of your force Tomorrow will surely bring calm seas As we wish for that We fight today With all our force Higher and higher the virgins go For you as you sing of love Raising our voices to the sky Let's sing, let's sing The song of love Let's sing, let's sing The song of love Go forth, go forth Higher and higher HEY!!" Anyways, enough with songs. Characters: These are some of the worst characters I've ever seen in an anime. Shiokaze is just a perfect Mary Sue character who's just as bad as Usagi from Sailor Moon Crystal, being very irresponsible and careless, skipping flight class and risking nearly getting expelled so she wouldn't be able to marry Mau, not taking her relationship with Mau seriously at all, and even skipping her eventual marriage to stop what is a dud bomb, rendering the whole thing pointless (plus one can still be married and a virgin), Satsuki (who comes off as a poor man's, or in this case, woman's, Rei/Sailor Mars) and Komachi being so annoying and irritating you just want to smack their faces, the generals being so irritating and unlikable you'd wanna beat them up, and you can tell how bad characterization is when you do not care if one dies or not. In fact, when Satsuki was actually killed by Nikola, I actually was happy and glad, see how bad that is? Some of the characters like Ise, the nurse, Mau's mother, Mari, and this guy in a top hat called "The Silk Hat" seem to just be in there for no reason at all whatsoever and contribute absolutely nothing. In fact, the only character who is worth a damn in this anime is that Russian woman Nikola. she kicks ass. She is cool. She's awesome. She deserves her own spin-off series. God, I love that yell of hers! Mau himself wasn't too bad though. At least he tried to take his relationship with Shiokaze seriously. Oh wait...they had Satsuki actually not "die", but instead live in one of the most stupidest ways ever trust me. Overall:If you are a fan of anime, avoid, avoid, avoid, AVOID. Whether you're a fan of magical girl, Sakura Wars, anime with planes or something, stay away. It makes the CD-I Zelda cutscenes look like an animated masterpiece from the 90's, and makes people from both genders look bad. In fact, the only people this failed anime possibly could appeal to are SJWs (I like to call those people Socially Jading Wankers) and rabid feminists like Kathleen Kennedy and Neil Drunkmann (surname purposefully misspelled), that's how bad it is. The only good thing to say is that fortunately this now has drifted into deserved obscurity, despite there being a manga it cannot be found unlike other obscure ones like Voogie's Angel, there was a crappy PSX game that no one seems to care about, and that's OK. Scarily enough though, it still does a "female empowerment" (if ANY) message better than Sailor Moon Crystal... If you want better anime with strong female characters/protagonists, look at Sailor Moon, Sakura Wars, Futari wa-Smile Precure, Bubblegum Crisis, Nausicaä, Kiki's Delivery Service, Kiki's Delivery Service, Children of the Sea, etc. This one though... if you see it anywhere, throw it into the ocean like Bennett the Sage did. You're not missing ANYTHING passing this one up. Trust me, while there are bad anime you'd want to get through no matter what, Virgin Fleet is one of those anime that make you wish you'd never touched an anime in your life. EVER. "I get it...this is war...war..." "What? Satsuki Yukimizawa is what...?" "No...NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" Eh, fuck off.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Aug 17, 2017
Sotsugyou: Graduation
(Anime)
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"Do something that you can do...before you try to find something you can do..."
Graduation, or Sotsugyou: Graduation, is a partially obscure two part OVA series based on a teaching simulator of the same name, which was released in 1993, whilst the OVA was made in January-February 1995, but it oddly was never released in the US. The game was about five schoolgirls named Reiko, Shizuka, Mami, Mika, and Kiyomi graduating from the Seika Girls' High School. The player played the role of a male high school teacher, where they'd have to try to raise statistics for each girl and be careful to make sure that ... they had a good balance between work and free time and that they don't flunk out, whilst also featuring stuff like the girls performing in plays and such. It apparently was successful as it spawned sequels, spin-offs, and of course an anime adaptation, which is what we'll be looking at here (Only its sequel, Marriage and a spinoff, Sailor Victory were released here, so only those who saw those two might want to see this). Story: Graduation is split into two episodes, both with different stories. In the first episode, the five girls, finished with their exams and currently on their post exam break, decide to spend it at a hot spring. On the way however, Mami, who seems very sad about something, gets lost and the others have to find her. Will the other girls find Mami and help her out, and what exactly is bothering the green haired goof? In the second episode, round about the time of graduation, the girls feel something is wrong with Reiko, which turns out to be that her businessman father wants her to marry a man from another business, and whilst Mika, Kiyomi, Mami and Shizuka have decided what they want to do in the future, Reiko has not and is stressed about it. What will happen when she meets the man, will her friends help her out, and will she be able to set her future, the step after graduating from high school? Both episodes are simple, slice of life stories, nothing spectacular, but still enjoyable. with decent pacing and use of subplots in between that hint at what the characters want to do (Mika for example wants to step up and become head of her father's cafe but had already sent in an application to be a physical education teacher), but the biggest flaws with this series is that they're only half an hour and this show is only two episodes. Why not make more? It would have helped with certain other flaws (which I'll mention below), and to be frank, if they could make so many Graduation games, why not make a Graduation anime series? We could see how the girls met, what their home lives are like, how they interact in school, and what they do when their time's off, going on vacation, celebrating holidays... It's a flaw I find with OVAs like this, why not make more than two episodes? These feel like the conclusion to an anime that was never aired. Despite that though, I enjoyed the stories, it might not have meant to be a deep, epic, exciting story like you'd see in anime like Sailor Moon, or Spirited Away, for example, just a simple story about students graduating. I also loved that "Jurassic Parlor" place Mami mentioned, I'm sure we all know what they were thinking... Art/Animation: The art and animation are 90's anime art, and may be considered dated by some people. However, it is actually beautiful, matching on par of what OVAs tend to look like (having higher budgets than TV show anime). The backgrounds are very pretty, detailed, brightly colored and a treat for the eyes, I especially liked the motorcyclist poster in Kiyomi's garage. The characters are also well drawn, sharp, and all have their own unique hairstyles and look good (though Kiyomi kinda looks like Rei/Sailor Mars from Sailor Moon) and the animation is fluid and smooth. Warning to some people who don't like fanservice, at the end of the first episode there is some partially graphic nudity with the girls in the hot springs. Sound/Music: (This was seen in Japanese with English subtitles as despite an English dub being mentioned, it is practically impossible to find) The voice acting in here was excellent, with each voice actor putting in great emotion for each character. Some famous seiyuu also took the spotlight here, with Hiromi Tsuru (Chameleon June/Mermaid Thetis from Saint Seiya, Bulma from the Dragon Ball franchise) as Kiyomi, Yumi Touma (En from Sailor Moon R and the Kisenian from the Sailor Moon R Movie) as Reiko, and especially Aya Hisakawa (Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury from the Sailor Moon franchise, Kero from Cardcaptor Sakura) as Shizuka (whose dream of being a vet is interesting considering Ami wanted to be a doctor). The music was good, beautiful, catchy, heartwarming, but felt a bit bittersweet, as graduating and having to leave your friends is a very conflicting time, it is good to move on your own path and achieve your goals, but it is very sad to leave your friends, and it may be hard for you to meet them again or come in contact with them... The ending song used here was nice, as all five girls sing about graduating, though it would have been nice to hear the original song from the original video game this is based on. Also the sound quality was pretty good. It was clear, not muffled or garbled. Characters: The characterization is more simple compared to other anime like Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Saint Seiya, or Yu-Gi-Oh!, but it is easy to tell what the characters' personalities are like and they do have characters. Kiyomi is sly, a bit cold, more reserved, and not interested in school, going so far as to skip it once. Shizuka is quiet and kind. Reiko is lady-like and tries to make things suit what she believes fit her. Mika is happy-go-lucky and always tries to help her friends, and Mami is an adorable goofball who refers to herself in third-person. The minor characters also have a bit of character; the fathers we see here are strict but want the best for their daughters. The problem with the characters though, is the writers chose to make this anime rely on plot over characters, so most of the characters don't undergo any development (which is the problem with the two episode format). The only character who really seemed to have any development here was Reiko as she talks about her problems with Takei, the guy she was asked to marry, and is then able to solve her problem. Shizuka unfortunately seemed to feel the least developed out of all of them, but she and Kiyomi did eventually develop and we saw more of what they were like in Marriage, the sequel to this OVA. And once again, I must bring this up, whilst the characters are entertaining here, why not just make a Graduation anime series, which would develop the characters, and then maybe place the two episodes at the end? Overall: Graduation is a decent, enjoyable anime and I liked it, though there are better anime out there with better stories and characters. With that said, I can only recommend this anime to certain anime fans: those who know what graduation is like, those who like schoolgirls, and those who like simple slice of life anime or OVAs like this. If you're interested in any of those types of anime or you came here after hearing of/seeing Sailor Victory or Marriage, then I'd recommend giving this a shot, otherwise, stay far, far away. "A separation will come to everyone, and there will be many more in the future. But the important thing is to remember the feelings of the moment, isn't it?"
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Nov 21, 2016 Recommended
I'm sure we all know by now that unfortunately Sailor Moon Crystal Seasons 1-2 were horrible, and unfortunately season 3 would be worse. However, that is not the case, and I would highly recommend people who dropped Sailor Moon Crystal to check out season III (if not, that's fine). Why? Well these are the reasons why Sailor Moon Crystal Season III, despite some hiccups, is the best season of Sailor Moon Crystal.
-The art and animation are far superior. The characters look more like their manga counterparts with a bit of the 90's anime version mixed in. The budget definitely is higher than the first two ... seasons. The proportions are better and they show more emotion. The animation is much more fluid for the most part, the CGI is gone completely from the transformations. They are so well done, if there were awards for "Best Magical Girl Transformations of the Year", these would win it. There are parts where the animation isn't so good and kinda choppy, but they are few and far in between, and mostly only happen. The monster designs for the Daimon are lame and stupid compared to S's, too, but the monster designs look far superior than in the first two seasons. -The story is extremely faithful to the Infinity arc, considered the best manga arc by fans, but in some ways, actually adds deviations that make it even better than the original manga version, like Moon having a reason to dive into Pharaoh 90 in the end. The only flaws are that it still has bit of the "1:1 adaptation" to it like the first two seasons, and the story does peter out at the end, but overall, it's not a bad story, but S has the advantage of being 38 episodes with character focus episodes in it whilst Crystal Season III has only 13 with little to no character focus episodes. -Better characterization. All of the characters, even the Inners, have hints of personalities to them, and can easily be recognized as their manga counterparts, even the Inners are done better and are slightly more useful, Usagi is far superior and actually cares about others, and the friendship with Chibi-Usa and Hotaru is executed perfectly, Chibi-Usa is far superior here in season 3 than in season 2. The only flaws with characterization of the Inners still don't develop and don't feel like they have much importance, their focus episodes don't really add anything to them and sometimes they're still useless, and Moon still feels a bit too perfect like she can do no wrong, the friendship between those five still feels a bit unbelievable, but they're still believable as characters, though once again, not as good as S. Unfortunately, two of the Outers are a bit less impressive. Sailor Uranus/Haruka, is too overplayed as if all the focus on the Outers goes to her, and Sailor Neptune/Michiru is too underplayed, just feels like she's "there", and doesn't feel like she has that much of a personality compared to her 90's counterpart, other than being Uranus' accessory, sadly this is another flaw the manga had, and it doesn't make their relationship beloved by fans believable in this version, showing unfortunately the manga's characterizations of them haven't aged well also. Also, that whole thing with the kiss was just plain wrong, and the Outers' behavior when we first see them make them look way worse than their 90's counterparts, who were wonderful characters despite their controversial tactics and cold behavior. Pluto and Saturn are used excellently though. Unfortunately, most of the villains aren't too impressive, still mostly bland and such, and some are just unlikable compared to other versions, like Professor Tomoe, who instead of being the crazy, goofy, hilarious, insane mad scientist guy in S, was just a standard, typical mad scientist who unfortunately was an abusive, cold hearted monster. The only villains I really liked were Pharaoh 90 himself, Mistress 9 (who was also slightly creepy with those googly eyes of hers, and her true form was freaky), Kaorinite, and Vilyui, the latter whom they made much more intelligent than in the other two versions, I'll give props for that. Most of the themes/music are pretty good, I love all three versions of the new theme song and the first and third endings, Eternal Eternity I'd even say is a modern music masterpiece. Unfortunately, Chibi-Usa's theme song, which would more fit the Dream arc, if we get it, or the Black Moon arc, is terrible. The voice acting is good as always, and props to Junko Minagawa for a practically perfect duplicate of Uranus' original voice (and adding a wonderful touch of masculinity to "Eternal Eternity"...), never before have I heard a perfect imitation of her voice, the only other close ones would be Hisako Kanemoto as Mercury and Ai Maeda as Sailor Pluto. Kotono does a better job as Usagi, Shizuka Itoh is good as Venus, Rina Sato decent as Mars, Ami Kochimizu OK as Jupiter (Neptune and Saturn, though I forgot who voiced them were good too), but I cannot stand Misato Fukuen's take on Chibi Moon, she sounds really miscast and whenever she shouts Chibi Moon's transformation and attack name, it sounds weird and odd, she sounds more like a middle aged woman trying to imitate a 7 year old. Despite the flaws that this series has, the good points far outweigh it and gives hope that we will get more seasons, it captures a lot of the original charms that made the original manga and anime so great and beloved, Toei put a great amount of effort into this. I'm excited for the Dead Moon arc, which was the best manga arc, better than the Infinity manga arc and the original SuperS, the worst arc of the original anime. Sailor Moon Crystal Season III, which was a beacon of hope like Usagi/Sailor Moon in there, isn't as great as the original Sailor Moon S, but it is still an amazing modern day Sailor Moon anime/show, and I give it a 7/10 or 7.5/10, count it as the true first season of Crystal, and can highly recommend it. I'm sure Naoko would have loved this one, and I think both Infinity arc anime series will stand the test of time. I still can't recommend Crystal as a whole though, with two horrible seasons being followed by only one excellent third season. I cannot wait for the fourth season of Crystal though, and I hope it's just as great, if not better. Story: 6/10 (More faithful to the manga and improves upon it in parts but still suffers from the storytelling flaws that seasons 1-2 had, unfortunately even the Infinity arc in the manga didn't age too well) Art/Animation: 9/10 (Some of the best art/animation I've seen in a Sailor Moon anime/modern day anime, albeit it looking sloppy and rushed towards the end or the animation being choppy from time to time, and oddly the Blu-Rays aren't fixing it this time) Sound: 7/10 (Still uses the same generic music as the original, but it's improved. Voice acting is good all around mostly, minus Chibi Moon...) Character: 5/10 (Better than the first two seasons but the characterization is still mediocre and partially bland for all of the characters especially with the Inners, Uranus and Neptune here) Enjoyment: 7/10 (Despite its ups, downs, and disappointing finale, I still enjoyed this series and I'm willing to rewatch it again unlike seasons 1-2 of Crystal, though it still can't top Sailor Moon S) Overall: 7/10 (A good, enjoyable modern day Sailor Moon anime. If you want to see a Sailor Moon anime in this day and age, watch this season only)
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Nov 21, 2016 Not Recommended Preliminary
(20/26 eps)
Sailor Moon Crystal, as we all know, is a reboot of the original popular and successful Sailor Moon anime that deserves praise as one of the best anime series ever made, whatever flaws it has, along with the manga that is said to be one of the best manga series ever made. This adaptation is said to be more closer to Naoko Takeuchi's original manga and is an awesome series....or is it? Well, here's what I think.
Unfortunately the first two seasons of this anime are nothing short of a complete disaster, a complete insult to Naoko Takeuchi and the Sailor Moon franchise (anime/manga), and fail ... to capture the charm of the original anime and manga. Why? Let me tell you why this is the WORST version of Sailor Moon that has ever been created: - The art and animation are abysmal, hopelessly bad. One of the things that attracted people to the original manga and anime was its beautiful, gorgeous, charming, and cute artwork (and the anime had mostly fluid animation despite its repeated use of stock footage in episodes, the original anime did have a limited budget. Some people say the original was a "generic moe" style, but I say it was a shoujo style too). While most of the backgrounds are a step up from the original anime series, particularly places like Crystal Tokyo and Juuban City, the characters and the animation are not. The characters, which are supposed to look more like Naoko's wonderful drawings, look nothing like them and are just poorly drawn. The art looks extremely sketchy, the characters are off model looking for practically most of the series, with their faces and eyes constantly changing and expressing no believable emotions. Their eyes even get misaligned at times and proportions are extremely off, and for some reason all of the girls, even little Chibi-Usa have this weird lip gloss that makes them look terrible. The animation is also very stiff, choppy, and jerky, and animation errors in coloring and anatomy constantly about, it's a mess. It's sad that the first two seasons of modern anime, which had a lower budget than the original and took two to three weeks to produce, look worse than the original anime, which was low budget and only took one week, the original didn't even look like it was a low budget one done in a week! Also, the Blu-Rays of the show most of the time would look even worse than the original web version, and sometimes add in more errors that the web never had. Some of the backgrounds also, particularly apocalyptic Crystal Tokyo and the Dark Kingdom also, and a lot of the battles during backgrounds, are also filled with monochromatic, dull, flat colors that suck the life out of the series, compared to how the original anime had a good balance between bright, shiny colors and dark, dull colors. And don't even get me started on the CGI transformations...my God, they were terrible, horrible models, unnatural sloppy animation that makes me feel nauseous, the dark blue silhouettes of the characters (and Mercury's pinkish one) don't go well with the backgrounds, and with cheap, terrible effects, Mercury's CGI one is a perfect example how not to do one. And when they get to the second arc, they took the lazy route and only changed the brooch and pens of the Sailors to try to fool the viewer into thinking the transformation was different, at least Toei in the 90's did different backgrounds/animations and colored the Sailors' bodies differently for each power-up. Some scenes in the manga that were epic fall flat in Crystal due to how it is presented also, like the Double Moon Princess Halation, which was ruined due to Moon and Chibi Moon being drawn poorly and the animation being jerky. I'm sorry also, but character designer Yukie Sato is also one of the worst artists I've ever seen, her artwork most of the time is just completely lifeless and like she just drew everything in one shot, one sketch. - The pacing of the story/adaptation of the manga is terrible. This show brings in a flaw of the manga that the original anime improved upon despite its great amount of filler episodes: the pacing of the story is too fast. The story rushes by so quick it feels really rushed and no one will be able to relate to or get interested in any of the characters (which will be explained in a bit). Being too close to the manga as a shot by shot episode more hurts the series rather than benefiting it and even brings up flaws that never were discovered before, like for example, why even give the Inner Senshi Star Power wands if Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter, three of them, are going to be captured for most of the arc? While some people may not be bothered too much by there being no filler, the problem is that the lack of it bites the show in its behind by making the characters seem uninteresting them and not even developing most of, if not all of them, one of the reasons why the original anime was better than the manga (though I still do like the manga) was because the characters were fleshed out over each season, sure there may have been filler in the original that did go out of control (SuperS) but a lot of them were character focus episodes that helped us like some of the most famous characters in anime. The Inner/Outer Senshi not developing was the biggest flaw the manga had. And as if that isn't bad enough, the show isn't even faithful to the manga at all, they are constantly adding deviations to the show that make it veer away from the source material to the point where it doesn't even capture the tone of it. Certain examples are making Ami get hypnotized by that evil disk when she wasn't in the manga, and having Usagi have to free her by saying Ami is her friend although they've just met, and Sailor Moon revealing her identity to Rei in her episode. One definitely big no-no was a scene where it looked like Usagi was trying to pull away from Mamoru whilst he gave her a kiss, as though he forced a kiss on her, when all he did in the manga was just kiss her tenderly. And the less said about the Four Generals trainwreck which I'm sure we all know about and Sailor Venus' big moment being ruined, (both of which were also added into the show) the better, which leads to the second biggest elephant in the room next to the artwork: - Horrendous characterization. It's been said that Crystal "humanized the characters and fleshed them out unlike the 90's anime", and that the characters' feelings were "deeper than the 90's anime." Seriously? No, really, did we see the same show? No, we haven't, or rather, we didn't see both shows the same way. Another great reason that Sailor Moon was popular with people all around the world were its characters, and they are not done justice here at all, having some of the worst characterization I've ever seen. Usagi/Sailor Moon (who was a klutzy crybaby but also a very kind hearted, caring, and later more mature person in the manga and original anime) in Sailor Moon Crystal is a complete immature Mary Sue who only cares about her lover Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru, just abandons her friends a lot of the time during important parts, is extremely irresponsible and a pathetic fighter, as she runs away from her duties, cries for help when only her arm is grabbed once, commits suicide just so she can be with her dead boyfriend, always has to rely on Mamoru to protect her, and just gets everything she wants in the end. Don't get me started on how she gets jealous of Chibi-Usa when she wants to stay at Mamoru's house as she's scared and she thinks the little girl's gonna steal her boyfriend! She doesn't even mature nor develop here at all, that whole thing with Usagi claiming "Chibi-Usa is another woman to Mamoru" makes her dumber in here than she even was in the original anime (which she wasn't terribly dumb there) and to be honest, she's a bit too perfect in her manga counterpart too, and her maturing there doesn't feel all that realistic, but it's nowhere near as annoying as in Crystal. Also, Kotono Mitsuishi, her original VA, seems to be too old to do the role now, as her acting actually sounds painfully strained at points, mostly when she's yelling names like "MERCURYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!", I literally cringed hearing that. Mamoru/Tuxedo Mask, is pretty much similar to Usagi as he's pretty much just a Gary Stu, he always talks nice to her after the first few episodes, never says anything mean, more like just a fantasy dream of a perfect man, when no one is ever perfect. He is also a creep at times, considering the aforementioned forced kissing and one scene where he claims Usagi opened up her friends' hearts when we're wondering, how the heck did he know that??? He and Moon are the only two who really matter here. Not to mention him turning evil again in the Black Moon arc was stupid (and don't get me started on that disgusting kiss, romantically kissing his own daughter! Yuck!). Sure, Mamoru acted like an idiot in that whole "break-up" thing in the original anime, but at least it showed he was only human and we all make stupid mistakes. The Inner Senshi, Ami/Sailor Mercury, Rei/Sailor Mars, Makoto/Sailor Jupiter, and Minako/Sailor Venus got the worst treatment here. They are given no personalities and characters whatsoever, are treated like crap, and are completely useless 98% of the time in battle. In battle, they are extremely weak, their attacks most of the time do not work outside of their introductory episodes, they get knocked out or down, and can't get up. While the original anime versions of the Inners were better, and they were more useful in battle there, even with some personality changes, in the manga the characters still showed bits of personality and all helped out in ways to shine, and all had interactions, whilst in Crystal, most of their accomplishments were either ignored or just given to Sailor Moon just so she could steal the spotlight. Their "friendship" with Usagi also is fake as they only exist to say how "wonderful" Usagi is whilst Usagi just leaves them for her Mamoru, and they are all completely interchangeable regardless of their Sailor Soldier Suit colors, Mercury could say something Jupiter was supposed to say, or the four of them could be deleted from the series entirely and nothing would change in the slightest. Also considering they give up and let themselves get attacked by their four bland and uninteresting lovers during that Four Generals trainwreck... When you have a series with a theme song boasting lyrics such as "We will fight on our own without leaving our destiny to the prince" and "We are not helpless girls that need men's protection" and the show shows the exact opposite, it's clear something really went wrong. In other words, Crystal is sexist. In the original anime, the Inners were far better used, were more useful in battle and stronger, had great importance in Classic-S, and even partially in Stars, though they were only shafted to the side in SuperS. They had their own focus episodes that developed them and fleshed them out, and they all got to shine in battles with their own tactics. In Crystal, the Inners have no importance whatsoever, and are really underused. In fact, I'm starting to think Toei made the Inners useless on purpose in Crystal as a stupid excuse for failing to come up with ways to make their characters interesting or develop them. Other character wise, Chibi-Usa is just boring in season 2, and Luna, Artemis and Diana are just there. All the villains are bland with no personality whatsoever, and unlike how in the anime some of the got fleshed out and even redeemed in a good way, here a lot of them are just killed off before one can find them interesting. A lot of the final villains look very stupid too, like with Queen Metallia just being a purple CGI blob who wants to take over Earth because who knows why. Oh wait, we're never told. Some were just as bad as their manga counterparts like Prince Diamond, my God I HATED him in the manga. The music is also just boring and unmemorable, just generic chorus music a whole lot of the time that doesn't really hold any interest. Moon Pride is good, but its lyrics end up turning out to be a lie, and Moonbow is forgettable. The only music track I really loved was "The Bonds of Love", a pretty piano and violin piece. There are some good parts to Crystal though, like the voice acting, which is mostly decent to very good, despite the bad animation, the Sailor V game looks better than the original anime's, and Sailor Pluto had a far better role, plus her death was done very well and was sad, but these are so few and far in between they may as well not even be there. And even the voice acting itself is hit and miss; Kenji Nojima does an excellent job as Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru, but Usagi/Sailor Moon herself sounds too old, sadly Kotono Mitsuishi sounds old. They got Hisako Kanemoto (Cure Peace from Smile Precure) and Ami Kochimizu (Cure Melody from Suite Precure) to do Sailors Mercury and Jupiter/Ami Mizuno and Makoto Kino but their performances feel very sub-par compared to their previous roles; Mercury is decent but Jupiter's voice doesn't fit her character here. Rina Sato is fine as Rei/Sailor Mars, but Shizuka Itoh sounds too young for Sailor Venus/Minako (same thing with Ryo Hirohashi as Luna). Overall, despite its merchandise sales (mostly consisting of newer merchandise with the old anime version) the first two seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal were a huge flop and nearly killed the Sailor Moon franchise. It was all done just so money could be made, and the people at Toei Animation at the time couldn't give a darn if it was good or not. I would give it a 1/10 or 0/10 (this gets a 1 because unfortunately there is no number 0 option), and would even go so far as to call the two seasons the worst magical girl anime of all time. Naoko Takeuchi, who unfortunately doesn't seem to like her manga anymore (as she was disappointed in parts with it when it came out) most likely would not approve of this one. Thank goodness director Munehisa Sakai and art designer Yukie Sato left. Season III is much better than Seasons 1 and 2 though. I shall review it very soon, but until then, skip the first two seasons of Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal. You're not missing anything by skipping out on those, which as time passes, may end up drifting into obscurity and end up being forgotten, possibly for good reason. Story: 1/10 (Too close to the manga, yet at the same time, not even faithful to it due to stupid deviations and additions, and ends up sexist instead of female empowering) Art/Animation: 1/10 (Horrible quality art and animation, to the point where it looks like an unlicensed piece of garbage anime) Sound: 2/10 (Voice acting is mostly OK but the music is mostly terrible and forgettable). Character: 1/10 (Just pathetic. Only Sailor Pluto is a good character, along with Usagi's parents. Usagi is a whiny love makes you dumb Mary Sue who is obsessed with Mamoru, who is basically just like Edward from Twilight, the Inner Senshi may as well not even be in here at all as "background character" doesn't sound like a strong enough term to describe them, boring Chibi-Usa, bland uninteresting villains, to the point where I don't even care about anyone in this series) Enjoyment: 1/10 (I hated this with a burning passion and I can't even say anything good about it, in fact, it's making me wonder how I could have even enjoyed the manga version and the manga hasn't aged well) Overall: 1/10 (The worst version of Sailor Moon, and one of the worst TV shows/the worst anime I've ever seen in my life)
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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