30 Day Sailor Moon meme...Day 21
Mar. 21st, 2011 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteOkay, so I'm a few hours late for this one, too, but you wouldn't know it by my backdating technique...! But I feel compelled to be honest. What can I say, I was distracted by good food, a hot man, and anime! A wonderful combination, if I do say so myself.
Once again, this thought-provoking post is brought to you by the amazing Frizzy of Sailor Failures.
This immediately assumes knowledge of both the anime or Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, and at least one other form of canon--either the musicals (Sera Myu) or the original manga.
Since I'm running on the assumption that this is referring to the anime, I'll go with the other form of canon I know best: the manga.
In previous posts, I've referenced some of the differences between the anime and the manga. While there are a lot, the general "gist" of the series tends to be the same. We see all of the same characters, and the anime even introduces new ones. The anime changes SOME things about how arcs run, mainly because they had to be stretched out longer.
So, for those things that they cut or made shorter or outright changed for some reason, what's the ONE thing I wish they had kept? Hmm, well, here's my shortlist:
* Sailor Cosmos -- this would involve Galaxia not having been the one to have sent HER star seed to Earth to become Chibi Chibi and stay by Usagi's side. Or they could have introduced Cosmos as an entirely new character--the original form of Galaxia, before she was corrupted by Chaos. Think about it: Cosmos and Chaos! Light and Dark! Good and Evil! Instead of being the final form of Sailor Moon herself, Cosmos would be Galaxia's Star Seed at maximum power, without the corruption of Chaos!
But the problem with that is that Usagi in the anime and Usagi in the manga deal with the final battle very differently: in the manga, Usagi makes the ultimate sacrifice willingly, but only after she's faced an incredible amount of grief. In the anime, Usagi stubbornly clings to her "all are good, all deserve to be saved," even after seeing Galaxia more or less kill all of her friends. True, both methods end up bringing Galaxia back around, but it was Galaxia in the manga who didn't deserve it, because she WANTED the power of chaos from the beginning, and sought to be the most powerful from the get-go (she disappeared forever, while Galaxia of the anime was "healed," like almost all great Sailor Moon villains).
At the end of the manga, we see the birth of Crystal Tokyo and the "it's about damn time!" wedding between Usagi/Serenity and Mamoru/Endymion. In the end of the anime, Usagi narrates: "My name is Usagi Tsukino. I'm age 16, and a bit of a crybaby. And I'm also the champion of love and justice, Sailor Moon." Or something like that. She kisses Mamoru (who's returned to life because his Star Seed--the not-mentioned-as-being-the-same-as-last-season's-MacGuffin, the all-important Golden Crystal--was given back to him after Galaxia was "healed" and Chaos was...I don't know? Destroyed? Put back into the hearts of everyone, everywhere? It's hard to say with the anime...) under a full moon, and that's it, end of series. We have no idea how she goes from that point to becoming Neo-Queen Serenity and Crystal Tokyo forming or any of that. But it does leave more room for speculation....
* Sailor Crystals -- While we saw lots and lots of Star Seeds and they were considered Very Important in the anime, we never had any of them explained as ALSO being Sailor Crystals, the things that separate regular Star Seeds from those of ordinary people. It doesn't seem fair that ordinary people's Star Seeds fade, but a "true Star Seed" is basically a Sailor Crystal without saying so--as if only Sailor Senshi have light/good/power in their hearts. But if you explain it as "we're looking for the most powerful Star Seed, which is a Sailor Crystal," then it makes sense that all the other Star Seeds--especially those of faux Senshi--go dark, because they don't match up with what the Animamates and Galaxia are looking for!
These are also the reason why we learn there have been "Sailor Wars" going on for a very long time, and that there are way more Senshi than just the ones on Earth/from the Sol System and even the Starlights--there were all the Senshi whom the Animamates got their powers from, like the never-seen Sailor Mermaid (from the planet where Aluminum Seiren was from), Sailor Coronis (from the same planet as Mars' crows, Phobos and Deimos, but also Lead Crow), Sailor Mau (from the same planet as Luna and Artemis), and others! And the musical added even more Senshi...it would have been cool to see them at least referenced, like they were in the manga.
And as for other senshi we actually SAW in the manga, but not the anime? What about the "Star" forms of the Senshi, or the Sailor Quartet? The Amazon Quartet got healed in the anime, same as the manga, but in the manga, they ended up being Sailor Senshi! Why that got changed, I have no idea...it would have been cool for Chibiusa to get the "ending which is a new beginning" she deserved, especially after the rigamarole SuperS put her through. That said...
* The Sailor Quartet! And if not them, then Heavy Metal Papillon, who would have been the most frightening Animamate after Phi and Chi. Oh, and Sailor Kakyuu, too!
I think what I would have liked to the most was a more true-to-manga version of Stars. When I was younger, I appreciated the differences, but a lot of those differences are downright screwy and you do have to wonder why they changed them so drastically for the anime.
I hope that the September re-release of the manga means Funimation or another fantastic anime dubbing company will take the helm of the Sailor Moon anime once more, and maybe we'll get some awesome DVDs with special features that might answer some of these questions...or not! Hey, fan meta exists for a reason, right?
Once again, this thought-provoking post is brought to you by the amazing Frizzy of Sailor Failures.
This immediately assumes knowledge of both the anime or Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, and at least one other form of canon--either the musicals (Sera Myu) or the original manga.
Since I'm running on the assumption that this is referring to the anime, I'll go with the other form of canon I know best: the manga.
In previous posts, I've referenced some of the differences between the anime and the manga. While there are a lot, the general "gist" of the series tends to be the same. We see all of the same characters, and the anime even introduces new ones. The anime changes SOME things about how arcs run, mainly because they had to be stretched out longer.
So, for those things that they cut or made shorter or outright changed for some reason, what's the ONE thing I wish they had kept? Hmm, well, here's my shortlist:
* Sailor Cosmos -- this would involve Galaxia not having been the one to have sent HER star seed to Earth to become Chibi Chibi and stay by Usagi's side. Or they could have introduced Cosmos as an entirely new character--the original form of Galaxia, before she was corrupted by Chaos. Think about it: Cosmos and Chaos! Light and Dark! Good and Evil! Instead of being the final form of Sailor Moon herself, Cosmos would be Galaxia's Star Seed at maximum power, without the corruption of Chaos!
But the problem with that is that Usagi in the anime and Usagi in the manga deal with the final battle very differently: in the manga, Usagi makes the ultimate sacrifice willingly, but only after she's faced an incredible amount of grief. In the anime, Usagi stubbornly clings to her "all are good, all deserve to be saved," even after seeing Galaxia more or less kill all of her friends. True, both methods end up bringing Galaxia back around, but it was Galaxia in the manga who didn't deserve it, because she WANTED the power of chaos from the beginning, and sought to be the most powerful from the get-go (she disappeared forever, while Galaxia of the anime was "healed," like almost all great Sailor Moon villains).
At the end of the manga, we see the birth of Crystal Tokyo and the "it's about damn time!" wedding between Usagi/Serenity and Mamoru/Endymion. In the end of the anime, Usagi narrates: "My name is Usagi Tsukino. I'm age 16, and a bit of a crybaby. And I'm also the champion of love and justice, Sailor Moon." Or something like that. She kisses Mamoru (who's returned to life because his Star Seed--the not-mentioned-as-being-the-same-as-last-season's-MacGuffin, the all-important Golden Crystal--was given back to him after Galaxia was "healed" and Chaos was...I don't know? Destroyed? Put back into the hearts of everyone, everywhere? It's hard to say with the anime...) under a full moon, and that's it, end of series. We have no idea how she goes from that point to becoming Neo-Queen Serenity and Crystal Tokyo forming or any of that. But it does leave more room for speculation....
* Sailor Crystals -- While we saw lots and lots of Star Seeds and they were considered Very Important in the anime, we never had any of them explained as ALSO being Sailor Crystals, the things that separate regular Star Seeds from those of ordinary people. It doesn't seem fair that ordinary people's Star Seeds fade, but a "true Star Seed" is basically a Sailor Crystal without saying so--as if only Sailor Senshi have light/good/power in their hearts. But if you explain it as "we're looking for the most powerful Star Seed, which is a Sailor Crystal," then it makes sense that all the other Star Seeds--especially those of faux Senshi--go dark, because they don't match up with what the Animamates and Galaxia are looking for!
These are also the reason why we learn there have been "Sailor Wars" going on for a very long time, and that there are way more Senshi than just the ones on Earth/from the Sol System and even the Starlights--there were all the Senshi whom the Animamates got their powers from, like the never-seen Sailor Mermaid (from the planet where Aluminum Seiren was from), Sailor Coronis (from the same planet as Mars' crows, Phobos and Deimos, but also Lead Crow), Sailor Mau (from the same planet as Luna and Artemis), and others! And the musical added even more Senshi...it would have been cool to see them at least referenced, like they were in the manga.
And as for other senshi we actually SAW in the manga, but not the anime? What about the "Star" forms of the Senshi, or the Sailor Quartet? The Amazon Quartet got healed in the anime, same as the manga, but in the manga, they ended up being Sailor Senshi! Why that got changed, I have no idea...it would have been cool for Chibiusa to get the "ending which is a new beginning" she deserved, especially after the rigamarole SuperS put her through. That said...
* The Sailor Quartet! And if not them, then Heavy Metal Papillon, who would have been the most frightening Animamate after Phi and Chi. Oh, and Sailor Kakyuu, too!
I think what I would have liked to the most was a more true-to-manga version of Stars. When I was younger, I appreciated the differences, but a lot of those differences are downright screwy and you do have to wonder why they changed them so drastically for the anime.
I hope that the September re-release of the manga means Funimation or another fantastic anime dubbing company will take the helm of the Sailor Moon anime once more, and maybe we'll get some awesome DVDs with special features that might answer some of these questions...or not! Hey, fan meta exists for a reason, right?
