Initial thoughts on Crystal Act 9

• I completely don’t dig the whole first part being all Mamoru’s point of view. It felt very stretched out and I think it weakened the impact of Usagi’s reaction. (Pacing wise it’s an odd choice not to have the break to Moon Pride happen the moment Usagi’s tiara breaks to reveal the crescent moon, I mean come on that’s a gimme)
• But I’m madly in love with the SilMil flashbacks (even though some of the animation choices were pretty terrible, but holy crap did the music make up for that). I’m LOVING that they have Endymion trying to stop things ON EARTH. Like, he’s so terribly misguided why would you bring your moon girlfriend here why would you think that would help but it’s SO in character it’s perfect.
• The shot of the Silver Crystal making the flowers grow had me crying it was just amazing
• Kunzite not remembering/refusing to acknowledge anything has me intensely interested. I don’t think a lot of what Crystal is doing with the Shitennou is working, but I wanna know what’s going on with Kunzite.
• I was really disappointed Venus didn’t have her heartbreaking sad face from the manga as she admitted she wasn’t the princess. But then she started crying with Serenity and I broke a little.
• I can’t decide on whether I think this episode did a better job with the senshi than Crystal has been doing. On the one hand, the “Usagi/Serenity always cheers us up we need her smile” came off as SUPER CREEPY AND SELFISH to me. It might be a translation error (please let it be a translation error), but there’s a huge difference between “I don’t want you to be sad” and “I need you to not be sad so I can be happy.” BUT there were moments where I felt personalities started to shine through (mostly Minako (they do a pretty consistently good job with Minako, at least) and Ami, but Rei had a moment where she was almost Rei too). I’m really hoping with Mamoru out of the picture for a little bit we’ll get more focus on them and Crystal will find its feet. 
• The hair scene was great but I’m a sucker for hair scenes.
• Placing bets now that the blue ray/dvd version adds the cute plaid to Usagi’s top.