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.
Crystal vs. Manga: Why the ways Crystal is different aren’t working for me
Preface before the cut: I never wanted an anime exactly like the manga, that’s not what I hope to say here. But right now, I think Crystal would be better if it hadn’t changed anything major (and better if it had changed *more*).
The biggest problem I and many other people have with Crystal right now is how the senshi’s power levels are coming across. The attacks are amazing, and it’s great that the senshi can kill monsters, unlike in the first anime, but it’s not enough.
It’s a problem that builds up, and I didn’t think much of it until episode 6, but I think its beginnings are in episode three. Yes, when Rei fails to kill Jaeditie.
I’m cool with the Shitennou being kept alive for more of the story. There are a lot of cool places Crystal writers can go with that. But there’s no reason Jaedite survives in Crystal when he doesn’t in the manga. He’s in a terrible inferno. Usagi’s tiara still gets destroyed. He teleports out, by why can he do that? Why doesn’t he burn right away? Now, if his clothes had started to burn and then Usagi’s tiara broke from the heat and then he teleported away, it’d be easier to swallow. Individually their powers would be strong, but they have to figure out how to use them together still.
But as it is, the writers changed nothing except Jaedite dying. (And there are so many ways around that. Have him run away before getting caught in the flames. Show Beryl interfering with magic because this is her turf and she’s powerful here. Have Zoicite tackle Jaedite out of the way to save him. ANYTHING but just “well, he survived.”)
And this is, I think, one of the big problems. Nothing is changed except the single plot point they want to change.
Which means there’s no sense of each Shitennou being stronger than the last, because they all survive. The manga gives a sense that part of why Kunzite and Zoicite are so powerful compared to Nephrite and Jaedite is because they’re enraged by their deaths. The end result is the same as in Crystal– the senshi have a hard time taking them down– but it means a lot more in the manga.
Plus there’s the bonus that Zoicite, at least, is a little scared of the senshi:
Zoicite is a smart fucker who wants to live to see another day. He knows they can probably kill him, so he’s biding his time.
But Crystal decided to have a battle instead of this moment. Which, you know, I like battles. There were some epic attacks in that battle. But the senshi couldn’t actually do anything to Zoicite, because nothing happens to Zoicite in this manga chapter (yet Usagi still hurt him some, puzzle that out for me).
So this is our first big instance of the senshi seeming weak. And it weakens Zoicite’s character, too (nothing has made me appreciate what characterization the manga does have like Crystal has). Zoicite is sneaky. He’s not a man for the ideal of honor. He’ll run away if he thinks that’s the best way to survive.
And then Act 7. Oh, Act 7.
It boils down to the same thing, changing one thing without changing enough around it. They want Mamoru to be able to do something. But they keep the senshi unable to do anything (and they make it worse, by having all of them present, when Mercury was in the control room in the manga). Mamoru doesn’t save Usagi, Minako does, but it changes the power hierarchy. Instead of just Minako being more powerful than the other senshi, which makes sense with her experience, Mamoru is now between Minako and the rest.
And then worse, the senshi are down for much longer in Crystal. In the manga, there are seven pages (not counting the opening art of Act 8) between when they get knocked down and when they’re on their feet in awe of Venus. (And they may get up before that off screen). The manga has the distinction of having them look knocked down, rather than out.
Compare:
Makoto already looks like she’s trying to get back up (and probably can’t right away because she’s in pain from being thrown onto the ground, but still).
They look dead. There’s no power here. Rei’s pose is very similar to the manga, but in the manga she’s making a fist. She’s not done fighting, dammit. But Crystal senshi are.
And then there’s the weird long Usagi-Zoicite-Mamoru scene that’s been picked apart by countless people already so I won’t touch it.
So we come to episode 8. Episode 8 got Minako, don’t get me wrong. But even Minako cannot escape Crystal’s under powering.
And Crystal went about this in such a weird way, when comparing it to the manga. I initially loved the idea of Minako going to Tokyo Tower alone because she’s posing as the princess. But then it turned into an excuse to have her almost defeated by Kunzite. (And Minako trying to reason with Kunzite? I don’t care if you’re pushing Senshi/Shitennou Minako isn’t the one to pull that with, Venus characteristically puts duty over love).
They also take away the who’s protecting who tension, which ends up making Minako seem less competent.
Instead of this moment:
We just get Sailor Moon leaping in front of their bubble after her fall and planning on taking Kunzite’s attack for no stated reason. We don’t get Venus’s panicked attempt to get the others to protect Sailor Moon instead of her. We get one shout. That’s it.
So all the things Crystal is changing? They could work, but only if they changed more. Right now they’re just making things make less sense and the senshi seem less powerful and less competent.
(Since this is so long anyway, I’m not going to go into character. But I might make another Manga vs. Crystal post for that).
Okay, but flailing aside, I really really hope that Crystal elaborates on this more, because this feels very much like they’re drawing on PGSM, and that just doesn’t work in the manga timeframe.
BUT they seem to get Minako, at least, so I’m hopeful.
I mean god look at Artemis trying to convince her she doesn’t have to be alone anymore. She has people to rely on. But Minako remembers the Silver Millenium, and even if they all did she’d have a hard time joining the group. Because in her eyes, that fall of the Silver Millenium? Venus’s fault. She was the leader of the senshi, and she didn’t save the princess, or the kingdom, or anything. And only Minako can make that different this time.
So. My problem with this episode (and what’s shaping into my problem with Crystal as a whole).
So, in the manga, there’s not that giant interlude of Tuxedo Mask trying to fight Zoicite. He can’t even get to the fight because of a barrier. And clearly Crystal had some time to fill, as this is a fast paced chapter, and they chose to fill it by having that super pointless fight.
Which is a bad choice in my eyes for a lot of reasons.
Like, okay, let’s say they want to keep the focus on UsaMamo, since that seems to be what Crystal wants to do. You know what would have been interesting? IF TUXEDO MASK COULD NOT HELP USAGI AT ALL AND HAD TO DEAL WITH THAT. Like there are so many ways that could be interesting. He could feel super helpless. He could bash himself against the barrier screaming her name. He could have a hint of a flashback to the fact that he (via their relationship) essentially caused the downfall of her kingdom and her death. And then we could switch to Usagi seeing him, and not wanting to die with him thinking it’s his fault (and then we could have her also think about the others, but that’s a different nitpick). But like, it could have done SO MUCH to actually establish his character beyond the frankly creepy stuff Crystal has been having him do.
(The moment where he stops her to give her his bag did not work for me here. It did in the manga, but the pacing felt super off and too slow to be cute here.)
And if they didn’t want to go that route for whatever reason, THEY COULD GIVE MORE TIME TO THE INNERS. The really puzzling thing to me is that Crystal!Inners have less personality than their manga counterparts, and Crystal keeps choosing to not do anything about it. And it bother me because there’s so many scenes that are slower paced than they need to be (see the scene in Mamoru’s room, where there’s just so many empty beats, or the everyone-repeats-what-Luna-just-said scene in last episode), so clearly Crystal is trying to fill time. So why are they not filling time with character work.
I mean, a couple thirty second scenes of Mako and Ami talking while walking to school, and Rei getting pissed about something, or just all of them interacting in a context that has nothing to do with Luna or their mission would do SO MUCH.
(Also just like. How about we also get Usagi really really caring for the inners along with Mamoru? She keeps only getting power from Mamoru and I love that she can draw strength from him, but hey how about her actual guardians too.)
SittingOverHereDreaming 