I rewatched Cosmos today... and it got worse

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kasumigenx

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Where? I've never heard that any of those things were planned for the anime?

Sailor Cosmos being scrapped made sense once they decided to change who ChibiChibi was going to be. And they likely changed that precisely because they didn't want to use the Manga ending
It is obvious though that they were planning to introduce the other Eternal Outfits just prior to the final battle due to Chibichibi upgrading the Tiare with Rainbowmoon Calice.
 

sailormoongalaxy

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Where? I've never heard that any of those things were planned for the anime?

Sailor Cosmos being scrapped made sense once they decided to change who ChibiChibi was going to be. And they likely changed that precisely because they didn't want to use the Manga ending
In the Japanese blurays, you have booklets with production notes. What was done and what was left out. Sailor Cosmos was supposed to appear in episode 191. When Chibi-Chibi finds the princess, she was supposed to transform into Sailor Cosmos and not Sailor Chibi Chibi.

The form seen in the shadows was later (episode 200) called Light of Hope, but the form was that of Sailor Cosmos.
 
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The reality is the Manga and the anime are equally inconsistent and nonsensical, just in different ways. In the manga you have a multiple choice as to who exactly facilitated the reincarnation of everyone. QS, Saturn, the Galaxy Cauldron? Hell, who does the Silver Crystal belong to? It is Usagi's Star Seed BUT Queen Serenity was wielding it BUT Chibi-Usa also had it??????

The truth is...No version of Sailor Moon had tight world building or writing. The closest thing to that was PGSM, which had the benefit of hindsight to work with and even then, if I rewatched it Im sure I'm going to find massive incongruieties. But this is a feature of the influences upon Sailor Moon anyway. Like there are few if any seasons of Super Sentai or Power Rangers that make sense or have legitimately good writing most of the time. Usually you are scaling things. It is good writing considering it is Power Rangers, or something like that. Additionally, to an extent I think the criteria for good writing here is how realistic it is. The thing is, how realistic do you want Sailor Moon to be? Because if you are blunt about it, realistically the entire premise of Sailor Moon is horrific as it revolves around a bunch of 14 year olds recruited to be child soldiers and forbade from consulting their parents about it. There is a reason why in Madoka Magica, a deconstruction of Magcial Girls, the Luna equivilant character is the villain.

As for Crystal, I view it a little bit like I view the Star Wars Special Editions and the prequels. Whatever you might personally prefer, it was an expression of the creator's vision. Takeuchi may well be blinded enough to think her writing from 25+ years ago was fine and didn't need updating. Or, she may have wanted Crystal/Eternal/Cosmos to (as much as was feasible) simply bring the story she wrote when she was a younger woman (not even married or a mother yet) to life as it was, warts and all.

So, as frustrated as I get with Crystal, my attitude has always been that it existed to be an animated rendition of the manga. In this sense, I'd have been more annoyed if they changed things to make it make more sense because that wasn't the mission statement of the project. It is why I am also frustrated by the changes in Season 1 specifically.

As for the 90s anime butchering the plot, I think anyone making such claims is just not aware of the production realities of the anime at the time. I think people presume it worked like most manga to anime adaptations. Manga is released. gets successful. Anime followes 1-2 years later. The reality is Sailor Moon had a weird production history. The manga practically existed so that Toei could use it as fuel to make an anime.
Well, while both 90s anime and manga have glaring problems, plots holes and inconsistencies, the fact that the manga is much more plot-focused and try to elaborate more on the details of the lore and world-building make it much harder to see past its problems when compared to the 90s anime (the fact that the anime is less overarching-plot-orientated and more focused on comedy makes it much easier to go past its inconsistencies IMO). But yeah, thirty years on and we still haven't good a really good animated version of Sailor Moon plot wise.

As for the creator's vision, whatever Naoko's (and TOEI's) reasoning for not updating the story much (or at all), I stand by my opinion it was a shoot in the foot. Rather than a rebirth of the franchise and serving as a way to convert a new generation into fans, it amassed a meagre following of newcomers (as far as I know and notice). So, rather than it becoming a vibrant and profitable property again (like Dragon Ball and, to a certain extend, Urusei Yatsura), it's as moribund as it was, feeding only off nostalgia. It's a pity.
 

kasumigenx

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In the Japanese blurays, you have booklets with production notes. What was done and what was left out. Sailor Cosmos was supposed to appear in episode 191. When Chibi-Chibi finds the princess, she was supposed to transform into Sailor Cosmos and not Sailor Chibi Chibi.

The form seen in the shadows was later (episode 200) called Light of Hope, but the form was that of Sailor Cosmos.
The Scrapping of Cosmos, other Eternal outfits, and Heavy Metal Papillon was already finalised a year prior at least before the second act of Stars in the manga was released since Naoko was ranting in the last two artbooks.
 

Al Evans

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Well, while both 90s anime and manga have glaring problems, plots holes and inconsistencies, the fact that the manga is much more plot-focused and try to elaborate more on the details of the lore and world-building make it much harder to see past its problems when compared to the 90s anime (the fact that the anime is less overarching-plot-orientated and more focused on comedy makes it much easier to go past its inconsistencies IMO). But yeah, thirty years on and we still haven't good a really good animated version of Sailor Moon plot wise.

As for the creator's vision, whatever Naoko's (and TOEI's) reasoning for not updating the story much (or at all), I stand by my opinion it was a shoot in the foot. Rather than a rebirth of the franchise and serving as a way to convert a new generation into fans, it amassed a meagre following of newcomers (as far as I know and notice). So, rather than it becoming a vibrant and profitable property again (like Dragon Ball and, to a certain extend, Urusei Yatsura), it's as moribund as it was, feeding only off nostalgia. It's a pity.
Oh I agree. For years I presumed the Manga was more cohesive than it actually was. And in some ways that is true. For instance, each arc somehow links back to the fall of the SilMil and the villains are after the Silver Crystal.* But the inconsistencies are there nevertheless, they just manifest in different ways.

""But yeah, thirty years on and we still haven't good a really good animated version of Sailor Moon plot wise.""

I presume you mean the manga's plot more specifically. Different versions of SM have vastly different plots altogether. E.g. SeraMyu has Dracula (appropriate given this spookiest of seasons).

So I'm torn on whether they should have changed the story or not. Because I personally wanted a faithful as close to the manga as possible adaptation (and still want the side stories and Sailor V adapted too). But I also recognise that the 20th anniversary was a unique oppertunity to capitalise upon nostalgia and build a potentially new younger audience. I'm not saying Crystal did not forge new fans, but not as many as it could have. With anime brands older (and in some cases MUCH older) than Sailor Moon (that were also never as big domestically) getting revivals recently (Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1 1/2, Fist of the North Star, City Hunter, Rose of Versailles) I have faith we will someday see a new series or movie of some kind, so maybe that will be another oppertunity to capture a new audience. But it will be harder compared to the 20th anniversary. In a way, it might have been better to do an anime along the lines of PGSM for the 20th anniversary and saved a faithful Manga adaptation for the next generation.

But, I also wonder, especially given Takeuchi's message at the end of Cosmos if she wants to move on from SM altogether? Which is kind of nuts to me given how the brand still has power domestically. Kids aren't into it, but they are aware of it at least. PreCure might have the market cornered on MG shows for that age group but not for an older skewing age group, which Sailor Moon could cater to. And that's just domestically, in North America and Europe they still love MG and Sailor Moon has a larger promenance because it came over later and was one of the foundational animes alongside Dragon Ball.

*Although not doing that in each arc arguably makes the Anime lore more expansive.
 

Al Evans

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In the Japanese blurays, you have booklets with production notes. What was done and what was left out. Sailor Cosmos was supposed to appear in episode 191. When Chibi-Chibi finds the princess, she was supposed to transform into Sailor Cosmos and not Sailor Chibi Chibi.

The form seen in the shadows was later (episode 200) called Light of Hope, but the form was that of Sailor Cosmos.
Fascinating. Do they elaborate on why they changed that?

I presume it was because they didn't want to commit to the Manga's mora ambiguous (arguably downer) ending. Which I don't think counts as aviding risk regardless as again, the show was trying to rebuild an audience
 

kasumigenx

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I don't follow. Why does the latter make the former obvious?
Because the Rainbowmoon Calice in the manga appears at the same time as the Eternal Outfits, that is what they were planning the 90s anime as well but here they are making the Rainbowmoon Calice and the Other Eternal Outfits appear at the same time.
 

sailormoongalaxy

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Fascinating. Do they elaborate on why they changed that?

I presume it was because they didn't want to commit to the Manga's mora ambiguous (arguably downer) ending. Which I don't think counts as aviding risk regardless as again, the show was trying to rebuild an audience
They gave no reason for the change.
 

kasumigenx

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Fascinating. Do they elaborate on why they changed that?

I presume it was because they didn't want to commit to the Manga's mora ambiguous (arguably downer) ending. Which I don't think counts as aviding risk regardless as again, the show was trying to rebuild an audience
The manga's ending was not finalized when the anime was finalized, they based it on the plot with the original plan of Galaxia being Chaos which was stated on the Materials Collection.
 

Akari @ria

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Nah. The stars season is top tier.
as much as a person may prefer the 90's series to the manga plot, it must be said that Stars does not shine in terms of originality or beauty, is a jumble of recycled ideas that led to a meh ending that leaves several question marks, for example, if Chaos is sealed in people's hearts why do we have the Black Moon in the future and not her awakening? Given the darkness in the heart of the Black Moon Clan and death phantom she should have come out of her prison, or at least given them greater power than they had.

Inners and outers here too are almost useless, relegated to the role of stopgaps (not even the power up with the strongest enemies...)

Usagi despairs for Mamoru's absence, but is it possible that no one wonders where this poor guy has ended up? From the passengers of the plane he was traveling on to the university, no one really? Then, if I were Usagi I would have moved heaven and earth to look for my love (called embassies, army, police and so on, from my memories of the series "marmalade boy" I learned that it is better to take a trip in person to verify the situation, maybe with a nice teleportation >w0 ).

The character design is up and down negatively (whoever is in charge of certain episodes did not give his best).

This video summarizes some of my other doubts and thoughts on the stars season, as well as my point of view on the plot of the manga (I didn't make the video, so please, don't go tormenting this girl. U.U ), unfortunately the Cosmos movies turned out to be far from representing the manga's story adequately but that's what Toei gave us.


It's the anime staff that had to depend on Takeuchi and wait for her to push out manga chapters so that they could include her stuff into the anime.
As we know from Fukano's recent tweet, even well into the development cycle, Takeuchi had yet to give material on which the anime staff could work on.
I'm pretty sure even if the directors went to her and asked her stuff, she probably didn't answer just like she did with Kon and Tomoya.

On the other hand, Takeuchi knew she had to make 1 arc per year so roughly some 12 chapters of 50 pages.
Quite the contrary in fact, if Osano had actually vetoed her 'ideas', we wouldn't have that much of a mess of a story.

Literally every mangaka in existence has to juggle stuff and meet deadlines, it comes with the job.
Being a mangaka is no easy task and yet so many, so many other mangakas are still able to tell a cohesive story while still drawing much, much more complex storyboards that any page Takeuchi has drawn on a weekly basis.

It's neither that Takeuchi 'didn't have time to develop her ideas'.
It's not like there's one character or 1 or 2 plotlines that didn't get to be developed or fleshed out - that entails LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THE MANGA!

Take Stars for example over the whole arc, it's filler, filler and padding.
Sailor Senshi's deaths, Animamates - all filler and that's why when it comes to the actual stuff that needs development and explanation, it comes short because Takeuchi has already wasted MOST of her pages on filler content.
Instead of challenging herself and coming out of her comfort zone and changing her writing style, she keeps recycling the same schema and throws random stuff at your face that needs your 'imagination' to work.

It's time to stop with this silly argument that Takeuchi was on a time crunch or didn't have time to development her 'ideas'.
If that was so, then every manga in existence would be as bad as Sailor Moon.
Toei had to stay within the plot given by the author by contract, they have already taken too many liberties, so why should they complain?
If they had waited to produce the series when they would have had the necessary material this wouldn't have happened, but noooo, let's milk the cow while it's full!
Naoko was in her first important story, Toei put a lot of pressure on her forcing her to add 4 additional narrative arcs from nothing and that had to hold up to expectations, do you think that's not enough?
All to fill a slot on TV? They do this with all the series they adapt?
As far as i know with series like one piece they either fill the gaps with fillers or take a break waiting for new material from the author (making important manga, above all weekly, in my opinion is pure and simple slavery).

The tight rhythms are there for all mangaka, it's true, Naoko complained that by the third narrative arc she was exhausted due to the tight work rhythms and poor health, and that she always had a lot to do because only one of her assistants had a style similar to hers, so she had to draw almost everything, and she had to do it with the means she had available, in fact she said that the sheets to draw the manga tables were limited, so she couldn't afford to make mistakes, it doesn't seem like a small thing or a whim to me.

I'm sorry that there is all this fury towards a work that doesn't deserve it, there are better series, true, but also worse ones in terms of plot and character development. Is it necessary to vomit out bad things about the author and the manga because someone doesn't like either one or the other?
Naoko chose her career, circumstances could have been even more against her, and yet she created a wonderful story that, in one way or another, reached our hearts.
Is it necessary to generate all this hatred towards her and her manga?
The manga is a reality, it exists as Naoko, its author, no one is forced to watch her work or love it, so why this fury against her and the manga?

Sometimes, many times, I choose not to say anything, not to respond to topics because certain comments are pointless. It's not to always defend Naoko with tooths and nails, but I wonder what this woman has ever done wrong to be treated like this...
Is it because she was born into a wealthy family? Do you think this paved the way for her career? Her father made her study to be a pharmacist because he didn't believe that her dream of becoming a mangaka and making a living from it was achievable.
What Naoko achieved was achieved through her own efforts, and I'm glad she pursued this career, otherwise we wouldn't have such a beautiful story to enjoy in every adaptation. There are those who prefer one version more than another, but do we have to fight over this?

SuperS actually develops Helios as a character, the whole secret of Pegasus and his quest for a maiden is actually given a purpose and meaning, his relationship with Chibi-Usa actually has substance and even a conclusion in the last episodes.
In the manga, it's nothing. Worst by the end, it creates a GIANT plothole with future Chibi-Usa.

The Ami episode? SuperS takes the cake with a much better written and delivered episode.
The story about her broken family isn't even completed in her own chapter!

The Rei episode? Personally I don't like either but Rei has a disastrous 'development' in that manga chapter.

The Makoto episode? Ok, when you compare it to her upgrade episode, the manga's is stronger. However, Makoto does get 2 very stronger episodes beforehand. Again SuperS wins.

The Minako episode? Again, the manga doesn't even conclude her story. Same as Makoto, her upgrade episode isn't that great but her other episodes are. SuperS again takes the cake.

The Outers? 1st episode of Stars does it in 20 mins and is much better.

After that? It's the Sailor Moon show.
Nehenelia in the 90s anime is actually a character, is given a whole backstory, is developed and given a proper conclusion.
In the manga, she just plagiarizes Maleficent and calls it a day.

So, yes the 90s anime did in fact take the main points of the manga and did a much better job.
It's problem is mainly the filler episodes and those of the Amazon Trio are for the most part entertaining albeit not moving the plot forward.
The Amazoness arc sucks but I'd argue even the best writer in the world wouldn't be able to deliver amazing stuff with 4 annoying girls in bikinis.

Stars is a MESS.
I've talked a lot about both the plot of the 90s anime and the manga and pointed out several times how the 90s anime manages to do seamlessly several things Takeuchi tried to do.

Yes, the major drawback of 90s Stars is the Starlights but at least they are in turn developed.
The SeiUsa relationship is very heartwarmingly written and delivered, all 3 of the Starlights are given personalities and group dynamic with themselves and our girls.
The fact that they are popular is embraced as it plays a major part in literally EVERY episode!

The one big downside of the anime is the way the Inners are killed but in turn they get a magnificent death scene.
Some people will get annoyed by how Pluto or Saturn don't do nothing in the 90s anime but have you read the manga?

Speaking of which, the whole trip to Galaxia's cathedral is again filler.
And once we arrive at her palace, it's plothole after plothole.

90s anime's last 10 episodes or so is 100 times much better than whatever concepts Takeuchi had.

I think it's important to highlight that having concepts or ideas doesn't make you special.
I could come up with tons of concepts, you could, anyone could.
Publishers receive hundreds of amazing conceptual ideas and full chapters from aspiring mangakas (or even established mangakas) every week.
Does that mean they all get publish? NO.

To be a good mangaka there are several other factors involved, mainly how interesting your world is and how fluently you are able to communicate that through your storyboard, how your panels flow into one another, how appealing your characters are etc...

And regardless of the medium, a writer's true worth is not on what 'amazing' concepts he can come up with but how good his writing capabilities are.
A good writer can make a lukewarm synopsis stand out with amazing characters, situations, character interactions and stage play.
A bad writer, on the other hand, wouldn't able do anything even if he was given the most amazing 'concepts' in the world.
Hatred blinds your mind, undeveloped characters? plot holes? where do you see them????

The Chibiusa-Helios relationship in the manga makes perfect sense, even having a worthy conclusion.
The future princess Lady Serenity also makes perfect sense. Since we don't know when Cosmos appears in the future timeline, and that, probably, when she returned to the future she defeat Sailor Chaos restoring what was destroyed, I don't see why it's an inconsistency or a plot hole.

The Inner Senshi have realized that fighting to save the people they love is not only a duty, but their deepest desire, so deep that they abandon their dreams, doubts and fears.

For the Outers, do you minimize how important it is to see them united and resolute? And above all, eager to reunite with the others. In the 90s anime they looked like a group of annoyed and angry spinsters...

Nehellenia in the 90s anime is moved by the sole, useless and deplorable motivation of not wanting to grow old, the thought of becoming ugly has gone to her head so much that she sacrificed her "beloved" people. If the ones at Toei were geniuses as you say, shouldn't they have found a less silly and more plausible motivation? For the sake of consistency in the plot, Nehellenia could have been envious of the bright part of the moon and of those who govern it, perhaps because she saw the difficulties of her people and the fact that they are almost unknown to the others made her furious, feeling abandoned to herself. Or the fact that they lived on the dark side of the moon made bad rumors circulate about her and her people reserving bad treatment for them, so she seeks revenge.

for stars I invite you to watch the video above and also reading my comment.
 

Talentless Fool

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as much as a person may prefer the 90's series to the manga plot, it must be said that Stars does not shine in terms of originality or beauty, is a jumble of recycled ideas that led to a meh ending that leaves several question marks.
So does the magnificent manga.

for example, if Chaos is sealed in people's hearts why do we have the Black Moon in the future and not her awakening? Given the darkness in the heart of the Black Moon Clan and death phantom she should have come out of her prison, or at least given them greater power than they had.
Chaos is not sealed inside the hearts of people but simply every living being has a bit of darkness (Chaos) in their heart just like they have light (Light of Hope).

Inners and outers here too are almost useless, relegated to the role of stopgaps (not even the power up with the strongest enemies...)
It's even worst in the manga where they show abysmal stupidity (Rei and Minako's plan, 3 Outers go to their castle to find what? They already know alien Senshi are roaming on Earth) and they are utterly useless and can't face off against fake Senshi while they are on the Eternal level.

Usagi despairs for Mamoru's absence, but is it possible that no one wonders where this poor guy has ended up? From the passengers of the plane he was traveling on to the university, no one really? Then, if I were Usagi I would have moved heaven and earth to look for my love (called embassies, army, police and so on, from my memories of the series "marmalade boy" I learned that it is better to take a trip in person to verify the situation, maybe with a nice teleportation >w0 ).
Yes, it is a major plothole in the 90s anime and thus you should recognize the several major plotholes of the manga as well.

The character design is up and down negatively (whoever is in charge of certain episodes did not give his best).
The same character designer who every one hates, Michiaki Sugimoto, when his design is the closest to those anime concepts Takeuchi drew.

Toei had to stay within the plot given by the author by contract, they have already taken too many liberties, so why should they complain?
If they had waited to produce the series when they would have had the necessary material this wouldn't have happened, but noooo, let's milk the cow while it's full!
And you have zero idea how anime production works.

They have a time slot for the year at a given time for a given channel and they have to produce episodes accordingly to fill in, they can't wait.
Back then, year long animes were the standard.
Anime production is a business - as long as something is making money, they produce it. When it dwindles, they stop.

Manga fans complained for years at the Makaijyuu arc because it didn't exist in the manga, surely they would have loved even more anime-only arcs and lauded the 90s anime for this brave feat.

Naoko was in her first important story, Toei put a lot of pressure on her forcing her to add 4 additional narrative arcs from nothing and that had to hold up to expectations, do you think that's not enough?
All to fill a slot on TV? They do this with all the series they adapt?
Sure, thanks to Toei, who made the 90s anime and to which Takeuchi is where she is today, is evil and Takeuchi is a poor victim.

I'm sure Takeuchi was talented and hard working enough to make best-sellers on her own with large gaps in between to recuperate appropriately as history has proven, right?

As far as i know with series like one piece they either fill the gaps with fillers or take a break waiting for new material from the author (making important manga, above all weekly, in my opinion is pure and simple slavery).
That's how the business work.

And this is why so many people give up.

The 90s anime already had fillers to wait for Takeuchi to give them material.

The tight rhythms are there for all mangaka, it's true, Naoko complained that by the third narrative arc she was exhausted due to the tight work rhythms and poor health, and that she always had a lot to do because only one of her assistants had a style similar to hers, so she had to draw almost everything, and she had to do it with the means she had available, in fact she said that the sheets to draw the manga tables were limited, so she couldn't afford to make mistakes, it doesn't seem like a small thing or a whim to me.
Just like every other mangaka in existence.

Again, the job is not easy but it's not like either only she had to suffer or she suffered more.
Moreover, Takeuchi was no newbie.
Yes, Sailor Moon was her first major manga but she had already released a couple of works beforehand.
Plus, on her 3rd year, she had already gotten experience under her belt to properly arrange her work schedule to fit in to finish the chapters.
It didn't have to be perfect but she could have gotten used to it.

Also, also, assistants do not draw so I don't understand where this comes into play.
The mangaka does all the pencil drawings and most of the inking.
If she was having her assistants draw pages for her well... :P

Is it necessary to generate all this hatred towards her and her manga?
You're free to put me on your ignore list if my posts disturb you.

Sometimes, many times, I choose not to say anything, not to respond to topics because certain comments are pointless. It's not to always defend Naoko with tooths and nails, but I wonder what this woman has ever done wrong to be treated like this...
And I wonder what have the people who had to deal with all of her childish demands did to deserve to be treated like that.

What Naoko achieved was achieved through her own efforts, and I'm glad she pursued this career, otherwise we wouldn't have such a beautiful story to enjoy in every adaptation. There are those who prefer one version more than another, but do we have to fight over this?
Read the title of this thread.

It's about someone who watched the movies, felt it wasn't good and discussions are spawning out of that.

If you want to talk about how much you enjoyed the movies or love the manga, feel free to create your own thread and interact with people who share your same opinions.

Hatred blinds your mind, undeveloped characters? plot holes? where do you see them????
I think you should go re-read the manga then.

The Chibiusa-Helios relationship in the manga makes perfect sense, even having a worthy conclusion.
Yes, their relationship has a lot of sense when just the arc before Chibi-Usa and Hotaru had a semi-romantic relationship in the manga and just the next arc again, they are used as a gag as a romantic couple.

Helios who called Chibi-Usa maiden and kisses her and she immediately falls in love with him makes perfect sense and is what we can call a developed and established relationship.

It has also a worthy conclusion in the sense that it's never talked about again.

The future princess Lady Serenity also makes perfect sense. Since we don't know when Cosmos appears in the future timeline, and that, probably, when she returned to the future she defeat Sailor Chaos restoring what was destroyed, I don't see why it's an inconsistency or a plot hole.
By showing us Chibi-Usa as a grown-up, Takeuchi is implying that there will be a time when she takes the throne in place of Neo Serenity.

Yet, we come to know that even in the very, very, very far future Usagi still exists and she is still the most powerful being in existence and there is no reason for her to step down from the throne.

So the vision of Chibi-Usa becoming the princess who is destined to marry Helios and with whom she'll be the Queen of is pointless.

The Inner Senshi have realized that fighting to save the people they love is not only a duty, but their deepest desire, so deep that they abandon their dreams, doubts and fears.
Loving others makes people have dreams, doubts and fears along with the strength to protect them.
The Inners do not care about their family.

Ami has a busy mother and an absent father and the story doesn't care how she deals with this pain.
Rei is without a mother, a father who doesn't care about her and is conflicted between having a life of her own and respecting the shrine of her mother and following into her footsteps. The story doesn't care about this.
Makoto, being an orphan, yearns to have a family of her own and getting married. The story doesn't care about this.
Minako, dreams of being an idol and falling in love. Stars shows us that she still laments on not being able to do so.

You are making your own headcanon here.

For the Outers, do you minimize how important it is to see them united and resolute? And above all, eager to reunite with the others. In the 90s anime they looked like a group of annoyed and angry spinsters...
Then, please explain why they decide to leave the girls at the end of Infinity.

Weren't they having a happy family life with Hotaru? They said so themselves.
But they decide to purposefully throw away their personal happiness because Takeuchi wants everything to revolve around her self-insert.
It's even a big slap in the face when they say that they do not need their rings of promise anymore.
Promise rings that they wore to protect Hotaru and for her to have a normal life I guess.

They are not united but all share one-brain cell that screams, 'Protect the Purincesu!'

Nehellenia in the 90s anime is moved by the sole, useless and deplorable motivation of not wanting to grow old, the thought of becoming ugly has gone to her head so much that she sacrificed her "beloved" people. If the ones at Toei were geniuses as you say, shouldn't they have found a less silly and more plausible motivation?
Nehenelia was a princess adored by her people but with whom she never connected nor had any deep relationship with.
As we see in her flashback, they spent all their life adulating her and in turn, Nehenelia became convinced that her 'life' was always to be beautiful.
Her only 'relationship' she had with people was others calling her beautiful and despite she still wanting to have close friends as she later admits, that thought wasn't something that was possible for her.
Being called beautiful meant that she had happiness and a reason to be because that was the only thing she knew of in her entire life.
So the thought of losing that meant the thought of losing the sparkle of life itself and her place in the world.
That's why in her conclusion, she finally starts to make a step forward to be closer to her subjects.
A very silly motivation indeed.

Thank you for admitting the Nehenelia of the manga is even a more duller and inferior version than the 90s anime.
 

Lady Pen

Aurorae Lunares
Mar 12, 2021
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So does the magnificent manga.


Chaos is not sealed inside the hearts of people but simply every living being has a bit of darkness (Chaos) in their heart just like they have light (Light of Hope).


It's even worst in the manga where they show abysmal stupidity (Rei and Minako's plan, 3 Outers go to their castle to find what? They already know alien Senshi are roaming on Earth) and they are utterly useless and can't face off against fake Senshi while they are on the Eternal level.


Yes, it is a major plothole in the 90s anime and thus you should recognize the several major plotholes of the manga as well.


The same character designer who every one hates, Michiaki Sugimoto, when his design is the closest to those anime concepts Takeuchi drew.


And you have zero idea how anime production works.

They have a time slot for the year at a given time for a given channel and they have to produce episodes accordingly to fill in, they can't wait.
Back then, year long animes were the standard.
Anime production is a business - as long as something is making money, they produce it. When it dwindles, they stop.

Manga fans complained for years at the Makaijyuu arc because it didn't exist in the manga, surely they would have loved even more anime-only arcs and lauded the 90s anime for this brave feat.


Sure, thanks to Toei, who made the 90s anime and to which Takeuchi is where she is today, is evil and Takeuchi is a poor victim.

I'm sure Takeuchi was talented and hard working enough to make best-sellers on her own with large gaps in between to recuperate appropriately as history has proven, right?


That's how the business work.

And this is why so many people give up.

The 90s anime already had fillers to wait for Takeuchi to give them material.


Just like every other mangaka in existence.

Again, the job is not easy but it's not like either only she had to suffer or she suffered more.
Moreover, Takeuchi was no newbie.
Yes, Sailor Moon was her first major manga but she had already released a couple of works beforehand.
Plus, on her 3rd year, she had already gotten experience under her belt to properly arrange her work schedule to fit in to finish the chapters.
It didn't have to be perfect but she could have gotten used to it.

Also, also, assistants do not draw so I don't understand where this comes into play.
The mangaka does all the pencil drawings and most of the inking.
If she was having her assistants draw pages for her well... :P


You're free to put me on your ignore list if my posts disturb you.


And I wonder what have the people who had to deal with all of her childish demands did to deserve to be treated like that.


Read the title of this thread.

It's about someone who watched the movies, felt it wasn't good and discussions are spawning out of that.

If you want to talk about how much you enjoyed the movies or love the manga, feel free to create your own thread and interact with people who share your same opinions.


I think you should go re-read the manga then.


Yes, their relationship has a lot of sense when just the arc before Chibi-Usa and Hotaru had a semi-romantic relationship in the manga and just the next arc again, they are used as a gag as a romantic couple.

Helios who called Chibi-Usa maiden and kisses her and she immediately falls in love with him makes perfect sense and is what we can call a developed and established relationship.

It has also a worthy conclusion in the sense that it's never talked about again.


By showing us Chibi-Usa as a grown-up, Takeuchi is implying that there will be a time when she takes the throne in place of Neo Serenity.

Yet, we come to know that even in the very, very, very far future Usagi still exists and she is still the most powerful being in existence and there is no reason for her to step down from the throne.

So the vision of Chibi-Usa becoming the princess who is destined to marry Helios and with whom she'll be the Queen of is pointless.


Loving others makes people have dreams, doubts and fears along with the strength to protect them.
The Inners do not care about their family.

Ami has a busy mother and an absent father and the story doesn't care how she deals with this pain.
Rei is without a mother, a father who doesn't care about her and is conflicted between having a life of her own and respecting the shrine of her mother and following into her footsteps. The story doesn't care about this.
Makoto, being an orphan, yearns to have a family of her own and getting married. The story doesn't care about this.
Minako, dreams of being an idol and falling in love. Stars shows us that she still laments on not being able to do so.

You are making your own headcanon here.


Then, please explain why they decide to leave the girls at the end of Infinity.

Weren't they having a happy family life with Hotaru? They said so themselves.
But they decide to purposefully throw away their personal happiness because Takeuchi wants everything to revolve around her self-insert.
It's even a big slap in the face when they say that they do not need their rings of promise anymore.
Promise rings that they wore to protect Hotaru and for her to have a normal life I guess.

They are not united but all share one-brain cell that screams, 'Protect the Purincesu!'


Nehenelia was a princess adored by her people but with whom she never connected nor had any deep relationship with.
As we see in her flashback, they spent all their life adulating her and in turn, Nehenelia became convinced that her 'life' was always to be beautiful.
Her only 'relationship' she had with people was others calling her beautiful and despite she still wanting to have close friends as she later admits, that thought wasn't something that was possible for her.
Being called beautiful meant that she had happiness and a reason to be because that was the only thing she knew of in her entire life.
So the thought of losing that meant the thought of losing the sparkle of life itself and her place in the world.
That's why in her conclusion, she finally starts to make a step forward to be closer to her subjects.
A very silly motivation indeed.

Thank you for admitting the Nehenelia of the manga is even a more duller and inferior version than the 90s anime.
Well said.

Usagi despairs for Mamoru's absence, but is it possible that no one wonders where this poor guy has ended up? From the passengers of the plane he was traveling on to the university, no one really? Then, if I were Usagi I would have moved heaven and earth to look for my love (called embassies, army, police and so on, from my memories of the series "marmalade boy" I learned that it is better to take a trip in person to verify the situation, maybe with a nice teleportation >w0 ).
I hope @Akari @ria can explain why Ami's mother, Minako's parents and Rei's grandfather did not call the police once their daughters/grandchild had disappeared (being killed by the useless Animamates) and hadn't returned home.

Also, why not explain what I wrote in another thread?

Mamoru dies as a human the moment Galaxia rips out his Crystal. Right. So how on earth is King Endymion still alive in the future, welcoming Small Lady? And even more importantly, how is Chibiusa still alive? If Mamoru dies as a human, Chibiusa should be as lifeless as the other Senshi of the 30th century!!! And one more thing. If Usagi dies in the cauldron (we literally see her body disintegrating), how on earth is Sailor Cosmos alive and having a nice long chat with the Sailor Quartet? The fifth arc of the manga feels like it was written by a 5-year-old. Sometimes I think Kodansha gave Takeuchi a break and called in one of the young readers to finish the story.

Please no imagination/Headcanon. :rofl::dance:
 
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Akari @ria

Lumen Cinererum
Jun 17, 2017
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I got carried away by the heat of the moment and took it so badly, forgive me if you can.

It's right to be free to express your opinions, I'm just going through a so-so period and emotionally it's a roller coaster, this doesn't justify me but I hope you can understand. Too many negative things at once to process and it's not easy, I know that better times will come and I want to be optimistic, I will try to refrain from expressing myself rudely.

I can't be on the computer right now, but I hope to be able to respond appropriately to the various posts as soon as I have time.

Sorry again!
 
Likes: kasumigenx

Al Evans

Luna Crescens
Jul 3, 2023
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as much as a person may prefer the 90's series to the manga plot, it must be said that Stars does not shine in terms of originality or beauty, is a jumble of recycled ideas that led to a meh ending that leaves several question marks, for example, if Chaos is sealed in people's hearts why do we have the Black Moon in the future and not her awakening? Given the darkness in the heart of the Black Moon Clan and death phantom she should have come out of her prison, or at least given them greater power than they had.

Inners and outers here too are almost useless, relegated to the role of stopgaps (not even the power up with the strongest enemies...)

Usagi despairs for Mamoru's absence, but is it possible that no one wonders where this poor guy has ended up? From the passengers of the plane he was traveling on to the university, no one really? Then, if I were Usagi I would have moved heaven and earth to look for my love (called embassies, army, police and so on, from my memories of the series "marmalade boy" I learned that it is better to take a trip in person to verify the situation, maybe with a nice teleportation >w0 ).

The character design is up and down negatively (whoever is in charge of certain episodes did not give his best).

This video summarizes some of my other doubts and thoughts on the stars season, as well as my point of view on the plot of the manga (I didn't make the video, so please, don't go tormenting this girl. U.U ), unfortunately the Cosmos movies turned out to be far from representing the manga's story adequately but that's what Toei gave us.




Toei had to stay within the plot given by the author by contract, they have already taken too many liberties, so why should they complain?
If they had waited to produce the series when they would have had the necessary material this wouldn't have happened, but noooo, let's milk the cow while it's full!
Naoko was in her first important story, Toei put a lot of pressure on her forcing her to add 4 additional narrative arcs from nothing and that had to hold up to expectations, do you think that's not enough?
All to fill a slot on TV? They do this with all the series they adapt?
As far as i know with series like one piece they either fill the gaps with fillers or take a break waiting for new material from the author (making important manga, above all weekly, in my opinion is pure and simple slavery).

The tight rhythms are there for all mangaka, it's true, Naoko complained that by the third narrative arc she was exhausted due to the tight work rhythms and poor health, and that she always had a lot to do because only one of her assistants had a style similar to hers, so she had to draw almost everything, and she had to do it with the means she had available, in fact she said that the sheets to draw the manga tables were limited, so she couldn't afford to make mistakes, it doesn't seem like a small thing or a whim to me.

I'm sorry that there is all this fury towards a work that doesn't deserve it, there are better series, true, but also worse ones in terms of plot and character development. Is it necessary to vomit out bad things about the author and the manga because someone doesn't like either one or the other?
Naoko chose her career, circumstances could have been even more against her, and yet she created a wonderful story that, in one way or another, reached our hearts.
Is it necessary to generate all this hatred towards her and her manga?
The manga is a reality, it exists as Naoko, its author, no one is forced to watch her work or love it, so why this fury against her and the manga?

Sometimes, many times, I choose not to say anything, not to respond to topics because certain comments are pointless. It's not to always defend Naoko with tooths and nails, but I wonder what this woman has ever done wrong to be treated like this...
Is it because she was born into a wealthy family? Do you think this paved the way for her career? Her father made her study to be a pharmacist because he didn't believe that her dream of becoming a mangaka and making a living from it was achievable.
What Naoko achieved was achieved through her own efforts, and I'm glad she pursued this career, otherwise we wouldn't have such a beautiful story to enjoy in every adaptation. There are those who prefer one version more than another, but do we have to fight over this?



Hatred blinds your mind, undeveloped characters? plot holes? where do you see them????

The Chibiusa-Helios relationship in the manga makes perfect sense, even having a worthy conclusion.
The future princess Lady Serenity also makes perfect sense. Since we don't know when Cosmos appears in the future timeline, and that, probably, when she returned to the future she defeat Sailor Chaos restoring what was destroyed, I don't see why it's an inconsistency or a plot hole.

The Inner Senshi have realized that fighting to save the people they love is not only a duty, but their deepest desire, so deep that they abandon their dreams, doubts and fears.

For the Outers, do you minimize how important it is to see them united and resolute? And above all, eager to reunite with the others. In the 90s anime they looked like a group of annoyed and angry spinsters...

Nehellenia in the 90s anime is moved by the sole, useless and deplorable motivation of not wanting to grow old, the thought of becoming ugly has gone to her head so much that she sacrificed her "beloved" people. If the ones at Toei were geniuses as you say, shouldn't they have found a less silly and more plausible motivation? For the sake of consistency in the plot, Nehellenia could have been envious of the bright part of the moon and of those who govern it, perhaps because she saw the difficulties of her people and the fact that they are almost unknown to the others made her furious, feeling abandoned to herself. Or the fact that they lived on the dark side of the moon made bad rumors circulate about her and her people reserving bad treatment for them, so she seeks revenge.

for stars I invite you to watch the video above and also reading my comment.


I rewatched Cosmos today... and it got worse

"as much as a person may prefer the 90's series to the manga plot, it must be said that Stars does not shine in terms of originality or beauty, is a jumble of recycled ideas that led to a meh ending that leaves several question marks"

Isn't that an incredibly subjective take. Most audience members in Japan did not at the time nor since feel the ending was meh, nor did I. The ending paid off Usagi's character arc very well. Kindly refer to earlier posts where I talk more at leangth about the success of the grand finale.

Recycled ideas? Arguably so...why is that a bad thing? The Black Moon arc recycles concepts from the Dark Kingdom arc, only extrapolating into the future not the past. Mistress 9 recycles ideas from Black Lady. Heck, SuperS is in a sense the most original season of the entire show as it is not in fact about Usagi and the filler plots with a victim of the week demand the Amazon Trio/Quartet become directly involved each time. It is regarded as the worst season.

That being said, which other season had evil Senshi as the villains? Which other season featured a love Usagi potentially falling in love with someone other than Mamoru? Which season omitted Mamoru altogether? These are concepts that hadn't been done in the show. SeiUsa is an incredibly popular ship in the fandom so I'd argue that is quite a bit of 'shine', right?

As for beauty, again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is necessarily subjective to a large degree. Me personally, I adore the visual style Stars had that was different to the whole show and carried through into Cutey Honey F. By virtue of being the most different looking of the whole show does that not by default means it stands out the most, or 'shines'?

"for example, if Chaos is sealed in people's hearts why do we have the Black Moon in the future and not her awakening? Given the darkness in the heart of the Black Moon Clan and death phantom she should have come out of her prison, or at least given them greater power than they had."

??????????????

I'm sorry, I do not understand your point here. The intention of the finale is not that Chaos was forever defeated but rather that Usagi restored balance. Galaxia's mistake was in trying to defeat Chaos once and for all (in the Manga this was Sailor Cosmos's error). Usagi in both cases acknowledges that the bad things Chaos brings about is in fact part and parcel of the adventure of life. Usagi did not forever end the Sailor Wars at the end of Sailor Stars, she put Chaos back to where it belonged. Chaos exists within people's hearts alongside the Light of Hope. They check and balance one another, the Sailor Senshi being the most obvious expression of the 'Light of Hope'.

Therefore, the Black Moon Clan's arrival in the future makes perfect sense. It was just the latest evil thing, no different to the Dark Kingdom (indeed my personal headcanon is that the Anime BMC are descended from the Dark Kingdom).

To be clear Chaos in the anime is not the same as in the Manga. Manga Chaos is a distinct entity with a mind that has been orchestrating events, or at least setting them in motion, with a distinct end goal in mind. Chaos in the anime is more like a force of nature, it creates evil entities that do evil things but it hasn't got a plan in mind nor an end goal. It is more akin to the darkside of the force from Star Wars.

Of course, there are those who argue that Chaos in the anime is NOT the source of every villain in the Anime canon so the above would be moot anyway. I however, don't buy into that.

"Inners and outers here too are almost useless"

How can you say that given how they were distinctly proactive and showed their stuff in the Nehalennia arc? Or the Ami episode with the teacher? Or the scenes where Rei comforts Usagi? Or the episodes where Minako confronts realities of being an idol? Makoto got her best scene ever in the Nehalennia arc. Uranus and Neptune got a fair amount to do regarding the schism between the 2 Senshi teams and turning traitor by joining with Galaxia, which also helped build up just how OP Galaxia was in the first place (stopping Uranus's sword). Saturn essentially got the plot moving in the early episodes so really Pluto was the least useful. But then, that is her lot in life for the most part.

"relegated to the role of stopgaps (not even the power up with the strongest enemies...)"

See above. They weren't stopgaps. They were not as focussed upon however as Usagi. Which, given that the show had neglected the lead character for about 1.5 seasons was sorely needed and refreshing. I also don't get the complaint about power ups when they also didn't get power ups in S, the allegedy greatest season. Of course, the Outers distinctly did get power ups.

"Usagi despairs for Mamoru's absence, but is it possible that no one wonders where this poor guy has ended up? "

No one other than Usagi is close enough to Mamoru to contact him. They all presume he is fine because Usagi seems fine. Usagi seems fine because she is repressing her feelings. As for why doesn't Usagi wonder this, she does, she is just in denial, a different version of denial from what we see in the Manga. She either figures he must be that busy or worse, maybe he has moved on from her. The latter is a frequent issue and very complicated with Usagi's character, but it is compounded by the fact that she is also growing closer to Seiya simultaneously.

"From the passengers of the plane he was traveling on to the university, no one really? "

What have they got to do with anything? Unless I am mistaken, Galaxia didn't blow up the whole plane.

"Then, if I were Usagi I would have moved heaven and earth to look for my love (called embassies, army, police and so on, from my memories of the series "marmalade boy" I learned that it is better to take a trip in person to verify the situation, maybe with a nice teleportation >w0 )."

Okay. You woul have done that. Usagi isn't you though. Are you not making the misstep in your analysis of taking yourself as a standard? 'I would do this so everyone would obviously do this'. I have encountered similar situations in analysis before. Yes, there is such a thing as common sense but this isn't one of those situations. Mamoru told usagi he would not be able to write her for a while as he would be very busy early on. This is a case where her maturity this season winds up backfiring. She doesn't do what younger, more impulsive, more immature Usagi might've done. She waits patiently, she grins and bears it until she can't take it any more and breaks down in the iconic 'Ami I not enough' scene. (where the soap opera drama is chef's kiss). This is set up in the early episodes of the show. Luna tells Usagi she has grown a lot and to see Mamoru off with a smile. Unfortunately this leads to Usagi repressing her concerns, her doubts and above all her lonliness.

Again, this is peak storytelling from Stars since loneliness is a pervasive theme in Sailor Moon and Usagi is typically the person who delivers others from their lonliness. But who saves the saviour? The 'Am I not enough' scene encapsulates this aspect of the story arc very well and on a meta level homages the R movie. Usagi gives a rose to save baby Mamo from his lonliness, Seiya 'gives' Usagi a rose to save her but it hammers home how lonely she really feels without her lover.

'The character design is up and down negatively (whoever is in charge of certain episodes did not give his best).'

Is this not once more a case of being highly subjective? I love the way the show looks in this season.

Now sure, some episodes look more off model than others but a) standard practice for this anime b) seriously standard practice at the time for the industry. Dragon Ball GT, a bigger brand with more money and higher ratings objectively looked WORSE than Stars did and so did some episodes of DBZ at the peak of its popularity as well.

"This video summarizes some of my other doubts and thoughts on the stars season, as well as my point of view on the plot of the manga (I didn't make the video, so please, don't go tormenting this girl. U.U ), unfortunately the Cosmos movies turned out to be far from representing the manga's story adequately but that's what Toei gave us."

With respect I am not going to watch that. I have a bad habit of getting worked up by video essays if i do not agree with them and therefore tend to respond at leangth to them which eats up my day and their comment section. Then my YT feed gives me more stuff like that and it just a vicious cycle as my OCD ass struggles to resist responding. Like you have no idea HOW many bad Spider-Man video essays I laboriously unpacked word for word back in the day.

If you are very passionate about the subject and your views on it perhaps you could write down the points you have in common from the essay. I feel more comfortable responding in this format.

As for the plot of the manga I am not interested in discussing that in this post beyond how it pertains to the anime. I like the manga stars and Cosmos films, but both are flawed in my view.

"If they had waited to produce the series when they would have had the necessary material this wouldn't have happened, but noooo, let's milk the cow while it's full!"

That's just plain silly and doesn't take account of production realities. The way the industry worked back then shows rarely if ever took breaks. Advertisers and TV stations expected content at a certain time and a certain amount of it. The seasonal model we have now wasn't a thing back then and it is a risky venture if you are not doing it annually. High budget prestige TV shows made today for streaming struggle to combat the inevitable loss of audience interest whenever they take big gaps between seasons. It is why HBO has now committed to doing House of the Dragon every 2 years but doing a different Game of Thrones show in between. Game of Thrones content will (god willing) happen every year so keep the brand alive. Taking big breaks often hurts the brand as you have to reignite it. Attack on Titan took the gamble of waiting but in between seasons 1 and 2 they tried their best to keep the brand alive and relevant with other side content too.

Not to mention, you are asking a lot of people to be out of work or do other jobs whilst they wait almost a whole year, so you can't be sure you'd get them back. There is a reason so many of the staff worked on cutey honey F immediately after Stars, it is because it was cheduled directly after Stars finished in the same time slot. Similarly, many of SM's staff had worked on the anime Sailor Moon replaced in the schedule.

Furthermore, they wouldn't have had the necesarry material even if they had waited. The stars manga was NEVER going to work as fuel for the anime because it doesn't allow much space for filler which is the lifeblood of the anime and furthermore, it was a deconstruction of SM and the MG genre more broadly. This was absolutely the wrong direction for the anime to go in. Whilst the Dream arc had been successful in the manga SuperS had hurt the brand. Deconstruction was toxic to the anime whereas reconstruction was critical, hence the first 6 episodes redo the Nehalennia arc and act as an apology for SuperS in various ways.

"Naoko was in her first important story, Toei put a lot of pressure on her forcing her to add 4 additional narrative arcs from nothing and that had to hold up to expectations, do you think that's not enough?
All to fill a slot on TV? They do this with all the series they adapt?"

I mean...it is a business. Its just how it goes. The timeslot does need to be filled because there are financial duties that need to be met. The only anime or manga series I know of that got a fair amount of leeway in this regard was One Piece and that is Toei's biggest cash cow arguably, with the leeway granted to accomodate the author's health.

She was clearly willing and able to do it as evidenced by the fact that, well...she did. She signed up for it, made a lot of money. It was hardly slave labour or unfair. It was a lot of pressure but Eichiro Oda writing One Piece is also a lot of pressure (to the point where he got very unwell) and no one pressured him to do that.

It was a messy process because it wasn't intended to be more than one arc so I'm sure there were mistakes made on both ends, but there isn't a blame game to be had here. The anime staff aren't salty about how Takeuchi worked with them and she isn't salty with what they did either. At least I've never encountered any evidence of that. Honestly, in my experience in the fandom it is essentially the fans themselves who ascribe bad blood between the two parties (or anyone involved with SM to be honest) and I've never seen any hard evidence of that. The most I've seen Takeuchi take upset is with Rei being so different in the anime and the manga and that is a more personal thing for her, it wasn't a 'she was upset with the anime staff because of it'. Everyone, to my knoledge, seemed to be very grown up about it.

"As far as i know with series like one piece they either fill the gaps with fillers or take a break waiting for new material from the author (making important manga, above all weekly, in my opinion is pure and simple slavery)."

One Piece and Sailor Moon were not produced in the same way nor in the same time period. One Piece wa a weekly manga turned into a weekly anime 2 years after the manga started publication. Sailor Moon was a monthly manga turned into a weekly anime, the latter of which began airing less than 3 months after the former was first released. The manga in fact was created specifically so that toei could turn it into a anime. The business model being that the anime sells the manga, the manga sells the anime and both sell merchandise in a feedback loop.*

This means that from a pragmatic production POV the anime could never have been made in the same way as the manga nor have the same relationship your typical Manga and Anime adaptations have. Whilst far from exactly the same situation, the scenario was much closer to the working relationship between the Dragon Ball Super Anime and Manga, wherein both are taking the same basic concepts (dreamed up by a single creative, Toriyama or Takeuchi) and doing their own takes upon them. A lot of material in DBS the anime was never in the manga because the Manga was not produced on a weekly schedule like the anime.

In other words the comparison is very much apples to oranges.

However, I will stand in defence of Takeuchi. She made mistakes. There are flaws in her work. But her work, at the very least by the standards of its day, was phenomenal and changed the genre completely. Sailor Moon the manga and anime are seminal works people should at least check out a bit of if they are interested in the MG genre or the craft of Manga in general.

Honestly, I get frustrated that as a fandom we must play this zero sum game of the manga or anime being good whilst the other must be bad. They are simply different beasts albeit from the same family. A rabbit and a hare you might say. They have their respective streangths and weaknesses. The same can be true if we throw in the Live action show or musicals.

"The Chibiusa-Helios relationship in the manga makes perfect sense, even having a worthy conclusion."

As someone who enjoys and even defends the anime version of this relationship, I do think it operates better in the manga. Whilst it does make sense when you think about it in the anime, the manga doesn't demand that degree of thought from the reader because the whole 'keep it secret' isn't as much of a thing in that version.

"Nehellenia in the 90s anime is moved by the sole, useless and deplorable motivation of not wanting to grow old, the thought of becoming ugly has gone to her head so much that she sacrificed her "beloved" people. If the ones at Toei were geniuses as you say, shouldn't they have found a less silly and more plausible motivation?"

This is false unless we are excluding Stars and riding only by SuperS. For the sake of steelmanning your POV, lets say it was just SuperS.

Nehalennia is also motivated by desire for Helios, so not wanting to age is not her sole motivation.

But, even if it was...why is this a bad motive? What makes this useless? Is it a deplorable motivation? From a morallistic POV yes it is...because, you know....she is a villain. But from a characetrisation POV it is not deplorable in terms of its writing.

The Evil Queen from Snow White, an obviously big influence upon Nehalennia, has the same motivation. I fail to see how a fairy tale villain motivation is a bad thing in a story which is largely a modern fairy tale unto itself. Not to mention, countless people in the real world even today fear growing old and losing their looks, especially when they are to a large extent defined and valued for their looks. This in turn drives them to desperate measures. Case in point: Madonna.

I mean, there is a reason in mythology and folklore we have characters who seek out the Fountain of Youth or who through magic or divinity are eternally youthful. It is a deep set human fear. Fear in turn can drive people to do terrible things. This was literally the fundamental message of Darth Vader's story. He became a monster out of fear and in doing so wound up hurting and destroying those he loved, those he feared to lose in the first place. It was a classic Greek tragedy. In a sense this is true of Nehalennia as well. She was beloved by her people because she was beautiful, but to retain that beauty she destroyed her own people, and wound up losing it anyway. Given Sailor Moon's borrowing from greek mythology, inbibing elements of Greek tragedy like this seems all too apprpriate.

So it was in fact entirely plausible, albeit exaggerated and magnified as all things tend to be in a fairy tale/super hero narrative.

"For the sake of consistency in the plot, Nehellenia could have been envious of the bright part of the moon and of those who govern it, perhaps because she saw the difficulties of her people and the fact that they are almost unknown to the others made her furious, feeling abandoned to herself. "

That isn't consistency, that is just a different narrative you personally would have preferred to have seen. And would have required changing everything because in the anime Nehalennia never lived on the Moon in the first place, she came from an asteroid.



*This is obviously not common practice in America when it comes to adaptations of US comic books. However, in the early 90s (around the time Sailor Moon began ironically) X-men the Animated series began airing and visually, tonally and in terms of many of the stories and elements they adapted was quite close to the contemporary comic books of the day, to the point where the editor of X-Men was a consultant on the cartoon. This was the closest the US ever came to replicating the manga-anime relationship and unsurprisingly X-Men merchandise skyrocketed, as did sales of the comics and ratings for the TV show. So the business model works optimally if you have the manga and anime SIMULTANEOUSLY.
 

Al Evans

Luna Crescens
Jul 3, 2023
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So does the magnificent manga.


Chaos is not sealed inside the hearts of people but simply every living being has a bit of darkness (Chaos) in their heart just like they have light (Light of Hope).


It's even worst in the manga where they show abysmal stupidity (Rei and Minako's plan, 3 Outers go to their castle to find what? They already know alien Senshi are roaming on Earth) and they are utterly useless and can't face off against fake Senshi while they are on the Eternal level.


Yes, it is a major plothole in the 90s anime and thus you should recognize the several major plotholes of the manga as well.


The same character designer who every one hates, Michiaki Sugimoto, when his design is the closest to those anime concepts Takeuchi drew.


And you have zero idea how anime production works.

They have a time slot for the year at a given time for a given channel and they have to produce episodes accordingly to fill in, they can't wait.
Back then, year long animes were the standard.
Anime production is a business - as long as something is making money, they produce it. When it dwindles, they stop.

Manga fans complained for years at the Makaijyuu arc because it didn't exist in the manga, surely they would have loved even more anime-only arcs and lauded the 90s anime for this brave feat.


Sure, thanks to Toei, who made the 90s anime and to which Takeuchi is where she is today, is evil and Takeuchi is a poor victim.

I'm sure Takeuchi was talented and hard working enough to make best-sellers on her own with large gaps in between to recuperate appropriately as history has proven, right?


That's how the business work.

And this is why so many people give up.

The 90s anime already had fillers to wait for Takeuchi to give them material.


Just like every other mangaka in existence.

Again, the job is not easy but it's not like either only she had to suffer or she suffered more.
Moreover, Takeuchi was no newbie.
Yes, Sailor Moon was her first major manga but she had already released a couple of works beforehand.
Plus, on her 3rd year, she had already gotten experience under her belt to properly arrange her work schedule to fit in to finish the chapters.
It didn't have to be perfect but she could have gotten used to it.

Also, also, assistants do not draw so I don't understand where this comes into play.
The mangaka does all the pencil drawings and most of the inking.
If she was having her assistants draw pages for her well... :P


You're free to put me on your ignore list if my posts disturb you.


And I wonder what have the people who had to deal with all of her childish demands did to deserve to be treated like that.


Read the title of this thread.

It's about someone who watched the movies, felt it wasn't good and discussions are spawning out of that.

If you want to talk about how much you enjoyed the movies or love the manga, feel free to create your own thread and interact with people who share your same opinions.


I think you should go re-read the manga then.


Yes, their relationship has a lot of sense when just the arc before Chibi-Usa and Hotaru had a semi-romantic relationship in the manga and just the next arc again, they are used as a gag as a romantic couple.

Helios who called Chibi-Usa maiden and kisses her and she immediately falls in love with him makes perfect sense and is what we can call a developed and established relationship.

It has also a worthy conclusion in the sense that it's never talked about again.


By showing us Chibi-Usa as a grown-up, Takeuchi is implying that there will be a time when she takes the throne in place of Neo Serenity.

Yet, we come to know that even in the very, very, very far future Usagi still exists and she is still the most powerful being in existence and there is no reason for her to step down from the throne.

So the vision of Chibi-Usa becoming the princess who is destined to marry Helios and with whom she'll be the Queen of is pointless.


Loving others makes people have dreams, doubts and fears along with the strength to protect them.
The Inners do not care about their family.

Ami has a busy mother and an absent father and the story doesn't care how she deals with this pain.
Rei is without a mother, a father who doesn't care about her and is conflicted between having a life of her own and respecting the shrine of her mother and following into her footsteps. The story doesn't care about this.
Makoto, being an orphan, yearns to have a family of her own and getting married. The story doesn't care about this.
Minako, dreams of being an idol and falling in love. Stars shows us that she still laments on not being able to do so.

You are making your own headcanon here.


Then, please explain why they decide to leave the girls at the end of Infinity.

Weren't they having a happy family life with Hotaru? They said so themselves.
But they decide to purposefully throw away their personal happiness because Takeuchi wants everything to revolve around her self-insert.
It's even a big slap in the face when they say that they do not need their rings of promise anymore.
Promise rings that they wore to protect Hotaru and for her to have a normal life I guess.

They are not united but all share one-brain cell that screams, 'Protect the Purincesu!'


Nehenelia was a princess adored by her people but with whom she never connected nor had any deep relationship with.
As we see in her flashback, they spent all their life adulating her and in turn, Nehenelia became convinced that her 'life' was always to be beautiful.
Her only 'relationship' she had with people was others calling her beautiful and despite she still wanting to have close friends as she later admits, that thought wasn't something that was possible for her.
Being called beautiful meant that she had happiness and a reason to be because that was the only thing she knew of in her entire life.
So the thought of losing that meant the thought of losing the sparkle of life itself and her place in the world.
That's why in her conclusion, she finally starts to make a step forward to be closer to her subjects.
A very silly motivation indeed.

Thank you for admitting the Nehenelia of the manga is even a more duller and inferior version than the 90s anime.
- I don't think Nehalennia is dull in the anime. I actually think she is one of the most compelling villains in the whole thing. In the manga I think she is pretty neat, but because she is fundamentally more a force of nature than a character (because she is part of Chaos) she has less substance and is more 'rule of cool'

- Mamoru's absence is not a major plothole in the anime. He says he will be very busy when he arrives so he will nto be able to contact usagi right away, including responding to letters. For more details on why this is not a plothole, kindly see my post above. tl:dr version, Usagi is repressing her feelings and is in denial

- The Inners and Outers weren't useless in the anime. Again, see my prior post, but essentially you need only check out the initial 6 episodes of stars

- People hate Michiaki Sugimoto? Why? The art in Stars and Cutey Honey F is pretty good looking to me.
 
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I rewatched Cosmos today... and it got worse

"as much as a person may prefer the 90's series to the manga plot, it must be said that Stars does not shine in terms of originality or beauty, is a jumble of recycled ideas that led to a meh ending that leaves several question marks"

Isn't that an incredibly subjective take. Most audience members in Japan did not at the time nor since feel the ending was meh, nor did I. The ending paid off Usagi's character arc very well. Kindly refer to earlier posts where I talk more at leangth about the success of the grand finale.

Recycled ideas? Arguably so...why is that a bad thing? The Black Moon arc recycles concepts from the Dark Kingdom arc, only extrapolating into the future not the past. Mistress 9 recycles ideas from Black Lady. Heck, SuperS is in a sense the most original season of the entire show as it is not in fact about Usagi and the filler plots with a victim of the week demand the Amazon Trio/Quartet become directly involved each time. It is regarded as the worst season.

That being said, which other season had evil Senshi as the villains? Which other season featured a love Usagi potentially falling in love with someone other than Mamoru? Which season omitted Mamoru altogether? These are concepts that hadn't been done in the show. SeiUsa is an incredibly popular ship in the fandom so I'd argue that is quite a bit of 'shine', right?

As for beauty, again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is necessarily subjective to a large degree. Me personally, I adore the visual style Stars had that was different to the whole show and carried through into Cutey Honey F. By virtue of being the most different looking of the whole show does that not by default means it stands out the most, or 'shines'?

"for example, if Chaos is sealed in people's hearts why do we have the Black Moon in the future and not her awakening? Given the darkness in the heart of the Black Moon Clan and death phantom she should have come out of her prison, or at least given them greater power than they had."

??????????????

I'm sorry, I do not understand your point here. The intention of the finale is not that Chaos was forever defeated but rather that Usagi restored balance. Galaxia's mistake was in trying to defeat Chaos once and for all (in the Manga this was Sailor Cosmos's error). Usagi in both cases acknowledges that the bad things Chaos brings about is in fact part and parcel of the adventure of life. Usagi did not forever end the Sailor Wars at the end of Sailor Stars, she put Chaos back to where it belonged. Chaos exists within people's hearts alongside the Light of Hope. They check and balance one another, the Sailor Senshi being the most obvious expression of the 'Light of Hope'.

Therefore, the Black Moon Clan's arrival in the future makes perfect sense. It was just the latest evil thing, no different to the Dark Kingdom (indeed my personal headcanon is that the Anime BMC are descended from the Dark Kingdom).

To be clear Chaos in the anime is not the same as in the Manga. Manga Chaos is a distinct entity with a mind that has been orchestrating events, or at least setting them in motion, with a distinct end goal in mind. Chaos in the anime is more like a force of nature, it creates evil entities that do evil things but it hasn't got a plan in mind nor an end goal. It is more akin to the darkside of the force from Star Wars.

Of course, there are those who argue that Chaos in the anime is NOT the source of every villain in the Anime canon so the above would be moot anyway. I however, don't buy into that.

"Inners and outers here too are almost useless"

How can you say that given how they were distinctly proactive and showed their stuff in the Nehalennia arc? Or the Ami episode with the teacher? Or the scenes where Rei comforts Usagi? Or the episodes where Minako confronts realities of being an idol? Makoto got her best scene ever in the Nehalennia arc. Uranus and Neptune got a fair amount to do regarding the schism between the 2 Senshi teams and turning traitor by joining with Galaxia, which also helped build up just how OP Galaxia was in the first place (stopping Uranus's sword). Saturn essentially got the plot moving in the early episodes so really Pluto was the least useful. But then, that is her lot in life for the most part.

"relegated to the role of stopgaps (not even the power up with the strongest enemies...)"

See above. They weren't stopgaps. They were not as focussed upon however as Usagi. Which, given that the show had neglected the lead character for about 1.5 seasons was sorely needed and refreshing. I also don't get the complaint about power ups when they also didn't get power ups in S, the allegedy greatest season. Of course, the Outers distinctly did get power ups.

"Usagi despairs for Mamoru's absence, but is it possible that no one wonders where this poor guy has ended up? "

No one other than Usagi is close enough to Mamoru to contact him. They all presume he is fine because Usagi seems fine. Usagi seems fine because she is repressing her feelings. As for why doesn't Usagi wonder this, she does, she is just in denial, a different version of denial from what we see in the Manga. She either figures he must be that busy or worse, maybe he has moved on from her. The latter is a frequent issue and very complicated with Usagi's character, but it is compounded by the fact that she is also growing closer to Seiya simultaneously.

"From the passengers of the plane he was traveling on to the university, no one really? "

What have they got to do with anything? Unless I am mistaken, Galaxia didn't blow up the whole plane.

"Then, if I were Usagi I would have moved heaven and earth to look for my love (called embassies, army, police and so on, from my memories of the series "marmalade boy" I learned that it is better to take a trip in person to verify the situation, maybe with a nice teleportation >w0 )."

Okay. You woul have done that. Usagi isn't you though. Are you not making the misstep in your analysis of taking yourself as a standard? 'I would do this so everyone would obviously do this'. I have encountered similar situations in analysis before. Yes, there is such a thing as common sense but this isn't one of those situations. Mamoru told usagi he would not be able to write her for a while as he would be very busy early on. This is a case where her maturity this season winds up backfiring. She doesn't do what younger, more impulsive, more immature Usagi might've done. She waits patiently, she grins and bears it until she can't take it any more and breaks down in the iconic 'Ami I not enough' scene. (where the soap opera drama is chef's kiss). This is set up in the early episodes of the show. Luna tells Usagi she has grown a lot and to see Mamoru off with a smile. Unfortunately this leads to Usagi repressing her concerns, her doubts and above all her lonliness.

Again, this is peak storytelling from Stars since loneliness is a pervasive theme in Sailor Moon and Usagi is typically the person who delivers others from their lonliness. But who saves the saviour? The 'Am I not enough' scene encapsulates this aspect of the story arc very well and on a meta level homages the R movie. Usagi gives a rose to save baby Mamo from his lonliness, Seiya 'gives' Usagi a rose to save her but it hammers home how lonely she really feels without her lover.

'The character design is up and down negatively (whoever is in charge of certain episodes did not give his best).'

Is this not once more a case of being highly subjective? I love the way the show looks in this season.

Now sure, some episodes look more off model than others but a) standard practice for this anime b) seriously standard practice at the time for the industry. Dragon Ball GT, a bigger brand with more money and higher ratings objectively looked WORSE than Stars did and so did some episodes of DBZ at the peak of its popularity as well.

"This video summarizes some of my other doubts and thoughts on the stars season, as well as my point of view on the plot of the manga (I didn't make the video, so please, don't go tormenting this girl. U.U ), unfortunately the Cosmos movies turned out to be far from representing the manga's story adequately but that's what Toei gave us."

With respect I am not going to watch that. I have a bad habit of getting worked up by video essays if i do not agree with them and therefore tend to respond at leangth to them which eats up my day and their comment section. Then my YT feed gives me more stuff like that and it just a vicious cycle as my OCD ass struggles to resist responding. Like you have no idea HOW many bad Spider-Man video essays I laboriously unpacked word for word back in the day.

If you are very passionate about the subject and your views on it perhaps you could write down the points you have in common from the essay. I feel more comfortable responding in this format.

As for the plot of the manga I am not interested in discussing that in this post beyond how it pertains to the anime. I like the manga stars and Cosmos films, but both are flawed in my view.

"If they had waited to produce the series when they would have had the necessary material this wouldn't have happened, but noooo, let's milk the cow while it's full!"

That's just plain silly and doesn't take account of production realities. The way the industry worked back then shows rarely if ever took breaks. Advertisers and TV stations expected content at a certain time and a certain amount of it. The seasonal model we have now wasn't a thing back then and it is a risky venture if you are not doing it annually. High budget prestige TV shows made today for streaming struggle to combat the inevitable loss of audience interest whenever they take big gaps between seasons. It is why HBO has now committed to doing House of the Dragon every 2 years but doing a different Game of Thrones show in between. Game of Thrones content will (god willing) happen every year so keep the brand alive. Taking big breaks often hurts the brand as you have to reignite it. Attack on Titan took the gamble of waiting but in between seasons 1 and 2 they tried their best to keep the brand alive and relevant with other side content too.

Not to mention, you are asking a lot of people to be out of work or do other jobs whilst they wait almost a whole year, so you can't be sure you'd get them back. There is a reason so many of the staff worked on cutey honey F immediately after Stars, it is because it was cheduled directly after Stars finished in the same time slot. Similarly, many of SM's staff had worked on the anime Sailor Moon replaced in the schedule.

Furthermore, they wouldn't have had the necesarry material even if they had waited. The stars manga was NEVER going to work as fuel for the anime because it doesn't allow much space for filler which is the lifeblood of the anime and furthermore, it was a deconstruction of SM and the MG genre more broadly. This was absolutely the wrong direction for the anime to go in. Whilst the Dream arc had been successful in the manga SuperS had hurt the brand. Deconstruction was toxic to the anime whereas reconstruction was critical, hence the first 6 episodes redo the Nehalennia arc and act as an apology for SuperS in various ways.

"Naoko was in her first important story, Toei put a lot of pressure on her forcing her to add 4 additional narrative arcs from nothing and that had to hold up to expectations, do you think that's not enough?
All to fill a slot on TV? They do this with all the series they adapt?"

I mean...it is a business. Its just how it goes. The timeslot does need to be filled because there are financial duties that need to be met. The only anime or manga series I know of that got a fair amount of leeway in this regard was One Piece and that is Toei's biggest cash cow arguably, with the leeway granted to accomodate the author's health.

She was clearly willing and able to do it as evidenced by the fact that, well...she did. She signed up for it, made a lot of money. It was hardly slave labour or unfair. It was a lot of pressure but Eichiro Oda writing One Piece is also a lot of pressure (to the point where he got very unwell) and no one pressured him to do that.

It was a messy process because it wasn't intended to be more than one arc so I'm sure there were mistakes made on both ends, but there isn't a blame game to be had here. The anime staff aren't salty about how Takeuchi worked with them and she isn't salty with what they did either. At least I've never encountered any evidence of that. Honestly, in my experience in the fandom it is essentially the fans themselves who ascribe bad blood between the two parties (or anyone involved with SM to be honest) and I've never seen any hard evidence of that. The most I've seen Takeuchi take upset is with Rei being so different in the anime and the manga and that is a more personal thing for her, it wasn't a 'she was upset with the anime staff because of it'. Everyone, to my knoledge, seemed to be very grown up about it.

"As far as i know with series like one piece they either fill the gaps with fillers or take a break waiting for new material from the author (making important manga, above all weekly, in my opinion is pure and simple slavery)."

One Piece and Sailor Moon were not produced in the same way nor in the same time period. One Piece wa a weekly manga turned into a weekly anime 2 years after the manga started publication. Sailor Moon was a monthly manga turned into a weekly anime, the latter of which began airing less than 3 months after the former was first released. The manga in fact was created specifically so that toei could turn it into a anime. The business model being that the anime sells the manga, the manga sells the anime and both sell merchandise in a feedback loop.*

This means that from a pragmatic production POV the anime could never have been made in the same way as the manga nor have the same relationship your typical Manga and Anime adaptations have. Whilst far from exactly the same situation, the scenario was much closer to the working relationship between the Dragon Ball Super Anime and Manga, wherein both are taking the same basic concepts (dreamed up by a single creative, Toriyama or Takeuchi) and doing their own takes upon them. A lot of material in DBS the anime was never in the manga because the Manga was not produced on a weekly schedule like the anime.

In other words the comparison is very much apples to oranges.

However, I will stand in defence of Takeuchi. She made mistakes. There are flaws in her work. But her work, at the very least by the standards of its day, was phenomenal and changed the genre completely. Sailor Moon the manga and anime are seminal works people should at least check out a bit of if they are interested in the MG genre or the craft of Manga in general.

Honestly, I get frustrated that as a fandom we must play this zero sum game of the manga or anime being good whilst the other must be bad. They are simply different beasts albeit from the same family. A rabbit and a hare you might say. They have their respective streangths and weaknesses. The same can be true if we throw in the Live action show or musicals.

"The Chibiusa-Helios relationship in the manga makes perfect sense, even having a worthy conclusion."

As someone who enjoys and even defends the anime version of this relationship, I do think it operates better in the manga. Whilst it does make sense when you think about it in the anime, the manga doesn't demand that degree of thought from the reader because the whole 'keep it secret' isn't as much of a thing in that version.

"Nehellenia in the 90s anime is moved by the sole, useless and deplorable motivation of not wanting to grow old, the thought of becoming ugly has gone to her head so much that she sacrificed her "beloved" people. If the ones at Toei were geniuses as you say, shouldn't they have found a less silly and more plausible motivation?"

This is false unless we are excluding Stars and riding only by SuperS. For the sake of steelmanning your POV, lets say it was just SuperS.

Nehalennia is also motivated by desire for Helios, so not wanting to age is not her sole motivation.

But, even if it was...why is this a bad motive? What makes this useless? Is it a deplorable motivation? From a morallistic POV yes it is...because, you know....she is a villain. But from a characetrisation POV it is not deplorable in terms of its writing.

The Evil Queen from Snow White, an obviously big influence upon Nehalennia, has the same motivation. I fail to see how a fairy tale villain motivation is a bad thing in a story which is largely a modern fairy tale unto itself. Not to mention, countless people in the real world even today fear growing old and losing their looks, especially when they are to a large extent defined and valued for their looks. This in turn drives them to desperate measures. Case in point: Madonna.

I mean, there is a reason in mythology and folklore we have characters who seek out the Fountain of Youth or who through magic or divinity are eternally youthful. It is a deep set human fear. Fear in turn can drive people to do terrible things. This was literally the fundamental message of Darth Vader's story. He became a monster out of fear and in doing so wound up hurting and destroying those he loved, those he feared to lose in the first place. It was a classic Greek tragedy. In a sense this is true of Nehalennia as well. She was beloved by her people because she was beautiful, but to retain that beauty she destroyed her own people, and wound up losing it anyway. Given Sailor Moon's borrowing from greek mythology, inbibing elements of Greek tragedy like this seems all too apprpriate.

So it was in fact entirely plausible, albeit exaggerated and magnified as all things tend to be in a fairy tale/super hero narrative.

"For the sake of consistency in the plot, Nehellenia could have been envious of the bright part of the moon and of those who govern it, perhaps because she saw the difficulties of her people and the fact that they are almost unknown to the others made her furious, feeling abandoned to herself. "

That isn't consistency, that is just a different narrative you personally would have preferred to have seen. And would have required changing everything because in the anime Nehalennia never lived on the Moon in the first place, she came from an asteroid.



*This is obviously not common practice in America when it comes to adaptations of US comic books. However, in the early 90s (around the time Sailor Moon began ironically) X-men the Animated series began airing and visually, tonally and in terms of many of the stories and elements they adapted was quite close to the contemporary comic books of the day, to the point where the editor of X-Men was a consultant on the cartoon. This was the closest the US ever came to replicating the manga-anime relationship and unsurprisingly X-Men merchandise skyrocketed, as did sales of the comics and ratings for the TV show. So the business model works optimally if you have the manga and anime SIMULTANEOUSLY.
You know, one thing I really like when reading analyses such as yours and the thorough explanation @Talentless Fool sometimes comes up with is that I get a renewed appreciation for the anime, despite all its flaws. Whether it's in the stock footage and art, or these nice details in the plot, it often gives me a fresh(er) perspective and makes it easier to look past the anime's obvious shortcomings.

Also, I'd like to add something to an aspect you've addressed in your answer. People will often say the suits should have given the anime a break so that Naoko could advance her story further (you've already replied to that) and then come up with this "Naoko was tired" argument. While I do believe it's true, and I do sympathise with any worker who's having a hard time doing what they're supposed to do, I think it's often overlooked how, as tiring as everything was, she still continued to draw the Sailor V manga and even created some side stories for Sailor Moon. We'll never know what we would have got had Takeuchi channelled the energy and time into her main creation instead of these side-projects , but I think it's fair to say there was a lot of bad planning, if not stubbornness, in there, and it ended up being a rod for Takeuchi's own back.
 

Talentless Fool

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While I do believe it's true, and I do sympathise with any worker who's having a hard time doing what they're supposed to do, I think it's often overlooked how, as tiring as everything was, she still continued to draw the Sailor V manga and even created some side stories for Sailor Moon. We'll never know what we would have got had Takeuchi channelled the energy and time into her main creation instead of these side-projects , but I think it's fair to say there was a lot of bad planning, if not stubbornness, in there, and it ended up being a rod for Takeuchi's own back.
Like I said before, unfortunately it's the way the manga industry works in Japan.

Just like the anime got a specific channel and a time slot, the manga gets a position in a magazine.
The publisher pays the mangaka for each page they request (whether it's 20, 33, 52 etc.) and the mangaka has to meet the deadline for the publishers to go to printers and print out the magazine.

Which is why the storyboard stage is such a time-consuming process.
A mangaka is only given a specific amount of pages and if the chapter they are writing requests an additional page to help the reader to understand more smoothly the story, they are not gonna get it because the publisher can't afford to pay 1 extra page for each magazine that is going to the printers.

And again, manga is a business just like anime.
The publishers have to make money, so each mangaka is given a position into their magazine which they are producing and selling.
If the manga is popular, more people are gonna buy it and more magazines are gonna sell, and so more money for the publisher.

If a manga is failing however, then it has the exact opposite effect.
Not to mention, publishers receive tons and tons of drafts from prospective mangakas (established or not) on a weekly basis.
So whether you're a popular or rich mangaka, if your work is not selling and costing the publisher money, then they are gonna let you go and tell you to come up with another project.

In recent years, with foreign countries starting to make their own manga style stories like namely France and the so-called 'Manfra', they do not get to be published first in a magazine and thus they have more lee-way on the time they get to finish a whole volume (similarly to the business of traditional comics).
Which in turn, results in a very slow and sporadic release schedule.

There are of course a few rare cases.
I remember that after the first few volumes, the manga of Ghost Hunt was released directly in tankobon format.
But Ghost Hunt was already a well-established, popular novel series and the manga was only an adaptation of that.

And like I've said before, even a veteran and well respected mangaka as Kurumada has to abide to the release schedule dictated by his publisher.
We know Kurumada finished entire batches of chapters (worth for a whole volume) beforehand but Akita releases them typically a year later.
Why? Because, of course due to his old age Kurumada can't make weekly chapters and there's always the possibility of him getting very ill and being out of commission for a very long time (which happened at the start of the publication of Next Dimension).
So, they decided that every year, they'd make ND a seasonal manga with a spot open at that time for the manga.

Take Shiori Teshirogi for another example.
She wrote The Lost Canvas weekly at 20 pages for nearly 5 years (2006-2011) and started it's Gaiden series likewise on a weekly schedule for it's first 45 chapters but then moved to a monthly magazine to release the remainder of the series.
The monthly chapters had roughly around 40-45 pages I think so she was pretty much doing 2 chapters per month.
And even recently with the latest one-shot chapter, as she revealed on her Tumblr, along with the CD Drama, it was something that was behind the scenes for a very long time.
In her case, since today she is a guest mangaka in the Red magazine, they are able to give her these special treatments.
For a regular weekly or monthly mangaka who is still writing their story and which is a national phenomenon on top of that, it's not really possible

Last example, we have Megumu Okada and the very different release schedules for the G series.
The original Episode G series was a monthly manga of 40ish pages.
The sequel, Assassin G, initially as a weekly manga was then transferred - along with all of the mangas of the Red Ichigo - to an online site Champion Cross and started to have an irregular release.
The final series, Requiem G, still comes out at an irregular release schedule.
The difference here is that Requiem G is the nichest of the Saint Seiya mangas - to fully understand what is happening, you have to have read the original manga, as well as the previous 2 sequels so the people who are gonna follow through are only the die-hard fans and as such Akita can allow Okada such leeway.
The same thing happens with D.Gray-Man with only 4 chapters per year.

As for Takeuchi, again I'll say it but Bandai wasn't imposing on anything here.
The Lip Rods, the Crystal Wands, nothing.
Neither Toei nor Bandai were even pushing for her to come up with new toys or characters (with the exception of the Starlights when SM was in dire situation).
The only entity she had to answer to was Kodansha and there's no way they were the ones requesting a parade of randos to appear each chapter (some characters Toei wouldn't even use as mid-bosses).
Takeuchi was the one who decided that the Witches 5, Amazoness Quartet and Animamates would be part of the manga despite having no idea what to do with them.
It's a clichéd linear story trope of her - she introduces evil version of the main team and poses them as cool villains but she has no idea what to do with them be it character-wise or even in the story so she recycles and recycles and recycles the same schema over and over.

She never had any ideas.
And because she was on a schedule, she just kept doing the same thing over and over.
 

Akari @ria

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"as much as a person may prefer the 90's series to the manga plot, it must be said that Stars does not shine in terms of originality or beauty, is a jumble of recycled ideas that led to a meh ending that leaves several question marks"

Isn't that an incredibly subjective take. Most audience members in Japan did not at the time nor since feel the ending was meh, nor did I. The ending paid off Usagi's character arc very well. Kindly refer to earlier posts where I talk more at leangth about the success of the grand finale.

Recycled ideas? Arguably so...why is that a bad thing? The Black Moon arc recycles concepts from the Dark Kingdom arc, only extrapolating into the future not the past. Mistress 9 recycles ideas from Black Lady. Heck, SuperS is in a sense the most original season of the entire show as it is not in fact about Usagi and the filler plots with a victim of the week demand the Amazon Trio/Quartet become directly involved each time. It is regarded as the worst season.

That being said, which other season had evil Senshi as the villains? Which other season featured a love Usagi potentially falling in love with someone other than Mamoru? Which season omitted Mamoru altogether? These are concepts that hadn't been done in the show. SeiUsa is an incredibly popular ship in the fandom so I'd argue that is quite a bit of 'shine', right?

As for beauty, again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is necessarily subjective to a large degree. Me personally, I adore the visual style Stars had that was different to the whole show and carried through into Cutey Honey F. By virtue of being the most different looking of the whole show does that not by default means it stands out the most, or 'shines'?

"for example, if Chaos is sealed in people's hearts why do we have the Black Moon in the future and not her awakening? Given the darkness in the heart of the Black Moon Clan and death phantom she should have come out of her prison, or at least given them greater power than they had."

??????????????

I'm sorry, I do not understand your point here. The intention of the finale is not that Chaos was forever defeated but rather that Usagi restored balance. Galaxia's mistake was in trying to defeat Chaos once and for all (in the Manga this was Sailor Cosmos's error). Usagi in both cases acknowledges that the bad things Chaos brings about is in fact part and parcel of the adventure of life. Usagi did not forever end the Sailor Wars at the end of Sailor Stars, she put Chaos back to where it belonged. Chaos exists within people's hearts alongside the Light of Hope. They check and balance one another, the Sailor Senshi being the most obvious expression of the 'Light of Hope'.

Therefore, the Black Moon Clan's arrival in the future makes perfect sense. It was just the latest evil thing, no different to the Dark Kingdom (indeed my personal headcanon is that the Anime BMC are descended from the Dark Kingdom).

To be clear Chaos in the anime is not the same as in the Manga. Manga Chaos is a distinct entity with a mind that has been orchestrating events, or at least setting them in motion, with a distinct end goal in mind. Chaos in the anime is more like a force of nature, it creates evil entities that do evil things but it hasn't got a plan in mind nor an end goal. It is more akin to the darkside of the force from Star Wars.

Of course, there are those who argue that Chaos in the anime is NOT the source of every villain in the Anime canon so the above would be moot anyway. I however, don't buy into that.

"Inners and outers here too are almost useless"

How can you say that given how they were distinctly proactive and showed their stuff in the Nehalennia arc? Or the Ami episode with the teacher? Or the scenes where Rei comforts Usagi? Or the episodes where Minako confronts realities of being an idol? Makoto got her best scene ever in the Nehalennia arc. Uranus and Neptune got a fair amount to do regarding the schism between the 2 Senshi teams and turning traitor by joining with Galaxia, which also helped build up just how OP Galaxia was in the first place (stopping Uranus's sword). Saturn essentially got the plot moving in the early episodes so really Pluto was the least useful. But then, that is her lot in life for the most part.

"relegated to the role of stopgaps (not even the power up with the strongest enemies...)"

See above. They weren't stopgaps. They were not as focussed upon however as Usagi. Which, given that the show had neglected the lead character for about 1.5 seasons was sorely needed and refreshing. I also don't get the complaint about power ups when they also didn't get power ups in S, the allegedy greatest season. Of course, the Outers distinctly did get power ups.

"Usagi despairs for Mamoru's absence, but is it possible that no one wonders where this poor guy has ended up? "

No one other than Usagi is close enough to Mamoru to contact him. They all presume he is fine because Usagi seems fine. Usagi seems fine because she is repressing her feelings. As for why doesn't Usagi wonder this, she does, she is just in denial, a different version of denial from what we see in the Manga. She either figures he must be that busy or worse, maybe he has moved on from her. The latter is a frequent issue and very complicated with Usagi's character, but it is compounded by the fact that she is also growing closer to Seiya simultaneously.

"From the passengers of the plane he was traveling on to the university, no one really? "

What have they got to do with anything? Unless I am mistaken, Galaxia didn't blow up the whole plane.

"Then, if I were Usagi I would have moved heaven and earth to look for my love (called embassies, army, police and so on, from my memories of the series "marmalade boy" I learned that it is better to take a trip in person to verify the situation, maybe with a nice teleportation >w0 )."

Okay. You woul have done that. Usagi isn't you though. Are you not making the misstep in your analysis of taking yourself as a standard? 'I would do this so everyone would obviously do this'. I have encountered similar situations in analysis before. Yes, there is such a thing as common sense but this isn't one of those situations. Mamoru told usagi he would not be able to write her for a while as he would be very busy early on. This is a case where her maturity this season winds up backfiring. She doesn't do what younger, more impulsive, more immature Usagi might've done. She waits patiently, she grins and bears it until she can't take it any more and breaks down in the iconic 'Ami I not enough' scene. (where the soap opera drama is chef's kiss). This is set up in the early episodes of the show. Luna tells Usagi she has grown a lot and to see Mamoru off with a smile. Unfortunately this leads to Usagi repressing her concerns, her doubts and above all her lonliness.

Again, this is peak storytelling from Stars since loneliness is a pervasive theme in Sailor Moon and Usagi is typically the person who delivers others from their lonliness. But who saves the saviour? The 'Am I not enough' scene encapsulates this aspect of the story arc very well and on a meta level homages the R movie. Usagi gives a rose to save baby Mamo from his lonliness, Seiya 'gives' Usagi a rose to save her but it hammers home how lonely she really feels without her lover.

'The character design is up and down negatively (whoever is in charge of certain episodes did not give his best).'

Is this not once more a case of being highly subjective? I love the way the show looks in this season.

Now sure, some episodes look more off model than others but a) standard practice for this anime b) seriously standard practice at the time for the industry. Dragon Ball GT, a bigger brand with more money and higher ratings objectively looked WORSE than Stars did and so did some episodes of DBZ at the peak of its popularity as well.

"This video summarizes some of my other doubts and thoughts on the stars season, as well as my point of view on the plot of the manga (I didn't make the video, so please, don't go tormenting this girl. U.U ), unfortunately the Cosmos movies turned out to be far from representing the manga's story adequately but that's what Toei gave us."

With respect I am not going to watch that. I have a bad habit of getting worked up by video essays if i do not agree with them and therefore tend to respond at leangth to them which eats up my day and their comment section. Then my YT feed gives me more stuff like that and it just a vicious cycle as my OCD ass struggles to resist responding. Like you have no idea HOW many bad Spider-Man video essays I laboriously unpacked word for word back in the day.

If you are very passionate about the subject and your views on it perhaps you could write down the points you have in common from the essay. I feel more comfortable responding in this format.

As for the plot of the manga I am not interested in discussing that in this post beyond how it pertains to the anime. I like the manga stars and Cosmos films, but both are flawed in my view.

"If they had waited to produce the series when they would have had the necessary material this wouldn't have happened, but noooo, let's milk the cow while it's full!"

That's just plain silly and doesn't take account of production realities. The way the industry worked back then shows rarely if ever took breaks. Advertisers and TV stations expected content at a certain time and a certain amount of it. The seasonal model we have now wasn't a thing back then and it is a risky venture if you are not doing it annually. High budget prestige TV shows made today for streaming struggle to combat the inevitable loss of audience interest whenever they take big gaps between seasons. It is why HBO has now committed to doing House of the Dragon every 2 years but doing a different Game of Thrones show in between. Game of Thrones content will (god willing) happen every year so keep the brand alive. Taking big breaks often hurts the brand as you have to reignite it. Attack on Titan took the gamble of waiting but in between seasons 1 and 2 they tried their best to keep the brand alive and relevant with other side content too.

Not to mention, you are asking a lot of people to be out of work or do other jobs whilst they wait almost a whole year, so you can't be sure you'd get them back. There is a reason so many of the staff worked on cutey honey F immediately after Stars, it is because it was cheduled directly after Stars finished in the same time slot. Similarly, many of SM's staff had worked on the anime Sailor Moon replaced in the schedule.

Furthermore, they wouldn't have had the necesarry material even if they had waited. The stars manga was NEVER going to work as fuel for the anime because it doesn't allow much space for filler which is the lifeblood of the anime and furthermore, it was a deconstruction of SM and the MG genre more broadly. This was absolutely the wrong direction for the anime to go in. Whilst the Dream arc had been successful in the manga SuperS had hurt the brand. Deconstruction was toxic to the anime whereas reconstruction was critical, hence the first 6 episodes redo the Nehalennia arc and act as an apology for SuperS in various ways.

"Naoko was in her first important story, Toei put a lot of pressure on her forcing her to add 4 additional narrative arcs from nothing and that had to hold up to expectations, do you think that's not enough?
All to fill a slot on TV? They do this with all the series they adapt?"

I mean...it is a business. Its just how it goes. The timeslot does need to be filled because there are financial duties that need to be met. The only anime or manga series I know of that got a fair amount of leeway in this regard was One Piece and that is Toei's biggest cash cow arguably, with the leeway granted to accomodate the author's health.

She was clearly willing and able to do it as evidenced by the fact that, well...she did. She signed up for it, made a lot of money. It was hardly slave labour or unfair. It was a lot of pressure but Eichiro Oda writing One Piece is also a lot of pressure (to the point where he got very unwell) and no one pressured him to do that.

It was a messy process because it wasn't intended to be more than one arc so I'm sure there were mistakes made on both ends, but there isn't a blame game to be had here. The anime staff aren't salty about how Takeuchi worked with them and she isn't salty with what they did either. At least I've never encountered any evidence of that. Honestly, in my experience in the fandom it is essentially the fans themselves who ascribe bad blood between the two parties (or anyone involved with SM to be honest) and I've never seen any hard evidence of that. The most I've seen Takeuchi take upset is with Rei being so different in the anime and the manga and that is a more personal thing for her, it wasn't a 'she was upset with the anime staff because of it'. Everyone, to my knoledge, seemed to be very grown up about it.

"As far as i know with series like one piece they either fill the gaps with fillers or take a break waiting for new material from the author (making important manga, above all weekly, in my opinion is pure and simple slavery)."

One Piece and Sailor Moon were not produced in the same way nor in the same time period. One Piece wa a weekly manga turned into a weekly anime 2 years after the manga started publication. Sailor Moon was a monthly manga turned into a weekly anime, the latter of which began airing less than 3 months after the former was first released. The manga in fact was created specifically so that toei could turn it into a anime. The business model being that the anime sells the manga, the manga sells the anime and both sell merchandise in a feedback loop.*

This means that from a pragmatic production POV the anime could never have been made in the same way as the manga nor have the same relationship your typical Manga and Anime adaptations have. Whilst far from exactly the same situation, the scenario was much closer to the working relationship between the Dragon Ball Super Anime and Manga, wherein both are taking the same basic concepts (dreamed up by a single creative, Toriyama or Takeuchi) and doing their own takes upon them. A lot of material in DBS the anime was never in the manga because the Manga was not produced on a weekly schedule like the anime.

In other words the comparison is very much apples to oranges.

However, I will stand in defence of Takeuchi. She made mistakes. There are flaws in her work. But her work, at the very least by the standards of its day, was phenomenal and changed the genre completely. Sailor Moon the manga and anime are seminal works people should at least check out a bit of if they are interested in the MG genre or the craft of Manga in general.

Honestly, I get frustrated that as a fandom we must play this zero sum game of the manga or anime being good whilst the other must be bad. They are simply different beasts albeit from the same family. A rabbit and a hare you might say. They have their respective streangths and weaknesses. The same can be true if we throw in the Live action show or musicals.

"The Chibiusa-Helios relationship in the manga makes perfect sense, even having a worthy conclusion."

As someone who enjoys and even defends the anime version of this relationship, I do think it operates better in the manga. Whilst it does make sense when you think about it in the anime, the manga doesn't demand that degree of thought from the reader because the whole 'keep it secret' isn't as much of a thing in that version.

"Nehellenia in the 90s anime is moved by the sole, useless and deplorable motivation of not wanting to grow old, the thought of becoming ugly has gone to her head so much that she sacrificed her "beloved" people. If the ones at Toei were geniuses as you say, shouldn't they have found a less silly and more plausible motivation?"

This is false unless we are excluding Stars and riding only by SuperS. For the sake of steelmanning your POV, lets say it was just SuperS.

Nehalennia is also motivated by desire for Helios, so not wanting to age is not her sole motivation.

But, even if it was...why is this a bad motive? What makes this useless? Is it a deplorable motivation? From a morallistic POV yes it is...because, you know....she is a villain. But from a characetrisation POV it is not deplorable in terms of its writing.

The Evil Queen from Snow White, an obviously big influence upon Nehalennia, has the same motivation. I fail to see how a fairy tale villain motivation is a bad thing in a story which is largely a modern fairy tale unto itself. Not to mention, countless people in the real world even today fear growing old and losing their looks, especially when they are to a large extent defined and valued for their looks. This in turn drives them to desperate measures. Case in point: Madonna.

I mean, there is a reason in mythology and folklore we have characters who seek out the Fountain of Youth or who through magic or divinity are eternally youthful. It is a deep set human fear. Fear in turn can drive people to do terrible things. This was literally the fundamental message of Darth Vader's story. He became a monster out of fear and in doing so wound up hurting and destroying those he loved, those he feared to lose in the first place. It was a classic Greek tragedy. In a sense this is true of Nehalennia as well. She was beloved by her people because she was beautiful, but to retain that beauty she destroyed her own people, and wound up losing it anyway. Given Sailor Moon's borrowing from greek mythology, inbibing elements of Greek tragedy like this seems all too apprpriate.

So it was in fact entirely plausible, albeit exaggerated and magnified as all things tend to be in a fairy tale/super hero narrative.

"For the sake of consistency in the plot, Nehellenia could have been envious of the bright part of the moon and of those who govern it, perhaps because she saw the difficulties of her people and the fact that they are almost unknown to the others made her furious, feeling abandoned to herself. "

That isn't consistency, that is just a different narrative you personally would have preferred to have seen. And would have required changing everything because in the anime Nehalennia never lived on the Moon in the first place, she came from an asteroid.



*This is obviously not common practice in America when it comes to adaptations of US comic books. However, in the early 90s (around the time Sailor Moon began ironically) X-men the Animated series began airing and visually, tonally and in terms of many of the stories and elements they adapted was quite close to the contemporary comic books of the day, to the point where the editor of X-Men was a consultant on the cartoon. This was the closest the US ever came to replicating the manga-anime relationship and unsurprisingly X-Men merchandise skyrocketed, as did sales of the comics and ratings for the TV show. So the business model works optimally if you have the manga and anime SIMULTANEOUSLY.
Sorry if I threw out all this complaint of mine, since the manga is a work that I like, regardless of errors and inconsistencies, it was difficult to control myself, as I already said I'm not having a good time and always reading complaints about the manga has not helped me, on the contrary.

I am the one in the mistake, everyone is free to express their opinions, in my ignorance I threw out my frustration, there are things that I cannot change and are difficult to deal with, not related to the topics of the forum but are part of my life.

I also approached the work of Sailormoon thanks to the 90s anime, it gave me joy, made me reflect on many things and supported me in difficult moments, despite the defects that I found in the series, for example the excessive comedy.

If I took refuge in the world of manga and anime it is to not be overwhelmed by the bad and negative things that surround me. Seeing that in those stories there are characters with a strong sense of justice who solve problems and teach us to be better people has always given me hope for the future.

I know that my motivations do not justify my behavior, so if you do not feel like forgiving me I can understand it, it is difficult for me to do many things, even to go back on my steps, I hope you take these circumstances of mine into account.