All shall be revealed… wait, didn’t we already know this?
What They Say:
“Act.22 Hidden Agenda – Nemesis -”
Usagi tries to escape the Black Moon Castle. She arrives at the “Malefic Black Crystal” reactor, where she finds Demande’s younger brother Saphir.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I want to reiterate that Pluto is a terrible space time guardian. She gets knocked down by a stiff wind here and only then realizes she messed up at some point. The same wind does nothing to Mamoru who runs through it looking for Chibi-usa. As for Chibi-usa… well, that’s a story for next week.
When we last left our failing heroes, Usagi was trapped along with her fellow guardians on Nemesis. Prince Demande is holding the eventual queen of the world because he really wants the power of her crystal, despite claiming again and again that it creates nothing but lies. At least Demande has some sort of ideal beyond being evil for the sake of being evil. It’s convenient that you can draw some comparison’s to modern day terrorists who came from decent places becoming disillusioned and burning everything around them to ash. Demande really does come off as the fanatical sort. I have no way of knowing if the current animators are realizing any of this, as they don’t take advantage of it.
Saphir never wanted his brother to go to such lengths. He just wanted them to rule, and thus he will kill Sailor Moon and go through with the original time travel plan. Except Saphir is not strong enough to stand up to the might of the silver crystal. He tells Usagi this after she wanders around the evil castle in vain looking for her guardians. No one told Saphir monologging is dangerous to your health.
The second half of this episode marks a return of terrible animation direction. Any time this series has launched in to an action scene it falters. The transitions after the transformations in this episode are especially clunky. The other guardians, rescued by the power of Sailor Moon, crash through the floor like the Kool-Aid man to land at her side. That scene wasn’t supposed to be funny. At least the animation team has the stock attacks to fall back on, because they need them.
Sailor Moon is able to call upon the help of her future self, who has much better control over the magic of the silver crystal, to send her and her friends back to earth. Demande is left with his brother after Wiseman nukes Rubeus for being too sensible. Evil always turns on itself, doesn’t it? When the gang returns to the mists of time they suddenly realize they’re missing Mamoru and Chibi-usa. Oops.
In Summary:
This episode of Sailor Moon Crystal reiterates the sordid origins of Wiseman and Nemesis before introducing a new shadowy element of evil. While the first part is heavy in exposition the animation holds, until the second part where everything becomes a ragged mess of betrayal and stock animation. The only good thing is that Sailor Moon was able to free herself and her friends, although the way she went about it was sort of cheating. It’s clear now that Wiseman will be the final boss of this arc, Demande seems comfortable in his position as a puppet. Despite the timeliness of the theme of the enemies here there’s no hint the animator’s make that connection and push it, as this was all set in the story long ago. At least the guardians are all back together now to save the day.
Episode Grade: C
Streamed by: Crunchyroll, Hulu, etc.
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS 10.10.3, via Safari 8.0.4, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.
