Guardian of the wind, guardian of the sea.
What They Say:
Episode 30: Act. 29 Infinity 3 “Two New Soldiers”
The Sailor Guardians defeat Eudial but allow the mysterious Guardian to escape. Still suspicious about Mugen Academy, the girls decide to check out the place again by attending Michiru Kaioh’s violin recital, which is being held on campus.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Michiru and Haruka are quite the home-wreckers here in Sailor Moon Crystal. Haruka putting the moves on Usagi and Michiru giving Mamoru those tickets creates quite a tumultuous crisis of conscious for Usagi. However, even she can’t deny the concert is the perfect opportunity to get inside that campus and do some research!
There’s a third mystery girl involved in this plot, and that’s Hotaru. Chibi-usa heads back to Mugen to return Hotoru’s handkerchief and gets to know Hotaru better. Hotaru confides in Chibi-usa and tells her some of her troubled past. When she suffers another painful attack Chibi-usa draws out her silver crystal and uses it to take away the older girl’s pain. Hotaru is still worried that she’ll be nothing but trouble to Chibi-usa.
Chibi-usa just happens to be the right place everywhere in this episode to gain the most knowledge of the situation at hand. She learns that Professor Tomoe is doing dangerous experiments, but is sworn to secrecy by Hotoru. Then she ends up getting a lift home in a helicopter from Michiru and Haruka. She blurts out to them about amulets before they mention talismans right back to the little girl. Talismans which the entire group had a dream about, foretelling an end of the world scenario. Yet Chibi-usa doesn’t make the connection, unlike Usagi who remains confused, yet convinced, that Haruka is both the guy and the girl she keeps running into. (Usagi is a little confused as to the whole gender thing.)
Mimete was my favorite of the witches from the original adaptation. Probably because of the silliness surrounding all of the witches in that version. Here she’s an idol, with quite a fan club, and is far more competent. Then again, so is her fated rival. The best part about the whole Mimi thing though is the lengths Minako goes to in order to get to her concert at Mugen. She breaks out her own disguise device in a call-back to the Sailor V manga and uses the power to disguise herself as a male Mugen student. (Yes, male. Minako is still great.) Then she calls the others out of their concert before launching an attack. It’s a great bit of fanservice, but…
You want to talk ultimate fanservice though, Mercury Aqua Mirage is the exact same attack as the original adaptation’s Mercury special “Ami’s First Love.” They reanimated the attack move for move! She and the other guardians storm the hall and attack the daimonized students inside. The other attacks are the same we’ve seen so far this season, but man, so cool seeing that Mercury attack again.
Sailor Moon lands a healing attack on the daimons, but she isn’t the one to take out Mimete. Two attacks fly out of nowhere and vaporize her. The episode ends with the proper introduction of Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus.
In Summary:
Sailor Moon Crystal season three is getting better and better. Neptune and Uranus finally step out into the spotlight after stealing it since the season began. Chibi-usa makes a new friend in the sickly Hotaru. The witches are getting bolder in their attempts to gain the favor of Kaolinite and her master. We even get an old attack made new again and the return of Minako being a goofball. The streaming services still need to work on their subtitles though. Yikes.
Episode Grade: A –
Streamed by: Viz.com, Crunchyroll, Hulu.
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS Yosemite, via Safari 9, FIOS connection. Your mileage may vary.
