Creative Staff
Story/Art: Naoko Takeuchi
Translation: Mari Morimoto
What They Say
As life appears to return to normal for everyone else, Usagi’s turns upside-down in a mundane way with Mamoru leaving to study abroad for a year in America and Chibi-Usa returning to the thirtieth century.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Though the previous threat has finally ended, things don’t seem to be winding down for our heroes, as we hear about an unusually high frequency of meteor showers and get a look at the new villain evilly plotting. However, the gang on Earth remains blissfully unaware and resumes their happy school life, even finding time to obsess over the new hot idol group trio, Three Lights. Things do start to shake up a little, though, when Mamoru leaves to study abroad in America only to be captured by a mysterious figure, leaving Usagi to pass out and be rescued by the members of Three Lights. However, when Usagi wakes up she doesn’t remember any of this, believing instead that Mamoru safely boarded the plane. Chibi-Usa returns back home, and the gang ends up seeing Three Lights in concert. There, a new enemy called Sailor Iron Mouse who works under Galaxia appears, only for a trio of mysterious Sailor Scouts who look suspiciously like Three Lights to appear and save the day before immediately vanishing.
As Usagi continues to confront her jumbled memories, a very small child named Chibi-Chibi who only seems to be able to repeat words appears at her house. The plot continues, and Usagi receives mysterious cards with images on them that she assumes to be from Mamoru, as new Sailor enemies continue to appear, the original Sailor Scouts are slowly captured, and Three Lights reveal themselves as the Sailor Star Lights.
Will Usagi be able to team up with these new Sailors to confront the threat of Sailor Galaxia and her Shadow Galactica, or will the lights of our heroes be extinguished!
In Summary
With this volume, we seem to have finally entered the last arc, the climax of the series. On the one hand, the new allies here feel just a tad weakly developed and don’t fit so well with the main cast. However, the enemies definitely make for a nice twist, acting as a parallel to the heroes in a way. They also manage to make a pretty good showing, really wounding the heroes even when they go down. Finally the expanded scope this volume brings feels just a little weak, as the new revelations feel a tad underdeveloped and, with the way the plot is going, seem unlikely to develop much in the final volume, either. Hopefully the series can come to a strong conclusion, but for now this book does a good job setting up for a solid finish.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: May 21st, 2013
MSRP: $11.99
