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Sailor Moon Crystal
Episode 18

by Rebecca Silverman,

Hold on to your hats, everyone – this week on Sailor Moon Crystal the pretty guardians start to get it right. Of course it took them losing three members of the team to reach this point, but better late than never, right?

Now that Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter have been taken away by the Black Moon, only Minako, Usagi, and Mamoru are left to figure out what's going on. Venus, with Jupiter's kidnapping, essentially snaps – she's had quite enough of this, thank you very much, and she's ready to make Chibi-Usa tell her precisely what's going on. After carefully placing Petz's lost Malefic Black Crystal earring in a lab dish, the three teens set off to confront the little girl, only to have her recoil in horror at the sight of the earring. She does tell them that she's not an enemy, but since she won't give any further information, Usagi treats her as if she is one anyway, storming out in her usual mature fashion. With this breaking any small amount of trust Chibi-Usa had in her, the little girl steals Usagi's transformation brooch the next morning.

Essentially what we see in this episode is Minako, Mamoru, and Chibi-Usa growing desperate. With the final Spectre Sister, Calaveras, actively brainwashing the people of Tokyo into believe the Black Moon to be the good guys, Minako goes to make her last stand while Mamoru converses with the spirits of his Generals about his feelings of powerlessness. Both of these are interesting moments in terms of the magical girl genre – Mamoru doesn't believe in himself and in his own power; he isn't sure that he even had the right to be reborn. Despite being told that he must trust and believe in himself, he can't do it, and it is ultimately desperation that allows him to move forward, not faith. For the girls, however, belief is enough – Minako changes into Sailor Venus fully believing that she will not be taken like her friends were, that she can do something. Her reaction to being freed by Sailor Moon isn't “thank goodness,” but “What took you so long?” While we could write that off as being simply a flippant comment, when compared to Mamoru's struggles it seems equally likely that she never doubted that she would succeed. Jupiter last episode allowed herself to give up (whether because of illness or being overpowered); Venus never does. Perhaps this is because she's been playing this magical girl game longer. Whatever the reason, her belief in herself and her companions stands in stark contrast to Tuxedo Mask's surprise at being able to do something.

The action moves at a good clip for this episode, balancing scenes of Usagi at school, investigating Chibi-Usa, and the actual battle well. Venus' transformation sequence is one of the better ones, possibly because of the speed of her movements, and on the whole this episode simply looks better than many of its predecessors. Of course issues do remain – Tuxedo Mask's pants seem to have shrunk in the wash and Chibi-Usa's elementary school friend Momo has the body of a tiny supermodel, and there's something seriously wrong with Calaveras' breasts. This is balanced by some of the plot details, however, such as Naru commenting that she's known for a while that Usagi has a secret part of her life, which helps to round out both her character and the story's world.

It is always nice to see a better episode than you were expecting, and this was definitely what happened this week. Now that Chibi-Usa's finally broken her silence, the plot is going to heat up and Sailor Pluto will at last make an appearance, so here's hoping that Sailor Moon Crystal can maintain this higher level of quality as we move forward.

Rating: B

Sailor Moon Crystal is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rebecca Silverman is ANN's senior manga critic.


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