The Outer Planet Guardians Return

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie Part 2 (Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Eternal Movie 2 / 劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーンEternal) wraps up the Dark Moon Parade arc. As I mentioned in my review of Part 1, this is the fourth story arc. There’s only one more to go after this.

Okay, so, when watching Eternal Part 1, I didn’t remember why the outer planet guardians weren’t around. I remembered that in Crystal Season 3, Sailor Saturn tried to end the world. But, I didn’t remember that she got turned into a baby and the other three were raising her.

According to this movie, that’s what happened. Fine. I have no problems with that. And, I liked seeing that content at the start of the movie. I love the outer planet guardians — they’re better than the inner planet guardians. So, I’ll always take content revolving around them.

There are some things I want to point out in regard to this opening part of the movie, though. First of all, Setsuna Meiou is hot. I already thought Sailor Pluto was cool because she has the power to control time and space. But, the outfit she wears at the start of this movie has me even more interested.

As far as Michiru and Haruka go, I don’t have too much to say. They’re still gay/trans icons. However, I don’t know if we knew that Haruka is an F1 driver before now. That took me by surprise. But, it does tell us when this arc takes place. If Haruka raced in (South) Africa, it has to be in 1992 or 1993.

Finally, there’s Hotaru Tomoe. Why does nobody think it’s weird that she’s growing at an alarming rate? Have they just accepted that it’s magic? It seems concerning.

Super Sailor Moon? No, That’s Eternal Sailor Moon!

In my review of Part 1, I discussed the Sailor Guardians’ new transformations. Specifically, I discussed how there wasn’t much of a point to them. The solar eclipse made it so they couldn’t transform anymore. So, they simply transformed in a different way to get around that.

These new transformations didn’t give them any new powers or anything. And, it’s not like they had to undergo some training or meaningful self-reflection to awaken them. Sure, there was some level of self-reflection required. But, it was only surface-level.

With the outer planet guardians, we’ve stopped pretending there’s a point to these transformations. They go through literally no self-reflection before unlocking them. Saturn awakens on her own and then gives the new transformations to the other three. That’s all there is to it. And, again, these “new” transformations don’t do anything new.

There’s only one truly new transformation in all of Sailor Moon Eternal. Sailor Moon unlocks a new, even more powerful (I assume) form called Eternal Sailor Moon. First, she was Sailor Moon. Then, she was Super Sailor Moon. And now, she’s Eternal Sailor Moon. Will this be her final form? I doubt it.

But, something I thought was pretty funny was how Eternal Sailor Moon came to be. There have been multiple holy grails present throughout these movies. However, the last holy grail we see is different. It’s silver instead of gold and it’s what the powers of the Sailor Guardians go into to turn Sailor Moon into Eternal Sailor Moon.

What was funny about this is what Venus says when this holy grail shows up. She says that it’s the holy grail they’ve been searching for. What? Since when? When have they ever said they were searching for a holy grail? That’s news to me.

Four New Sailor Guardians

At the end of Eternal Part 2, there was a twist I didn’t see coming. The Amazoness Quartet are actually Sailor Guardians. Now, I know there are a lot of Sailor Guardians in the extended Sailor Moon universe. But, I wasn’t expecting more to show up here.

These four new Sailor Guardians are the protectors of the four asteroids. There’s Sailor Ceres, Sailor Pallas, Sailor Juno, and Sailor Vesta. But, how do they fit into the Sailor Guardians at large? Don’t their powers overlap with those of the original Sailor Guardians?

Ceres has the power of love, like Venus. Pallas has the power of water, like Mercury. Juno has the power of plants (and maybe lightning), like Jupiter. And Vesta has the power of fire, like Mars. So, what’s the point of these new Sailor Guardians? The point is that they’re the next generation’s Sailor Guardians.

Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are Sailor Moon’s guardians. Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vest are Sailor Chibi Moon’s guardians. After Crystal, I kind of thought that’s what the outer planet guardians were supposed to be. But, I guess not. Chibi Moon has her own, separate guardians.

So, will we be seeing these asteroid guardians again? There’s only one arc of the series left, at this point. So, if they’re going to reappear, it’s going to be then. But, if you ask me, I’d prefer that they didn’t show up.

I think it was fine to introduce the Sailor Guardians associated with Chibi Moon. However, Chibi Moon’s story feels like something that we shouldn’t be covering. Sailor Moon’s story isn’t even done yet. So, leave whatever Chibi Moon and the asteroid guardians get up to for the future — even if we don’t get to see that future.

Final Thoughts

In the end, I gave Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie Part 2 a 6/10. It was better than Part 1, which I also gave a 6. But, I don’t think it was good enough for me to give a 7. The plot wasn’t that good and I would have liked to see more character development.

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The True Solar Eclipse Conspiracy

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie Part 1 (Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Eternal Movie 1 / 劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーンEternal) is the sequel to Sailor Moon Crystal. There are three seasons of Crystal, then two movies of Eternal, and then two more movies of Cosmos.

I’ll get through all the movies eventually. But, let’s focus on Eternal (Part 1) in this review. Eternal covers the fourth story arc, the Dead Moon Circus arc. And, as you might expect, Eternal Part 1 focuses on the first half. It sets everything up for Eternal Part 2, which I expect to be better.

Here’s the setup, a solar eclipse happens and some villains show up from another dimension. These villains are members of the Dead Moon Circus, who are trying to revive their evil queen. You know, standard Sailor Moon villainry.

Coincidentally, there are four main members of the Dead Moon Circus, whom I’ll get to later. Why is this a coincidence? Because there are four main Sailor Guardians aside from Sailor Moon. There’s Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. And, wouldn’t you know? The four main members of the Dead Moon Circus control the same “elements” as those Sailor Guardians.

Wow! It’s almost like we’re going to see each member of each group paired up against each other.

If you haven’t guessed by now, that’s exactly what happens in this movie. It’s weird to say, but this movie feels very episodic.

Sure, there’s still an overarching plot. Usagi and Chibiusa have stuff going on. But, a significant portion of this movie is dedicated to the Sailor Guardians vs. the members of Dead Moon Circus. And, each of these battles follows the same formula. We pretty much see the same thing happen four times.

Dead Moon Circus

Alright, let’s talk about Dead Moon Circus. Who are they and what are they all about? As I mentioned, their goal is to revive their queen, Nehellenia. If that sounds familiar, it’s basically the same plot as the Dark Kingdom arc from Crystal Season 1.

The main difference is that the Dark Kingdom had Queen Beryl trying to revive Queen Metalia. In this arc, we have Zirconia trying to revive Nehellenia.

Okay, so who’s Zirconia? We don’t know that much about her. But, she’s the interim leader of Dead Moon Circus while Nehellenia isn’t around. She’s an old woman who looks like an alien.

Aside from Nehellenia and Zirconia, there are four other, previously mentioned, members of the group. I don’t believe we got their names in this first movie. But, we know they call themselves the Amazoness Quartet. They’re the descendants of the legendary Amazoness warriors.

The Amazoness Quartet controls “Lemures” in battle. Lemures are like little shadow spirit things that remind me of the soot creatures from Ghibli films. These Lemures get inside the bodies of their victims and turn their dreams into nightmares. This somehow creates dark energy, which the Dead Moon Circus collects to revive their queen.

What does it mean to turn a dream into a nightmare, though? Let’s look at Ami Mizuno (Sailor Mercury) as an example. Her dream is to become a doctor, so she’s studied hard all her life.

The Lemures twisted her dedication into a bad thing. They tried to convince her that this is why she’s not very close to her parents. Rather than spending time with them, she spent all her time studying.

There are also three male(?) sub-members of Dead Moon Circus, who were transformed from animals into humans. They work under the Amazoness Quartet.

Mamoru Gets Lung Cancer

So, there are some other weird things that happen in this movie. For starters, none of the Sailor Guardians can transform after the solar eclipse. That should make things interesting, right? Well, it doesn’t because they all awaken new ways to transform.

Okay, but these new ways to transform are different and more powerful than the old ways, right? Again, no. At least, not that I could tell. They use different objects to transform now, but the transformations are the same. It doesn’t appear that they received any new abilities or got any stronger.

Next, Chibiusa gets into a romantic relationship with a horse. To be precise, it’s actually a pegasus. I’m not sure if that makes it any less strange. But, when the pegasus kisses her, it transforms into a boy. So, that’s good. At least he has a human form.

This pegasus boy is Helios and he’s one of Mamoru’s knights from the future. In case you forgot, Chibiusa is the future daughter of Usagi and Mamoru. I don’t believe Usagi and Mamoru know this, but Chibiusa does. So, Helios is Chibiusa’s future boyfriend, I guess.

Finally, Mamoru gets lung cancer. Okay, so not really. But, he kind of does. He’s coughing a lot and even coughing up blood. Then, when he goes to a doctor to get checked out, he’s told that he has a dark spot in his lungs. A spot on your lungs sounds a lot like cancer, to me. But, this doctor doesn’t seem all that concerned.

Of course, it’s not cancer. This dark spot is one of the Lemures that got inside Mamoru’s body. In this movie, this just means Mamoru is out of commission. But, I assume it will be more relevant in the second movie.

Final Thoughts

I really liked Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3. That was peak Sailor Moon, for me. Unfortunately, since that was the peak, it means Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 isn’t. In the end, I gave this movie a 6/10, which is the same I gave the first two seasons of Crystal.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to share it with everyone you know. Also, follow me on your social media of choice so you don’t miss out on my review of Eternal Part 2 — links are in the footer.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and JasonHK for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about the perks of supporting this blog, check out DoubleSama.com/support.

My review of Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 is available now.