So I just finished rewatching Sailor Stars. While it isn't one of favorite series' it's still Sailor Moon. I wasn't a big fan of it beforehand, having read the manga first then watching the anime. Hating the different directions the story took in the anime took. I was never and still not a fan of the Usagi x Seiya "relationship", the favoritism the writers gave the Star Lights over the Inner and Outer Senshi or Galaxia's change of character and motivations and the change to the conclusion of the series. However I decided to rewatch the series with the same frame of mine I had with the arcs I like best. Sailor Moon, R and S.

Sailor Moon is my favorite character. I know that's cheesy but she is. She's brave, strong, silly, sweet, loving, and of course a crybaby. My problem with Stars as I rewatched it was that Usagi's character was essentially degraded (reduced) from where it theoretically should've been. I can't count how many times Usagi cries in this arc (not including parts when she's missing Mamoru), how many times someone jumps in front of her to take an attack for her, or how many times Usagi stands around feeling helpless or just taking no action despite being in her most powerful form of Eternal Sailor Moon. So many lesser scouts through themselves and their lives away to protect Sailor Moon. The last five episodes were a struggle to get through.

I found myself asking where was the defiant Sailor Moon who took on the Beryl-Matelia with nothing but hope, faith, friendship and a buttload of courage from our resident crybaby?

Or the bold Sailor Moon who risked everything to defeat Death Phantom, after she had already spent her energy purifying Black Lady with the Silver Crystal?

Again the adamant Sailor Moon who put the entire planet in danger rather than let Uranus and Neptune kill another senshi, but never gave up or compromised her (naive) ideals and still fought to the end and managed to defeat Pharaoh 90 and save Hotaru.

I'm not big on SuperS because it's primarily Chibi-Usa but my point is after defending the world so many times Usagi/ Sailor Moon should have a more seasoned and mature attitude. Usagi seems just as helpless and unwilling to fight as she did in the early episodes of the anime. She preaches alot about how fighting is pointless, but never realizes that she's backed into a corner and has no choice but to fight her way out.

Maybe my expectations for Sailor Moon are too high, but I expected more courage and decisive action from her in this the final season.

Oh I can agree. The final battle between Sailor Moon and Galaxia pales in comparison to the previous season's finales. Shoot, even in SuperS, though she didn't really "defeat" Nehelenia yet, she refuses to give up and fights to save Chibi-Usa BY DIVING OFF TO HER MOST LIKELY DEATH.

I felt she was shown as weak in this final battle compared to the manga. Its disappointing really, especially for the very final battle of the entire series. I sometimes don't even want to consider Stars as part of Sailor Moon just because it feels so different than the earlier seasons.

I just don't understand how she goes from "I'M KILLING BERYL WITH MAH AWESOME POWERS" to "FIGHTING IS USELESS! LETS NOT FIGHT" with Galaxia. :I

I think what the anime version of Stars fall short in comparison to the other season anime endings of Sailor Moon is the fact that there were some key characters not brought into it.

If you think about it, we're missing Sailor Chibimoon, the Sailor Quartet (sorry if this is the wrong nickname as I always tend to forget theirs), Sailor Cosmos (not the sillouhette but the actual character), and others which really made a signficant change to the ending that didn't exist in the anime. There were just a lot of key players in the played a crucial role that led up to the dramactic finale in the manga that wasn't there in the anime.

If those characters were there, I'm pretty sure we would have had a much different ending.

Regardless of the missing characters though, maybe the reason why this ending version showed a more sincere Sailor Moon was because Galaxia was a senshi? Think about this, Sailor Moon refused to kill Hotaru regardless that she could destroy the world because Hotaru was a friend and Sailor Saturn was a senshi.

Just trying to think of possible reasons why the anime ended like this ^^; But who knows ^^

Sailor Nemesis wrote:

[...] I wasn't a big fan of it beforehand, having read the manga first then watching the anime. Hating the different directions the story took in the anime took. I was never and still not a fan of the Usagi x Seiya "relationship", the favoritism the writers gave the Star Lights over the Inner and Outer Senshi or Galaxia's change of character and motivations and the change to the conclusion of the series.

Completely agree. I watched the anime YEARS after reading the manga (and kept the anime separate from myself by never pursuing any AMV or read-through that contained scenes from the anime xD no spoilers for me~), and watching it I disliked the same things you mentioned here, Nemi-chan. By the end of the series I was like "WHAA?! No FLIGHT THROUGH SPACE?! NO CAULDRON? NO COSMOS? What about the other animates? o.o Lethe? Mnemosyne? that terribly awesome scene with the river of forgetfulness? ;_; So, I agree, too, with Paprika.

Sailor Nemesis wrote:

Sailor Moon is my favorite character. I know that's cheesy but she is. She's brave, strong, silly, sweet, loving, and of course a crybaby. My problem with Stars as I rewatched it was that Usagi's character was essentially degraded (reduced) from where it theoretically should've been. I can't count how many times Usagi cries in this arc (not including parts when she's missing Mamoru), how many times someone jumps in front of her to take an attack for her, or how many times Usagi stands around feeling helpless or just taking no action despite being in her most powerful form of Eternal Sailor Moon. So many lesser scouts through themselves and their lives away to protect Sailor Moon. The last five episodes were a struggle to get through.

I found myself asking where was the defiant Sailor Moon who took on the Beryl-Matelia with nothing but hope, faith, friendship and a buttload of courage from our resident crybaby?

Or the bold Sailor Moon who risked everything to defeat Death Phantom, after she had already spent her energy purifying Black Lady with the Silver Crystal?

Again the adamant Sailor Moon who put the entire planet in danger rather than let Uranus and Neptune kill another senshi, but never gave up or compromised her (naive) ideals and still fought to the end and managed to defeat Pharaoh 90 and save Hotaru.

I'm not big on SuperS because it's primarily Chibi-Usa but my point is after defending the world so many times Usagi/ Sailor Moon should have a more seasoned and mature attitude. Usagi seems just as helpless and unwilling to fight as she did in the early episodes of the anime. She preaches alot about how fighting is pointless, but never realizes that she's backed into a corner and has no choice but to fight her way out.

Maybe my expectations for Sailor Moon are too high, but I expected more courage and decisive action from her in this the final season.

Brit-chan wrote:

Oh I can agree. The final battle between Sailor Moon and Galaxia pales in comparison to the previous season's finales. Shoot, even in SuperS, though she didn't really "defeat" Nehelenia yet, she refuses to give up and fights to save Chibi-Usa BY DIVING OFF TO HER MOST LIKELY DEATH.

I felt she was shown as weak in this final battle compared to the manga. Its disappointing really, especially for the very final battle of the entire series. I sometimes don't even want to consider Stars as part of Sailor Moon just because it feels so different than the earlier seasons.

I just don't understand how she goes from "I'M KILLING BERYL WITH MAH AWESOME POWERS" to "FIGHTING IS USELESS! LETS NOT FIGHT" with Galaxia. :I

In my opinion, I think Usagi's character was strengthened and was where it should have been, following the natural progression of the anime. You guys hit it on the head - in the first arc, she was reluctant to fight because she didn't want to get hurt, because she was afraid for herself, but became stronger and gained the will to fight to protect the ones she loved. She defeated any monster that came at her, but she refused to kill the ones that had real people inside of them When she came to Beryl/Metallia, she was at the end of herself. Her friends were dead, she just had to fight her love, who then died in her arms, and Beryl had won -- she had gathered enough energy to release Metallia.
The fight was inevitable and Metallia was a force of evil - there was no trace of humanity left within it. So she KICKED ITS ASS. Cosmic power, win.

The tendency never left her - she healed and forgave all who had a trace of humanity left within them: Black Lady, Mistress 9, Amazon Quartet, Nehelenia (she pitied and forgave her, and left her to her fate). The only evil doers that she really destroyed were those manifestations of Chaos, the bearers of darkness - Metallia, Wiseman, Pharoh 90.

In Stars, she was stripped of her rock (Mamochaan~) and asked to fight other Senshi. Uranus and Neptune had presented themselves as rivals, at first - their enemy. Who was to say that these scouts wouldn't have a change of heart? None were presented as pure evil; there was no true need to destroy them and rob them of the gift she considers most precious - life.

So she may come off as weak, or unwilling to fight - because she was unwilling to fight as the Sailor Animates were still people, other senshi with powers just like her and her friends. Even if she were to get hurt in the process, she would try to convince them to return to the light. She was super powerful, she could take a hit. If it had a chance of bringing them back to the light, she would risk it because they deserved to have a good life. Through her love for others, even those she did not know and had no real reason to accept or understand, she tied her own hands in this. Fighting was pointless, because that wouldn't bring them around. She was helpless, because she didn't want to destroy them but all she could do was attempt to convince them and they were having none of it.

That is her courage. Her strength lies in her pure love for life, everyone's life. Everyone deserves forgiveness and a second chance to live happily. Her experiences with the Black Moon clan, the outer scouts and the Dead Moon Circus taught her this, and it was through those experiences that she became as strong as she was in her resolution not to fight, but to try to save everyone.


So, even though the Earth itself was in danger, everyone she ever knew and ever loved was dead, dying, or of questionable health, and the end was said to be near, Eternal Sailor Moon was still determined to try to save everybody, even the woman responsible for the whole mess. She saw some goodness in Galaxia and fought to give that goodness a chance to prevail. She bore her soul, making herself the most vulnerable thing in sight, to prove that shew as no threat and absolutely refused to fight so long as there was a scrap of hope that Galaxia would be returned to the pure-hearted scout of legend.
How scary must that have been?! The easy way out would have been to kill the baddy and be done with it, but she risked literally everything to give that mislead person one last chance.




I didn't like the stars arc because of the way they posed Galaxia. In the manga she was a nobody with a thirst for power who made deal with the devil. She was the epitome of evil, especially when she gave her body over to Chaos for the sake of winning a battle, then threw herself into the cauldron when her victory was in question.
In the anime she's suddenly the purest scout of legend?! I was like HELLS NO! THAT'S SAILOR MOON, KAKYUU! YOU SHUT YOUR DUMB WHORE MOUTH! ... Excuse me. That phrase was from a particularly funny meme. I apologize.

Well, I always liked that she healed Galaxia and I liked the ending it just...didn't have the epicness of a final battle as the previous seasons. But honestly, she was shown as so weak even before that. At least in the manga, she keeps on going and fighting because she knows there is a way to bring her friends back. At least in the manga, the trauma she went through was much darker and made more sense than in the anime.

I dunno, maybe since it took so long to watch Stars (even though i had seen the final episode a few times without watching the season), I was jaded and expecting huge first season type battle, since it was the very final boss of the very last season. :/

The manga was much more traumatic and heart-wrenching and meaningful, totally agree. The final battle there was one for the ages

I didn't particularly care for the anime ending, but I can see why they did it. ... I really think they just supremely messed up with the Galaxia thing. If she wasn't the pure-hearted scout of legend or whatever, sailor moon could've kicked serious butt. :/
... why oh why did they change it?! what possessed them to do that?! How cool and sudden and shocking if they just ended an episode with Mercury and Jupiter melting away?! You'd be like "Wait... What? ha ha, joke right?" but no, the next episode they're all "Jupiter? ... Mercury?" and then there's angst angst angst and then POOF! There goes Venus and Mars. BLAM! AND THEY NEVER COME BACK.
And then Luna, Artemis and Diana are all speechless and left with Ikuko -mama and Ikuko's all "what? She doesn't look like she's coming back" and the audience BAWLS.
... and then the Outers deaths through flashbacks, and the river, and... and Mamoru kissing Galaxia and being kicked into the cauldron -- bottom line: should have stuck with just animating the manga. The End.

Agreed. I just finished rewatching Sailor Moon and Stars is my least favorite season. Actually, my interest dropped after S. Sailor Moon, R and S are my favorite seasons. Stars just took good and bad elements from previous seasons but even those good elements are bad in Stars because they're not original anymore.
Seiya's interactions with Usagi = Mamoru's interactions with Usagi in season 1
Seiya = Mamoru + Haruka
Yaten and Taiki = Haruka and Michiru + more grumpiness + more arrogance - sexual tension
Starlights = Outers in season 3
Steal magical object from victim's body - season 3 and 4
Spotlight stealers Starlights = spotlight stealer Chibi-Usa in season 4
The Inners spend 95% of their screentime running after Seiya, Taiki and Yaten. The storyline is almost always about the Three Lights doing something (movie, commercial, concert, charity, dancing and singing lessons) and the girls following them like horndogs.
And their deaths... I can't even... That was so cheap! The Starlights were kept alive for episodes and episodes and never died and those four died like that? Setsuna and Hotaru... blink and you'll miss them. Poor Kakyuu... Blink and you'll miss her too. They were simple extras. Haruka and Michiru have two notes: "We hate the Starlights" and "Yes, we're lesbians". Chibi-Chibi looks sooo much like Usagi, has an aura sooo much like Usagi's and she's... Galaxia's starseed? That made no sense. The ending battle... that was so disappointing. Why Galaxia had to be a good guy? We never got that epic ending. Even the last few scenes after the battle. The longest one is about the Starlights going away, then cut to 20 seconds scene with the Outers and then Usagi and Mamoru. The Inners never got an ending scene. Chibi-Usa (who's way more important than Seiya, Taiki and Yaten) never got a real goodbye scene. If you look back at the whole story, the Starlights are not that important. The final scenes (minus the last scene with Usagi and Mamoru) of the final episode feels like a season finale, not a series finale.
And where's Motoki, Naru, Grandpa Hino and the rest of them?

Well, geez, Motoki and Naru are kind of forgotten about way earlier than Sailor Stars. Yeah, that's my only contributing thought and it is sorta off point. Sorry. -.- I only watched Sailor Stars once and it has been a really long time since I read that arc of the manga. I can't wait to read the new release, however, even though it'll be awhile before the new release gets that far ahead.

Nina wrote:

Seiya's interactions with Usagi = Mamoru's interactions with Usagi in season 1
Seiya = Mamoru + Haruka
Yaten and Taiki = Haruka and Michiru + more grumpiness + more arrogance - sexual tension
Starlights = Outers in season 3
Steal magical object from victim's body - season 3 and 4
Spotlight stealers Starlights = spotlight stealer Chibi-Usa in season 4

Nina, FTW

Thing is I really wanted to like Sailor Stars. I respect that Sailor Moon wanted to be a pacifist and being so reluctant to fight but it sorta of goes against her character and role. Unlike most protagonist, Usagi is destined to be Queen of a radiant future. As Queen she is charged with defending Neo Crystal Tokyo. her methods of dealing with Nehellenia and Galaxia in Stars conveys a sense that she's not ready, inclined or suitable to lead the Sailor Senshi or the new Silver Millennium.

Crossing the line doesn't capture the gravitas of what Both Nehellenia and Galaxia did. There was never a time for diplomacy and words. I was disappointed Usagi didn't rage out and put Nehellenia in her place after she watched ChibiUsa die in her arms. Instead she played the sacrificial lamb of god and just kept repeating she forgives Nehellenia.

Galaxia's crimes were even worse. She not only killed everyone close to Usagi and countless innocents but Galaxia went on to boast how she was going to kill more.

Sometimes forgiving someone is the worst possible thing you can do to them.

Spoiler:

And, thinking about it, anime!Usagi was in a worse emotional state than manga!Usagi at the time she faced off with Galaxia -- manga!Usagi had had days to come to terms with the death of her loved ones, and then was able to work up righteous anger when Galaxia brought them back to use as her puppets, then destroy them again. There was a lot of time to work up her anger, her determination to make sure none of this would be allowed to continue -- and still, instead of destroying the source of good and evil in the galaxy and just ending all need to fight, she jumped in to heal it.

anime!Usagi had just watched all of her inner senshi die in her arms, and realized that the love of her life has been dead for weeks or months. She had just seen Uranus and Neptune die (in the saddest way possible), saw Chibi Chibi's very form smash into pieces - she was reeling. No more death, no more destruction. Then she found that the scout that had caused it all was being possessed - yet another life that his evil force had taken, but there was a chance to save this one. She'd save someone, GD it! >[
and then she was rewarded when the Sailor Crystals from Earth stayed put and their former shells reformed around them.



I can see where you're coming from - as the Champion of Love and
Justice, she should be doing more of the Championing for the justice and less of the
loving of everyone; however, championing doesn't just mean defending the cause and destroying all combatants, but can sometimes stand for embodying it. She pretty well embodied the idea of Love, and she embodied the idea of Justice, too -- she didn't let the innocent (the "lady galaxia" within) be proven guilty and sentenced to death along with the force of evil that was controlling her actions.


( this is fun. I like debates. ^-^ btw: just so we're absolutely, positively clear, I am in no way trying to belittle your opinion or trying to make you feel uncomfortable. ._. I'm just playing "let's see the other side!")

It makes sense and goes with her character, but she went about it in such a weak way. Instead of being all, i don't want to fight and all cry baby about it, she should have been. Look I've done this a million times now. I'm going to fight you, but I'm going to heal your ass. If she had been like that the entire time, maybe Chibi Chibi wouldn't have been needlessly sacrificed. I thought her death was so dumb, cause I'm sitting there like "WTF ARE YOU DOING USAGI?" Oh well. I still feel the over all feel of the battle and the whole general sense of it just did not have the finality that it did in say Season 1 to me. Something just felt off? I don't know.

I have to say though, at least Sailor Moon's finale was better than DBZ's finale episode. It didn't even feel like a finale episode. Goku was like "WELL I'M OFF AND BORED TO TEARS CAUSE YOU GUYS ARE WEAK SEE YA LATER". No special ending commemorating the end of DBZ nothing. It was just like "end". We don't care. We're making it seem like we'll continue, but not.

THANK YOU TORIYAMA. Sorry that's a bit off topic, but i'm just comparing it to other finales too.

((still a billion times better than the 'finale' if Inu Yasha. ....that thing sucked. it was just a random episode, no conclusion whatsoever. "Naraku's still out there and we're going to keep fighting! (but you'll never see it! :p) Bye guys!"))

Kyralih wrote:

((still a billion times better than the 'finale' if Inu Yasha. ....that thing sucked. it was just a random episode, no conclusion whatsoever. "Naraku's still out there and we're going to keep fighting! (but you'll never see it! :p) Bye guys!"))

(( LOL But at least the created another series to finish it off! and it was canon! XD))

But yeah. I think i'm just torn between liking Stars and not liking it. I think there are good things and bad things about the season. I like the more slice of life type episodes where they show daily life (even if it gets interrupted by youma attacks). Also several of the episodes were funny and enjoyable to watch. If only they wouldn't have strayed as far from the manga as they did. /sigh

Brit-chan wrote:

Kyralih wrote:

((still a billion times better than the 'finale' if Inu Yasha. ....that thing sucked. it was just a random episode, no conclusion whatsoever. "Naraku's still out there and we're going to keep fighting! (but you'll never see it! :p) Bye guys!"))

(( LOL But at least the created another series to finish it off! and it was canon! XD))

((wait, WHAT?! When?! ... Link?! Did it end like the manga?! Cause that was awesome!! ... ps., whenever I talk OOC in double parenthesis, I imagine the words coming out in a whisper, and I'm really enjoying this energetic whispering session. ))

Yeah... ^^ it was cute. And the art was most-of-the-time pretty beautimous.

Brit-chan wrote:

It makes sense and goes with her character, but she went about it in such a weak way. Instead of being all, i don't want to fight and all cry baby about it, she should have been. Look I've done this a million times now. I'm going to fight you, but I'm going to heal your ass. If she had been like that the entire time, maybe Chibi Chibi wouldn't have been needlessly sacrificed. I thought her death was so dumb, cause I'm sitting there like "WTF ARE YOU DOING USAGI?" Oh well. I still feel the over all feel of the battle and the whole general sense of it just did not have the finality that it did in say Season 1 to me. Something just felt off? I don't know.

I think it is a case of, it was Usagi's battle to win, but refusal to take it to Galaxia full strength right outta the gate was what shrank the effect of the resolution. Anime Galaxia was portrayed as seemingly omnipotent. I don't want to slander Usagi but she's kind of a Deus ex Machina when it came to this fight finale. The light of hope sword was shattered early in the fight and Galaxia had taken no damage, compared to the exhausted and bruised Sailor Moon and Star Lights. We all new Usagi was going to win but it was so long getting there. I like in the manga Galaxia loses her powers and fades when she sees Sailor Moon's eternal devotion of love and the hope she has.

Brit-chan wrote:

I have to say though, at least Sailor Moon's finale was better than DBZ's finale episode. It didn't even feel like a finale episode. Goku was like "WELL I'M OFF AND BORED TO TEARS CAUSE YOU GUYS ARE WEAK SEE YA LATER". No special ending commemorating the end of DBZ nothing. It was just like "end". We don't care. We're making it seem like we'll continue, but not.

THANK YOU TORIYAMA. Sorry that's a bit off topic, but i'm just comparing it to other finales too.

DBZ saw a reduction in quality in all things that made the show, and manga great, AFTER the Cell Games arc. The entire Buu Saga felt like it was hitting 100mph but it was in neutral the entire time. And the retroactive character and plot flip flops didn't help.

Gohan beat Cell so the stories now will be about him... JK
Goku is back but he's dead, but he's got SSJ3...which never wins a fight
Vegeta who swore off fighting is fighting again.
Goten and Trunks are gonna defeat Buu the pinky bubble gum monster, as a fused entity with no eyebrows and long hair.
Wait. JK Gohan is back and it the most power Z warrior in history!!! Who just got beat up and absorbed by Buu then rescued by his father...again.

That's just a sample of DBZ's twilight hours but you get the feeling that Toriyama had no idea what he wanted to do as he wrote this saga when you either read or watch it.

Sailor Nemesis wrote:

DBZ saw a reduction in quality in all things that made the show, and manga great, AFTER the Cell Games arc. The entire Buu Saga felt like it was hitting 100mph but it was in neutral the entire time. And the retroactive character and plot flip flops didn't help.

Gohan beat Cell so the stories now will be about him... JK
Goku is back but he's dead, but he's got SSJ3...which never wins a fight
Vegeta who swore off fighting is fighting again.
Goten and Trunks are gonna defeat Buu the pinky bubble gum monster, as a fused entity with no eyebrows and long hair.
Wait. JK Gohan is back and it the most power Z warrior in history!!! Who just got beat up and absorbed by Buu then rescued by his father...again.

That's just a sample of DBZ's twilight hours but you get the feeling that Toriyama had no idea what he wanted to do as he wrote this saga when you either read or watch it.

Omg i am going to take this and bring it over to the DB thread because i feel the need to complain about it. lols. You just said everything i agree with.

lol^^

Brit-chan wrote:

Oh I can agree. The final battle between Sailor Moon and Galaxia pales in comparison to the previous season's finales. Shoot, even in SuperS, though she didn't really "defeat" Nehelenia yet, she refuses to give up and fights to save Chibi-Usa BY DIVING OFF TO HER MOST LIKELY DEATH.

I felt she was shown as weak in this final battle compared to the manga. Its disappointing really, especially for the very final battle of the entire series. I sometimes don't even want to consider Stars as part of Sailor Moon just because it feels so different than the earlier seasons.

I just don't understand how she goes from "I'M KILLING BERYL WITH MAH AWESOME POWERS" to "FIGHTING IS USELESS! LETS NOT FIGHT" with Galaxia. :I

I completely agree! I felt that the sudden change in Usagi was too...sudden. lol She isn't the girl we grew up watching defeating all the baddies with love, hope and faith. Like you said at the end of SuperS she never really defeated Nehelenia, as we see her in Stars. Which, I don't really understand what made her not want to fight at all, but that's for another day :p

I don't know what made them decide to shape Usagi to what she was turned into. I understand that Mamoru is a big part of her life, but the whole series she didn't know he was dead. And I know there was never any communication after the...proposal/proclamation of love but we know her as being strong and being to overcome things. I may not be able to see eye to eye on this just because I've never been in love; I've never felt what it's like to need someone in my life besides my family. I also realize that she saw every single one of her friends die in front of her, but I believe that if she had went about it the right way, things could have gone a lot differently.

Anyways, to make my rant short, I think Usagi was portrayed poorly in Stars. After all that character building from making her a crybaby to BA and then, shall we say, -useless- is just terrible. If they got the chance to be able to change how things went, I wouldn't exactly say no so quickly :p

Oh I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!

First of all, just to be clear, I haven't rewatched Stars, nor do I want to necessarily for most of the negative reasons people have stated.

Secondly, you know how most people have utter disdain for SuperS? Well this one is mine for Stars. I don't know if it was the lack of my favorite characters, or the fact that I felt like Stars was forcing me to forget about the things I actually LOVE about Sailor Moon. Like Mamoru, like Chibiusa, which were kept in the last part of the series in the manga. What I got instead was Lady Men who are looking for their princess, with one of them falling in love with Usagi just because she looked like her.

Now its not ALL negative. I mean AT LEAST there is some sort of appearance of the Outers and I liked the Nehelenia pre-arc (although Helios should have been in that one in my opinion). I also loved Chibi Chibi and her adorableness. However I just found myself...lacking, especially for it to be THE final season.

You've ever ate a piece of candy and the taste is worse than you expected it to be, but its still just okay to eat?

That's how I feel with Stars.

Nina wrote:

The Inners spend 95% of their screentime running after Seiya, Taiki and Yaten. The storyline is almost always about the Three Lights doing something (movie, commercial, concert, charity, dancing and singing lessons) and the girls following them like horndogs.
And their deaths... I can't even... That was so cheap! The Starlights were kept alive for episodes and episodes and never died and those four died like that?

I totally agree with your assessment. I really disliked how the Inner Senshi were treated in this entire arc anime wise. Making the Inners boy crazy about the Starlights was annoying. And when the Starlights were women, the Inners infatuation was absent or glossed over in order not make them seem gay.

What I really hate is how the Inners were reduced to cannon fodder while defending Sailor Moon, and the Starlights. Saving Sailor Moon I get because that's their duty, but sacrificing their lives for the Starlights was uncalled for. In context of the show the Starlights had been fighting a losing battle against Galaxia and were bruised and bloody. The Inners had yet to fight and in their Super Senshi Forms could've put up more of a fight than the Starlights did. I really feel that the final Blitz the Starlights pulled against Galaxia (with them actually wounding her) should've been by the Inner Senshi. Instead we get another mary sue attempt by the writers to make the Starlights look cool and get people to like them. What irks me the most is the Inners prime directive (see i just snuck a Star Trek reference in there) is to protect the princess. Seeing the Inners sacrifice their lives for the Starlights as well AND (and this is a big effing and mind you) shucking their responsibility to the Starlights. Dying words to the Starlights was protect our princess. Oh yeah the 3 senshi who just got mangled by Galaxia and are one attack away from death are going to defend Sailor Moon. Give me a break. The Lights weren't worth all the effort to make them look cool.

I think back to Sailor Moon R. Where the future versions of the Inners, now going by the title Sailor Guardians were the last line of defense against the Black Moon Clans assault on the Neo Crystal Tokyo. Combining their powers they were able to repel the effects of Black Crystal for weeks and or months before their energies began to wan. I still think that is totally badass of them and I am disappointed the anime didn't put the Inners in more cool moments like that.

Quote :

What annoys me the most about Sailor Stars is this season's lack of originality. The search for Princess Kakyuu is too reminiscent of the search for the Moon Princess in the first season. The search for the Star Seeds is too much of a rip off of the search for the heart crystals in S. Taiki and Yaten are Haruka and Michiru but without the homoeroticism. Seiya is just Mamoru with a punk attitude and the whole "little girl with mysterious powers shows up out of nowhere claiming to be related to Usagi but actually has a connection to the new bad guys" plot was already done in R. It's like the writers were running out of ideas on how they could drag out the anime's storyline long enough to get their ratings back, so they decided to take all of the most popular plot elements from previous seasons and combine them all in one storyline.

thewhitemoonfamily wrote:

You've ever ate a piece of candy and the taste is worse than you expected it to be, but its still just okay to eat?

That's how I feel with Stars.

That's exactly how I feel! Although I do say a lot of mean things about SuperS and Stars, I really do still enjoy them at times. It's just how some things are done, or how the characters react a lot of the times that bother me. For example, Usagi acting like a five year old when around Chibi-Usa in SuperS. I don't like that much. It's just little things like that, that annoy me to no end :p

And Nina, I second the :worship:
xD

I've never read the manga, so perhaps my opinion isn't as valid...
I loved Stars. The Outer Senshi returned! I thought the characters including Usagi had all grown a lot. I liked Galaxia too.
The scenes when the Inners die, and later when Haruka and Michiru do, always make me cry. I like crying. Emotional release.
I guess I should probably buy the manga and get familiar with the original story, but I just like anime better. (Except in the case of the best manga of all time, Rurouni Kenshin).

nekosenshi wrote:

I've never read the manga, so perhaps my opinion isn't as valid...
I loved Stars. The Outer Senshi returned! I thought the characters including Usagi had all grown a lot. I liked Galaxia too.
The scenes when the Inners die, and later when Haruka and Michiru do, always make me cry. I like crying. Emotional release.
I guess I should probably buy the manga and get familiar with the original story, but I just like anime better. (Except in the case of the best manga of all time, Rurouni Kenshin).

Yes the Inners and Outers death makes my heart bleed. One thing about the manga is Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn, come back to help fight the Dead Moon and Queen Nehellenia. It's quite stirring. The Inners and Outers make statements about how they are stronger fighting together. After being apart for months but constantly on each others mind they all reunite to fight the baddies and rescue their prince and princess.

Sailor Nemesis wrote:

. After being apart for months but constantly on each others mind they all reunite to fight the baddies and rescue their prince and princess.

This makes my heart melt~ ^^ I absolutely adore how the outers refer to them as the 'prince and princess' all the time. It hits me right *here*. .... wait, you can't see me pointing. I pointed to my heart. ... dork out.



... I also really agree with what Nemesis wrote about the inners being pretty much cannon-fodder. I really really hated that. Sad, sure. In their character? Sure. But... but ;_; there was so much more potential. I just adored their deaths in the manga because BAM. THEY WERE GONE. DEAD FOR NO PURPOSE. Their deaths in the anime made sense and had a purpose - they died to save someone they felt was worth saving. In the manga it hurt so much more because it was so pointless. Sudden deaths without warning, there and then gone, just left so much more scarring on our poor heroine, and then bringing them all back to fight her was just the best knife-twist of them all. And I loved the outer's deaths - she didn't even know about it. She arrived way too late to do anything to help them, and just had to watch a recording to find out that they'd been dead for quite sometime. What a kick to the gut!
... though I did really really love Uranus and Neptune's sudden side-swap double-cross tactic in the anime. As soon as I saw that spark in Uranus's eye, and her gaze at Neptune, and when they nodded I was like 'OH! SHIT'S ABOUT TO GO DOOOOOWN!" and then they just totally killed their best friends and allies. All for the sake of an attempt to save their princess and their planet. Saacrifiiice. They're doing it right.


... I'm sorry. I've been around hyperactive and slag-throwing high schoolers a lot lately. I'm kinda surprised I didn't throw 'swag' in their somewhere. (._. ) I'm going to go away for a little bit now.

Whilst I like Seiya and the starlights I do have to admit that their spotlight shone a little too brightly on them and not enough on Sailor Moon and the senshi's. Considering it was the last season ever, I though that was really uncalled for.

As for Usagi's weakness and inability to motivate herself in battle I think it comes to down to the fact Mamoru wasn't there and I think she lost her will and strength a little. Because in all the other seasons he always shows up right when it looks like she's about to give up or she's having a tough time. Mamoru really is her strength, her rock as someone mentioned before. I think the whole issue of Stars is that she had to face a battle and tough times without him. Maybe it was another challenge of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'.

Stars will always be a difficult season to comprehend as it is so, so different to the rest. I mean Usagi even grew up in this season. Things were starting to change. Again, maybe they were aiming it at an older audience thinking the original audience wanted something a little more different, more grown up.

Meh I'm just rambling. I still can't figure out truly what it is about Stars that makes us all scratch our heads.

Halfpixieman wrote:

As for Usagi's weakness and inability to motivate herself in battle I think it comes to down to the fact Mamoru wasn't there and I think she lost her will and strength a little. Because in all the other seasons he always shows up right when it looks like she's about to give up or she's having a tough time. Mamoru really is her strength, her rock as someone mentioned before. I think the whole issue of Stars is that she had to face a battle and tough times without him. Maybe it was another challenge of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'.

Ok, but, first season finale. She pretty much watched everyone die (except poor Mercury). The others had to lie to her about Mercury to get her to go on. She had to pretty much kill evil!Mamoru to save him in the end. She didn't even bother to kiss him. Mind you, she hasn't been Sailor Moon for that long, compared to the fact that she's aged 2 years at the end. The way she leaves Mamoru behind without even kissing him goodbye and goes off to face Beryl in that finale, so so so much more maturity imo. I mean, she lost everyone. And she still was like "well f*** it, I'm going all out on this". And THEN to top it all off, her final wish is for all of her friends to be able to go back to their normal lives without having their secret identities and having to fight. Even though it meant possibly not seeing them again and not knowing them like she did.

I dunno, maybe I am just super biased for season one's finale, but...there is just something about it. Something that always just really struck me as amazing for that finale, in the dub and sub alike. I didn't get that from Stars. At all.

I have to admit the finale of Stars was weaker, much weaker to any of the other finale's.

Halfpixieman wrote:

I have to admit the finale of Stars was weaker, much weaker to any of the other finale's.

I dunno why, but when i first saw the Stars ending (like long time ago, when finding episodes of anime online was unheard of and if you did download them, expect to wait some time), i thought it was really awesome. Then watching it again, along with the entirety of the whole season...it felt so meh to me. I think i just feel like Sailor Moon deserves a much more epic and awesome ending. Like Gurren Lagaan style or something. XD