I am very well aware of the flaws in this episode, but as they are mostly things everyone sees the same way and they have already been stated before (like the wrong weapon and stuff), I just didn't feel the need to name them.
The reason why I comment mostly on story and characters is because I really pay a lot of attention on how the show's writers stay true to the original work or change things. Have things improved, have they gotten worse, etc. And Episode 17 happens to be one of the really strong episodes in that regard.

I mostly focus on the story as well. Honesty I think Mako's introduction episode was written better than this one. :/

I just didn't feel like she was the main focus like Ami was in the last episode. To me the transition to Ami in Act 16 flowed better. 

After episode 5 I really hoped Mako would be treated well. While I did enjoyed her scenes in this episode I just felt like it was after thought. But that's just me. I can be super picky about anime.  

CJ I would love to have a thread like that and break down each episode in Crystal. It's fun critiquing Crystal.

I can't compare it directly to the last episode as I watched it in a very terrible condition of mind (thus not really being able to catch on most of the events) and forgot to rewatch it :/

As for the introduction episode, it sure had some more impact than this one, but overall, I wouldn't say this one is really worse or anything.

Goddess Yami wrote:

I mostly focus on the story as well. Honesty I think Mako's introduction episode was written better than this one. :/

I just didn't feel like she was the main focus like Ami was in the last episode. To me the transition to Ami in Act 16 flowed better. 

After episode 5 I really hoped Mako would be treated well. While I did enjoyed her scenes in this episode I just felt like it was after thought. But that's just me. I can be super picky about anime.  

CJ I would love to have a thread like that and break down each episode in Crystal. It's fun critiquing Crystal.

I think what made Ami's episode work so well was the additional expanded content of Ami's flashback with her childhood.  It wasn't that much new and they didn't even have any dialog for Ami's father, but it was just enough added content to make it feel fresh and different from the manga while still keeping the spirit of the manga.  Episode 17 in contrast is a more by the books straight forward adaptation and the few changes they did make hurt the narrative some by leaving out important details that make it flow better.  I was hoping we would get something similar to what Ami got with additional flashback footage of Makoto and her parents.  Like in the manga there's a scene in this chapter where Makoto talks about a friend she used to have that she cared about a lot but she moved away to Juuban without telling her and she regretted that decision.  Crystal could have expanded on that scene with some more flashback moments with her and the friend instead of giving us a pointless spoilerish scene of Chibi-usa flashbacking to her parents that doesn't add anything of value to the episode.

Episode 17 isn't bad at all. It's decent. I just feel like Toei took another step back. I think they're afraid to twist the story a bit. After the first arc, I bet they're playing it safe now.

@Neon

I totally agree with your statement. I don't like straight from the book adaptations. What's the point then? The only anime that directly followed the manga that I enjoyed was Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Well it's not that it's an accurate adaptation that bothers me.  I can enjoy accurate adaptations like FMA Brotherhood and Hellsing Ultimate.  The problem with Crystal is that they are inconsistent with whether they want to be accurate to the manga or do their own original thing and when they do try their own original storylines, they don't ever have enough time to really flesh out the characters in any substantive way.  This brings up the point of a criticism of the Dark Kingdom arc in that they were really rushing the story with having an entire arc being crammed into 13 episodes when each arc needs at least 26 to do anything substantial with a creative spin.  Either stick to a scene for scene adaptation of the manga or do a creative retelling of it but when you try to do both, it just comes across as a haphazard mess.

I really loved the additional emphasis on chibiusa's despair and asanuma's finding out their identities. The pacing is really good so far, blow for blow for the chapter. As for what I'm ticked off about this episode, the obvious and abundant animation errors. Especially the moon princess halation. They didn't even try to add in the cutie moon rod. It's the clip from episode 14. God why are they so damn lazy?