I know the budget wouldn't have allowed it, or it probably would look really bad.. but I wish they had used real animals for Luna and Artemis. If the budget was an issue, they could have had them speak mentally (so no weird creepy uncanny valley real looking animal speaking scenes..)

It just felt like it took away from the show at times. The show was very good, and the plot was amazing, and I felt it was really dramatic and well done, but having speaking plushies just.. it made it seem so kiddie. I know it was probably aimed at kids, but I liked how at times it got pretty dark.

I can't find it anymore, but there was an old drawing that showed a realistic Usagi with a realistic Luna on her shoulder, smiling at the viewer.. it would have been awesome to see a Luna like that. (Wish I could find that image again.)

And no offense to any of the plushie lovers out there, of course. At times, having them be plushies was kinda cute too. Still, wish they had been real animals.

I got used to the plushies, but I also wish that real cats were used even though they would be harder to train. I mean, cats hardly do as they're told, right? XD

BleuEyedBrunette wrote:

It made it seem so kiddie.

PGSM was marketed as a kid's show, though ovo" I think Toei only started treating Sailor Moon as ':*~*:that precious monument of the entire shoujo genre:*~*:' with the 20th anniversary. and this is where the audience shifted to young adults. :B

The cats didn't bother me at all. The plushies were ridiculous, of course, but I think I like it better than having a badly animated realistic CGI cat.
(Or they could have done Luna and Artemis like Salem from Sabrina. That would have been awesome.)

My only issue with the cats is that... I was supposed to take a cardboard tear pinned to a plushie seriously, and at a very difficult moment.

Spoiler:

Haha, I agree with you! The plushies were cute, but real animals would have been nice.

The whole show was so adorably cheesy, the plushies just made me laugh/smile every time they were on screen! It woulda been cool if they had taken it more 'seriously', but it just added to it's quirky charm =)

Cardboard tear on Luna was just a fail. I am kind of neutral about the plushie idea. I think CGI animated or real cats would have been better. But it did make sneaking the cats in easier for the girls, and Luna did get some wild facial expressions at times in her plushie form. 



Like at 12:15/16 that was when Luna said, "Tuxedo Mask is our enemy. DON'T FORGET THAT!!!!!"

I really loved the plushies. It may sound ridiculous, but I always found it more natural for them to look like plushies because it made things easier when they were about to get found out. A talking plush is far more credible than a talking cat because... there are talking toys, after all. Also, I liked the plushie design and I don't really like cats that much ^^'

It took a bit for me to get used to honestly. I knew it was coming before watching, but I still had to sort of adjust my perception a bit. There was a part of me at times that would still sit there thinking "It is someone's actual job to sit just off camera and wiggle a plushie. That is a thing someone is being paid to do."
Once i got past that, I think it worked alright.

I sort of wish they had done a more Sabrina The Teenage Witch cat. Realistic enough but still sort of puppet-y.

Personally, Salem always creeps me out a bit, I'd rather stick with the plushies. ^^'

Suzu wrote:

I really loved the plushies. It may sound ridiculous, but I always found it more natural for them to look like plushies because it made things easier when they were about to get found out. A talking plush is far more credible than a talking cat because... there are talking toys, after all. Also, I liked the plushie design and I don't really like cats that much ^^'

Agreed.  I don't like cats that much either and I loved the plushies.  They looked really soft!

I have friends who actually own the official toys of them. They're so pretty and nice to touch. It's a pity they're so hard to get.

I always thought it was stupid, to be entirely honest. The could have just used real cats for certain shots, then just animated them the way they did because of budget. I mean, sabrina the teenage witch made it work. I always thought it was really odd.

Considering how good PGSM is at adaptation, I'm surprised they didn't think of something better for Luna and Artemis. I could have gone for a computer program way over a plushie cat.

But then again, CGI in Japan is still far behind what CGI here in the West looks like, especially the US can do and considering it was 2004, it would have turned out even more awkward. Also, Luna and Artemis need a physical appearance to travel around in some form. So the plushies were a good option as they could walk on their own if needed, but otherwise were hidden in the girls' bags.

I honestly never minded the cat plushies, even the CGI. Sure, they were a bit jarring sometimes, but I was just happy with what they did with Luna's personality.

Only one word can describe what i think about cat plushie Luna and Artemis:

Lazy

Plushies? Really? Why couldn't they have just used real cats and stuck crescent moons on the foreheads? Or even CGI?

Honestly, if I was to be a sailor senshi, I would want my guardian cat to be a plushie, so I don't die. It'd be hard to work if you were deathly allergic to your partner.

SailorKittyElyon wrote:

Plushies? Really? Why couldn't they have just used real cats and stuck crescent moons on the foreheads?

Because that would have looked stupid.

I don't think it's that easy to use real cats o.o I'm sure they didn't have the budget of like... Hollywood movies who could use actual animals. I don't think it's lazy - they're just using what they can.

^ This, pretty much. While Tokusatsu is popular in Japan, the budget is nothing compared to big US productions, especially not for TV shows. Also, considering PGSM was aimed at children, the budget was even lower.

CGI and trained animals are expensive, especially if you want to make them look good. I think PGSM found a good solution by using plushies- they are easier to animate with the low budget and not unpredictable living animals, so they have full control on what they do.

Yeah, well, sorry for having an opinion.  Real cats would've looked less stupid than the plushies. It's Sailormoon for gods sake, so even if PGSM had the budget of a Twinkie, they could have thought of something else.

Unrelated but i'm feeling like everytime i say something bad PGSM or the manga people put me down and make me feel like my opinions are stupid/not valid. It's very tiring and it's not just this site either, every freaking site i go on i get shouted down for not liking PGSM/Manga

I fail to see how people calmly expressing their opinion, differing from yours, and using facts to back it up is a bad thing. That's what a discussion is, one side says A another person says B and this is why I feel like this. No one here has been disrespectful. 

For myself, I think that the plushies are fine. It's really difficult to use real cats, they don't tend to do what you want when you want. CGI is also expensive as well. Other shows like Sabrina the Teenage Witch used a plush/electronic cat to play Salem mixed in with real cats on occasion, but what scenes where he's talking and interacting with the other characters are all the plush version.

You just don't get it do you? I don't have a problem with anyone's opinion. If you like PGSM, fine, if you like the manga, fine. But i should be able to to say my opinion without you guys getting all huffy. And i know what a discussion is thank you very much, i'm not stupid.

Why am i still in this fandom

I'm glad so many of you have decided to voice your opinions regarding this topic

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