Sailor Moon Episode 14 - A Powerful New Enemy! Nephrite's Evil Crest

You won't notice anything differently, but this week I am finally beginning the transition to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday update schedule. Which also means I am writing these a little bit ahead of time. This is beneficial for several reasons: Namely, when I finally get to working on movies, I'll be doing them in parts, to prevent them from becoming the inevitable massive walls of text that they will in fact become.

Of course, the basic rules of this game are still in effect. Namely, I write this in the dark of night, in order to hide my shame. Also, so that my howls of agony will be masked as just some annoying dog.

So now that we've gotten that BS nobody cares about out of the way, the intro seems to have updated. Now everybody knows who Sailor Moon is, and that she uses a magical broach to transform to fight bad guys. Literally, she says this. It's no longer "hey this is what happened to me" it is instead "if you don't know this, you've been living under a rock and you deserve to be beaten in the dark of night under a bridge nobody ever goes over". A heavy insinuation, I know.

But, hold on. Holy shit. Do you know what is missing from this episode?

Do you know what it is?

AN EPISODE OVERVIEW. THANK YOU BABY JESUS. Now I don't have to be blatantly told what will happen during the episode before I watch it. I can just call it out and still not be surprised when I accurately predict it, but at least now I can chalk it up to my awesome foresight as opposed to, y'know, the show straight up telling me what I will watch before I watch it.

Of course, there's something to be said about the heavy-handed title. Totally called this guy being named after a mineral. Because let's face it, they've kinda got a theme going, so they have to stick with it. Even if Nephrite.... kinda sucks as a name.

So, at Beryl's Burning House of Desire... we are immediately introduced to Nephrite.

Sadly, not as intimidating as his outline made him seem.
Facial hair would make him look like a TRUE BADASS.

He takes this moment to not only immediately diss his predecessor's methods of stealing energy from anyone and everyone, and makes his pitch instead: Just take a lot from a single person. Problem solved.

Wait, what? Isn't that basically what Jadeite was doing, sucking folks dry? But no, his methods are clearly more complex. By utilizing astrology and, y'know, constellations and crap, he can determine when a human has their most amount of energy.

So basically.... astrology is evil. Keep that in mind kids, next time you want to check your horoscope.

Oh, but PLOT TWIST!

A new challenger is approaching!

This guy, who looks like a girl, and sounds... like a girl when he laughs. Just kinda shows up. And kinda laughs at the other guy who does admittedly sound like a real prick. I get the feeling Zoisite (his name) is probably gonna stab someone in the back at some point. He seems like a snaky sorta dude.

Some more smack-talking later, and he leaves in a whirlwind of petals.

Back in Tokyo, and girl is being chased by reporters, and uh, a giant forest with a house inside suddenly appears.

You'd think someone might notice that, but this guy uses THE STARS as his power. Seriously.

Remember kids: Horoscopes are evil. This is proof.

He says some crap about Saggitarius shooting the Milky Way or something... Yeah. Oh, but I guess he's targeting that famous girl we just saw. What a shock.

Also, he gets slapped in the face with a lightning bolt. I find this amusing, for some reason. I can't imagine why. It just makes me laugh.

Anyhow, elsewhere in town, it is revealed that this girl is some tennis pro or something, and she is the 'sister' of Usagi's wonderful friend, Naru. Only they are about as much family as one can get when someone's mother is a regular customer at your grocery store. I think. Or whatever kind of store her family runs. But I guess they've been playing together since they were little kids, which is cool.

SUDDENLY, SPORTS CAR!

GO SPEED RACER wait I'm an episode late on that joke
aren't I. Damnit.

So Nephrite - seriously what the hell kind of name is that anyway - is going out in style. How does he manage to get fancy shit like this? Does it have to do with magic? And to go one step further, doesn't this whole thing revolve around him trying to get energy, presumably which powers his magic? I guess what I'm trying to say is, he seems to be pretty frickin' flamboyant so far. I bet he's not even going to try to  hide behind some clever disguise, like the last guy. Who made a pretty cool captain, even if he was totally inept at the task.

Immediately he steals the show, and everyone knows he is AWESOME! Some rich businessman who can leap fences like a boss. Oh, and command Rui (the tennis girl) to be more awesome at Tennis. But that's not enough, he has to pretty  much be KING OF TENNIS all up in this thing.

It takes a big man to beat high school girls at sports games. A big man with BIG HAIR.

He's gonna make you his bitch.

He introduces himself as an eccentric coach.

.... my brain just imploded I think. Really, that is the best thing he can come up with? An eccentric coach?

So he walks over to the racket and makes one of his pet monsters possess it.

I guess he may not be lying when he calls himself an eccentric coach - basically he's going to train her up to her peak then suck her dry. Which... actually seems like a reasonable plot for a change?

Then he gives her some crappy advice, and she becomes a zombie once her hand touches the racket. She is now capable of destroying  tennis balls. When she comes to, Nephrite is gone, doing the whole standing on top of a building looking like a boss thing, and then Naru gets this feeling something is off with her old friend.

Back at the arcade, the cat is talking about riceballs to an arcade cabinet. Hello mystical computer, do you have some useful information for us? Like, I dunno, ANYTHING? Well today is our lucky day, because now we learn that they are up against THE DARK KINGDOM.

The Dark Kingdom. I'll let you process that for a moment. Just in case it didn't sink in the first time.

Dark. Kingdom.

WELL AREN'T YOU JUST A FONT OF USEFUL INFORMATION.

It also reveals that they are after human energy. AS IF WE DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW THAT, GEE THANKS A HECK OF A LOT COMPUTER, WE ARE SO MUCH MORE LEARNED NOW.

So the girls absorb this information, and Rei immediately wants to run out and destroy them! But Ami says they aren't capable of doing that in their current condition. Let's ignore the fact that they have no idea where these yokels are. Or how many of them there are. Or anything else that might be of some help, like who is in charge. They have a name, and a computer that seems to know exactly nothing. This is unimportant, of course.

Luna says they should train and become more fit, and Usagi comes up with a brilliant idea. They should play tennis! Christ. Of course, her ulterior motive is to maybe try to get closer to this super hot coach that is totally the enemy? Then Luna goes on this diatribe about how useless Usagi is and I have to ask myself, why do I even care? Or rather, why should I care about any of this?

Back on the other side of town, Rui is becoming scary, and beating up everyone with tennis balls breaking their rackets or something. I guess making her a menace to society is totally an awesome plan for absorbing their energy.

After the break, we go back to Naru's home, on top of the Jewelry store. Oh right, I forgot that's what the family business was. Hold on, how long do you have to shop at a jewelry store to become a regular? For that matter, who has that kind of money to blow on a regular basis and still force their child to attend public schools?

Oh Japan.

Well, Naru is worried about Rui being rough on the tennis equipment, and decides to confide in Usagi. For whatever reason. Since when has she been reliable for anything? And now you are trying to confide in her that you are worried your best friend is becoming a psycho because they keep breaking some rackets? I guess Naru takes it rather hard when her best friend says "This is none of your business brah".

Geez, if that's all it takes for the redhead to feel down, she must have a really interesting life ahead of her.

She takes Usagi to the tennis school that Rui practices at after school. Hang on, there are Tennis Schools?

Anyhow, inside Rui is trashing some 'pros'. This isn't even tennis, this is just a girl looking evil and destroying innocent tennis balls while presumably pelting her opponents with them. How is that playing tennis? Who the hell would even try to play tennis with someone that is literally beating them with tennis balls? That's not playing a game, that's just plain assault.

Oh, but Usagi and Naru step onto the court to stop her, and she puts on this evil-looking face and if there was ever any doubt in Usagi's mind that a monster is at work here, Rui literally blows them away with a swing of her racket. Of course immediately after the monster possessing it comes out, and we get our monster of the day.

Uh, dude? She's kinda unconscious and can't hear you gloat.

So Usagi transforms into Sailor Moon, hoping that she can get a leg up on the far more useful members of her team (ie: everybody else). Aww, it's almost like she's actually trying to take some responsibility, isn't it just cute.

But then she starts the whole speech thing, saying misusing tennis for evil deeds would make... Navratilova cry? Who I guess is some famous tennis player. I'm amazed that she knows anything like that, considering she can't even tell famous musicians apart.

So this monster summons up a firey tennis racket and turns Usagi... into a tennis ball. Then bats her around with what can only be described as psychic powers. Oh but then comes the rose save! And Tuxedo Mask is on the scene, sitting on benches like a boss. Then I guess he kinda steals the show and whips out his magical extending cane while Usagi just dances around clapping like an idiot.

He tells her not to let her guard down, which she immediately does, thinking about fighting next to him. Seriously girl, he just told you to be careful. What, are you going to let the man carry you through the fight again? (Probably, she is pretty damn useless).

So unnamed monster serves up another fire-psychic-tennis ball thing, which just turns into an all-out barrage of them, but before Usagi can be blown up, Tuxedo Mask is all whoosh into the air, and he's all "yo, let's finish this". So he slaps the monster in the face with a rose, then collapses. Plot twist! She'd better throw that tiara before something bad happens!

My god, what is this, actual plot development? Did they change the writing staff or something, because this is actually looking as if they are trying for a change. The monster is destroyed, the other two girls show up, and things return to relative normality. Then Tuxedo Mask is gone, and Usagi is sad.

The next day Rui doesn't remember a thing, and Naru runs off to play tennis with Rui. Then someone hits Usagi in the face with a tennis ball, and all is right with the world.

End of episode report? There may be some actual hope for this show after all. But given the main character, I'm not going to hold out much hope. Because let's face it, there's still the glaring issue of nobody knowing what the hell is going on. How can they operate? They have a computer that sends a cat off on an impossible mission. Go find someone. Oh, but I can't tell you who they are. Or what kind of defining characteristics they may have. You've just gotta find 'em. By the way, there are generically evil people around, who are evil for the sake of being evil.

Christ. Forget what I said about this show having hope. The only reason I am laughing right now is to hide the tears.

The tears which are inside.

Filling up my lungs.

Help me.