Sailor Moon R Episode 06 - Targeted Kindergarten Kids~ Venus' Great Performance

The last few days have been rather exciting for me. It's put me in such high spirits, I really just forgot about Sailor Moon entirely. I mean, seriously, completely forgot it was a thing I was watching at some point.

But what goes up must come down, and eventually the realization came around that I had simply been having entirely too much fun. Which means it was long past time for me to torture myself with something popular and terrible all at once.

Given how the Doom Tree arc has been going, I can only be thankful that it's already halfway over. Because if I really had to deal with another forty episodes of this whole evil alien wanting to bone the main character thing while he's already boning his sister, I'd probably want to kill someone. Also, what is with this series and people wanting to bone in the first place?

Warning: I've spent the last 24 hours watching Macross-related shows. Therefore, I may be inclined to compare everything to that standard.

Okay, so on today's episode of Sailor Moon, they're going after kids and showing off the squarest damned busses you will ever see. Also, the monster today might look a lot like an angel with spiky hair. And speaking of spiky hair, I think Venus goes Super Saiyan at some point.

Yeah, that makes more sense than the actual dialogue, so I'm going with that.

Speaking of Venus, we get a peek into Mina's posh life, with a bedroom full of stuffed animals. Also, she attempts to murder Artemis in her sleep.

My favorite part is how she avoids drawing him in
really close while she dreams of hugging someone.

Then she wakes up and Artemis... becomes a clock? At which point he begins to narrate about how he is a talking cat, and then while his owner is realizing how late she is for class (presumably), she is going on about how he's a perverted cat because she just so happens to be stripping down right in front of him. Women, am I right?

During his monologue, he reveals that while she looks like a girl who has her shit together, really she's pretty dumb and needs to learn some new tricks. Or something about 'hidden powers'. Then we get our title slide and I guess her going Super Saiyan probably isn't that far off the mark at this point.

So while running around she takes a 'shortcut' which means she jumps over something imperceptible? Like, I don't understand how jumping helped her in this situation at all. Then she lands, and sits on the ground. I should mention she has landed directly on top of her cat. As in, her ass is likely planted quite firmly on his back.

Main characters who have their shit together? Not
in this show!

Then nearby she overhears some girl being bullied by a  couple of boys over some kind of badge, and rushes over to chase them off and help the crying little girl. The badge in question looks to be of Sailor Moon, and the girl stops what is obviously at this point fake crying, and guilt trips the older girl into escorting her to the bus stop. Because clearly, this kid can't take care of herself.

That brat will make a great politician someday.

She immediately starts up the crying thing, and forces Mina to get her to the bus on time.

I can't believe how wide your shoulders got.

Cue the mad dash to get to school on time, at which point she meets up with the other blonde, whom is clearly having a negative effect on her after all this time.

Seriously Mina? You used to be good at these things.

Then the girls split up since they go to different schools, and guess who is late after all. Artemis then mentions that she used to somehow be worse than this, which is really hard to imagine considering that when we met her initially, she was busy kicking ass and taking names. So what's the deal here? She used to be a badass working alongside Interpol to deal with monsters wreaking havoc across Europe, and now she's just an incompetent teenaged girl? Come on guys, seriously.

So Usagi gets to stand outside with a sign saying "I am always late for school", and she gets to lament her life for all of five seconds before getting hit upon by our very own creepy alien-turned-human-wanna-bone-the-cattle Ali. He really must have a thing for inter-species erotica because seriously, he will simply not give up.

Declaring your love for a girl in front of the sister you are
secretly already in a relationship in is a terrible idea.

Then he walks off saying that oh he's not doing anything weird at all just doing some stretching exercises and walks off.

... that excuse doesn't even make sense. I really have to ask, do the heroes even need to worry about trying to get rid of these guys? Because honestly, if left alone long enough they're liable to wind up just killing themselves, since one is pretty useless without the other.

Anyhow, then they meet up on the roof to discuss their 'operations', but really his sister is all wondering what is the deal with him and his penis. Is she just not doing it for him anymore? Should she take on some other form to please him better? Oh god the thoughts of that just made me want to vomit a little bit. Oh god.

Yes, your plan to bang the main character. We get it.

Right, so his sister gets irritated and decides they're going to target children now, because they are, and I quote, "younger, fresher sources of energy".

Now, if you ask me, the best choices for their energy harvesting would actually be people slightly older than the ones they're going to school with. Why? Because they are still growing and developing. You're suggesting that it's a great idea to eat food before it's even ripe, because it is somehow fresher. That is the worst logic possible, and besides, while kids have lots of energy, I seriously doubt they're going to actually contain more energy than people twice their age, because they don't need as much energy to move around. At least, that's what I would think on it - people that are older have larger containers for energy, so essentially what you are doing is trying to go after smaller containers because you think the contents will be better?

It's like those mini cans of Coke they sell in the stores these days. I can't stand that shit. I could drink it in like, two gulps. Kinda like Capri Sun, there's just never quite enough in there. Damnit, now I want Capri Sun...

So on her way home, the little girl is being bullied again, because "Sailor Moon isn't real", and Mina is walking home, and guess who happens to pass the other? Yeah. So she walks over and one of the brats calls her an 'old woman', and then the others chime in telling her to stop wasting her time and to go get a boyfriend or something instead. Then she gets mad and the boys go running off, and Artemis says she acts just like an old lady. That is, if an old lady actually acted like a nine-year-old child.

So the little girl thanks her and proceeds to tell her her name, the school she attends and the class she is in. Have... have her parents ever told her there are things you don't say to strangers? Like, where they can find you?

Regardless, Mina introduces herself (and her cat), and they finally notice the Sailor Moon badge on her jacket, and she asks if the little girl also likes Sailor Venus. "Who?" she replies.

Guess all that Sailor V merchandise that was so incredibly popular just last season has already faded from memory. The two girls proceed to spend the next few hours sitting on a bench talking about whether Sailor Moon is actually real or not. At some point Mina just says "It doesn't matter if what you believe is real or not, just that you believe in it."

That... I'm not entirely certain that is good advice to follow at all. You can't say something is 'real' just because you believe it is real. It's one of those situations where what she says sounds good, and is almost potentially really great advice, but on the other hand the way she says it kind of makes me cringe and is likely a translation error of some sort. Also, I'm pretty sure these things are lost on a seven-year-old girl. The proper response in this situation would be "Of course she's real, I've seen her." WHICH WOULD BE THE TRUTH.

Son of a bitch.

Okay, so points for doing the thing I actually told you to do. Of course, Artemis here isn't exactly a huge fan of this plan for some reason. Honestly I don't get what his deal is, considering these are merely children we are dealing with here.

Dat cat.

The child interprets this as "if we don't believe in anything now, we'll regret it later in life" which leaves Mina saying the same thing I am: What?

Over at the alien tree penis palace emporium (try saying that five times fast), the twins are realizing that their reserve of energy is running low. Again. Probably has nothing to do with the fact they are hopelessly overconsuming energy, or the fact that they are pretty shit when it comes to coming up with good ideas to harvest lots of it at once.

Didn't you hear her earlier? She said children.

Targeting kids? That's okay in his book. So they pick a card, which today is... a creepy angel bitch.

Serra Avatar, 2W3C, Tap creature: all children controlled
by opponent are exiled from the game permanently.

Today's monster is named Gigarus, and they summon it and then we get to see the squarest pink bus ever.

Seriously, that is one boxy bus.

Kids are on the bus singing and all that, all the while the angel looking thing is just flying overhead, and blows a hole in the roof of the bus, which makes it immediately stop. First of all, the fact that it can fly like that in a tunnel is impressive. But that is can completely vanish after the bus has stopped? Also impressive. But I think the most impressive thing here is that there is absolutely no other traffic. Though, the monster just shows up in the bus anyways.

Her neck was too long to play the part of Lion-O.

So she harvests the energy of the children and suddenly the Doom Tree is exploding with energy, and now we get the commercial break. The energy intake is much more than expected, but how will the Scouts deal with this? Heck, how will they even learn about it? Where everyone gets their sources of information from. No, not the Internet, silly people. I'm talking about PRINT.

Only they would leave a bus full of children unconscious.

So within about five seconds, Ami manages to magic computer her way into the plot by deciphering exactly which school will be targeted next, based on information that is a day old and only references a single attack of this sort. It must be nice to live in an anime.

You can't find a plume of smoke at the North Pole, but you
can totally tell which children will be attacked next.

Oh consistency.

Oh, but then Ami goes on to say "Okay, so I'm only 67% sure" which is not very sure in the grand scheme of things. That 2 out of 3 might sound nice, but how many other schools are in the area? Japan being Japan, odds are there's a lot of other options. That's good enough for Luna though, so it's up to Rei, Mako, and Ami to... infiltrate a kindergarten.

Well, I guess if Arnold Schwarzenegger can do it...

Two seconds later Usagi's grating laughter totally breaks the mood, and everyone looks over at her and goes "Yeah, good luck moron, you're our only hope".

Of course she has no idea what they're talking about.

By the way, that kindergarten is the one that Mina happens to be at. You know, the one where she tells everyone that Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus really do exist! Even if nobody has ever heard of Sailor Venus. Yeah, way to try to put yourself back in the spotlight. What, are you not getting the risiduals from when you were Sailor V? Is that not enough? Do you really have to try to whore yourself out to little kids like some sad Masked Rider clone that nobody has ever heard of?

Kids these days are so smart.

The kids don't believe that Lina is living in the real world, saying she should be more realistic, and wonder if maybe she's just going through some really difficult times right now. Wow. Harsh. And yet? Completely accurate. These kids are probably the smartest characters this entire series has ever spawned. The sad part is, their reward for this will be to shown how utterly wrong they are and that they should instead accept to be part of the herd because SAILOR MOON IS REALLY REAL AND YOU SAW HER SAVE YOU WITH YOUR OWN EYES AND OH, BY THE WAY, YOU WERE DUMB FOR NOT BELIEVING IN THIS UTTERLY RIDICULOUS THING THAT SOUNDED MADE UP.

So while these elementary school kids wind up disassembling her psyche, Mina is getting really agitated.

You mean like a complete moron nobody ever takes serious?

Then the teacher comes over and tells everyone it's time to go home, and that she won't be going on the bus with them. But Mina totally volunteers to ride with them, and Usagi shows up, lamenting the fact that she has to do this thing alone. Which is because she's the only one who ever gets awesome tools like the transformation pen. Yeah, that thing she has totally failed to abuse at all in this entire show. I give it another three or four episodes before she remembers to use it for things that don't involve love, truth, OR justice.

So she turns herself into a "stylish kindergarten teacher", which I am sure nobody will ever suspect at all. Then she tries to force her way onto the bus.

Words fail me.

Hilariously enough, her disguise won't fool Minako, who recognizes her immediately. Guess that thing doesn't work as well as she thought. If only she'd put on a mask of some sort...

Anyhow, back at Doom Tree, Doom & Associates, a monster is being told to go forth and collect more energy. They're a growing business, after all, and are ready for expansion. So back on the bus, Mina and the fake teacher are singing... the theme song to Sailor Moon. HORRIBLY OFF KEY. They're also getting all of the kids to sing it too. Just how meta is this show going to get? Well, that meta at least.

Nope, sorry. THIS meta.

So this square bus goes through the same tunnel, and the monster angel stands in front of the bus which is about to run it over, and it leaps through the windshield and takes out the driver immediately, and looks at the rest of the bus all menacingly. But now Mina's little friend is scared! But don't worry, I'm sure Sailor Moon will come and save us.

Even Usagi agrees that is a thing that will probably happen, but considering both she and the cat are pretty useless, this is called into question somewhat. Of course, being knocked out of the bus means she can transform, so she does that thing while time freezes and we forget all about what's happening inside of the bus.

By the way, I kind of hate the new transformation song, because it is just gratingly annoying.

Back inside, the monster is showing off how tough it is by throwing around a cat and making kids cry. But then Sailor Moon makes her debut, and just kind of stares at her in a manner that reminds me of the Androids from DBZ.

Seriously, she's just like "what?"

Then the kids are all "you really exist" and then the monster attacks with cyclones. Meanwhile, Mina sneaks out of the bus to also transform, because it's pretty obvious that the leader in charge is pretty useless on her own. Like always. After making her debut, the two face off against the monster, who is resistant to her Crescent Beam, and pretty much just tosses them around a bit while the kids are all cheering for them over and over. However will they get through this fight?

Oh, y'know. The same way as usual.

Today's uplifting message: Believe in yourself, and you can overcome anything.

.... are you f***ing joking?! You show up, throw a rose that does nothing but make the monster look at you, then you just be like "naw, just believe in yourself and you'll be good"? Holy shit that is just... pointless. How many episodes do we really have to put up with this happening every time? Monster is about to take out the girls, but then a rose appears! Oh, but this guy just says a thing and vanishes, effectively doing nothing at all. And yet, every single time, the girls present seem to be excited at his appearance. Every. Freaking. Time.

So he looks over at Sailor Venus and is like "hey, you've got someone who believes in you", and the kids give her the courage to stand up and actually believe the bullshit she's been espousing as the truth all episode.

Truly some twisted logic going on here.

So then, she proceeds to go Super Saiyan. No, I'm not even joking.

KAKAROOOOOOOOOOOT!

After the nice little power up move she... fires... a Crescent Beam.

Oh, but it isn't the usual Crescent Beam - it's a Crescent Beam Shower. They were really going all out for this particular move, let me tell you. Of course, all this does is immobilize the creature long enough for Sailor Moon to do her royal scepter BS, complete with the usual crappy new music. Then the kids cheer, the Moonlight Knight bows, and says another thing that is totally pointless.

Does nobody believe anything they say themselves?!

Then he literally vanishes, and Artemis shows up to say that this new move is one of Venus' hidden powers, and she owes the kids for forcing her to learn it. Then the girls run over to the kids and everything is happy and great.

Except for the part where I have to remember I actually wanted to sit down and watch this shit.

I make some really stupid decisions sometimes...