Sailor Moon R Episode 28 - Defeat Rubeus! The Final Battle in Space

So I've been working on things in the background. Trying to spruce up the ol' banner, see what horrifying improvements I can make around the blog, and pondering this thing they call 'social media'.

I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Kind of like how I thought watching Sailor Moon was a good idea at the time. Kind of like how I thought blogging about it in order to force myself to actually sit through the entire show was a good idea. Kind of like... oh you get it.

Anyways. Here we are again, on my own, going down the only road - wait damnit no stop that, we're watching Sailor Moon not re-living the 80's. Somehow, the early 90's was just a million times worse than the 80's. At least Sailor Moon is getting... well, tolerable. Let's see if that continues.
Watching this opening yet again, I can't help but think to myself, 'god this would be amazing to see fully remastered in full HD widescreen glory'. Does this make me a horrible person? Because the opening sequence is just so well animated compared to the rest of the show which is just... well, you know.

Speaking of which, we're finally back to their old habits, because no sooner do we get past the opening than do we get a recap! Though I guess I could forgive them seeing as how a super heavy-duty plot thing just happened last episode, I'm sure this isn't a desperate attempt to pad for time.

Please tell me this isn't a desperate attempt to pad for time.

So blah blah pinky stole the thingus, the girls went up into a giant crystal spike palace, and Usagi tried to beat the shit out of a little kid. How do we actually open today's show? Why, by reminding you that Japan has absolutely no method of defense against giant alien crystal flying fortresses that were made in a ten-year-old's arts and crafts class.

Doesn't the JSDF have like, a billion fighter jets or something?

So then we get to see the camera continue to slowly zoom in, first on the fortress, and then on Rubeus, who is all like "yo, thanks for showing up, we were going to kill you and stuff but, y'know, I'm just not feeling too hard right now, so I'll just let you sit there while I head back upstairs and find my fap folder, have fun."

Oh, but he tells her he'll be back at like, 3AM, and she should totally show up to 'make up her mind'. Then the palace goees back into the sky and I have to ask myself: holy shit how BAD do you have to be at your job to literally just let the thing you are supposed to grab just walk away from you? Why not just TAKE THE GODDAMN THING AND BE DONE WITH IT AUGHT@%@*_R#@OFIMLEWJFW EOGIWJGW

GOD DAMN IT RUBEUS EVEN BERYL AND HER INCOMPETENT GENERALS WERE NOT THIS F***ING TOUCHED IN THE HEAD.

Right so we get the title slide, which tells us this is the 'final battle' but frankly I am not convinced since there are still... how many episodes left in this season? Fifteen? Oh hey, that's exactly the right amount for an entirely new story arc plus a few. Great.

Anyways we get to find out that the giant crystal hairball is now sitting in mother f***ing orbit. Yeah, there's no magic, no dimensional bullshit at work here, they are literally just sitting around orbiting the f***ing globe. Holy shit how stupid ARE people that they have SOMEHOW MANAGED TO NOT SEE THIS SHIT BEFORE NOW?!?!?!

It's not exactly a satellite and it has A GIANT GLOWY
WHATEVER AT THE BOTTOM. JESUS.

For the sweet love of christ, you can see the International Space Station with a goddamn hand telescope, so how does NOBODY SEEM TO HAVE NOTICED THIS THING HAS JUST CASUALLY BEEN FLOATING ABOVE JAPAN FOR THE LAST SEVERAL MONTHS?!

Anyhow we head on into Rubeus' killer dressing room, and then some chick laughs and returns his reflection in the mirror to him as she enters the room. She also immediately addresses the almost literal elephant in the room.

Okay so I'm not crazy, someone is actually acknowledging
that this is a legitimate f***ing problem! Thank you!!!

Rubeus' answer to the question of "what the hell are you doing?"

"You're a woman; you would never understand."

... you know, I think I finally get it. This guy is so gay it hurts. He just doesn't like women, and he wants to tap some sweet princely ass. That's why he gets all uptight and stuff. I get it. Though why he seems completely incapable of doing anything despite literally having the power to quite frankly do whatever the hell he wants? That one still has me baffled.

Oh wait no I'm sorry it turns out he's just plain f***ing nuts.

And now we return to the 'must find fap folder' theory.

So then he casually encases the room in a bubble which accomplishes... absolutely nothing, and we get to see that the other four girls are still transformed, and that they are also... for some reason imitating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in a not very subtle way whatsoever.

.... huh.

I'm sorry, you just lost me on your whole genius plan again.

Turns out he wants to kill Sailor Moon very slowly, in front of the other girls. So why he has to wait three hours, instead of... I dunno, simply completing his objective and leaving her there to suffer until the girls wake up again? But hey. We're dealing with a level of incompetence that makes Rita Repulsa look like an absolute genius.

And back on Earth Chibi-usa is looking up at the stars and talks to Mamoru about how he is Tuxedo Mask, and how nothing can surprise this little elementary school student anymore because who is Sailor Moon? Yeah, it's that one chick. The one who is so unbelievably useless it absolutely baffles the mind that anything ever manages to get done in the first place.

Oh and she returned the broach, and wonders why the key didn't take her back from the past. It's then that Mamoru asks her to come clean, and she tells him that she needs the crystal to save her mother, and then he asks her what happened in the future. He asks her so hard he starts shaking the little girl trying to force it out of her, which only makes her cry and go on about not knowing. All she knows is bad people showed up and things blew up and then she came back to teh past.

Meanwhile on the news, people have noticed that hey, there was a giant flying object in the sky that just sort of casually went back up. What was with that anyway? Will it affect our lives? Not that Usagi cares about any of this, she decides that she can't deal with this crap anymore, and just wants to give up everything to get her friends back. Also, everything would still be nice and quiet if only that girl hadn't shown up and ruined everything?

Aw but it's okay because for the first time in her life she is actually owning up to her own shortcomings.

Also, maybe just a little bit bipolar. Just a little.

Okay, so let's just clarify here: She literally goes from "I hate that brat and I will give her and the thing that resurrected us and made everything peaceful and is a thing MY ACTUAL MOTHER FROM THE MOON told me to safeguard in order to save my friends" to, almost in the same breath, going "yeah actually I'm just kind of weak and I don't really mean what I'm saying I guess".

JUST MAKE UP YOUR MIND ALREADY.

The cats are reasonably confused, but with only thirty minutes left, Usagi says that she needs to get some rest. So she gets some rest by... going outside to get fresh air?

That's not rest. That's getting fresh air. PICK ONE THING AND MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

So Usagi comes up with the brilliant plan of... going completely alone. Why? So she doesn't put that little girl in any more danger. She then goes on to tell us how much she's grown as a character, how once she'd have been all "I'm tired" or "it's scary" or whatever, and now she's all going to try and friggin' lone wolf the BBEG in order to maybe somehow keep this little girl safe.

I realize she may not have a whole lot of options available here but, uh, this is the same girl that in nearly every single episode has needed saving by her prince charming there, because she is, in fact, completely terrible at everything. She doesn't generally do the fighting - someone else does it for her so that she can do the thing that nobody else can, which is... I'm not sure. Purify them I guess? Whatever. Point is, for all she tries to tell us she's grown as a character, she's still pretty much exactly the same person we were introduced to 73 episodes ago.

So off she goes to the rescue I guess, and the cats decide the best plan is to give Rubeus a fake Silver Crystal to buy time to get onto the ship, so they can get onboard. But how will the cats get on? Why, but turning into Chibi-usa, of course! Brilliant! There's no way that could go wrong as Usagi casually slips out of the apartment behind you. Yeah. Foolproof plan.

Quality.

Moments later Mamoru runs out and asks where Usagi went, and then they realize that holy crap, she went and did the dumb thing as the camera looks at Chibi-usa as the camera guy pretends that tilting the camera slowly works as a dramatic effect that adds tons to the scene! Oh, and then Chbi-usa vanishes and everyone realizes holy crap everybody in this apartment is a moron. Then Sailor Moon transforms as she runs down the street and we get our daily dose of stock footage.

Yeah, like I said. They're not padding this out at all.

So Sailor Moon shows up at the designated place and all the lights in Tokyo go out as the Horribly Aerodynamic UFO comes down out of the sky and Rubeus remembers what a PA system is as he announces to the entire city how nice it was of her to come. Both of them. After all, little girl feels bad that everyone got captured because of her. But then they get sucked up into the ship and the cats and Mamoru are all like "damn, welp, guess we're doomed".

Cue the commercial break.

When we return, Rubeus is walking down a hallway and we get to see the crucifixion of the Sailor Scouts. Again. As in the exact same footage from earlier just sped up slightly. Also, this next image just looks... weird to me for some reason.

I can't quite put my finger on it but this feels... wrong.

So at this point Sailor Moon starts laughing and tells him Chibi-usa isn't the Rabbit he's looking for, that's just her cousin. Brilliant. Just. Brilliant. Great thinking.

... yeah I don't think anyone is going to fall for that lame-ass trick.

But Rubeus is all like "oh well, whatevs, I'm just gonna kill you anyways" and so the kid goes running off and the ship goes back up into space.

Then we get to see Sailor Moon gets thrown around and Rubeus is... saying stupid things again.

Oh like all those times you could have done something
and instead elected to do... nothing? Those times?

Now is the season of the thingy with the rod, and she stands up to do the Moon Princess Elimination thingy, but there's no music so you know it's gonna fail. Also, a giant crystal glows and then Rubeus turns on the gravity thing and takes a few cues from Dragonball Z.

Oh wait no he's just showing off because the ship can "increase my power many times over".

You know. Like that scepter he totally gave zero shits about losing. So any chance this ship will turn into a black hole and completely negate your no-doubt wonderfully brilliant plan?

So yeah, super gravity, gravity reversal, whatever. He flings her against some crystals and Sailor Moon realizes that they are in space! So now there really is nowhere to run. Unless you are Chibi-usa who is trying to run to the Sailor Warriors but hits a magical invisible wall and cries out and does the crescent moon thing from her forehead. Oh, and he also takes the time to tell the little girl she's wasting her time and why she's wasting her time because here is what is happening to you.

Pfft, little girl doesn't care. She's got some kind of idea probably maybe whatever. Time to throw Sailor Moon around some more while the crystal glows. Also, somebody learned what a distortion filter in AfterEffects was, and that applying it to ever scene makes the bad guy look way more powerful.

But hey this is an anime and somehow Sailor Moon manages to stand up because she is the Goku-allegory, and she's all "not gonna forgive you" and Rubeus is suddenly realizing this was probably a really stupid idea. So now he decides to use his 'full power' while she unleashes another Moon Princess Rodimus Maximus.

... you know that looked a lot bigger like, ten seconds ago.

So the little girl tries to yank the crystal out and gets electrocuted for her efforts, and then Rubeus finally manages to shoot Sailor Moon in the stomach with Evil Black Magic, and realizes he's still a moron.

Are you sure that's not a euphemism for something?

He decides to try to kill the little girl but Sailor Moon is still around and kicking, so it's up to the even littler girl to unleash the moon on her forehead and remove the crystal, which causes everything to, well, start falling apart. All the mirrors smash, the other girls are released, and they quickly come to terms with what is going on. But not before we get a really inopportune peek at Chibi-usa's panties, because... yeah. That belonged there.

Seriously just... just... WHAT THE F**K.

So Sailor Moon cries but then Rubeus laughs or something and is all like "hah this ship gon' blow and you'll all die" and they're like "you're gonna die too" and he's like "yeah ain't it great, I'm screwed anyway but I'm gonna take you all down!" Except then he gets engulfed in flame and it's up to the girls to figure out a way out. Oh, they'll just use the Sailor Teleport. Doesn't matter that this has never been established as a thing before, nor does it matter that they really have no other choice to escape. Sailor Moon is tired? Oh okay I guess we'll just BURN WITH THE REST OF THE SHIP. No biggie.

Of course the more interesting thing to note is that this ship is hovering directly over Tokyo. You know what's gonna happen as it gets closer to Earth right? Even if it doesn't hit the city it's gonna wreck a whole lot of shit. But hey who cares about that right now?

LIKE A SPANKING.

Right they have a touching moment and then get started shouting like idiots as the flames dance around them, and they teleport the hell out of there. Except Rubeus is still not even dead. Esmeraude shows up and he asks her to take him back to the future, but she's like "yeah so? Whatevs, you totally done boned up this time brah".

Oh, and then she leaves him and the ship explodes lighting up the night. At least we don't have to worry about the next ice age.

So no sooner do they return than does Chibi-usa demand homecooked pancakes. They laugh about how terrible a cook she is and then some more plot decides to roll over and happen in front of us with these two: Dimande and Esmeraude.

It's almost like he refused to do any actual work. Funny.

Dimande is all "oh, well that sucks. Oh well, guess you better not screw up chick", and then he looks at what totally isn't Sailor Moon in the future and how he's gonna get everything he wants and then the episode ends.

... it's actually super depressing that the last four episodes were completely better than this. This was anticlimactic, doesn't really wrap anything up, and even Rubeus' come-uppance is.... well, droll. It kinda sucked.

I mean it's still better than the schlock we were getting before but... man. Just the whole thing was pretty lifeless and the only reason anyone stayed alive is because the villain is literally TOO GOD DAMNED LAZY TO DO HIS ACTUAL JOB.

Seriously. They were right there. He could have ended it all and just be done with it, but nope, he had to go spank the monkey or something instead of doing what it was he was actually supposed to do.

Hopefully the next crew will be more competent than him, but I'm not going to hold out any high hopes on this one.