Sailor Moon S Episode 02 - The Rod of Love is Born! Usagi's New Transformation

So, I saw the trailer for the new Sailor Moon Crystal. And... well, I won't lie, it's definitely... interesting.

Initial thoughts? Character design seems to suffer from severe CLAMP-syndrome with limbs that are miles long, but I have to admit that the animation looks sick as hell. I'm gonna watch it. I might even blog about it.

... I'm not fooling anyone of course I'm going to. So on that note, why not some more classic Sailor Moon?

Kicking off today with the episode overview, we see that the girls will meet the other two new girls, maybe, and wonder if they are friends or not. Oh, and they get attacked by a stripping catgirl this time.

I want to take a screencap, but... you will wait. Oh yes, you will wait.

Oh and it seems like Sailor Moon finally gets a new attack. Like she always does. I mean good god, it's only the second episode and already she's getting a power up to deal with the new bads.

New intro comes and goes, and we are treated to them blatantly revealing that the whole scene with the test tubes and lab stuff? THAT'S ALL STOCK FOOTAGE NOW. So expect to see it every god damned episode. At least with Beryl they attempted to draw the damn thing over again, here they're just not even trying.

To uh, bust some death? Cuz bustin' makes you feel good?

Today, Professor Light Brite is asking his lovely assistant what the point of their organization is. As if she should somehow have forgotten between last episode and this one. But, just in case you MISSED THE PREMIER OF THE GREATEST SHOW EVER, they're going to spend the first couple of minutes reminding you why these guys are evil. (My money is on them decorating in black and purple and not putting any lights on the ceiling. Seriously, who puts lights in any laboratory UNDER THE TABLES?)

I figured we'd just wander the English countryside gathering
knights for the Round Table in the hopes of tripping over it,
really.

But just in case you really did miss the last episode, or you forgot, here's your primer: Badguys are searching for a thing called the Holy Grail which is supposed to appear when three talismans that are trapped within the "pure hearts of the chosen ones" are gathered together. Or something. So they've gotta use these Daimon Eggs to create weird monsters so they can get this Holy Grail and Rule The World. They release this thing, and reveal that they must be in the sewers or something.

Which is a pretty horrible place to do science, if you ask me.

Title slide time!

The rod of... you're not even being subtle anymore are you?

Usagi's house. Morning. She is having some kind of nightmare about being pulled out of her transformation, and wonders what's up with the Silver Crystal losing its light. And all of her friends talking down to her about how useless she is and how she needs to retire.

She wakes up by strangling Luna.

This is painful for so many reasons. Also, what's with
all of the little red bows in her hair while she sleeps?

So after being nearly clawed to death in the face by the cat, she is freed and neither one of them really seems mad at the other for ATTEMPTING TO MURDER THEM. But it's okay. They're going to take the time to look at the Silver Crystal and wonder what this whole thing means. Seeing as how she doesn't have it to power her anymore, she's gotta figure something out.

It's decided she should talk to Mamoru, who knows all about crazy dreams. His response?

Isn't that what 90% of Japanese men say before whipping
out their penis? Because I'm pretty sure that is.

Comical music plays and they go to some run-down house with agiant hole in the wall, and I am now wondering just what in the hell is going on. Mamoru almost seems like a completely different guy now. Though, it seems Usagi is thinking some of the same things I am here.

Though it's a lot of effort to go through when you consider
he kind of has his own apartment.

He winds up pulling out a stray cat for her though, because two aren't enough for this show, so now we get an almost totally orange tabby with a brown ear.

Yeah I'm not sure how she came up with this either.

Seems that this house is where all of the stray cats in Tokyo live, and the kitten slips out of her arms and escapes into the house. A wise decision, but of course it's time for our heroes to follow. Also, to magically produce a bowl of cat food out of thin air, so they can feed every single cat in the neighborhood.

Oh, hold on, that's someone else.

Crazy Cat Lady level: Beginner

Usagi and Mamoru Soldiers of Justice their way in and introduce themselves to the little girl, and to feed them their own magically-produced bag of food.

That is a disturbing number of cats.

The little girl tells them that this place is supposed to be torn down soon, but Usagi volunteers herself and her boyfriend for helping to care for them.

Elsewhere, that evil seed pod is doing a thing and breaking into what looks like a girl's room who really likes cats. Gee, I wonder whose place that might be?  Cue the stock footage of the pod opening and transforming. What does it possess today?

A cat puzzle.

Not an actual cat. But a puzzle of a picture of a cat.

Y'know, that's an awfully strange thing to possess. But who am I to judge?

Back at the shrine, Usagi continues to dump her quest of SAVE ALL THE CATS onto her friends. They need to find homes for like, fifty cats. Of course they've gotta help her. I mean they're nice people, right?

Though it's decided each one of them is supposed to take care of four cats each, which prompts Mina to go "dude, I can barely care for Artemis much less four others." Which offends him but don't worry, animal abuse is okay.

And Rei? She hits a tree as hard as she can and sends a billion birds flying off and is all "yeah can't leave them here either we have birds ha ha ha dodging responsibility is fun". And of course Mako lives alone and can't care for them, and Ami is too busy studying to help out.

You're telling her to keep TWENTY CATS at her place.
You are a real dick of a friend.

Usagi starts to talk about how she can't because Luna eats too much, and before Luna can raise a fuss, Ami stuffs an entire sandwich into her mouth. Which is promptly accepted with a happy grin.

... these people are terrifying you know that?

Anyways, Ami suggests maybe Usagi should go look for owners herself. So she counters by saying ALL of them should get some food for the kitties and look for owners and walks off, while Artemis asks Luna what the heck is going on, while she chews her stupid sandwich bribe and is all "shh".

Elsewhere across town, that little girl goes home, but is followed by two cats who, in traditional cat fashion, ignore her saying that she can't have cats there. But, also like typical cats, they weasel their way in anyways and she's like "okay but only until mom gets home."

For someone that likes cats you sure don't understand
that they just do whatever they want.

After having chased them back onto the floor, she takes a moment to pick up the remaining pieces to the puzzle, and try to finish it. Soon as she completes the cat, it flashes with a brilliant light, and oh no, your possessed demon, I mean Daimon, puzzle comes to life and YOUR SOUL IS MIIIIINE.

Her name is Nekonell. And her thing is that she adds -nell
to the end of every sentence. Instead of -neko.

So the girl and the cats run off in terror and she responds by attacking with her evil stretchy tail. And I've got to admit, holy crap does this look amazing.

This... this is like the best animation in this show by far.

It makes perfect sense that this monster comes to pieces because it is made up of puzzle pieces, so the fact that they let it make sense like this puts it way above anything they've done in the last 90 episodes.

So girl and the cats go running back down the stairs, Nekonell comes out, and absorbs the pieces back into her tail. Oh and then shows us she can teleport.

Where does the girl run? Why, off to that house of cats. But that's not safe either, because guess who's waiting there? It's the monster alright. Roll the new commercial break!

After the break we see that all of the girls are hanging out, and Makoto has chosen an incredibly short skirt for today.

Seriously, that skirt. I mean wow.

So while they're playing with cats, everyone starts having fun and they begin reconsidering this whole thing of being dicks that don't want to help a bunch of kittens because OH MY GOD HOW CUTE ARE THEY. Of course Usagi is all "hey don't take one just take them all!"

Words of wisdom from Makoto? Holy crap, what happened
to the terrible writing in this show?!

Inside, the stripper cat is busy attacking that little girl. Of course, the girls outside somehow manage to not hear the little girl scream, but all of the cats do and immediately rush to her aid, leaving the others wondering just what is going on so of course they've gotta follow.

I'm serious, stripping is the new evil thing this season.

So she Black Star's the girl but the cats come leaping in to save her, all attacking the stripper cat girl, and she is distracted and throws them all off, and in front of the other girls no less. So it's time for Usagi to see if she can still transform or not.

Turns out... nope. She can't. But at least they roll part of the stock footage before revealing that nah, you're not getting a transformation sequence. The others hop right to it though, because a little girl is about to lose her heart. Enter the Sailor Soldiers (minus Moon).

Mars starts by trying to set the place on fire, and Jupiter only adds to the whole "burning the place down" with her lightning. But for someone whose tail is made out of puzzle pieces that can be defeated by the closing of a door, she somehow manages to deflect every single attack with her tail.

Interesting. Now all of the Scouts are defeated. Whatever will they do now? Watch as Usagi throws herself at the monster and helplessly get thrown aside I guess. Time for her to strip again and take the heart this time! Heart crystal comes out, and the kitty gets it, but as soon as she turns around she faces, well, those energy blasts from last episode. Which reduces here to puzzle pieces almost immediately.

Yeah it's almost like they're the new Tuxedo Mask.

They hop down somehow managing to negate any and all light, and determine that this heart crystal isn't a talisman, so they should throw it back or something. And before they can say anything else, they turn to walk away. Except the monster is putting itself back together! Best watch out people with no names yet! Why, if they're also Sailor Warriors they should stay and fight the enemy too!

"Not in our job description, you're on your own."

Gee, this sounds exactly like how Tuxedo Mask treated them in the beginning. "I can't help you, we're looking for the talismans and that's all, deal with this yourself." And then they vanish.

So now they're dealing with a cat girl stripper monster, and all the girls are down again. But when Usagi gets a tail wrapped around her neck, the real Tuxedo Mask shows up to save the day. It's a double feature once again.

Okay this one is just pure gold.

His witty one-liner doesn't make a whole lot of sense today though.

Not sure what you mean by that by okay!

But he whacks the cat with his magic stick, and she settles right down.

His cane people, god what were YOU thinking?

She manges tobreak it though, and even manages to cut apart some of his outfit, which is horrible. He tells her to run, but she says to hell with that, she's not leaving him alone, even if she can't transform she wants to fight with everyone else. She can't just leave them alone.

And then the monster was defeated by the power of love.

No seriously it just falls to pieces as this shit starts up.

And now they are suddenly in the Moon Kingdom and uh... oh. I guess the Love Rod is this thing that shows up, which looks basically the same. Her broach changes form, however, as the Silver Crystal turns a sickly red color.

All the pink-on-pink really washes out the pink.

And like usual, they've almost literally given birth to another 'legendary weapon'.

Who names this stuff anyways?

Seriously, everything in this show is legendary in name.

Yes, even though you've never heard of it it is legendary too.

The monster isn't quite done yet though as it begins pulling itself together once more, and so she enters her new transformation sequence... with Moon Cosmic Power. Instead of Prism. New transformation song and new sequence which is snazzy as hell. They spent a lot of time on this one.

Wow that... makes sense. Did the upgrade increase her INT?

Now it's up to her to wipe this baddie from the face of the Earth, and we cut to... the Moon Kingdom. Which is inside of a rod. Which stands in front of a moon kingdom. Which is inside of a rod. Which stands in front of the moon kingdom. Which... is inside of a rod held by Sailor Moon. In front of the Moon Kingdom.

ITS POWERS OF RECURSIVENESS ARE OVERWHELMING. No wonder they call it 'legendary' it propagates itself within itself. That's breaking the rules I'm sure!

So she takes some time to twirl it like a baton, and then stand there for a moment, and then call out her new attack: Moon Spiral Heart Attack.

Well, I can't accuse this one of not being literal.

And the puzzle reverts to being... not a puzzle but now a picture, oddly enough, and the Daimon Egg pops out and cracks and is done for. Sailor Moon jumps for joy and everyone is all "yay we need a hospital."

... moon stick?

Cut to little girl playing with cats with a cats tail. The plant. And the others are just kinda watching, and talking about how they are totally gonna find owners for the cats. But Usagi claims to already have the answer. Rei keeps five and Ami and Mina get two while Mako gets the leftover.

Oh yeah remember that place that literally came up once
last series and was never mentioned again? Let's do that!

And everyone gets mad at her for not thinking of it earlier and the episode ends.

Though honestly, shouldn't they be mad at themselves for not thinking of it earlier? Because uh... that seems like a thing ALL OF THEM WOULD THINK OF FIRST.

Oh well. Overall, this is already way better than the last two series, and we're two episodes in. It fills me with hope. I get the feeling that when people think of Sailor Moon, these are the episodes they fondly remember. Because this stuff is way better than anything else so far. Except maybe the fight with Beryl, that was pretty bitchin'.

We'll see where the show goes. In the meantime, I hope you're enjoying the re-release of the show. I'm not, but maybe I ought to give it a peek and see how they've treated the new English Dub. And see if they keep the stupid names DIC came up with.