Sailor Moon S Episode 29 - The Battle in a Demonic Dimension! The Sailor Soldier's Bet

Happy 2015 everybody. I'm sorry that things have been quiet around here, but you see, I came down with a little thing we like to call Influenza.

And yeah. It was pretty nasty. Laid me up for about a week, during which time I could barely sit up without feeling dizzy, much less watch anything.

Then I took another week to recover because bad anime gave me the flu. How do I figure this? Well, see, the flu and I have an understanding. I don't get the flu shot, and I don't get the flu. Because every time I get the flu shot, I get the flu anyways.

Turns out this year's strain gives pretty much close to zero shits about these things, since it pounded the cloistered asshole of everybody, vaccinated or otherwise.

Now that I've successfully managed to casually work in the phrase 'cloistered asshole', let's get back to this thing that I am completely blaming for my terrible illness a few weeks back.

It's Sailor Moon time!

Today's episode is all about the evils of gambling, or something. The preview seems pretty heavy-handed on this one, so I'm going to simply assume they are trying to say GAMBLING WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE SO NEVER DO IT KIDS.

Roll that lovely intro full of wonderful song and pretty women!

Afterwards, it begins on a super happy note.

It's sunshine and rainbows up in this bitch!

Team Best Pals are playing cards with the least child-friendly deck of cards imaginable. I guess they're playing Old Maid or something, though instead of an Old Maid, they're playing with Death.

Tohru loses, by the way.

CLEVER FORESHADOWING HAR HAR SHE IS GONNA DIE.

Chibi-usa doesn't want to hear any talk about this, however.

You're so good you always lose to me for some reason.

Cue that title slide and let's just jump right into the evil dudes possessing a book.

Holy shit that is like a new record I think. They just straight up cut the shit and go "yeah we're possessing a book now and getting right on with the show."

I am all kinds of okay with the sudden increased pace myself. We know what the deal is at this point. I mean we've only been watching this show how long? It's about damn time they treated us like we've been paying attention up until now.

Hold on. What have you been doing this entire time then, if
every Daimon that came before wasn't up to spec?

Creepy professor has somehow gotten even creepier. Along with his batshit crazy assistant.

That face man. That face.

Oh, Professor has to go get some snacks for the tea. So he heads out to do that and Mimet decides that, well, she knows better than the expert on these things, and makes a few... additions to the mix.

Nothing major, really.

So after cramming as much shit into there as possible, the system explodes and Mimet of course takes ZERO RESPONSIBILITY. Also the house gets caught in some timewarp or something, and Chibi-usa and Hotaru find themselves in some kind of weird space anomaly, where the room they are in is no longer where the room ought to be.

Pretty sure even Leonidus would agree: This is MADNESS.

In one window, they're over the ocean. In another, somewhere in Africa. So Pinky hops on over to her magic cat-ball and puts in a call for delivery. So the other girls get their act together, and prepare to head over as Hotaru makes a startling discovery:

SHE IS OUT OF CLEAN SOCKS.

Everything leads to something else now. Hotaru's desk? Somewhere with giraffes. Then a lion comes through the desk, and the two girls run out of the room to find themselves in the middle of a moonlit desert. Then the door vanishes behind them and they are stranded, but it's okay because they're together!

Then the professor gets home and finds he can't even get into his own house, which irritates him to no end. But then those other girls show up too and he discovers OH SHIT THEY MAYBE HAVE FIGURED OUT MY TOTALLY OBVIOUS SECRET OR SOMETHING LIKE THIS WAS AN ANIME.

It's just a totally random neighborhood inspection for EVIL.
You have nothing to fear!

But then the professor realizes they're all just a bunch of great big idiots, and decides to focus on them rescuing his daughter or something. They're on the case! They've got only an hour to deal with this before the whole house gets sucked into an alternate dimension.

Meanwhile, the two girls trapped inside transition from a jungle over to the frozen arctic. I'm sure they'll be fine, they have a penguin to keep 'em company.

Outside, the group tries to figure out how exactly they are going to bust into this house. They can just, y'know, attack his house with magical powers. That'll work, right?

This is the face of a man who is pretty sure his Homeowner's
Association is totally not going to like ANY of this.

Then Mercury explains that if they kick down the door the house gets sucked into the alternate dimension anyways. Which is a shame, I was personally hoping it'd explode or something but I guess that's okay too or whatever. So how exactly are they going to solve this issue?

Mercury, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one...?

Mercury's proposal is simple. In order for them to get into the house, all they need to do is get into the house to open the door from inside.

Oh, they can just teleport! Of course. How silly. WHY DID THEY NOT JUST DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE EXACTLY??

So the girls hold hands and glowy stuff happens and they vanish into the sky, leaving the old guy with two cats.

Now they're inside the house, somewhere near Tselinoyarsk.

Or maybe it's Holland f**k if I know.

At least they're inside the house. Outside, the professor basks in the irony that is him having to rely on his sworn enemies to unlock his front door. Oh and save his daughter or something he guesses. But more importantly OH CRAP HE DROPPED THE SNACKS CRAP.

Back inside, the girls find themselves at the bottom of a waterfall, talking about how random all fo this crap is. Then they're back in Tselinoyarks or Sweden or whatever. Now we're back outside where those other three girls have shown up and recap the situation again that we were just apprised of LESS THAN A MINUTE AGO and they have to just sit back and wait to see what happens.

Now we're back to Team Best Pals, who are getting a little tired and uh, kinda casually appear over a cliff somewhere. Commercial break!

We're right back to Hotaru trying to hold onto Chibi-usa who is dangling over a cliff, while the main heroes trek through the Grand Canyon. No, wait, they're at some cliffs now too and OH HEY THERE'S THOSE OTHER TWO GIRLS FALLING OFF A CLIFF. Venus wraps a whip around them though and together they're all able to pull the girls to safety. But now they have a new problem. They can't teleport out with both Chibiusa and Hotaru. For... reasons I guess.

Which prompts what could be a really touching conversation, but falls flat because this has been rushed with no real build-up to it yet.

"Seriously the foreshadowing says I'm doomed anyways."

Blah blah cue the piano and the tragic "never shoulda been born anyways" emo talk so hurry up and save the other person. Then Sailor Moon is all "shuddup we'll get you both out seriously" since everyone is all friends and shit so it's no big deal, which touches her or something.

Meanwhile, they cut back to the outside where the cats are telling us for the second time how much time the girls have remaining while the professor continues to devour all of the food he purchased.

Back inside, they finally make it back to the front hall! Awesome. Time to open up that door. They open the door and... it opens into nothing. NOTHING BUT TERROR I MEAN!

Yeah okay. This is pretty terrifying.

Don't worry.

IT GETS WORSE.

NightmareFuel.exe has encountered an error and has to crap itself.

Turns out she's the source of this disturbance. Which isn't surprising because JEGUS LOOK AT THAT FACE.

SERIOUSLY JUST LOOK AT IT.

Welp, turns out they need to defeat this monster. But she doesn't want to fight! She hates fighting.

I just wanted to point out that her butt is the base of a chess piece
and her abdomen is a die.

She wants to play a game, and if they win, she can let them go! Because otherwise she'll just send them somewhere random and waste all of their time and trap them in this bizarre dimension anyways so what choice does anyone really have anyway.

Y'know this seems like a really unfair handicap for the dealer,
I can't imagine her ever agre-

*sigh* Nevermind....

In return, if she wins, then they get to play games with her for ALL OF ETERNITY.

I guess it's a deal or whatever. DISCO PARTY BALL ACTIVATE!

And then they play.... roulette. Jupiter calls it right but then the wheel changes numbers and then she's imprisoned. So now, Jenga with Mars!

Ah but the villain cheats again and so Mars is also imprisoned. Whoops.

Suddenly, I am aware that this is probably someone's fetish.

Mercury is next with Chess. But again, cheat, and Venus and Moon challenge her to an arcade racing game.

I think today's villain would fit in perfectly with JoJo's Bizarre
Adventure. Seriously. Those faces.

Once more, she of course cheats and so now all that's left are Chibiusa and Hotaru. What are they going to play?

Old Maid, of course. Because HOTARU IS SO GOOD AT THAT.

Outside, time is running out! Inside, the hand is dealt. Chibiusa tricks the lady inot grabbing the Old Maid, and turns out someone is left with it. It's pretty obvious the loser is the villain, but she decides to challenge Hotaru again directly because she's a sore loser or whatever.

Wait, no, sorry, it's that she wants to finish this game of Old Maid, since Hotaru is still playing. Even though Chibi-usa already won? Whatever. It's all down to the last pull or something so what do they do now?

And you just so happen to be holding the one card most commonly
associated with death itself. I'm sure you'll be fine.

So the villain shuffles up the cards, marks one of them as the Joker, and says she has no idea which is which, but she clearly does know which is which. Even though she could have just as easily used her cheating powers to make BOTH cards the Joker, which would have been the smart thing but whatever now we have to watch this agonizingly long process of Hotaru debating over which card to choose.

But then the peanut gallery is all "it doesn't matter which card you pick, take the one you want!" and so she decides the power of friendship and her incredible Memory will win the day. Then she grabs the correct card and wins the game.

And passes out.

Which makes the villain mad so she decides, eh, screwit, not gonna honor that deal I made. Chibiusa gets mad, transforms, and beats the hell out of her with pink sugary hearts.

Or tries to, but fails, and then manages to bust out Sailor Moon by accident so it's time for the Grail bullshit while the monster just kinda stands there picking her nose and waiting for death.

She would later go on to give birth to a boy named Usoppe.

Monster vanquished, junk restored, house returns to normal, and all of the girls are freed. They check on Hotaru, but remind someone to turn back into Chibi-usa before waking the girl. Then the front doors open up, the professor sees his daughter and is super happy or whatever, and everything was happy.

Whatever you say, Maximilian Pegasus.

Then those other girls are like "welp once again things worked out and we got to collect our check for doing nothing" and the episode ends on a happy note with them reminding us that CHIBI-USA AND HOTARU ARE BEST FRIENDS FOREVER.

Holy hell this has been one of the most random episodes in awhile. And I mean random. Shit was all over the place. I mean it made sense, but the wacky, breakneck pacing really clashed with them telling what could have been a heartfelt story.

Ah well. What was I really expecting from Sailor Moon? Something good?

Please. This isn't Crystal, after all.