Sailor Moon R Episode 30 - Magical Power of Darkness! Esmeraude's Invasion

As you may have noticed, there was no update for Monday. Many apologies, so on and so forth, but unfortunately a combination of extreme exhaustion and a lack of finding a proper show to take the Monday slot lead to the sorry state of a lack of content for that day. But worry not, for you see, I have indeed found a suitable replacement.

A very, very suitable replacement.

... and no I may not be attempting to pick my shows by asking AniDB just what some of the worst shows are.

... yeah totally categorically denying that.

So anyways, Sailor Moon! They've got a full 13 episodes left to completely ruin this show again, so let's get right down to it shall we?

It's nice to know that for all the changing this show has been doing, it really knows how to get right back down to its roots again. All the progress it made as a show over the last half dozen episodes appears to be slowly being undone. How, you ask? Why, by going right back to telling us exactly what happens in the episode before it happens. This is never going to get old.

In that it got old seventy-some episodes ago, but who's counting?

Anyhoodles, of course Chibi-usa is all better now. But of course now that she is, what's she doing? Why trying to make Mamoru her husband and stealing her away from Usagi. Oh no, what gall. So Usagi goes out to have some cakes I guess, and some... truly frightening creatures turn some other girls into cakes and... wait what the hell?

... it's going to be another one of those episodes I see. Let's just get this over with...

So of course we begin our episode with Usagi and Chibi-usa heading out for, I guess hanging out or something? Everyone is super happy that the kid is okay again, but as usual, our heroine is completely broke and has no way to treat the girl out for having recovered. So they could go to the park and play hide and seek or something I guess is the best that she can come up with?

But of course that doesn't last long as, just like every other time we see this girl come across THIS EXACT SAME CORNER, someone just happens to bump into her. Like always.

Except replace 'bump into' with 'casually molest'.

It only takes about five seconds for him to pick up a little girl that wants nothing more than to be pressed up against his big, manly chest, and for a certain blonde-haired scamp to get jealous of a kid who is, quite literally, half her age.

Oh Japan.

Oh god you couldn't make this any creepier if
you truly TRIED.

So she convinces him that she wants to go out and get pencils and erasers and notebooks and donuts and seriously girl, where the hell are your priorities here? But he's all like "yo, it's cool that you're better and all but seriously uh, money is a thing I kinda need so relax". It's around this point Usagi decides to push off the little girl onto him, and walks away, leaving the kid confused, as she seemed under the impression that, y'know, the three of them would be going out.

Which is odd when you consider that, well, she's kind of been trying to rub that other girl out of the equation this entire time. Even Mamoru seems a little confused that all of his attempting to push her away has somehow finally succeeded. Can you get any more backwards here?

... okay I guess you actually can.

Once again it's up to Luna to attempt to be the voice of reason, suggesting that maybe she could just go back, make amends, and try to act like a normal human being? But no, she can't do that! After all, she'd have to watch that little brat doing all of the cutesy things she wishes she could do to the man who isn't exactly her boyfriend anymore which... does not make this any less creepy when you think about it. Because seriously, she is getting hung up over the fact that he carries a little girl around. Now while this is, in fact, a legitimately creepy thing, the fact that she is actually considering this girl to be a threat to the guy who isn't even her boyfriend anymore? That is some serious Twilight Zone level bullshit right there.

So she punches a concrete pole and then we go to the future of Pen Island, where all of your phallic desires are made reality with translucent luminescent visions of the future.

Not pictured: Richard Cox, CEO of Pen Island and
lifelong member of the Pen 15 club.

Somewhere in that mess is good ol' Prince Dimande, all sitting on his throne like a boss while that Esmeraude chick is all like "So uh, I'm gonna jump back to the 20th century now, just thought you should know or something," and he is of course going to reply with "Yeah about that, be a doll and don't pull a Rubeus on us, thanks."

But of course not, by the end of this show we'll be wishing
you were even HALF as competent as he was.

But before she can leave Saphir shows up and is all like "So check this shit out, those girls in the 20th Century? They are crazy strong. So let me show you what the current 30th Century ones are like, and you'll get an idea of the crazy sort of bullshit we are up against here."

He also goes on to add that maybe if Rubeus had just done his friggin' job, they wouldn't be having these issues because the 30th Century Sailor Warriors wouldn't have the crazy bullshit magical powers they have now. But all this exposition makes Dimande a grumpy boy, and he decides to punish his brother or something I guess.

Are you recoiling in horror from an invisible slap or...?

Obviously though, Esmeraude clearly has a better plan. Her plan is to just send all the Dark Power from the Dark Crystal in the 30th Century back to the 20th, and just fill that shit up with Dark Evil Badness. No, serious, that is her actual legitimate plan. But this begs the question what the hell is the point?! Time travel simply does not work this way, yet you keep trying to do it! Why don't you just literally go back in time to before Rubeus died, kill all the girls, and be done with it? I mean seriously why do you not understand how completely idiotic your plan is by refusing to acknowledge that you can freaking travel through time?!?!

Ah but Dimande tells her that her plan won't work because... they lack the infrastructure. Okay, I can believe that. To do it, they'd need a... more powerful Dark Gate.

... are they just going to keep appending the word "dark" to everything? Wait who am I kidding, of COURSE they are. Just like Legendary and Evil. Dark is this season's new buzzword. God help me I will find a way to make it through this show without punching a walrus in the tusk.

So thanks to more exposition, Esmeraude reveals that she's thought of this, and shows that there are still Negative Points all over the place which still have power, so all she has to do is go back into time and, you know, activate them or something.

Boy I sure hope nobody comes by and steps on that.

All they need to do is go to these points, pour a shitton of Dark Energy into them, and hope nobody notices that GIANT FREAKING CRYSTAL STATUES SUDDENLY APPEARED IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR CITY.

As you can tell, this is an incredibly subtle plan.

Eventually, the end goal is to use those things to open a gate which will cause the city to explode and the planet to be engulfed in, you guessed it, Darkness. Oh and these things? They call them Dark Henges. Saphir gets to make them. He manages to do this by... holding his hand out or something, I dunno. Anyway he tells her that he hates that he had to make them look like her, and he'll make more later but he really hopes she doesn't screw up like Rubeus did. Then she talks about loving Dimande and then... wait what the hell is that?!

Wait what why did you...?

He just turns to the side for no reason, and develops a lens flare in his eyeball. No reason. He just... he does. And then declares that it's all good and she can go do her thing now. What the hell? Are we ever going to get an explanation for this? Probably not. Lady laughs and laughs and then they cut to... an all-you-can-eat cake store.

This is seriously the dumbest thing since the
Wedding Dress contest. I mean that.

Ami tries to talk about how cakes are high in calories and low in vitamins and shit but seriously, we already know that this girl is some kind of alien who clearly has not been a member of the human race for very long, because she just... she doesn't even act human anymore. Artemis tries to warn his master that she is gonna put on the pounds if she does this, but she just shuts him in his little basket and he complains to himself about how she will just take all her weight gain out on him later. Women's prerogative or something I guess.

So Ami has the grand idea to invite the other two girls, but they weren't available so they just head on in without. Guess who shows up?

It's Anatomically-challenged Green-haired Bimbo!

So Esmeraude just casually strolls down the middle of the street while everybody stares at her, and she uses a Dark Dowsing Crystal to figure out where she should go. She discovers, but of course, that the friggin' cake shop is a Dark Point. Which means it's time for Usagi to show up and, despite being totally broke, to somehow figure out how to get into the shop to eat to her heart's content.

Somehow, the inside of this cake shop is larger than
the outside seems to be. And contains fewer people.

So a lot of people are sampling the buffet of Cakeliness, and our heroines are busy stuffing their faces and ignoring their cat in a basket. But who do they manage to spy making utter pigs out of themselves in such a way that it attracts undue attention to them?

Yeah, it's these two.

So while Usagi's friends try to keep her from having a public cakegasm, Luna toddles over to a screaming basket and frees her good pal Artemis, who I guess was having trouble breathing inside of a wicker basket. Meanwhile, Rei and Mako attempt to pry their friend away from the table, and bump into that other girl who seems to have forgotten all about her task at hand and instead decides to... y'know. Keep pigging out. Because priorities.

But as is to be expected, all the other girls start mumbling about the lack of civility of these individuals, and it starts to get under Esmeraude's skin. So she just laughs and... walks away and hides behind a corner. While she berates herself for succumbing to the siren song of cake. But she will have her revenge, yes how dare these uncivilized 20th century brutes have delicious baked goods, why, they must pay for this!

Yes, sacrifice them, and make sure NOBODY can have
anything as delicious as those cakes ever again! Evil!

After transforming back, she poses for the camera a bit and laughs until we get our commercial break, because what's a villainess to do to fill up fifteen seconds of screen time?

When we get back we see the scene set again and people are still eating cakes and Usagi cries about her nonexistent relationship while simultaneously assaulting her closest friend.

Yeah Rei, that's how I always feel when I watch this show.

After throwing herself onto Rei who complains about having lost her appetite, we discover that the entire cooking staff appears to have slipped into diabetic comas or something, as they're just casually laying around the kitchen for some reason. Meanwhile, Esmeraude does her Dark Dowsing thing again, and finds the Dark Energy point, and summons her Dark Henge, which just sorta sticks into the ground and starts absorbing Dark Energy from the future.

With that energy she summons a Droid named... oh for f***'s sake. SERIOUSLY?!

Marzipan. Just... shoot me now.

True to fashion, she tells her Droid to go deal with the girls outside so that they have enough time to establish a gate in secret, and leaves to go do some "work" herself. Which seems to amount to sprinkling Evil Sugar or something onto all of the cakes. Was it really necessary to teleport two feet away? OF COURSE NOT DO NOT ASK SUCH IMPERTINENT QUESTIONS FOR SHE IS EEEEEVIL!

Anyways outside, plot continues to not develop.

Gee it's almost like some sort of major fight will break out,
what a weird coincidence.

So after noticing how much Usagi has eaten, she is quick to point out that it is all that little girl's fault that she had to pig out like a pig, because... it's not like she's prone to eating tons of sweets or anything. It's not as if it is one of her few character traits or anything, right next to being useless, having to always be saved by others, and being a total klutz. Yeah, how dare they point out that she has a tendency to eat a lot of fattening sweets like some sort of girl with really poor decision-making skills.

But right as Mamoru realizes he made a mistake in coming here, he turns to see that girls are suddenly losing their color, along with the immediate area around them. Oh no!

Losing their color! The horror!

It doesn't take long for Mamoru's Super Improbable Sixth Sense to kick in and he throws a platter at the waitress who just happens to have been Marzipan, who now turns into her monster form after being attacked. He prepares to square off against her while Usagi and Chibi-usa fight over a slice of cake, but he tells them not to eat anything! Then Marzipan shoots out... frosting or something? Which turns a pine tree into a giant ice cream cone.

The question is whether she is excited by this, or legit
frightened by the prospect of giant sweets.

So at Mamoru's behest, the girls run outside with Chibi-usa just long enough to transform and, of course, leave her behind completely unattended. Wait you mean they're leaving her with the cats? Yeah she might as well be totally alone.

After the incredibly lengthy sequence, the girls step in with a rousing speech about how, by their very uniforms, they will punish the ever-living shit out of this chick for messing with... their cake happiness I guess. Okay. Sure. Cue the battle music and let's watch random objects getting turned into sweets. Oh, and I guess Mars and Sailor Moon being half-color drained.

Seriously what is even going on here.

This quickly becomes one of the most ridiculous fights ever even by Sailor Moon standards. I am not exaggerating when I say that she is attacking them with machine-gun sweets and donuts. Christ she captures Jupiter inside a bunch of donuts.

... I got no words for this.

But Mercury quickly reveals that the girls body structures are much like sugar, and are quickly becoming unstable, so they need to be careful or else though could horrifically murder their best friends.

... it just gets more ridiculous though.

Sorry, I'm confused. Were we supposed to take this
show seriously or something?

Now it's all down to poor Mercury who gets to watch her friends get covered in ice cream, but then Tuxedo Dickhead finally comes in to make the save, by shooting a rose... with a rose.

Yep. This. Just. Happened.

So Tuxedo Mask laughs and talks about how sweets are good for girls or something, which loses even Sailor Moon in the translation.

At least we are not alone.

But Mercury comes up with an idea and discovers that, for the first time in her entire career, her water is ACTUALLY FREAKING USEFUL FOR SOMETHING. Because water makes sugar dissolve! Wow. Such amazing science, it's a good thing Tuxedo Mask showed up, because without some kind of brilliant genius with a magical computer that tells you all the answers they would have been completely scr- oh wait.

After being soaked with water, Marzipan's control over other stuff seems to vanish, her movements get all slow, and it's time for Sailor Moon to wrap this shit up. Blah blah twirl around with the rod and listen to the music talk about Sailor Moon about another dozen times while she calls out her attack and this baddie is bagged.

This has the unfortunate side effect of destroying the Dark Henge, and somehow Esmeraude seems to have managed to miss the giant fight going on outside, and everybody in the kitchen begins to wake up. So she beats a hasty retreat and takes a peek outside, and is quickly discovered by Kamen Rider and the gang, who are understandably less than pleased about this whole hostile invasion of a bakery.

Priorities ho!

After winking at the man candy, he beats a hasty retreat while Sailor Moon is affronted on his behalf. How sweet of her. The girls confront her about summoning the monster, and she calls them "flat-chested kids with no hips." Somehow, she is amazed that they look like this, despite probably having had ample opportunity to see them in action before. You know. Like when they were fighting Rubeus?

She gets called an old lady though, and is about to square off against them but decides to instead tell them that she's part of the Dark Moon clan and currently is in charge of the 20th century. Because... I guess this is important or something? Blah blah men all love her and her name is Esmeraude and she laughs and makes them all cringe and she will totally defeat them some other day. She then leaps up into space or something, and leaves them all alone.

Oh, and somewhere along the line, Chibi-usa showed up. What?

Seriously where did you even come from?

And with that the episode just sort of... ends. Like, fade to black, this episode is over ends.

... so what did we learn in this episode? Absofriggin' nothing. What got accomplished? Not a damn thing. Who is excited for the next episode?

... certainly not me.

Come back to us, Queen Beryl. Your minions were inept, but at least they had style. Not this heaping mess that is the Dark Moon clan. Hell, Ali and En were better than this, and they were filler characters.

At least they never turned anybody into ice cream or cakes.