Sailor Moon R Episode 40 - Saphir Dies! Wiseman's Trap

I go through a lot to bring you folks entertainment.

No, really. I spent no less than half an hour just trying to figure out various issues that were getting in the way of my providing you with this entry. Everything from speakers not working to Windows just straight up not working at all.

Truly, the universe works in mysterious ways. Maybe it's trying to tell me something. Like, "you really should have something planned for Friday you idiot."

Meh, who listens to those voices in the back of your head anyway? If I did that, I'd never have started this blog in the first place...

We're winding down to the end of this series. Wow. I'm kind of worried, in a way. I mean sure, I've got a whole movie to go through after this. But even so, wow. I wonder if this series' ending will actually be half as badass as the last one was. I'm pretty sure it won't be nearly enough to pull this show out from the hole it's managed to dig itself into thus far, though.

Anyways in the episode overview, we get to see... a whole lot of folks we haven't seen in awhile? Also Saphir finds out his brother didn't betray him or something? Oh, okay.

By the way, the episode is called "Saphir Dies". I can't possibly imagine what this one has in store for us! Not one bit.

Tokyo. In the present past. Or past present. Or present present. Even though it's the past for us regardless. Oh screw it. Time travel screws everything up. Let's start over.

THERE IS A GIANT FREAKING CRYSTAL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY. THERE.

It's no unusual solar activity, but I'm sure people
have taken notice of this thing by now.

Predictably enough, the news is all on top of this thing with reports and helicopters flying over it and rumors that they should begin potentially unveiling a new "Please Godzilla Save Us!" campaign. That last one may be a lie.

Lady, I'm sure that knowing what the object is will not make
an area any more or less dangerous after its identification.
The danger is still there regardless.

Of course, all of the girls are sitting on couches watching shit in the comfort of someone's home. Oh, but guess who is out investigating this? Wait for it... wait for it...

The men of the group.Yes, Mamoru and Artemis are the ones tasked with going out to take a look at the GIANT EVIL FREAKING CRYSTAL. While the girls sit at home and do absolutely f**k-all.

For a show that is supposed to be empowering young women, and is in fact lauded for having a heroine that does all the heroing, the women in it, titular character included, seem to leave a lot of the actual work to the men when given the option. But gender discrimination aside, YOU ARE THE SAILOR F***ING WARRIORS. YOU KNOW. LEGENDARY HEROES. Should you not have at least SENT THE SMART ONE OF YOUR GROUP OUT THERE TO CHECK THIS SHIT OUT? I mean, she is the one with the MAGICAL F***ING COMPUTER. OR HAVE YOU ONCE AGAIN CONVENIENTLY FORGOTTEN THIS RELATIVELY IMPORTANT POINT? I MEAN IT ISN'T AS THOUGH MERCURY'S ENTIRE CHARACTER IS FIGURING SHIT OUT NOW IS IT?!

Oh wait, THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT OF HER CHARACTER. Christ, not three minutes in and look how worked up I'm getting over this. My. God. Moving along.

God forbid you should GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES @#*%)(@#

Sorry. I said I was going to move on from that. Moving on.

Meanwhile, Usagi is having one of those teary-eyed emotional flashbacks of that time when her future daughter hit early Evil Adulthood and kicked her ass with an umbrella(ella-ella-ella hey hey). Then there's some dialogue-less shouting and we return to her doing what she does best, which is pouting over the situation. Boo friggin' hoo. Her mom shows up and is all "so uh, boy that thing looks dangerous I mean it is only a GIANT BLACK CRYSTAL maybe we should evacuate or something because I mean this stuff doesn't exactly pop up out of nowhere and bring good things with it you know?"

But of course her mom happens to be holding a very special cup of tea.

Isn't it just daaaarling?

She takes a quick head count and realizes she has brought one too many. Gee wonder why she did that? Oh well she leaves the cup anyways, and Luna explains that everyone has forgotten the girl because Luna-P isn't around. Time to listen to Usagi talk about how empty the place feels without the little brat and making other people cry along with her.

Leave it up to Rei to give the pep talk about how if they combine their powers they can probably save the girl. That sounds like a great idea maybe you could get out there and start doing that NOW? No? No? Oh, okay. Don't mind me then.

Oh for crissakes just kiss already god!

Cut to Wiseman talking to cheesy blue flames. Also, spouting about how Death Phantom is totally gonna rules this shit because, you know. That's how Wiseman rolls. Oh and Saphir just happens to be hearing about how this evil galactic nothingness is going to rule over an insignificant speck of dust. Once all the light of goodness is extinguished that is.

He goes to check on the giant Crystal Reactor, and finds out that congrats, it is doing that energy producing thing. So he takes a magic card and deactivates it, keeping the reactor from running out of control. Which doesn't please Wiseman very much. But he's all "screw you old man, I'm gonna tell my brother and he'll believe me because we're brothers!" and Wiseman is all "Uh, dude? Kinda have the backing of the ruler of the universe here, I don't think that's gonna fly, but whatever."

The best part about threats like these? Everyone dies.
Eventually. It's just, you know. A thing. It happens.

Saphir demands to know what exactly this "Death Phantom" thing is, so of course Wiseman just up and explains. He's an absolute god. Who uh... will kind of destroy everything in the universe and wipe it clean when he shows up. Y'know?

By your definition everything is an impure life form.

Saphir then asks what the heck is Wiseman anyway, who decides that telling him his endgoal? That's fine. But telling him who he is, a detail which is probably way less important? Totally not something he wants to go over. Then he attacks Saphir and tries to wipe him out, declaring he will die in 'ignorance'. Even though you told him your plan.

Meanwhile, Black Lady and Dimande are busy chatting it up about the end of the world.

Let's not forget about your existence being negated!

Pan down from the giant floating crystal in the sky and return to people fleeing their homes at the behest of the police. Oh, and some sisters we haven't seen in forever.

Oh how cute, making cameos at the end to remind us
you existed at one point. Touching, really.

But look, it's Saphir! They catch sight of him and run after, while he's busy limping away to the park and talking to himself about how Wiseman is gonna destroy everything. Also, how nice grass smells. Then he passes out and has a flashback to when he and his bro found a flower on Nemesis that one time. Which was the catalyst for his brother to go "yeah totes gonna invade the Earth so we can have entire fields of flowers. Big flowers. Yeah, that'll be swell." But then Wiseman showed up and his brother turned into an asshole or something.

Eventually he wakes up from this nightmare, sits up, and falls back down, and learns he is in the care of those four sisters. Petz tells him they are in her room, and she is wearing an incredibly low-cut blouse. Oh and then asks that if he's gonna punish someone, just leave her sisters out of it please? But he's all "meh, whatevs".

Amazing what not being an evil bitch will do to you, huh?

They decide to leave those two alone for a bit, and it is revealed that Petz used to be in love with Saphir so it's all good. By the way, back int eh Dark Palace Wiseman is feeding his bro a story about how Saphir totally flipped his shit and ran away and they should probably kill that dude? So Black Lady decides to take care of it, leaving Dimande to wonder what is going on. Then a commercial break.

Back in Petz's room, Saphir notices that she is not being an evil bitch and is kind of nice to be around for some reason, and she explains that it's because Sailor Moon taught her to not be a completely evil bitch. Oh, and that Earth is actually a pretty swell place? And there's no need to be, well, a backstabbing prick about every little thing. You know. Warm fuzzy stuff.

This makes Saphir question if destroying the world is really the best way to accomplish their goal of being able to run through giant fields of flowers. (Protip: It's totally not.) He also starts wondering if maybe this whole thing was just part of Wiseman's plan to screw up the whole universe, and decides he needs to warn his brother about this as soon as possible. Which makes Petz sad, of course, but he explains that he's gotta stop Wiseman.

Petz doesn't want to let him go while he is injured though, because he will die and that will make her all of the sads.

See? All of the sads.

He makes a pretty good point though: If one of her sisters was off being an evil persnickety wench because some dude was telling her to, and it was going to destroy her in the end, wouldn't she want to do the same thing at any cost?

Yeah it's not like he hasn't killed people for that or anything.

He tells her in a voiceover flashback that he'll come back when this is all done for his jacket, which is left in her care. The other sisters are all "man we shouldn't have let him go alone" but one of them speaks some sense and realizes "hey, we're kinda powerless y'know? We'd just die."

So Koan makes the smart move and calls her pal Usagi. Because if anyone can help, it's her.

This makes a great deal of sense, but lucky for her that the girls were all just sitting around at her place twiddling their thumbs, right? Because if they'd been out actually doing something they would have totally missed this incredibly important phone call.

... god what did we DO before cell phones anyways?

Now we get to see Saphir slinking around all hurt and stuff, slowly making his way to the crystal, when the Black Lady shows up.

Wait, why wouldn't he be alone exactly? Did you expect him
to go to your enemies or something?

He tells her to get out of his way though, because he just needs to talk with his brother, but she'll have none of that. Why, she's out to kill him after all. She's even gonna use Evil Luna-P to do it.

Oh wait no, the Sailor Warriors are gonna show up to stop her and tell her she's being tricked and shit. Which makes her mad, so what does she turn her magical Felix the Cat ball into?

... a f***ing mirror. Seriously?!

A mirror that shoots EVIL BEAMS OF BLACK ENERGY. The girls provide cover for Saphir, and tell him to go forth and run to his brother. Which makes him kind of angry and confused, why, what reason do they have to help? After all Koan could have been lying and leading them into a trap!

Mars' answer? Blame it on Sailor Moon turning them all into idiots.

... brilliant. That is the best back-handed comment you can give to your best friend.

I'll give them credit where it is due, however: playing the blindly naive card, and acknowledging it and proclaiming it to be a strength? That earns you a win column, friends. Blind optimism and courage even when it shouldn't be a thing you do, I'm kind of a sucker for that, so for playing this one straight and actually having the characters back that up? I'm all sorts of okay with that.

Meanwhile, Black Lady is tired of this, so she changes her mirror out for something more practical.

Sorry did I say practical I meant ridiculous.

To her credit, at least this makes more sense than mirror laser beams, since this fan summons a giant gust of wind that clears the field of Mercury's mist. But Moon begs her to return to normal and uses her Moon Prism Power, but the enemy just blocks it with her umbrella, and... oh you have got to be kidding me.

Badminton? Seriously?! Ugh.

Venus attempts to stop it with her chain thingy, but it does something nobody expects.

It's still ridiculous though.

Meanwhile, those other two girls find out that they should probably stop standing around looking dumb.

Why are you even still standing there dude? Just go already!

He tells them to straight up go, because his brother has shown up and he's gonna go talk to him. So he limps over to explain he hasn't betrayed his brother, and that he's just trying to save his brother from being an idiot. Considering this isn't what they originally came here for.  Which seems to have an effect on Dimande, interestingly enough - it's a rational argument, and it's coming from his brother after all.

Cue Tuxedo Mask showing up to save the girls with his railgun roses.

No seriously it sounds like a friggin' gunshot going off when those red streaks race across the screen. He also makes a proclamation.

Yeah because he's totally going to listen to what you have
to say. After you stole your girlfriend from him. Wait...

So Dimande decides to hear what his brother has to say when Wiseman zaps him with evil energy, and uh, y'know. Tries to end this before Saphir can spill the beans.

... you know, I won't even mock this one. That expression
is just so genuine.

And then Wiseman kills his brother. Oops. He also takes back the magical iPhone controller device that he stole in the first place. Either that or it's a playing card, I'm not sure which.

They're both about the same size really.

Wiseman then tells them to head back to fight the girls some other time, and Dimande looks down to see Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon crowding over his brother's body. Who is whispering how sorry he is to Petz. Who gets the feeling something is wrong because his jacket fell.

Damn cheap drywall hooks.

Then he fades and the SUPER DRAMATIC VIOLINS play while Sailor Moon screams. But then Dimande walks over, to everyone's surprise, and quietly picks up his brother's body and has himself a little shaking fit over it, and vanishes as he angrily utters Wiseman's name.

And Koan is all sad and getting the sparklies as the jacket she is holding fades away, and she tells her sisters that she'll be fine, since she totally knew this was how things would play out anyway. He'll always be in her heart so, I guess that's fine, right?

Sad ending get.

Now, looking at the last three episodes... I somehow get this feeling we won't be getting an awesome double-sized ending episode like we got last time, which is a shame. Since we have three villains left, though technically Dimande is probably going to go down next episode while likely fighting the Black Lady, which means after that is Wiseman and, if tropes hold? The universe. I mean Death Phantom.

Meh. We'll see, but from where I'm sitting? I'm going to say that aside from what I hope will be an awesome death scene on Dimande's part, the ending will wind up being anticlimactic at best.

... that is kind of depressing how they keep skirting the edge of being totally awesome, but pulling their punches at the last second and simply being 'meh' when it has the potential to be so much more.