Sailor Moon S Episode 26 - Shadow of Silence!? The Pale Glimmer of a Firefly

Today's post is late because I spent most of my first day of vacation sleeping.

I love sleeping. You know what I don't love so much? Not sleeping, which is pretty much all I did all weekend.

By the end of things, the not sleeping was really starting to take a toll on me. Fun fact: When I start truly getting tired, I begin to get very forgetful, or laugh at every little thing I say. Lately, I've developed a new quirk: I seem to talk in a dyslexic manner.

Yeah. It wasn't very pretty, and I'm glad its over with.

Speaking of getting things over with, it's time I got to today's episode of Sailor Moon. I'm looking forward to the rest of the week because I'm ending two shows! Two! It's like a Christmas miracle (but not really).

Today's episode seems to revolve around... what in the hell?!

Sorry about that. I just had to pinch myself to make sure that I was not, in fact, still sleeping. You'll understand when it shows up later. Today's monster is... oh god I don't even want to think about it. The episode seems to revolve around Chibiusa being friends with the main villain oh whatever just play the goddamn intro please.

It's probably a really good thing that I don't keep alcohol on hand, because I would probably develop some kind of dependency by the end of this shit. My god the mind f***ery in this show. They really must have been on some good drugs during the planning phases.

We begin the episode with Chibiusa's arm telling her pals off-screen goodbye, and then she meets up with Plu. You know, Plu! That lady who is actually Sailor Pluto and whose name has eluded me but whatever because god I want Chibiusa to die in a fire. Even her name is goddamned annoying. Enter the title card, and we can see they're not into giving too many shits today.

Gee, I'm sure trying to save the world has nothing to do with that.

We get to see now that Chibiusa is all upset and stuff because the world doesn't seem to revolve around her or something, and people don't just wait on her hand and foot. But of course, our friend here is totally all into setting the record straight or something.

That's... that's not what I meant for you to correct.

But because nicknames are cute or something she decides that since the old bag won't call her Usagi here (gee I WONDER WHY), she's just going to call her Set-chan.

I don't think she understands why it might be a bad thing to associate somebody with the Egyptian god of chaos and war.

But enough about that, isn't it so nice that you're making new friends and stuff in this ancient era. Don't you just love coming here where there are people who aren't dead that you can talk to?

But then Setsuna says something that's kind of weird. The reason she suspects Queen Serenity sent her to the past and stuff in the first place.

Are we absolutely certain it isn't because she doesn't want to
be bothered to raise her own kid? Also, are you not the Guardian
of f***ing time?! Did you not bother asking why in the first place?

I'm sure going back to the past is going to be so much help when Chibiusa grows up to be the queen herself. In like, eight hundred years or something because people don't seem to age normally in the future.

After being told that she can come see Setsuna anytime, she runs off, and the girl is clearly thinking "thank god I thought she'd never leave."

Truth be told I would probably wanna kill myself too.

She's immediately joined by the two lovers who think it's funny that she's being so nice or whatever to the brat. But enough about that they have a messiah to find! Wait sorry I mean Messiah. They keep capitalizing it which means it must be SUPER IMPORTANT. Or a proper noun. Ugh.

They take this time to remind us that the grail is now in play and the evil guys are looking for pure hearts still and it's probably to awaken the Messiah of Silence or some shit, fade into the Witches 4, where Mimet is watching a thing and bawling her eyes out because some dude on TV is breaking up with her. Or rather, breaking up with the chick he's talking to in the show but then again this is probably the most mentally unstable character in all of Sailor Moon so far, and that's saying a lot when you consider the cast we've had up until now.

Then she casually throws the monitor across the room and answers the ringing phone demanding to know why she is being bothered. Oh hey there professor, sure I have the new target, it will just totally not be because I was watching TV.

Now we get to listen to the creepy possessed girl with no voice going all "must have hearts" and then she freaks out on the chair or something, and then she becomes a normal girl with a headache lying in bed wondering what's going on and boy these seuzures suck.

She hears the doorbell ring. Whoever could that be?

Oh. Right. Her.

After falling off the ball, she gets told to f**k off because Hotaru is resting.

Yes you look so sorry what with barely opening the door.

Door closes, and Chibiusa starts walking off. Then stops. And then runs off. What's awkward about this is they spend like, fifteen seconds showing you something that's really quite pointless.

So inside Kaori sees Hotaru coming down the stairs, tells her that she sent the girl off, and Hotaru freaks out and goes running down the hall or something, only stopping when Kaori is all "hey uh, aren't you acting a little selfish or something?"

Uh... what now? Oh, I guess her problem with the kid is that she's technically frail because she has all those seizures, and she should be more considerate of her own body for her father's sake or something.

... not really sure how not having people over helps that at all, but okay bitch. Besides, you're not even Kaorinite anymore, so this really makes your position on this just really strange. I mean, if you were still hellbent on destroying the world that would be one thing, but now you're just some assistant!

But Kaori is just being a bitch for whatever reason, and Hotaru eventaully does catch up to Chibiusa, despite fighting off a seizure the whole time. She apologizes that she got sent off and all that, then falls down because her body doesn't like stuff.

Then Usagi and Ami show up from around the corner, bubblegum princess begins freaking the f**k out, and asks them to "save Hotaru". Dude, it's a seizure, you've seen it before, you really need to chill out a little.

I'd totally forgotten her mom was a doctor. It's been at least
40 some episodes since they last mentioned it.

So they take her to the hospital where nothing gets done because there's not a lot you can do about a seizure once its begun, and Chibiusa blames herself for all of this. Leave it to Usagi though to put a bright side on things, saying that if she pushed herself to see you so much, clearly she must be very dear to Hotaru or something.

Now we get to see what Hotaru is dreaming about. When she was a little girl, she was sitting on the floor crying near an open window.

Oh. Whoa. Okay yeah this is... that's just plain f***ed up man.

But then bitchface Kaori shows up is all "duh you did this now clean it the hell up".

We transition to another scene, where Hotaru shows up at a classroom where everybody is standing near some dude, and she's all "hay gaiz what's up what's going on over hurr?"

Also they choose a very strange aesthetic for the flashbacks.

So she reaches out to the boy who freaks out and scurries away, while the other kids talk about how messed up it is that the girl who hurt him is asking what's wrong. That's pretty messed up right? Oh, yeah. I guess that kind of is.

Of course she goes and tells daddy about how she hurt another friend but doesn't remember any of it, and he tells her that it's all good. She's a good girl and stuff. But she feels like there's someone else inside of her that just wants to hurt everyone around.

Exiting the flashback, Ami comes back in and says everything should be fine so let's move into that commercial break huh?

Eventually Hotaru rolls over, and Chibiusa takes her hand and she wakes up. They say each other's names, and Hotaru gets up and boy everything is suddenly okay now yay woo hoo they hug. They tell her she should probably rest a bit more, but given this happens all the time and was just one of her 'regular' seizures, she's good to go home now.

But hold on, Ami's mom is a doctor and she'll be here soon! Sadly, she's either a Jehovah's Witness or a Scientologist.

Take your pick, really.

So she's going to head home now, and Chibiusa says that she'll walk her home. Then Usagi pops out, says that her mom makes super tasty cakes or something, and she should totes come over next time.

Who should show up at the hospital the moment they walk out?

What are you even doing here alone anyways?

Haruka offers to give them a ride, and zooms off in her sports car, and gets introduced to Hotaru. She knows who her dad is though, and seems to get an idea of some sort. Then Chibiusa gets lied to and told that she's not a nuisance at all and isn't bothering Hotaru, blah blah let's go check in at some restaurant shall we?

Some dude is reading a book outside of a cafe or something, and Mimet shows up to give him a hard time about it.

If I say no will you go away?

Then she freaks out and fangirls over him, and drags him off for an 'autograph' needed by a friend of hers. Suddenly, Haruka gets this bad feeling about something, and pulls over, proclaiming that she is parking the car so she can go to a park, to buy a drink.

Which makes Chibiusa a little suspicious, so she says that she's going to follow and asks her friend to stay put in the car because that's just such a super great idea!

Clearly you are dumber than you look bro.

Mimet proclaims that her friend is the case, yells at him for liking some other woman or something and then oh good god what the hell is THAT?!

No seriously WHAT IS THAT?!?!?!

WHAT IS THIS THING?!

WHAT. WHAT IS IT. Is today's monster of the day actually a kindergartner?! Is that what we're going with? An evil-preschooler?

We've seen a lot of things in this show my friends. We've seen giant evil cats. We've seen evil math utensils. We've seen stripping race cars for gods sake.

And now, I think we have an evil f***ing preschooler.

Whose name is "Utomodachi."

Or U-Tomodachi. Depends on how you wanna translate it I guess. But the "tomodachi" part of her name means "friends" in Japanese. So...

... yeah I don't even know.

I think I just wet myself.

We've seen a lot of terrifying things in this show, but this one takes the f***ing cake.

WHY IS IT SO HORRIFYING?!

Cue the Earth Shaking as Sailor Uranus shows up to say you can't take a man's heart by force.

And of course Chibiusa just happens to show up at the same time, and uses her ball to summon the other scouts to the scene.

When did Chibiusa become Zordon?

Also I guess she needs to get a transformation seq-OH GOD MY EYES.

On the one hand, it's mercifully short. On the other, THAT IS THE MOST ANNOYING SOUND IN THE UNIVERSE. On the other other hand, she does manage to get what is perhaps the most useful f***ing transformation in the history of this show. Because it just straight up pops onto her and it's all "yep that too three whole seconds, suck it."

As Mimet orders the disturbing whatever-the-hell-that's-supposed-to-be to make Uranus "one of her friends", Chibimoon makes sure everybody in the neighborhood knows that she has now arrived on the scene, and that this is totally unacceptable.

This, of course, makes the monster very excited or something. So excited that she WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT.

... a spiked jump-rope?

Oh no. Oh no no no no no. God no. I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks now.

Uranus makes sure no harm comes to the tiny girl, and meanwhile back in the car Hotaru starts having herself another seizure. This one seems pretty bad!

Damn it all! Stop showing up out of the blue like that!

So I guess instead of sticking around to figure out what's up with Hotaru we instead go back to the fight. Now is the season of the other Sailor Warriors.... somehow appearing in a tree right beside them, leaving so very many questions.

Questions such as "What is Sailor Moon standing on?"

Also, they are dicks for taking the time to climb in a tree, sit down all nice on the branches, and wait for the perfect opportunity to make their debut. Because you do not just teleport sitting into a tree or something that's not how that shit usually works.

Mimet gets kind of mad about this, then the monster cries and decides she's through trying to make friends, and.... jump ropes off into the distance. Oh crap that's where Hotaru is!

"How about, screw you."

The monster wants to know what's up with this, and Uranus shows up to see that, oh shit, there is some actually scary stuff going down now. But the moment the other scouts show up, she passes out and the magic fizzles.

Ah but this is the time when Sailor Moon does a Grail Thing. Followed up by the other Grail Thing. God this is just so unnecessarily long for now f***ing reason. Now the monster is finally destroyed and... what the f**k is this shit.

No seriously.

I'm going to hurt someone now.

Everything is fine, Hotaru wakes up again, and she gets all weepy and says that Chibiusa probably shouldn't hang out with her since she'll probably get seriously injured. Then runs off towards home.

Uranus says that the girls should probably keep Chibiusa away from Hotaru for a bit, then... gets suddenly naked...? And returns to her outfit.

... why did she need to get naked during the transition? That seems unusual.

Gee ya THINK?!

Haruka drives off, and the girls look at Chibiusa who de-transformed.... sometime? And they're all "hey don't feel bad, we're sure things will work out in the end!" totally ignoring the shit that just happened, the end.

Oh this is going to make my head hurt isn't it. Yes, yes it is actually making my head hurt.

I really do like the actually dark stuff going on when Hotaru started freaking out. Because that? That has some actual potential.

There may be some hope for this series yet.