Sailor Moon SuperS Episode 15 - Mansion of Secrets! The Menu of Love to You

Another Monday, another episode of Sailor Moon.

It saddens me that this show was one of the 'better' shows of its kind at the time. Hell, it saddens me that this was considered the pinnacle of anime for its time. Sure, we can laugh away at stuff like Dragonball for its wacky plot stuff, but Sailor Moon holds a special place for 'shows that have lots of episodes but do absolutely nothing'.

I'm sure that place is somewhere in the upper levels of hell. Perhaps around Limbo? Purgatory maybe? Sounds about right to me.

So speaking of staring into the depths of hell, it's time to get this thing going. Boy what a clever segue that was. *pats self on back*

Today's episode revolves around a creepy old haunted house that isn't so much haunted as it is inhabited by some strange lady that Chibiusa made friends with. Also they get attacked by a motorized unicycle and maybe a robot cat. And I think Diana does a thing maybe.

Roll intro, this one's looking to be a doozy already.

You know how sometimes I happen to have some superb insights into life, the universe, and everything during the intro? Well this week isn't one of them. It's an intro. One I've seen fourteen times before. So I got nothing this time.

At least it's still the same classic song, which I can live with.

We begin the show with shopping. Such excitement this is right off the bat.

Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew.

Team future mom and daughter are off getting things for stew, and can't agree on whether to have beef or cream stews, when they stop their stupid bickering to listen to somebody else do some bickering over a matter of 117 yen.

Yeah, that's the equivalent of eighty cents.

Gee, I wonder who the target for this week is?

So this was a 'timed exclusive' thing and the clerk is being a bitch but eventually decides to do what her check-out training told her and to just give the woman the discount and get her out of the store.

For some reason this is the most interesting thing in the store,
considering Usagi's expression.

But after being given the discount the shrewd lady asks for a second of whatever she got discounted because shrewdness. Now that is a bit of a dickish move but I'm going to guess that the coupon probably didn't cover that, whatever it was.

Enter the title slide.

I'm starting to think today's episode revolves around cooking.

Now it is raining and Mamoru is not driving his car, and he just so happens to pass by mean old lady and offers to share his umbrella as they wait to cross.

He's operating under the assumption that you will want his D.
Literally every woman he's met in this show has been interested.

She chastises him for thinking she'd be 'easy', and he's all 'huh' and walks out into traffic because he missed the crossing light due to how shocked he was. Oh and almost got hit by a truck, while a family was watching the entire time.

I have no idea what the f**k you are talking about Artemis.

Diana takes exception to the lady's demeanor, and takes it upon herself to 'go complain to the lady', whose house is right there.

So tiny cat sneaks in, somehow manages to slip on wet concrete, and slap into the back of lady's ankle, who picks her up and is like 'oh hey free cat awesome'.

Only in anime is this a thing that is even REMOTELY possible.

Immediately, the future parents begin to worry about what will happen if their as-yet unborn offspring talks. The horror!

Also, mean lady is a dick to cats.

I have no idea why this lady decided to bring a cat into the house and then shower it down. It isn't as if she were particularly dirty, I mean she's mostly an indoor cat. But we get a look at her house which is sparsely furnished with things like heart pillows and couple-type things, despite no evidence of anybody else around, and those other two cats try to claw at the glass window to get the attention of someone. Oh but wait, first the lady must give this thing food! Because surely it must be hungry.

I'm sure stew is going to sit really well with a kitten.

The kitchen is rather immaculate, and... I guess Diana gets to hang out in the onions.

I'm starting to get the feeling this lady is a bit unhinged.

Now the rain has passed and she sets out three dishes at the table. One for her, one for the cat, and.... one for...?

Okay, not gonna lie, this is one of those situations that will
always kick you in the feels no matter what.

Seems she hasn't had any 'guests' for awhile, but don't worry, in case you thought this episode was going somewhere, enter Mamoru getting yelled at for trying to be a decent dude.

And Rei is all like 'I'd be his umbrella huehuehue'.

Even the revelation of the lady being older than Usagi's mother doesn't immediately solve anything for some reason.

Ami looks super uncomfortable all of a sudden.

The girls decide that the best and simultaneously worst thing about Mamoru is that he is nice to all of the ladies. But even this dude is out of his league with this old crone. Rei has the scoop. Lady is super cheap and super rich and thinks everyone is a gold digger. Also she lives alone. But forget about that there are more important things at stake.

So the gold digger is mad that her boyfriend is also a gold digger.

Some footage gets re-used, but STOP EVERY F***ING THING. MAKOTO HAS SOME SUPER SERIOUS PLOT TO DROP ON YOU, SOME CHEF FROM A THREE-STAR RESTAURANT IS HERE IN THIS CAFE TOTALLY MINDING HIS OWN F***ING BUSINESS.

This is going to have to be important to the plot somehow.

Guy is almost Iron Chef material basically, being like the fifth best chef in Japan.

I know it's a Japanese name but when you put Monsieur in
front of it, it just becomes incredibly silly!

After that giggle fit of mine has receded, the girls all freak out but then she's like "man nah couldn't be" but dude just drinks his tea or whatever and then we head over to the stock footage bar to learn the things we already knew were gonna have to happen this episode.

At least we got one episode where they didn't use stock footage
for the obligatory bar scene.

Of course, Hawk's Eye is all hot for grandma, and his companions are like "OH HELL NAW."

Fish Eye is totally DO NOT WANT.

He has to defend himself though, because clea-

Oh f**k I just vomited all over. Oh god.

His comments are so bad it causes the fish to drink like one, chugging his martini. But he's set his sights on her, and now we check in with Chibiusa thinking something is up. But oh look, Pegasus is there to help her puzzle this out.

So Diana escaped at some point, told everyone everything, and Chibiusa is busy worrying about how weird it is that this poor broken old lady seems to be thinking someone will some day be coming by for her.

She also confirms that everything was set up for a second person who straight up didn't exist.

Oh right, I forgot. Priorites.

The flashback ends, and Chibiusa is convinced some shit is going down there while dude laughs at her. He's convinced she probably was just waiting for a special guest but Chibiusa decides to go investigate with the tiny cat anyways. But oh look, plot incoming, mind your head!

At least this didn't take long.

He sighs and walks off towards the tiny girl, nearly walking into her but then passes. She asks if he's some kind of chef dude and he's like 'nope love ruined me and I've been thinking about leaving town' and tiny girl tells him some shit about love being eternal, but he walks off anyways calling her a French word, and off the tiny cat goes from the shoulder.

The two of them look at the house, but then that mean lady shows up and immediately gets not so mean once she sees the kitten, and it's time for a message from our sponsors.

If I had sponsors I'm sure they'd want me to tell you to buy things but since I don't we'll just move along to after the commercial break.

Inside the house, it is still very clean and pretty sparse but very nice and totally set up for two people. Old lady gives child some tea, and wonders how she knew that the cat came to her house, and... well, like any good child, she lies out of her ass.

This doesn't even make sense... why do I even bother?

She confirms nobody else lives there. Old lady bought it along time ago to have lots of guests, but then someone rings the bell and oh hey look Usagi and those other cats are walking around outside going after. But they happen along when some dudes are being jackasses for what appears to be no good reason.

.....

Old lady declares they better leave because she's not gonna sell the house ever, and that's that. One of them calls her old, and these guys are just trying to shake the house out of her. But then Hawk's Eye shows up, doesn't like these guys harassing her, and judo's them about a bit until they leave, but then he's like "what's up lady" and she's like 'the f**k is your deal anyways go away'.

Shrewd, but effective.

Basically, she's a bitter old crone because everyone wants her place. I can dig it.

So after being shut down hard, she tells him bye, and closes the door before he can even hit on her once, and Chibiusa is like 'whoa this is weird' but then lady tells her that she needs to keep the house safe, no matter what kind of weird rumors develop. Like the ones about being a frugal bitch.

She caused a scene over 117 yen. She's totally f***ing cheap.

The lady thanks her for being nice, but then the patio doors burst open and, well, someone has things to say so forget whatever you were saying because he demands to be heard.

This is the most direct approach they've ever used.

Lady gets mad for not inviting him in, and he's like 'eh whatevs' and just transforms, puts her on a board, and doesn't mind the tiny child and cat hiding. He's gonna look at her dream, and Chibiusa is like can't do nothin' and so her dream done gets pilfered.

Also, he's gonna kill her because she didn't think about him at all, then Diana jumps on his face so tiny child can run out and knock Usagi over before any transforming can occur.

And then transforming occurs.

Is there anybody else in this show? Because a lot of times it really doesn't feel like it, this one especially.

Also there's only like five minutes left so they're just going to rush through this.

Hawk's Eye throws a kitten, hero girls show up to yell at him, and y'know, get ready to do a thing.

*blink* *blink*

I TOLD YOU THAT WHOLE THING WAS A METAPHOR!

He gets kind of mad at being called a pervert, and summons up today's monster, Autobiko.

... yes, it's actually called Autobiko. As in Autobike as said by some Japanese dude with a very loose grasp on the English language.

So after driving around on the ceiling a bit, today's monster decides to make her appearance.

Why does it seem like I'm the one putting all the effort in, when
they aren't even f***ing trying anymore?!

Okay. This. Is a thing.

I think we're done here. We're... we're just going to move along. My brain can't take much more of this.

Not only are they re-using old concepts, they're re-using them terribly lazily. It runs around, knocks over the girls, drives on the ceiing more, wrecks the whole place, and makes a mess while Hawk's Eye just leaves. Diana puts up a pillow so lady's head falls on that, and the girls are like 'oh no' and go outside to get chased some more. But then a rose hits her in the face and Tuxedo Mask is like 'yo I do things still sometimes'.

I just can't even anymore.

Oh so it's time for the girls to do a thing because Tuxedo Mask said so, so they go do a thing while the Kirby villain charges at them. But nope, girls do a thing and that's it for her, the end. So long pointless monster whose existence was pointless, you didn't even get thirty seconds of screen time. This is almost as bad as the door monster.

So now everyone puts the lady on her couch, and she's like 'the hell are you people' and introduce themselves as Chibiusa's family. And she's like 'my dream with him is destroyed' and then chef dude is like "LADY" and she goes "GASP DOKIDOKI" and they're all looking at one another.

Thanks a lot for that forced exposition old man!

He left a long time ago to do a thing in France, she was mad because she finally bought the house so they could make a restaurant, and he was like "GOTTA TRAIN". So off he went, and now he's back after 20 years. So he can totally do that thing he was gonna do a long time ago. Oh but he still hasn't managed to make anything better than that lady's stew.

SOUNDS LIKE TWENTY YEARS WASTED.

She takes off her glasses, cries and says "I HAVE SOME INT EH FRIDGE" and he's like "BOY THAT SOUNDS GREAT" and they keep talking about opening that shop or whatever and decide to do that so the next day it is now a restaurant.

Cue the montage of all those girls who did nothing eating with their friends, and then cue the new outro.

Which I went over last time so we'll just skip it. Even if it is kind of a catchy outro.

... man this episode just felt really, really rushed. Nothing really happened. But then again, that basically sums up this entire season - things happen, but nothing ever really goes on.

And there are still another 24 episodes left before this is done and over with.

... it's gonna be a long haul.