Sailor Moon SuperS Episode 19 - Holiday in Juban City! A Carefree Princess

I promise you, I was going to post something incredibly witty and/or insightful here.

But then I watched the preview for today's episode and... oh sweet merciful f**k I missed this show.

I will laugh. I will cry. I will beat myself in the chest until I break something. It'll be a great time for everyone.

This show always finds ways to remind me of why it is that I started this thing in the first place.

Let me see if I can succinctly summarize the 'plot' of today's show, based upon the information they gave me.

There's a girl. She's in some kind of trouble? Also random food items just being spoken aloud for some reason. Perhaps she has an eating disorder? I don't know. All I know is that at some point Sailor Moon fights a giant ball.

A. GIANT. F***ING. BALL.

She fights a giant f***ing ball. Like you'd find at a circus.

Let me make sure you didn't miss this:

SHE FIGHTS. A GODDAMNED. BALL.

I think we're ready for the intro now.

Of this I have no doubt.

Cue the music.

Girls. A flying horse. People flying to the moon. This is Sailor Moon. She's sorry that she isn't honest and stuff. Also cats in love and babies from the goddamned future.

I missed what a freaking mess this show was. It's a hilarious trainwreck. And it warms the cockles of my blackened heart to know that all of these things are addressed in the remake.

Oh but look, a title slide! An honest-to-goodness title slide! I haven't seen one of those in months! What wonderful title are you going to give me t-

Oh.

We immediately jump to someone watching the news, where they talk about the princess. Princess who? From where? NEVERMIND. IT IS SIMPLY. THE PRINCESS. THIS IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

But I'm gonna guess she's from some vaguely European country.

*immediately begins to headdesk himself into oblivion*

This show. It has a lot of preoccupation with gems. Not only that, but it feels like they have completely abandoned the premise of even existing in the real world anymore. I just. Oh god. I missed this show. These are real tears on my face right now.

Rubina of the Amethyst Kingdom. Sweet merciful f**k.

A cold. A Princess. Being attended by physicians. FOR A COLD.

Y'know. Suddenly, I see why fanfiction grew to be so popular back in the day. Because a lot of those fanfics were written hella better than the source material. Sweet Jehoshaphat.

Seems the 'princess' was supposed to visit a factory or something and suddenly oh no sick. And Diana is like "man, reminds me of the king and queen, where they always got sick every time some actual work came up."

JUST A REMINDER: USAGI IS THE WORST MOTHER EVER, AND MAMORU IS DEFINITELY NOT WINNING ANY AWARDS FOR DAD OF THE YEAR. JUST SAYING.

And you wonder why they sent their daughter into the past. To
be raised by their younger selves. Only not really because they
got Usagi's MOM to do it the entire f***ing time.

Speaking of Usagi, cut to her and future daughter walking down the street carrying all the stuff from shopping. Except Usagi is doing all the work because she's useless and is 'doing chores to get money'? Eh, who cares, she's just being Usagi at this point.

Chibi-usa, to her credit, offers to help. For half of what Usagi's getting paid. Cue the shouting match in the middle of the street that nobody is listening to. Also, she is trying to get an eight-year-old to help her carry groceries.

Worst. Mother. Ever.

Oh but in the middle of all their screaming, A CHALLENGER APPEARS!

TALK TO THE HAND.

This mystery woman says, "HANG ON. I WILL RESOLVE THIS. SOMEHOW. JUST. HANG ON." And flags down a passerby.

I'm going to run out of talk to the hand jokes at this rate,
aren't I?

She asks him to help out.

I am not sure she understands this human concept of 'talking
with your hands' correctly.

The girls are like "AHAHAHA NOPE" and bounce because WHAT THE F**K. Also, I think I may have to start referring to this woman as Ocelot. Because she seems to have a thing with hand gestures.

Freaked out, the girls wind up over at the shopping strip, where there's a festival going on. They'll come back for this later after they drop off the groceries, but our mystery woman is like "oh that looks fun!" and then seems to run off after the girls.

Which leads us to the darkest bar in the world.

Oh, I'm sorry, is she actually old enough to legally consent?

Tiger's Eye is like "besides she's sick and that's boring". DUDE. IF THAT WERE TRUE (which it clearly is not as his partners attest to), THEN THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR JOB WAY EASIER. SUPPOSEDLY.

Actually, come to think of it, he may actually have the right idea for a change? I mean, this chick is royalty. Given their track record of talking their way past people, do you honestly think they'd manage to bluff their way through all of her security? Please.

I cannot help but bust out laughing at how f***ing ridiculous
 this is. I can't. I just. I literally cannot even right now.
It's so bad, it's good.

Kind of like this show. Also... is your voice... different, Hawk's Eye?

I looked it up. I couldn't find out if they changed the VA's. It would be a weird move for sure, since the Japanese tend to be very picky about that stuff. But... man, I just can't shake that there's something different about Hawk Eye's voice. Maybe it's really just been that long.

Tiger's Eye insists she's too old, and leave it to Hawk's Eye to take up the case!

Meanwhile, those other girls put on their Yukata, only to be greeted by a mysterious blonde woman.

Just be glad she hasn't accosted your faces yet.

She introduces herself as Rubina.

... yeah. She just straight up lets THAT little secret slip out. Oh no. The girls introduce themselves, and then... uh...

If I were them, I would be slamming the door and calling the
police because WHAT. THE. F**K.

So the girls decide to... be on their way? And Diana is like "oh hey look at that".

Then it's festival time. Rubina is like "wow this is cool" and we get a montage of neat festival stuff. Which is neat because their festivals are actually pretty awesome.

Also, she seems to be discovering cotton candy for the first time, which is baffling to me because that shit is pretty universal. Then she sees some cops and uh. Well. Makes with her hands again.

You can already hear the majestic howl of the Ocelot.

Chibi-usa seems to think something is up, and Usagi's all like "meh whatever". Then she drops a goldfish. But they see the lady vanished, and head off to look for her. Said wayward princess comes across a rather interesting display.

You just know that balloon seller wants nothing more than
to punt that brat over the horizon.

Oh wait, turns out the old man is actually encouraging this child to scream at his mother to buy a f***ing balloon.

Nevermind. This guy can go die in a fire.

The princess watches this, and thinks back to when her parents were all like "uh, you are a f***ing princess you can't just go out in public whenever the f**k you feel like it BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL PROBABLY TRY AND MURDER YOU." But hey, what do I know? I'm just some filthy plebe.

Actually, maybe those aren't her parents, but instead her servants? Which just makes this all the weirder.

But have you considered asking them to talk to the hand?

Here she promises to get ready and tells them to leave the room which is totally not a decision they immediately regretted let me tell you. Then we snap back to reality with the kid quite literally about to lose his head from all the screaming.

Seriously, look at that. If I were his mom, I would pick him up,
slap him on the ass, and carry the sorry little shit home.

But then Rubina buys a balloon I guess, and now ALL OF THE KIDS WANT BALLOONS. So she just starts to hand them out?

Wait. She hasn't paid for a single one, has she? She's just straight up giving them away. But then one floats off and we get the MAGICAL MUSIC and she's like "awww FREEEDOOOOOOM!" like some kind of painted Celtic warrior.

Called it.

Apparently she does not understand the concept of money, and just smiles. QUICK. TELL HIM TO TALK TO THE HAND. The man gets angry and the girls are like "oh noes big trouble" and just watch as the crowd gathers to listen to this man go off.

But then the old guy is about to literally punch a woman in the f***ing street when someone stops him. Who is this myster-

Oh. It's you.

Hawk's Eye throws the old man back, tells the lady about money, reveals he knows she's a princess, and she shoves him down because SHE AIN'T GOIN' BACK.

Pretty sure he's like "You're pretty good...!"

All of the balloons float away, and she declares her FREEDOOOOOOM before an applauding crowd before running off. Then those two girls try to catch up with her, and old dude starts beating on Hawk's Eye. He fails to buy the man off with a thousand yen, and we meet up with our long-awaited commercial break.

Upon returning from the break, we find ourselves outside of the festival now, as the heroines rush out to find out where the lady went. They find her hiding near a gazebo, and then the cats show up too. All of them.

The f**k did you come from Artemis?! You live with Mina and
weren't even established until now!!

Turns out, they're not alone, because local hunk of man-meat Mamoru is also there. Probably because Diana was over at Usagi's? Which is a curious thing to consider. I mean, doesn't Diana technically live with him most of the time? I'm confused again.

The Princess sees this strapping young lad solicit her...?

Uhhhh, are you... offering to show her a good time...?

Mammy-boy is like "Yo, I totes get your whole freedom kick, but uh, y'know, you got shit you gotta do and you're important and stuff and the things you do affect everyone else around you, ya know?"

SAYS THE GUY WHO DITCHES ALL THE IMPORTANT SHIT IN THE FUTURE.

Then the Usagis are like "oh hey dude we were gonna get you for fireworks" and the lady learns they're all friends and stuff and oh hey let's just have a mother-daughter argument in the middle of the scene because that's what they always do. It's a contractual thing, isn't it? The writers are forced to write this stuff, is that it?

As usual, his future daughter is on point with the whole
womanizing thing. Yeesh.

He's all "oh I was totally looking for you two but then I bumped into this gal who was totally asking for directions, riiiiiiight?"

But then it's time for him to mysteriously leave as soon as he appeared by promising he'd totally treat them or something next time. But now the princess is smitten, and the cats are like "what do" but Mamoru is all "chill, she'll go home". But Luna brings up a great point: The princess is with Usagi. There's no possible way that could ever leave a good impression on the princess. Therefore, THEY MUST SOMEHOW FIX THIS.

You are speaking the words, but clearly you don't believe
a damned word of it.

Now is the time for fireworks. I'll admit, I'd love to see that myself at some point. I mean, man. That stuff just looks awesome. The princess asks if Usagi can see that hunk of man anytime she wants, and uh, well, only when he's not busy, but otherwise pretty much. She thinks it's nice, and we see literal hearts exploding in the sky, and they ask her to follow them up a little further.

But then Hawk's Eye shows up! And she vanishes which worries the girls.

They are magically whisked away to an empty parking lot where she's like "yeah no seriously dude I'm gonna go back to the hotel" and he's like "psh whatevs I'm here for sexymurderfuntimes" and she's like "what" and then BAM, NOW HE'S AN EVIL DUDE OH MAN WHO DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING AT ALL.

Put her on a board and pull a mirror out of her chest and oh hey that was a scream wonder what that's about.

Did he seriously just go "Sorry not sorry"?

He takes a look in her chest, the girls show up and are like "welp better change clothes" and jump headfirst into a stock transformation sequence that we've seen a million f***ing times.

Okay, so we've only seen it like, over a dozen but it's still a lot okay?

Anyways Hawky doesn't find what he's looking for.

You know, I actually can't even be mad at his flippant remark,
since he's not even pretending to be doing anything but his job.

He decides that the princess must pay, WITH HER LIFE. Oh but then the scouts show up with fireworks instead of cookies.

This may actually be the coolest intro they've done in awhile.
That was actually plausible.
... they still climbed on a jungle gym though.

Love and justice so on and so forth we have five minutes to wrap this up.

Pfffffthahahahaha not happening.

 Time to summon today's monster. Master of the ball-riding Elephant. Elephanko.

At least the animators are having fun with this.

Then we get to see the actual monster.

F**k me sideways she actually IS a ball!!

Oh... oh god. You guys are RELATED?!

Wait. Who the f**k was Gummario?

Oh. Oh shit. THAT GUY?!

I thought something seemed a little strange here. Now I know why: We have literally already fought ONE ball this season. And now we're fighting a second.

And brother-in-law? Really? So he married your sister? Do you even have marriages?! You're a ball!!! Oh whatever. I'm going to take this as an insinuation that there is YET ANOTHER BALL MONSTER WE WILL HAVE TO BE SUBJECTED TO THIS SEASON.

She... doesn't seem too broken up about it? I mean, she's like "I didn't even like that asshole anyways, but man." Then Hawk's Eye is like "Oh god just whatever look I'm out okay? Shit man I'm not listening to the rest of this bullshit." and peaces out. Or would if he could even get the monster to shut the hell up long enough to hear him peace out.

Oh god. Then she brings up PUKO. That BALLOON GIRL. Was that her sister? We'll never know because Hawk's Eye pokes her with a stick, tells her to do her damn job, and vanishes off screen.

So, what exactly is this monster going to do? Well just wait to be shocked and amazed, because here it comes.

That's uh, some trick there.

This so enrages her that she flies towards the girls, embeds herself in the ground, and then, uh, forces them to ride on top of her.

This is what made me shed tears earlier. And is making me
shed them a second time.

We then learn that Hawk's Eye is, uh, still around? And he's like, "yeah, okay. I'm done here. See ya."

I just love the look of resignation on his face. He doesn't
even care anymore.

There are uh, some issues with his exit however.

Not to talk about the elephant in the room but...

The princess winds up falling and oh no, the ball is going right towards her. However will they deal with this? By screaming at her to wake up of course!

Wait no that doesn't work. Guess it's up to Tuxedo Mask to save the day!

It's SUPER EFF-

Well now what genius?

Oh for... are you kidding me?

No. You are not, in fact, kidding me.

So he pool cues the ball into a fence, the pink one rings a bell and summons a horse, and oh wait hello what is this.

Maybe you didn't read the union rules? I mean, there's a system
here. They do a thing, you sit and watch, then die.

Then Pegasus is like TAKE MY MAGICAL RIDING CROP and then Sailor Moon does and gets the extra poofy things and does a thing, and the ball lady is like "shiiiiiiiiit".

The animators really had fun with this one.

So much for her.

Now that there's like, 30 seconds left, the princess wakes up, and next thing we know Mamoru and crew are dropping her off on a street corner. She thanks them for all the fun and promises to never forget all of this stuff, they invite her to come back, and probably pray she never does. Then she looks longingly into Mamoru's eyes as he drives off into the credits.

Of all the ways to slide back into this show, I think this was probably the best.

... give it two weeks. I'll be wailing in agony by then, I'm sure.