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Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Act Zero Thoughts
The Birth of Sailor V
I really enjoyed this Act. It was fun, it had unexpected appearances by the other Senshi and the Shitennou and while it verged on embarrassing a number times it was also funny. The most important thing to remember while watching is that it is total and utter crack. Delicious, fun, crazy crack.
• Sailor V starting out as merely a disguise from one of the Senshi’s phones was a surprise because it means that she wasn’t really transformed in the beginning. It’s pretty impressive what she managed to accomplish while basically simply a normal person dressed up in a costume (but then I suppose that’s all Tuxedo Kamen is as well). It doesn’t explain her crescent star weapons but I’m going to assume they’re like throwing stars. (The bad guy of the Act and his act seemed to have some powers at points but I think they were all just stage magic.) I’m going to assume that after realising who she really was when we next see Sailor V she’s actually transformed into Sailor Venus and then disguised as Sailor V. It’s the only way to explain her using her crescent beam as Sailor V.
• It was weird to see Minako so uncertain and running away and just emotional. I had assumed that a lot of her reserve was about her disease and dying but throughout this entire act she was just so open and... young. It surprised me. It seems that it’s when she remembered the past and being Sailor Venus that’s she became so closed off and detached. It was nice seeing her enjoying being a senshi (even if she technically wasn’t a senshi yet). Her being so excited about it and thinking it’s incredible that she had such power. Things could have been so different if Artemis had just waited awhile and she had woken in order with the other senshi.
• When Sailor V and Tuxedo Kamen clashed they were both hit with a burst of memories (we saw this moment in the first episode and I love that we were seeing the birth of Sailor Venus without knowing it) but why did Minako get so many more than Mamoru? He continued to know basically nothing but it appears that Venus got a good chuck of her memories back, if not all of them.
• I find it very weird that Artemis and Luna apparently came from the Moon. I thought they had been re-incarnated along with everyone else. It does make Luna speaking with Queen Serenity in the special act more interesting. Did they come from the past (and were sent into the future by Queen Serenity)? Were they just hanging around in suspended animation in the ruins of the moon palace? Is the Moon Kingdom still there? Also, when Artemis calls Luna down to Earth he says “I found it” which seems a strange way of talking about their princess so perhaps he was talking about the Silver Crystal?
• While I find Luna being the shooting star that Usagi wishes “something good to happen” on wonderful I am really curious about how Luna survived it. I mean she felt the heat and we’ve seen her be hurt before by a lot less. She should have burned up long before she reached the earth.
• I wasn’t really expecting to see the other Senshi so it was awesome that not only did Usagi have just as big a role as Minako but that we also got short glimpses of the other three as well. That made me really happy. I loved how all the senshi looking at the moon becomes kind of the theme of this act.
Usagi: She was adorable and brave and silly and I love her. I loved her wanting to be like Sailor V and then convincing her friends that they should all dress up as her to defend Naru’s mother’s store. (I wonder how they all convinced their parents of that?) I loved her ‘saving’ her friends with the fire-extinguisher and then throwing it at Cutie Kenko. And even though it was stupid Usagi stealing the key to the jewellery briefcase and swallowing it made me laugh. She is such a goof. And then she hits one of Cutie Kenko’s followers in the head with a daikon – I love that she doesn’t just sit back and watch/cower but does what she can.
Ami: I loved her imagining being Sailor A. That was pretty adorable. Her smile watching the other girls goofing off made me a bit sad, she’s still so alone, but knowing that very soon she’s going to have a bunch of close friends and will be friends with Usagi makes it better.
Makoto: Her taking her temper out on the fire hydrant amused me. Oh, Mako. So how does she end up living alone considering her rejection here?
Rei: Only gets one moment, grr, but it was so nice to see her anyway. I love that she sensed something was about to change.
- I love that even beyond the Senshi most of the supporting characters got a second or two of screen time – Motoki, Hina, Naru (especially Naru who was only in one scene in the special act), Usagi’s other two school friends, Ikuko and Shingo.
- Then there was the unexpected but completely hilarious appearance of by the Shitennou. They had me laughing so hard I was crying (it’s the fact that it was the Shitennou that made it so funny). I’m uncertain if it’s just the actors being used as an in-joke or if we’re supposed to think that in their human lives before Beryl and the Dark Kingdom they were a quartet of police officers. The personalities were similar, very similar in some cases, with what we know of the Shitennou but they were overall a lot more goofy and less competent then I could ever imagine them being. Plus we saw Kunzite’s human life as Shin and I’m not sure how he got from Captain Kuroi to Shin in such a short time. I love the idea of getting human names for them [Akai is Nephrite, Shiroi is Zoisite, Jadeite is Hanako] but in the end I don’t think they really are the Shitennou.
• I watched the other two zero acts as well – Usagi/Mamoru were very cute and Mamoru’s Tuxedo Kamen ‘transformation’ was hilarious. I was happy to see that Hina found happiness and new love after what happened with Mamoru. Both these mini-acts were about five minutes long and what I would have loved even more was to have one of them devoted just to the five senshi being friends. Or one to deal with the hanging plot that was Nephrite/Ami.
I really enjoyed this Act. It was fun, it had unexpected appearances by the other Senshi and the Shitennou and while it verged on embarrassing a number times it was also funny. The most important thing to remember while watching is that it is total and utter crack. Delicious, fun, crazy crack.
• Sailor V starting out as merely a disguise from one of the Senshi’s phones was a surprise because it means that she wasn’t really transformed in the beginning. It’s pretty impressive what she managed to accomplish while basically simply a normal person dressed up in a costume (but then I suppose that’s all Tuxedo Kamen is as well). It doesn’t explain her crescent star weapons but I’m going to assume they’re like throwing stars. (The bad guy of the Act and his act seemed to have some powers at points but I think they were all just stage magic.) I’m going to assume that after realising who she really was when we next see Sailor V she’s actually transformed into Sailor Venus and then disguised as Sailor V. It’s the only way to explain her using her crescent beam as Sailor V.
• It was weird to see Minako so uncertain and running away and just emotional. I had assumed that a lot of her reserve was about her disease and dying but throughout this entire act she was just so open and... young. It surprised me. It seems that it’s when she remembered the past and being Sailor Venus that’s she became so closed off and detached. It was nice seeing her enjoying being a senshi (even if she technically wasn’t a senshi yet). Her being so excited about it and thinking it’s incredible that she had such power. Things could have been so different if Artemis had just waited awhile and she had woken in order with the other senshi.
• When Sailor V and Tuxedo Kamen clashed they were both hit with a burst of memories (we saw this moment in the first episode and I love that we were seeing the birth of Sailor Venus without knowing it) but why did Minako get so many more than Mamoru? He continued to know basically nothing but it appears that Venus got a good chuck of her memories back, if not all of them.
• I find it very weird that Artemis and Luna apparently came from the Moon. I thought they had been re-incarnated along with everyone else. It does make Luna speaking with Queen Serenity in the special act more interesting. Did they come from the past (and were sent into the future by Queen Serenity)? Were they just hanging around in suspended animation in the ruins of the moon palace? Is the Moon Kingdom still there? Also, when Artemis calls Luna down to Earth he says “I found it” which seems a strange way of talking about their princess so perhaps he was talking about the Silver Crystal?
• While I find Luna being the shooting star that Usagi wishes “something good to happen” on wonderful I am really curious about how Luna survived it. I mean she felt the heat and we’ve seen her be hurt before by a lot less. She should have burned up long before she reached the earth.
• I wasn’t really expecting to see the other Senshi so it was awesome that not only did Usagi have just as big a role as Minako but that we also got short glimpses of the other three as well. That made me really happy. I loved how all the senshi looking at the moon becomes kind of the theme of this act.
Usagi: She was adorable and brave and silly and I love her. I loved her wanting to be like Sailor V and then convincing her friends that they should all dress up as her to defend Naru’s mother’s store. (I wonder how they all convinced their parents of that?) I loved her ‘saving’ her friends with the fire-extinguisher and then throwing it at Cutie Kenko. And even though it was stupid Usagi stealing the key to the jewellery briefcase and swallowing it made me laugh. She is such a goof. And then she hits one of Cutie Kenko’s followers in the head with a daikon – I love that she doesn’t just sit back and watch/cower but does what she can.
Ami: I loved her imagining being Sailor A. That was pretty adorable. Her smile watching the other girls goofing off made me a bit sad, she’s still so alone, but knowing that very soon she’s going to have a bunch of close friends and will be friends with Usagi makes it better.
Makoto: Her taking her temper out on the fire hydrant amused me. Oh, Mako. So how does she end up living alone considering her rejection here?
Rei: Only gets one moment, grr, but it was so nice to see her anyway. I love that she sensed something was about to change.
- I love that even beyond the Senshi most of the supporting characters got a second or two of screen time – Motoki, Hina, Naru (especially Naru who was only in one scene in the special act), Usagi’s other two school friends, Ikuko and Shingo.
- Then there was the unexpected but completely hilarious appearance of by the Shitennou. They had me laughing so hard I was crying (it’s the fact that it was the Shitennou that made it so funny). I’m uncertain if it’s just the actors being used as an in-joke or if we’re supposed to think that in their human lives before Beryl and the Dark Kingdom they were a quartet of police officers. The personalities were similar, very similar in some cases, with what we know of the Shitennou but they were overall a lot more goofy and less competent then I could ever imagine them being. Plus we saw Kunzite’s human life as Shin and I’m not sure how he got from Captain Kuroi to Shin in such a short time. I love the idea of getting human names for them [Akai is Nephrite, Shiroi is Zoisite, Jadeite is Hanako] but in the end I don’t think they really are the Shitennou.
• I watched the other two zero acts as well – Usagi/Mamoru were very cute and Mamoru’s Tuxedo Kamen ‘transformation’ was hilarious. I was happy to see that Hina found happiness and new love after what happened with Mamoru. Both these mini-acts were about five minutes long and what I would have loved even more was to have one of them devoted just to the five senshi being friends. Or one to deal with the hanging plot that was Nephrite/Ami.