iaria

Goodbye Minako.

Sniff. D: D: D: D: D: This episode, for the first time in the series, made me cry. Twice. Oh, Minako. Oh, Rei. Oh, girls. Oh, Artemis. Also I have to say that Keiko Kitagawa absolutely blew me away. She was incredible. Her acting of Rei’s grief at the loss of Minako was phenomenal. It made me go look her up on Wiki and apparently this was her first acting role so colour me impressed. She’s had a couple acting roles since so I have some new shows on my ‘to watch’ list.

Awards

Hottie Of the Week: Okay, I know that Minako was who I chose for the last two acts but it really does have to be Minako again. Minako looked fabulous in this episode especially in her final moment on screen. She was so beautiful.

Funniest Moment: Minako pranking Artemis. I love when she teases him.

Cutest Moment: Tie:

1) Makoto/Motoki were adorable with their smiles and shared unspoken like for each other
2) the four girls impersonations of Usagi at the Crown and then laughing.

Saddest Moment:

Rei. So not a moment per say but, god, Rei broke my heart throughout the entire episode. I mean she clearly had a premonition when Minako waved goodbye and a part of her knew then that it was goodbye. Then when Artemis told them Minako had disappeared you could see on her face that she knew what had happened. She wouldn’t accept it, she refused to think it, but she knew. Then at the end her crying over Minako’s goodbye letter and just so devastated is what had me crying the second time.

The saddest scene though was Rei’s arrival at the fight and everything that followed: Rei’s blank and destroyed expression as she watched the fight (too shocked to do anything), how broken her voice was when she called out her henshin (trembling when she said ‘Mars Power’ and then screaming in pain ‘make up’), Mars’s desperation while fighting and her repeating “It can’t be!” over and over in her mind as she fought, Mars crying as she battled and destroyed the youma and then her slowly losing it afterwards – crying, hands held up like she doesn’t know what to do with them, the way she is trembling, the way she slowly says ‘Mi-na-ko’, dragging it out, as she finally comes out of her shock (and no longer has a fight to hold back her emotions)…

…but the one moment, the one short moment, that was the saddest of the episode (and of the entire show, IMO) is when she completely loses it – when she collapses to her knees, crying (weeping, howling in grief and pain) and screams out Minako’s name. She is so clearly devastated and just so… shattered by Minako’s death and the anguish in how she screams her name (shrieks)… I watched that moment, that scene, many times now and it gets to me every single time. *tears* Oh, Rei.

- I have to comment about Rei/Minako in this episode and this seems to be the best place. My god, the shippiness of these two has always been so amazing but this episode felt like the show had moved it into canon. This episode made it explicitly clear that Rei loved Minako, that she loved her wholly. Now that certainly doesn’t have to mean romantically but that is how I choose to see it and her love is so much there throughout the entire episode.

It’s in how happy and smiley Rei is during the scene with Minako at the Crown, in how Rei actually waves goodbye to her still smiling, it’s in her refusal to consider that Minako might not survive, in her smiling so happily while creating Minako’s party banner, and of course it’s so much there in her overwhelming grief at Minako’s death. My god, I think I’d forgotten how much I shipped these two. Oh, Minako/Rei ♥

During Minako’s goodbye to her friends I definitely noticed how she held onto Rei’s shoulders, the only one she touched, and how her goodbye to Rei was personal and about them (“I’m sorry that we couldn’t fight together until the very end.”), the only one other then Artemis who did get a personal goodbye.

WTF of the Week: Jadeite being cornered by the Senshi was beyond stupid. He doesn’t need to run away! He teleports, for pete’s sake! He can just disappear. He’s done it before. So while I loved the youma actually moving to protect him it was so unnecessary. Also the fact that the scene was shot like Jadeite was actually in danger from them and then seconds later the youma takes out the senshi easily enough was very stupid since he’s stronger than the youma. Sigh.

Coolest Moment: Rei’s transformation into Sailor Mars was awesome. The way the she glows red, which then turns into flames and the way the flames seem out of control, matching her emotions in their volatility. I loved it.

Best Senshi Moment: … I don’t know what to put here. … I did really like Jupiter saving Rei and then ordering her to henshin.

Best Senshi Interaction: I loved the scene at the beginning with the four Inner’s sitting around and talking at the Crown, exactly as it always should have been. I mean Minako even had her own orange chair at the table! That made me ridiculously happy. I loved them smiling and being friends and conferring about how to protect Usagi. I really loved the four of them simultaneously making the face they thought Usagi would make upon being given Minako’s new CD. Oh, how things could have been. This more then anything makes me wish for a second season so we could get that.

The party that never happened with for the first time the five girls together, smiling and laughing and being friends, was so wonderful but it made me cry too. I loved these moments so much but we got so few of them. I loved Minako singing for them.

Other

• I don’t know what to make of Minako’s final letter because it read as if she knew she was about to die but that leaves me wondering then why she didn’t go to the Senshi themselves instead of leaving the letter for them at the Crown? How did she know she was going to die anyway? The show having Minako read her goodbye letter to them was very different but lovely. Is it supposed to be that Minako was imagining that scene and getting to say goodbye or were the girls imagining it as they read the letter? I think it had to be the former. The way everyone reacted to her letter and her goodbyes with smiles – it had to be Minako. Plus she was wearing her ‘death’ dress.

• I really wish that we had gotten a couple Ami/Minako moments at some point during the series. Minako had very defined relationships with Rei and Usagi, and she and Makoto were given some scenes and connection recently but we were never given a Ami/Minako connection and I really felt that in the last scene.

• “I am Earth’s prince. I’ve won the Moon Princess. There is nothing I cannot do. I’ll surely suppress Metaria.” – Endymion. Huh. Are we finally seeing Endymion as a separate entity from Mamoru like the Usagi/Serenity division? Up until now there didn’t really seem to be any great difference between Mamoru and his past life as Endymion but in the attack and confrontation with Beryl he really didn’t seem like Mamoru to me. In fact I saw no Mamoru in his portrayal which just leaves Endymion and for the first time they’re explicitly separate people. It’s interesting. This version of him is far more arrogant and self-assured then Mamoru, and I am very much reminded of Serenity. It appears they really are a match. I’m thinking that haughtiness and assurance are just part of being royalty because it’s in both of them, but not their reincarnations, and honestly I am finding that fascinating. I want to see more.

As for the content of what he said – he ‘won’ the moon princess? ‘Won’ implies she was a prize, that he beat something/someone to get her and that having her is a reward or a privilege… it’s also very possessive, and it feels like it makes her more of an object than a person. Plus he doesn’t call her by name but rather her rank/position, and he states his own rank/position when asserting his identity. Then he declares that there is nothing he can’t do – because he ‘won’ Serenity, thus implying that is a far more challenging and impressive feat than anything else could be, and because he is Earth’s prince, implying that by dint of being that he is superior. I have a feeling that he is going to find this far harder than expected. The idea of Sailor Moon having to fight a Metaria possessed Endymion in the final battle never occurred to me.

• During the senshi’s discussion in this episode it was put out, by Ami but the other’s reactions indicated they’d thought of it as well, that Usagi could become Metaria because of the similarity of her power and Metaria’s. That is definitely never something I had considered. Usagi as her own greatest enemy is something this series has played with but I never considered it might take it so far. It makes Usagi’s line to Luna: “Lately it seems like everyone is wary of me.” feel like it has more meaning to it. Foreshadowing?