Sailor Moon Crystal

Episode 12

Sailor Moon Crystal prompts the question, "how many times can I say that this fails because everything that's come before it has failed?” That's been my takeaway for a while, since there's not much more to say about it by now. There isn't even much egregiously wrong with this episode on its own. If you lay it out beat by beat, plenty of stuff happened: the Senshi took down Queen Beryl and squared off against the Shitennou, who regained their memories before dying. Usagi confronted evil Mamoru. Characters died and backstories were revealed – this is the stuff that makes fantasy melodrama. It just doesn't mean anything as a culminant episode that relies on emotional engagement that doesn't exist. I don't care about the romance between Mamoru and Usagi, the one between the Senshi and their Shitennou counterparts, or even the Earth's survival at this point. Previously, the show has failed to make me care through the hackneyed “they're lovers because of DESTINY” writing, the flat art style, and Usagi's jerkish behavior towards her friends. The critical failure of engagement has been going on for a while, and it bottoms out here. It feels like the people behind this are either beyond caring or understand people on the level of aliens who researched humanity by watching lots of Saturday morning cartoons. Overall, this show is just unacceptably written, delivering us the worst possible version of the Sailor Moon story - a pile of strung-together superhero and romance clichés.

That said, there were a few notable missteps in this episode specifically, mostly centered around making the female characters even more stupidly dependent on men. The Senshi were reunited with the Shitennou for a few seconds before Queen Metallia blew her traitorous generals to smithereens. They died having done nothing besides make the Senshi cry out for their lost loves and then spur them on with their manly encouragement. Blegh. (Also, isn't it weird that these groups of four ostensibly quite different individuals are always treated as a unit? It sure is convenient that four of the Princess' besties fell in love with four of her boyfriend's bros. The Shitennou are even given titles like “knight of purification and healing” as recompense for their complete lack of personality. God, this show is flavorless.) Usagi's fight with the possessed Mamoru consisted of her getting beat up while deliberating over whether she could stand to fight her lover. When she finally does work up the courage, she follows it by stabbing herself in the stomach. I don't know whether this is a genuine suicide attempt or a ploy wherein dying for love activates her powers or something. (That's definitely where it will end up; I'm just not sure what Usagi intended.) If it's the former rather than the latter, I'll be ticked off. It also turns out that Queen Beryl is motivated by an unrequited love for Prince Endymion, because everything has to tie back into Moon Kingdom romance drama. I'd have preferred it if they'd just let her be a random evil lady with killer hair.

I swear that I'm not watching Sailor Moon Crystal with the intent of hating it. It's hard to review because it's bad, but rarely in an offensive or shocking way. For the first couple of episodes, the flaws seemed surmountable, but then they started sneaking up on me, as if I were a frog in a boiling pot of uninspired cartoon tropes. This first season has been irredeemable thus far: a dread mire of wasted potential.

Grade: C-

Sailor Moon Crystal is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.