Sailor Watches Sailor Moon: Finale

Don’t worry, just because it says “Finale” doesn’t mean I won’t be back.

Intro
Alright, if you’ve been following this series, you know the drill by now. I like this show. It’s very good. Here are all previous articles.This article will be a bit different. Instead of just recapping these final 11 episodes, I’m gonna take this opportunity to talk about my thoughts on this show in a more broad sense. There’ll still be a bit of recapping going on, but consider this a general capper on this series of articles rather than a piece specifically dedicated to the episodes I watched.
To start, I’d like to reiterate something I said back at the beginning of this series. Which is that, on the face of it, there’s nothing terribly special about Sailor Moon. Ordinary Person discovers that they are Extraordinary in some way, uses their powers to fight evil, grows into their role as the hero, and discovers the power of love and friendship along the way. Nothing revolutionary. There’ve been some more layers of complexity, some reveals, and some new additions, but that core formula still holds true. It’s a fairly basic show, even now at the end of this first season. The true power of this show lies not in its premise or plot, but in the pure strength of how likable it and its characters are.
You’ll notice that even though I cover this show in chunks of ten or so episodes, I only really ever talk about a handful of those. That’s because, for the most part, this show is very episodic with a lot of episodes that add little to nothing to the overall “plot”. In a lesser show, this would’ve completely destroyed my interest at this point. It takes a lot to really get me invested in something long term (hence why it’s taken me several months to watch 40 episodes). That being said, what I said in the first of these articles still holds true now. This show is funny. Maybe not doubled over, tears in eyes, endlessly quotable years later funny like The Office or something, but it’s hard for me to find a comedy that makes me do anything more than like a forceful exhale, and this show makes me audibly laugh. That’s special to me.
As a result, these filler episodes, while they don’t add anything to the plot, do serve to further endear you to the world and its characters. I genuinely like pretty much all of the main cast by this point. It’s this appreciation for the characters which is why I’m able to overlook some of the show’s weaker points. Like, for example, it’s predictability. Nothing in this show has really surprised me (save for how unrepentantly terrifying this thing is):

Seriously, look at it. There’ve been some interesting developments, such as Nephrite’s redemption, or Zoisite and Kunzite’s tender romantic subplot, or Jadeite getting run over by an airplane, but in terms of big revelations there’s not much to speak of. Fair enough, I suppose. As good as this show is, it’s still, at the end of the day, geared toward a younger audience. It’s hard to square that idea with the fact that people get straight up murdered, but it’s true. That being said, even though I predicted things like Usagi and friends being reincarnations, or Usagi herself being the Moon Princess, those moments still had weight because they were important to the characters.
On that same token, I held out hope in the premier installment of this that the action would get better. It did not. Yet, I was still invested, even though 90% of the conflicts were resolved the same way. Use your signature attack on a monster to defeat it, or at least stun it long enough for Usagi to use the Moon Stick and defeat it that way. Rinse and repeat. Oh well. I was still invested in the Big Battles, again, because of the attachment to the characters.
These last few episodes are the ultimate examples of this so far. To recap, last time Tuxedo Mask got stabbed while the camera man was doing a cartwheel:

Unfortunately for him, he fell into the clutches of the bad guys, and has now been brainwashed to be EEEEVIL. Oh no! I’m sure this’ll stick. Seeing Tuxedo Mask fight against the Sailor Guardians is decently interesting, in spite of the fact that you know it won’t last. He and Kunzite fill in for Nephrite, Jadeite, and Zoisite before them as the main antagonists of this last stretch of episodes. As all of the villains before them did, they mostly fail. Of course, Mamoru struggles with his latent humanity which eventually causes him to briefly be saved, before being captured again and put into a coma. Fairly standard stuff here. This all culminates in the final three episodes, which are the main ones I’m gonna talk about in this installment. In the first of them, Kunzite sends Usagi and the Sailor Guardians into, and I’m not making this up, The Multi-Dimensional Chaos World:

In all my years, I never could’ve come up with a better name. This episode is mostly an expositional episode, wherein we get the rest of the story of how the Moon Kingdom fell, told to Usagi by her Actual Mom:

We also get an origin story for the Tuxedo Mask outfit.


Tuxedo Mask is not the Moon Prince, as I dubbed him last installment, but the prince of Earth. Queen Beryl, who was another Earth person, is possessed by an evil energy called Metalia. She’s gonna cause a war between the Earth and the Moon. The Tuxedo Mask outfit was actually a disguise so that Mamoru/Endymion could talk with Usagi/Serenity on the down low. Got it. Got it.
Then the Fire Nation attacks:

Doesn’t go well. Queen Serenity uses the Moon Stick to seal all the evil away for a little while and wishes for Serenity, Endymion, Luna, Artemis, and the various Guardians to be reincarnated and live peaceful lives on Earth. Then she dies. Sailor Moon escapes the Multi-Dimensional Chaos World:

Kunzite dies.


Lets take a moment of silence for the actually pretty touching love story between Zoisite and Kunzite.
…
…
…
Good. Next episode, after locating the entrance to the Dark Dimension hideout, the Sailor Guardians decide to go there and end things once and for all. And it goes really-


Really-

Reaaaaaaaaaaally-

REAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY-

Reeaaaaaaaally, well. Without incident, I’d say. Now look. Do we all know that each of these characters are coming back next episode? Yes. Of course. But we also knew that everyone that died at the end of Infinity War was coming back in Endgame (besides Vision). The reason that works, and this also sort of works is because it’s real to the characters. So yes, when everyone came back as a Force Ghost to give Usagi a pep talk and Usagi called herself Usagi Skywalker and the music started playing, I did sit there with a dumbass smile on my face, and I say that without shame. You can get away with a lot if you do the legwork to get me attached to the characters.
You can all guess where the story goes from there (assuming you are somehow reading this without knowing it already). They win. Good prevails.

Hooray. Friendship. There is one surprising thing that happens. Instead of just bringing everyone back from the dead, Usagi wishes that she could just go back to being a normal girl, before all of this traumatizing Sailor Moon crap got into her life. The Moon Stick grants her wish.


Depending on how this is handled next season, it could be very interesting or extremely tedious. Either way, I probably won’t know for at least a little while. Because, I, Sailor, am not watching Sailor Moon R, right away. No, friends, I think it is time for me to watch…something else…for a while. I will return (probably), so there is (probably) no reason to worry. Assuming you, for some reason, stuck around through all of these and enjoyed them. If not, then there (probably) is reason for you to worry, because I’m gonna do more (probably). When will I be back? Who can say? I guess the only way you can know for sure is…following the blog? Maybe following the site on Twitter? Following me on Twitter? Joining the Discord? Eh? Ehhhh?
Hey, while you’re at it, we’ve got a Ko-Fi you can donate to now. I-If you want. Anyway, hopefully you’ll stick around for my (and everyone else on the site’s) non-Sailor Moon content, and if not, I hope to see you back whenever I (probably) get around to Sailor Moon R. Take care, everyone.