The first episode of the Sailor Moon remake, Sailor Moon Crystal, has premiered both at AX and on Hulu, to all the expected fanfare and roomfuls of white-gloved and weeping fans. Whatever criticisms have been leveled against the remake have mostly aimed at the revamped art style, but my complaint? Usagi Tsukino isn't stupid or graceless enough, and that disturbs me.
To summarize my complaints, there's just not enough moments like these^
I'm a latecomer to the Sailor Moon franchise, coming to the original series only a few weeks ago as part of a "hey you know what I never got around to watching?" sort of thing. Consequently, I'm in the best and worst position to judge Sailor Moon Crystal; I'm not blinded by years of devoted fandom and can see what the redux looks like to a complete neophyte, but at the same time, I've only seen a miniscule slice of the original series. But that doesn't mean I've got no love for it--I ended up liking it way more than I thought and I'll continue to watch the original. And probably not at all the remake.
What the original did spectacularly was simple: Usagi was hilarious. Much to my amazement, it wasn't a show about a pre-teen who receives powers and can suddenly kick ass, it's about a pre-teen moron with powers that manages to kick ass despite herself, and that made her completely lovable. It was a combination of things that made Sailor Moon pop: the gags were well-animated, with abrupt and cartoonishly over-the-top reactions, sometimes approaching Ren and Stimpy-like freneticness. Usagi's voice actress Kotono Mitsuishi pulled out all the stops to make Usagi a whiny, lazy, sometimes conniving, and constantly hungry lout that I find (disturbingly) relatable. The clash between the more austere sailors and their every-girl leader made me understand what there is to love about a good character-driven show like My Little Pony (I'm still not a brony however, despite constant exposure).
See, when I was a kid I thought I knew what Sailor Moon was--a self-described 'pretty guardian' whose power was directly proportional to her makeup, and with about as much character and depth as your average on-stage Miss America So imagine my delight when I realized she's basically a teenaged, Japanese Homer Simpson, sort of. I loved it--instantly the original series clicked for me, I mean what could be better? An irresponsible good-for-nothing-but-good-intentions blessed with massive destructive power and a killer transformation sequence. My reasons for liking it are only half-ironic. I legitimately tip my hat to the creators for making this glorious mash-up of grace and gracelessness, maybe because it describes so well that gulf between the self and self-expectations, and I'm seriously looking forward to seeing Usagi grow into the more mature guardian that I've read about it in overviews.
Consequently, what I disliked about Sailor Moon Crystal's first episode (and just the first episode, so far) is that makes Sailor Moon seem more like my ill-founded preconceptions of the series. It seems to put all of its weight into the grace while skimping on the gracelessness, which means it's that much closer to being just a Sailor Moon knock-off. Undoubtedly they tried to goofy Usagi up, you know, having her trip down the stairs and hit her butt, fail exams, bonk Tuxedo Mask on the street with paper balls, but it just didn't have the pop: the gigantor reaction eyes, exaggerated flair, the WTF moments that made me confused, then embarrassed for having watched it, then grin sheepishly. Oh, and the new voice actress isn't stacking up well against Kotono Mitsuishi, whose rendition of Usagi went beyond annoying into this virtuoso space, one where sounding like an entitled crybaby was an art comparable to opera. Strip out all of that delicious humor and human silliness to balance out the glitz, and the remake seems altogether too serious, full of itself, even.
What happened to juicy bits like these?
Now that's a crying attack.
All these factors combined make it seem as though the creators of the remake are banking too much on viewers having seen or read the original material--if you're coming into Sailor Moon cold, there is very, very little to love. Really, in all honesty, if you'd never been exposed to the series in the past, would watching this first episode change your mind? I very much doubt it--the jokes would fall flat (did you see her fall on her butt??), the dialogue would be hammy as hell (ISN'T JEWELRY SHINY?), and the action would be painfully predictable, since it's just a paint-by-numbers exercise, a facsimile of a formula done first and best by . . . well, Sailor Moon. See the problem?
It's well and good to have a series that pleases the series' insanely loyal fanbase, but I just thought they'd aim higher than a mere tribute. But again, it's just the first episode! What I do like is that it seems we'll be meeting Sailor Mercury in the very next episode, without having to go through ten monsters-of-the-week too! The faster pace signals less filler and a tighter storyline. Who knows, maybe I'll give the next episode a chance.
 | Too power |