<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/2015-06-21SMC cover mamoru.jpg">
<b>Review of Sailor Moon Crystal - Episodes 23 - 24 Streaming by darkstorm</b>
Chibi-usa has been corrupted by Wiseman and reborn as a grown-up looking Black Lady with the power to control the Malefic Black Crystal. Saphir and Demande try to fight back against Wiseman’s plans to destroy the planet but are mind-warped to serve him. With a planet’s worth of power beside her, Black Lady marches forth to the future to claim the Legendary Silver Crystal from her own parents.<br>
Act 23 is the weaker of the two mostly because of its purpose of building up towards the fight in the following episode. We get the big reveal of Black Lady finally, followed by a closer look at Nemesis and a glimpse of Wiseman’s true intentions. Black Lady in <em>Crystal</em> is very well designed and animated; it’s clear that the animators enjoy bringing to life her long wavy pink hair and gorgeous fashion sense. However she seems to suffer from the same syndrome as Ivy from the <em>Soul</em> series in that in each new adaptation her boobs get bigger – they practically take over most of Act 23! But clearly the animators are not leg lovers as her dress isn’t as revealing of her calf muscles as it is in the manga. To each their own...<br>
In terms of manga changes, Act 23 has the most; a lot of the Inner Senshi lines are given to Sailor Moon for no apparent reason, a moment between Diana and her mother is snipped out, and a panel with Shingo is also removed. The latter is understandable but the little character moments, and a small number of nice moments between Demande and Saphir, could have easily been given more time to breathe if the second half of the episode wasn’t padded out with full transformations of all the Senshi. Yes, it’s been a while, and understandably Toei want to get their money’s worth of the 3D, but character moments are frankly more important than planet-aligned make ups at this point in the game. <br>
Then Act 24 comes in like a meteor and delivers arguably the most emotionally and dramatically packed episode of the series so far. Black Lady uses the full force of her powers to drive Nemesis into Earth and only Sailor Moon stands in her way. The first few scenes don’t paint the episode in a good light as we get another painful reminder of how useless the Inner Senshi are, and the various attacks from the Black Moon look laughable (Saphir’s giant rubber-looking hands and the lame Black Moon plonked on the Senshi are especially guilty) however it recovers from its stumbles fantastically in the second half of the episode. Act 24 offers a wonderful contrast to Act 12 where in both situations Sailor Moon’s allies are powerless to help her, she’s faced with the enemy having taken everything she holds dear, and a possessed Mamoru is told to attack her. It’s easy to call this a lazy replay of events, especially since the original author Naoko Takeuchi really seems to love making Mamoru brainwashed, but the key here is how Usagi reacts to events. Her emotional response in Act 12 was to shut down, not attack her boyfriend, allow the world to end, and then kill herself, something that only drove the numerous complaints and outrage fans had with the first arc. In this arc, however, she has grown considerably as a character and there’s no better example as to how than in this episode. She first tries to reach Chibi-Usa by apologising for her jealous behaviour towards her and Mamoru, and the voice acting here really brings across the emotional plea for forgiveness knowing how badly she misread events before. When that fails, she summons the power within herself and the Crystal Palace to defend the future; even when an entire planet is about to collide with her, she stands strong against the vast dark powers, it’s the Sailor Moon that we know and love shining through brighter than ever before. Eventually she does cave in and surrender but not for lack of trying or due to bleakness, but out of hope. She doesn’t want to see a future turn to dust so she surrenders herself to her future daughter, asking her to see the light once more and hopefully save the future. It’s the actions of a mother combined with a heroic sacrifice; the latter was a sorely lacking element we never got in the first arc but the original anime revelled in, and all this with a very well-paced, tension-filled episode mark it as a triumph, not just within <em>Crystal </em>but across the franchise. <br>
But Act 24 isn’t all doom and gloom; there’s also a very cute flashback for Sailor Pluto in her youth, and the scene where Diana offers to stand in her place whilst she fights is so adorable you almost want to pick up Diana off the screen and pet her.<br>
If you’re invested this far into <em>Sailor Moon Crystal</em> you’ll appreciate the new-found energy and faithfulness to the source material a worthy reason to be sticking around. There’s still no word in whether <em>Crystal</em> will continue after this arc, but if the series keeps holding its head above water like this, I wouldn’t say no to more episodes.<br>
<em>Watch the latest episode with English subtitles on the Nico Video site now;</em> http://ch.nicovideo.jp/sailormoon_English<br>
<b>Final score: 7 out of 10</b>
<b>Additional screencaps</b>
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21sailor_moon_crystal_act_23_black_lady_kissing_her_father_tuxedo_mask-1024x576.jpg">
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21sailor_moon_crystal_act_23_sailor_pluto_warns_sailor_guardians_about_getting_lost_in_time-1024x576.jpg">
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21tumblr_nq8pq6VwJw1upt1jno4_1280.png">
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21sailor_moon_crystal_act_24_tuxedo_mask_and_the_cutie_moon_rod-1024x576.jpg">
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21sailor_moon_crystal_act_24_wise_man_and_black_lady-1024x576.jpg">
<b>Review of Sailor Moon Crystal - Episodes 23 - 24 Streaming by darkstorm</b>
Chibi-usa has been corrupted by Wiseman and reborn as a grown-up looking Black Lady with the power to control the Malefic Black Crystal. Saphir and Demande try to fight back against Wiseman’s plans to destroy the planet but are mind-warped to serve him. With a planet’s worth of power beside her, Black Lady marches forth to the future to claim the Legendary Silver Crystal from her own parents.<br>
Act 23 is the weaker of the two mostly because of its purpose of building up towards the fight in the following episode. We get the big reveal of Black Lady finally, followed by a closer look at Nemesis and a glimpse of Wiseman’s true intentions. Black Lady in <em>Crystal</em> is very well designed and animated; it’s clear that the animators enjoy bringing to life her long wavy pink hair and gorgeous fashion sense. However she seems to suffer from the same syndrome as Ivy from the <em>Soul</em> series in that in each new adaptation her boobs get bigger – they practically take over most of Act 23! But clearly the animators are not leg lovers as her dress isn’t as revealing of her calf muscles as it is in the manga. To each their own...<br>
In terms of manga changes, Act 23 has the most; a lot of the Inner Senshi lines are given to Sailor Moon for no apparent reason, a moment between Diana and her mother is snipped out, and a panel with Shingo is also removed. The latter is understandable but the little character moments, and a small number of nice moments between Demande and Saphir, could have easily been given more time to breathe if the second half of the episode wasn’t padded out with full transformations of all the Senshi. Yes, it’s been a while, and understandably Toei want to get their money’s worth of the 3D, but character moments are frankly more important than planet-aligned make ups at this point in the game. <br>
Then Act 24 comes in like a meteor and delivers arguably the most emotionally and dramatically packed episode of the series so far. Black Lady uses the full force of her powers to drive Nemesis into Earth and only Sailor Moon stands in her way. The first few scenes don’t paint the episode in a good light as we get another painful reminder of how useless the Inner Senshi are, and the various attacks from the Black Moon look laughable (Saphir’s giant rubber-looking hands and the lame Black Moon plonked on the Senshi are especially guilty) however it recovers from its stumbles fantastically in the second half of the episode. Act 24 offers a wonderful contrast to Act 12 where in both situations Sailor Moon’s allies are powerless to help her, she’s faced with the enemy having taken everything she holds dear, and a possessed Mamoru is told to attack her. It’s easy to call this a lazy replay of events, especially since the original author Naoko Takeuchi really seems to love making Mamoru brainwashed, but the key here is how Usagi reacts to events. Her emotional response in Act 12 was to shut down, not attack her boyfriend, allow the world to end, and then kill herself, something that only drove the numerous complaints and outrage fans had with the first arc. In this arc, however, she has grown considerably as a character and there’s no better example as to how than in this episode. She first tries to reach Chibi-Usa by apologising for her jealous behaviour towards her and Mamoru, and the voice acting here really brings across the emotional plea for forgiveness knowing how badly she misread events before. When that fails, she summons the power within herself and the Crystal Palace to defend the future; even when an entire planet is about to collide with her, she stands strong against the vast dark powers, it’s the Sailor Moon that we know and love shining through brighter than ever before. Eventually she does cave in and surrender but not for lack of trying or due to bleakness, but out of hope. She doesn’t want to see a future turn to dust so she surrenders herself to her future daughter, asking her to see the light once more and hopefully save the future. It’s the actions of a mother combined with a heroic sacrifice; the latter was a sorely lacking element we never got in the first arc but the original anime revelled in, and all this with a very well-paced, tension-filled episode mark it as a triumph, not just within <em>Crystal </em>but across the franchise. <br>
But Act 24 isn’t all doom and gloom; there’s also a very cute flashback for Sailor Pluto in her youth, and the scene where Diana offers to stand in her place whilst she fights is so adorable you almost want to pick up Diana off the screen and pet her.<br>
If you’re invested this far into <em>Sailor Moon Crystal</em> you’ll appreciate the new-found energy and faithfulness to the source material a worthy reason to be sticking around. There’s still no word in whether <em>Crystal</em> will continue after this arc, but if the series keeps holding its head above water like this, I wouldn’t say no to more episodes.<br>
<em>Watch the latest episode with English subtitles on the Nico Video site now;</em> http://ch.nicovideo.jp/sailormoon_English<br>
<b>Final score: 7 out of 10</b>
<b>Additional screencaps</b>
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21sailor_moon_crystal_act_23_black_lady_kissing_her_father_tuxedo_mask-1024x576.jpg">
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21sailor_moon_crystal_act_23_sailor_pluto_warns_sailor_guardians_about_getting_lost_in_time-1024x576.jpg">
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21tumblr_nq8pq6VwJw1upt1jno4_1280.png">
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21sailor_moon_crystal_act_24_tuxedo_mask_and_the_cutie_moon_rod-1024x576.jpg">
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/screens/2015-06-21sailor_moon_crystal_act_24_wise_man_and_black_lady-1024x576.jpg">