IT'S SAILOR VENUS TIME!
After thirty three episodes, we finally get a real view of Sailor V (for Venus), the fifth inner Senshi that has been hinted at from the very start. My brain has been turned into mush by the fucking rainbow crystal arc so I am so unreasonably excited about this episode finally happening.
Queen Beryl finally returns after her multiple episode absence to scold Gay Jadeite for losing two of the colour diamonds - flash cut to SUS IMPOSTER SUS SUS SUS SAILOR MOON IMPOSTER SUS WHEN THE IMPOSTER IS SUS! It's very obvious that's not the real Usagi, but everyone in this universe has face blindness. The sus imposter starts the cultural revolution by deliberately attacking some petit-bourgeoisie counter-revolutionary window washers and then saving them, forever leaving them in debt to the glorious proletarian hero Sailor Moon. We also get a zoom in on future-Senshi Minako and her cat Artemis, making it very obvious who that is.
My thought process whilst writing is interrupted by my Ando spider sense. Why did they give this guy an episode like this? The senshis end up at a... dock yard? For some reason? I mean, the reason is that that's where the fake Sailor Moon is going, but I don't really know why they made her go towards a dockyard. We get a group transformation (which sucks compared to the last group transformation, all the way back in episode 21 !) and I'm kinda upset they take the opportunity to have Venus suddenly interject here and introduce herself by randomly transforming alongside. That would've been a cool way to introduce her in my opinion.
Turquoise Daddy (Kunzite) is clearly a power level above the un-upgraded Senshis and actually genuinely threatens them for once which is a new one. "Is this a trap", asks man who is about to fall into the most obvious trap ever. Apparently he can't see that Sus Moon has purple highlights on her uniform and not red ones. I'm genuinely convinced that 90s anime protagonists were all half blind because even the little kids watching this show would be insulted by how stupid some of the decisions being made are. That being said, the tension here is surprisingly well done and it feels like one of the few episodes where the Senshis/Tuxedo Mask are actually on the losing foot.
Out of nowhere... another Senshi appears! The voice acting here is incredibly weird and stitled, as if they were padding for time somehow. It's the fifth and final inner Senshi, introduced at least - Pretty Soldier Sailor Venus! Also, there's another talking cat just like Luna, called Artemis!
This is an incredibly densely packed episode that does not disappoint when it comes to actually advancing the plot. Kunzite and Zoisite work as an incredibly effective evil team here, and their plan would've succeeded really well if it wasn't for the outside influence of Venus. Tuxedo Mask's harsh demeanor from the past few episodes, where he explicitly states that he would steal the rainbow crystals from Usagi, completely falls apart as he is willing to save (fake) Sailor Moon and then the real Sailor Moon even if it meant giving up the crystals.
I give this episode a 4/5 for being a cohesive action-packed episode that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately the animation quality is pretty bad, with it being an Ando episode, and the voice acting from Gay Jadeite is weird at points in a really bad way.
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