Review of Sailor Moon: Vol. 12

Introduction

Sailor Moon is synonymous with anime. In the 90`s especially, while Akira was the first name on anyone`s lips, the long running television series wasn`t far behind, and a cult following soon built up that is reflected in the extensive Internet community that still follows the series. This is my second exposure to the adventures of Serena and her friends.

It`s always hard coming to these shows in the middle of a run, and it`s equally hard trying to figure out what`s going on, but with a little bit of research and a lot of web surfing, this is the rough outline I came up with. Five girls and two cats must protect the Earth from the Dark Kingdom (Negaverse). Heirs to the power of the ancient moon kingdom, they have been sent to modern day Earth, where by day they go to high school, but by night they use their special powers to battle demons. They are the Sailor Scouts, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Venus, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter and of course, Sailor Moon.

Volume 12 comes somewhere in the middle of the second series Sailor Moon R, and now the Sailor Scouts are facing a new threat. The episodes are as follows.

67) Rubeus Strikes Out, 68) The Secret Of The Luna Sphere, 69) Emerald Bakes Up Trouble, 70) Promises Fulfilled, 71) No Thanks, Nurse Venus, and 72) Dog Day For Artemis.

The arc in these twenty-minute episodes sees Serena taking care of Rini, a little girl from the future and protecting her from the nefarious plans of the villains from the Negamoon.

Video

A simple 4:3 picture reflects the TV roots of the series. The transfer is adequate, with no glaring problems. The animation is simplistic and rather rough and ready, as you would expect from a TV series as opposed to a feature length animation.

Audio

This is a DD 2.0 English dub, which is adequate once again, if annoying, but the dub is just the symptom of far deeper problems with this release of Sailor Moon. There are no subtitles by the way.

Features

The Sailor Moon disc actually shows a Sailor Moon wallpaper when the disc isn`t spinning. It`s cool, but that`s all there is.

Conclusion

It`s more of the same as another Sailor Moon disc makes its way through my DVD player. Oddly enough, I think that Sailor Moon is beginning to grow on me, working its way into my affections by sheer banal repetition. But my complaints still remain from the last disc I saw. It follows the Power Rangers blueprint to perfection, the dubbing is sufficiently laughable to provide much of the entertainment value, and the kid friendly edit has taken the heart out of the story. But I can imagine, that after watching a few hundred of these episodes, even this version of Sailor Moon could become enjoyable. The story is still miles better than most of the serial anime that makes its way onto British television and the characters are certainly more interesting.

In the end, I`m still not going to recommend this. Sailor Moon as it is on this disc is of some entertainment value, but I can`t condone the hack and slash job that`s been done to it. To sell it under the original title is false advertising. Maybe if the cover had SANITISED VERSION written in big bold red letters, but even still, any semblance of storyline vanishes under the censor`s knife.