It’s time for Sailor Moon and the gang to go to the moon and find out just what happened to them in their past lives. But first, we are treated to Usagi being unusually chipper for someone who just broke up with her pseudo boyfriend, and everyone is glad that she is recovering somewhat. This is probably because she thinks going back to the moon will help her get Mamoru back. But *cue the dramatic music* will it?
The Sailor Scouts transport themselves to the moon, and find a sword in a stone. After Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury fail to get it to do more than budge ever so slightly, Venus stands pushes up her sleeves and removes it. There, Queen Serenity, Usagi’s mother in a past life, reveals the sordid details of Usagi’s past life: namely, she feel in love with an Earth boy named Endymion (Mamoru), and when an evil spirit took over the world and killed Endymion, Queen Serenity had her daughter and her protectors be reincarnated in a far a happier time.
So, all in all, it wasn’t terribly helpful. But Usagi has some hope, and the Sailor Scouts feel a whole lot more prepared about this whole “defend Earth” thing that was thrust on them. Well, I’m assuming that last bit. Surely, they’ve been harboring some doubts about entrusting the fate of the world in the hand of middle schoolers.
Meanwhile, in the dark realm, Kunzite regains his memories and realizes that he, Zoicite, Nephrite, and Jadeite were all generals for Endymion. They had reincarnated, but before they could regain their memories, Queen Beryl enslaved them.
And it’s bad news bears for them, because as soon as they come to that realization, Queen Beryl enslaves them again and sends them to attack the Sailor Scouts.
And during this fight, Sailor Venus (who has the most intact memories of all them) reminds her friends that the four generals used to be all of their lovers. Unable to fight against the men they suddenly remembered loving, the Scouts take a beating, and it’s up to Sailor Moon to save them… which she does by launching herself into space, and launching a Moon Healing Escalation at the planet. Here, I think it’s necessary to note that this episode is a little less true to the manga storyline than the past episodes. In the manga, the Sailor Scouts only go up against Kunzite who has been enslaved to forget his love for Sailor Venus. They do not confront all four.
The episode ends with Mamoru being released, but what looks like is going to be evil Mamoru. Stay tuned, and we’ll see if Usagi and Mamoru’s love story will end in tragedy.
I keep trying to watch these episodes as if I haven’t seen the first anime, the live action, or read the manga. I’m trying to remember what it’s like to not know the past of the Sailor Scouts. It’s easy to look at these episodes, and these reveals, and say “Well, duh”. It’s not as if ‘Sailor Moon’ was ever a hard story to predict, but there was always something magical when you actually got a glimpse of the past, or in the next series’ case, the future. The idea that there was something going on outside of what the Sailor Scouts could know or remember was always the most alluring things about ‘Sailor Moon’ for me, but I can’t go back to those times of naive innocence and tell you if this episode pulled it off or not.
I can say that every time we step back toward the Silver Millennium, I get excited thinking about the past. I enjoy thinking about how these young teenage girls must be grappling with their memories, and how they must have trained to be Sailor Scouts. I wonder where they really came from, and I gobble up every tid bit that can fill these blanks.
So, I liked this episode, though I think if I had that ignorance of what was going to happen, I would have disliked the pacing, and the complete lack of foreshadow about the four generals past as being the good guys, and the lovers of the Sailor Scouts. But as a hardened ‘Sailor Moon’ fan, I just enjoyed seeing another interpretation of the Silver Millennium, and I happily spent my weekend guessing at what it must have been like on the moon all those millennia ago.
For that, then, I give this episode
