Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal – 16 Review
美少女戦士セーラームーンクリスタル
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

With Sailor Mars kidnapped, Sailor Moon takes her anger out on Chibi-Usa after seeing her. The girl flees where she’s found by Luna and Chiba, who take the girl to his home to sleep. She has a nightmare, but is comforted by Chiba when she awakens, where he and Luna learn she wants Sailor Moon to save her mama. Elsewhere, Minako and Makoto watch Ami play electronic chess as she ponders their new enemy. As Black Moon launches a new operation, Ami uses her powers to discover a problem with a water pipe at school. She’s scolded by Berthier from Black Moon before Ami goes to the pool. There, Naru-chan has Usagi at the pool. Afterward, the trio see an interview on TV where Berthier challenges Ami to chess.

Ami accepts Berthier’s chess challenge. At the match, Berthier taunts Ami until she almost loses, but gives Ami the info that Black Moon are after “Rabbit”, aka Chibi-Usa. Encouragement from Usagi causes Ami to win, but when she demands the return on Sailor Mars, Berthier flees outside. There, she battles Sailor Mercury until Sailor Mercury is defeated. Sailor Moon, Sailor Jupiter, and Sailor Venus arrive. Sailor Moon easily defeats Berthier, but as before, Sailor Mercury is trapped in Berthier’s water prison. Thus Crimson Rubeus comes down to kidnap Sailor Mercury as the other three Sailor Senshi look on helplessly. Their actions are seen by Chibi-Usa, who’s hiding nearby.

Thoughts/Review:

So that’s the way this is going to be — the Black Moon Senshi come down to target their Sailor Senshi opposite, defeat them in combat by trapping them in their element, after which Sailor Moon dispatches them, after which Crimson Rubeus comes down to extract their prize while no one bothers to try to stop him. WOO!HOO!

You just gotta love the forced melodrama here. You have Berthier taunting Ami constantly (with her magical insight) so that Ami has some vague flashback of being abandoned. To me, this wasn’t any kind of real character development that I’ve heard others proclaim it to be. This was simply a melodramatic moment to make you think Ami might lose.

Ah, but thankfully there’s loud mouth Usagi to cheer Ami on so that she can win. And now her melodramatic flashback can turn into a positive flashback. Yay!

And then there’s the obvious moment where Berthier isn’t going to keep her word and lead Ami into a trap. I saw that coming a mile away, though I honestly didn’t think we’d actually get a second successful kidnapping. Yeah, I should have bet on stupid, but stupidly, I did not.

Meanwhile, there’s still a shocking lack of an attempt to learn anything about Chibi-Usa. They have that secret base full of future tech AND magic, but alas, no one is bothering to investigate jack other than Chiba’s fatherly/brotherly attempts at bonding with Chibi-Usa.

Actually, Chiba’s handling of Chibi-Usa was about the only positive I got from this episode. He senses that Chibi-Usa is a lost child and is doing what he can to gain her trust in order to help her more.

Well, I can’t think too much more about this, lest I lose additional, precious IQ points.  I think I’m caught up for now, thankfully.