Why I don't want Moon vs Madoka

 

(Credit to Ruri Dere)

Hi, I'm here to talk today about the only Death Battle in the world I don't want to happen. Sailor Moon vs Madoka Kaname. There are many Death Battles I wouldn't care but this is the sole one I actively don't want to happen. If it's already in development then oh well, and I'm under no illusion many people will care about this, but I am still going to make the case anyway. 

The Biggest Reason: The False Premise

The biggest reason by far I don't want this matchup is it represents a false premise I've been kinda fighting against since I was a child. 

So the reason people want this matchup and far as I can tell the only big reason is the notion that Sailor Moon represents "Classic" Magical Girls and Madoka represents "New" Magical Girls. Or they think Madoka is outright a deconstruction. I wanna explain why I hate this notion.

When I was growing up it was not cool to like girly stuff. I've always been a big fan of Magical Girls, I've always been trying to tell people they're actually really cool and well made series and can be dark, and badass as well as cute and funny and heartfelt and everything you'd want a series to be. But it's never been cool to like it. Some of the other girls liked it, but liking boy stuff as a girl made you cool. Liking girl stuff as a boy made you a target of mild ridicule. Even as adults I still see grown men balking at the notion of watching stuff made for women which to me is just... so sad. 

So then Madoka comes along and it's a magical girl series that gets a LOT of praise writ large. The Otaku community in general loves it. However an idea floats around that it's not really a Magical Girl Series, it's a Magical Girl DECONSTRUCTION, it's dark and edgy. You know unlike those lame prior Magical Girls. Those were all frilly girly nonsense. 

*Sigh* This notion is insulting to both Magical Priors and to Madoka for claiming that it is great only because it subverts those notions. The truth is Madoka isn't that different in content then prior Magical Girl Series. The Sailor Moon Manga includes more graphic deaths then seen in Madoka, it contains suicide, biological gas weapons being used to kill a civilian population, themes of existential dread, and more. The reason Madoka is great is not because it's different from other Magical Girls but because executes what makes Magical Girls as a genre great. 

I care about the Magical Girl genre a lot. It depends how you count but I've seen roughly 100 Magical Girl Series. The truth is the Magical Girl genre is a complex evolving genre that contains a wide variety of themes and atmospheres. Sailor Moon itself was a pretty radical break from the genre conventions prior to it. If Sailor Moon vs Madoka comes out, especially if it plays into the "Magical Girl vs Magical Girl Deconstruction" then it's going reinforce the false notion that prior Magical Girls to Madoka were "different." That there were frilly girly nonsense that only girls enjoy. Of course it could avoid playing into that but that would expose how.... little else the matchup has going for it. 

Connections:

Frankly there aren't many. There's very little hook to these other then they are both Magical Girls and I guess very powerful very good people. This is not great. Within the Magical Girl genre the two don't have that much connection. 

Obviously there is SOME, almost every Magical Girl post-SM has some Sailor Moon influence but Madoka's artistic predecessors are things like Lyrical Nanoha, Princess Tutu, and Uta Kata, and mostly traces back to the Cardcaptor Sakura side of the genre. The connections that exist are either things derived from the fact that they are both Magical Girls or that they are both very powerful. To say that's a good amount of connections is I think kind of insulting to the Magical Girl genre because it is basically saying "yeah we don't need to learn about more about the genre, we can just do two of its most well known characters." The worse part is still the connections that aren't there but people think are there. In particular the idea that it's the Classic Magical Girl vs the Magical Girl Deconstruction. 

From Sailor Moon's Side:

This fight is a terrible one to waste Sailor Moon on. Sailor Moon is my favorite character of all time. She has alot of personality, a huge arsenal, some really iconic and cool moves she can do. And Madoka doesn't really connect with ANY of it. 

Sailor Moon is a really fun personality to write because she's has a lot of character flaws but also through love can rise to being a heroine who can give lines about love and justice like a Western Superhero, AND has a huge amount of emotional depth especially by the end of the series where she comments about things like how we all have a star in our heart that seeks to join together. She can be so much, she can be fun, she can be cool, she can be emotional. And Madoka naturally triggers... like none of it. Madoka is a somewhat shy and reserved personality. She's not going to scare Usagi into any kind of comedic scene. She's not going to argue about philosophy with her that will trigger Usagi's heroic side. I am sure they'd be friends if they met because they're both really sweet girls, and I daresay Usagi might help bring Madoka out of her shell a little, but in a fight situation I can't see any interesting personality dynamic come out.

Fight wise it is the same problem. Usagi has a lot of powers, even prior to the Lambda Power. She can do so much and... I mean Madoka just doesn't trigger any of it. This is SUCH a waste of Usagi both personality wise and powerwise. The Moon Tiara Throw is arguably one of the more iconic moves in anime and it couldn't be used because Madoka's a concept. I'll get to evenness in a bit, but recognize that almost none of Sailor Moon's powers, including the ones people associate with her, would come up in this fight. This only gets worse if you include more then just the Manga for Sailor Moon because Comp Sailor Moon has so, SO much content. 

And finally Sailor Moon would have to be taken way out of character for this. Sailor Moon represents very literally Love at the end of her story. She doesn't have any reason to fight Madoka. Bear in mind that at the end of the story, she tried to embrace Chaos rather then kill it. CHAOS. An evil concept. There is no way to try and have her kill Chaos and have it be in character, and I get this is going to be a problem with almost any Usagi matchup but it's especially clear given what Madoka represents. 

Sailor Moon also has way better matchups. I think Sailor Moon vs Sakura and Sailor Moon vs Seiya are both great matchup ideas and work in every way that this idea doesn't. and I have hard that Sailor Moon vs Sora works well too though I don't know the latter well enough to comment. 

From Puella Magi's Side:

From Puella Magi's Side, Madoka is the worst of the Holy Quintet to use in a "Death Battle" like scenario. Mami is my favorite of the Holy Quintet and one of my favorite blogs was Mami Tomoe vs Panty Anarchy. Kyoko and Sayaka are both very beloved characters and Homura... Homura is easily the most popular and iconic Magical Girl of the 2010s and up there as one of the most popular and iconic of all time. Madoka herself isn't as popular a character as the others and also we barely see her fight anything, regardless of form. 

Madoka in general I don't think is a character very well suited to Death Battle for several reasons. First of all her personality is not a big flashy one that makes for a lot of fun dynamics. Her powerset is hypothetically large but we don't know what she'd do with it in a fight because we don't really see her fight. She just one shots some enemies with her arrows. This makes her difficult to find a good matchup for. That said Sailor Moon is NOT it.

Madoka wants Magical Girls to get along. Madoka saves Magical Girls. That is the entire point of her character at the end, that Madoka is a concept that saves Magical Girls from falling into despair. I'll get into thematic stuff later but Madoka would be horrified to having to try and kill another Magical Girl. There is no way to do this and have it be in character for Madoka. This is also not accounting for the fact that Madoka is supposed to only fight witches, which Sailor Moon is not. 

We don't know how Madoka would fight, she is not the type to fight almost any character ESPECIALLY other Magical Girls, and her personality doesn't tend to create fun dynamics. She's a hard character to find matchups for in general and Sailor Moon has anti-synergy with her. 

Evenness/Interestingness:

You know what I've never heard anyone say about this matchup, that it's a close, even fight. That it's fair. That it could go either way. Even if people disagree on which direction, people take this matchup as a stomp. I don't wanna have to listen to several weeks of "Madoka stomps" from people if this matchup is announced, and even if Death Battle gives the hot take that Usagi wins, what's going to come of that but people being angry at Sailor Moon, the character, the series, and people who support it? Even if that is correct, I can't see it going well. 

Maybe more important then evenness is interestingness. A fight can be uneven but still interesting to watch/think about, and it can be very even but very boring (average human vs average human) so is the matchup interesting? No, it's really not. It's just do you think that the Lambda Power burst Usagi made at the end of the Sailor Moon Manga is strong enough to kill Kami Madoka. That's a Yes or No Question, and basically just Cosmology Scaling, the worst and most boring part of powerscaling imo. Most of Sailor Moon's arsenal wouldn't come up here which is really really lame to me.

Better Matchups:

Sailor Moon definitely does. I think Sailor Moon vs Sakura or Sailor Moon vs Seiya would both be great matchups and I hear Sailor Moon vs Sora definitely does. Sailor Moon vs Sakura is a nostalgic matchup of the original Magical Girl Rivalry, that's interesting, fair, and actually allows both to use a wide amount of their arsenal as well as hopefully gets people to think about vs matches differently when they realize it's not just big number hit hard. Sailor Moon vs Seiya is a pretty reasonable debated matchup in the vs community, has pretty clean thematic connections, the two fight similarly, have similar power and hax levels, and unlike the MG fights, it's easy to see how they'd fight. I also hear Sailor Moon vs Sora is a decent one, albeit don't know KH well enough to comment. 

Madoka is hard to find matchups for in general just due to how specific her fight conditions are and the lack of info we have on her. That said Sailor Moon has anti-synergy due to Sailor Moon being a Magical Girl, someone Madoka would very much NOT want to hurt. I hear the Princess from Slay the Princess would be a good one since they have more parallels, a more interesting debate, and the Princess is even a Witch, sorta. 

That said genuinely I would prefer literally any matchup more then this. I'd prefer Sailor Moon vs Shrek because that wouldn't promote the false dichotomy I've struggled with. 

Possible Meta Problems:

So Madoka is getting new content soon and also has some debate as to how strong it is currently. Sailor Moons is also in a conflux of being contested for upgrades constantly. The latter from what I understand caused Beerus vs Galaxia to become outdated as most forums have Galaxia at "immeasurable" speed going by powerscaling or "immeasurable combat speed" or what have you. This is just a general problem with doing Sailor Moon characters as there is currently a push for them to be upgraded in the common consensus. 

Also Sailor Moon pretty infamously caused one episode to get taken down by Toei. This probably wouldn't happen again since Toei seems less trigger-happy nowadays but it is a minor problem with Sailor Moon Death Battles in general. 

Does it have anything going for it?

Its best quality is probably the amount of views and ratings it would get, particularly if it gives the majority opinion rather then a hot take. It would get I think decent views. Sailor Moon is the only Shojo with a reasonable amount of powerscaling interest outside MAYBE PreCure. If we imagine S, A, B, C, D, and F tier verses in terms of powerscaling interest Sailor Moon is probably like a B (S would be something like Dragon Ball, A would be something like One Piece, B would be something like Saint Seiya for comparison.) That might be me being generous but still, it's maybe the only Shojo that by itself can probably pull in some views for something like this. And to my chagrin this matchup does have at least some popularity, it would pull in some views. 

If you're going that route though I would still suggest Sailor Moon vs Pegasus Seiya over it. Saint Seiya has probably more scaling interest then Madoka does, and is an S Tier Anime in popularity in places like Latin America. I don't know the extent to which Death Battle is popular there, but Sailor Moon vs Pegasus Seiya would have vastly more interest there and probably comparable in English Speaking areas. It's also a decently well debated matchup, and one that has a lot more benefits to it. Of course my most wanted matchup is Usagi vs Sakura but I fully accept that wouldn't pull in nearly the ratings as Clamp in general doesn't have a lot of powerscaling interest. 

Symbolic Stuff:

It's possible no one really cares but I do truly feel that both for me and at least a substantial amount of people the fact that a fight has some meaning to it, that there something expressed about the the world or humanity or just the two characters involved means something. Magical Girls are figures that are more then ink on paper or code in a computer. They are representations of idealized femininity, of the hopes and dreams of society embodied in the newest generation of young women. These two series both mean a lot ot me and while both have myriad reasons why someone might love them, if I was to summarize at least one of the core appeals for these two characters I'd say the following:

Sailor Moon when it came out told its audience "you can be the hero." It doesn't matter if you're not what people think of when they think of the hero, even if you are scared, sensitive, a normal teenage girl you can be the hero the saves everyone. Sailor Moon is fundamentally a story about how love can ennoble us, can allow a normal girl to create miracles. 

Puella Magi Madoka Magica when it came out told its audience that it may very well be true that the world is messed up. That you're told lies about what heroism and femininity mean, that the system wants to exploit you for maximal gain. But that if your ideals and your heart are strong enough you can remake the entire broken system. It told its audience that no matter how hard the world seemed, that people were always fighting for you and that you didn't have to accept that suffering in this system was inevitable. 

There isn't a natural connection point between these two. There isn't an underlying conflict or similarity between them that creates something evocative. With something like Usagi vs Sakura there is an underlying philosophical difference about the nature of love and hope. With Usagi vs Seiya there is an underlying similarity in that a person's capacity to grow is a fundamental theme in both series. With Usagi vs Madoka there isn't an obvious connection point between their themes. Could a good writer connect them? Sure they're obviously not incompatible but it's worth noting that it's not an easy gel. 

More then that however capturing the spirit of Magical Girls is something that seems hard for powerscalers and in particular the current axioms of powerscaling high tier characters. The current way people think about powerscaling is that when it comes to high tier characters, it's all about power, that hax and abilities doesn't work based on power. I have been in this community long enough to see this transformation and outside of general toxicity it my least favorite thing about powerscaling. I don't think it makes sense, and I think it makes things very boring as it makes everything univariable. It's also something I feel is actually contrary to the spirit of magical girls.

In Sailor Moon Galaxia cares about power above all else. She believes that it is only power that matters. Galaxia destroys worlds for not containing the perfect existence. To me powerscalers who think this way are following in Galaxia's spirit. It is a destructive way of thinking, a way that eradicates worlds of possibility, limiting everything down to big boom. If you think a fight between two magical girls on the level of these two would be decided by who hits harder, I feel you are not only wrong but fundamentally missing the heart of the genre. It is a core tenet of the genre that force and violence are overcome by love and compassion. I am not saying that scaling Magical Girls should be different. I am saying that the current axioms of high tier vs debating that reduce fights to a single variable are fundamentally misguided and this is reflected I think in how poorly trying to apply Dragon Ball Rules to something like Magical Girl fights goes. A Magical Girl fight, if it's going to express truly the spirit of the genre, should evoke something more, something about what they represent. I know Death Battle has over the years grown up, moved away from being edgy teenage boy level to actually trying to analyze the characters and express things. I am saying that if you want to do that, Usagi vs Madoka especially analyzed the way that a lot of powescalers do these days off Dragon Ball rules, won't capture the spirit of either character or either series. 

When I was in school, my best friend gave me this picture and I have treasured it ever since to the point I felt weird even posting it online. But I am doing so to make a point. I don't love series very often, I feel fairly neutral about most things and so it means when I say I really do love both these series. They mean a lot to me. I don't want to see them be used as weapons against each other where one kills the other in an out of character fashion. I don't want them to be pitched as some kind of opposition, that the two are of some fundamentally different ilk. I DID make Usagi vs Sakura as a blog but that was an emotional for me to write, and I took great care to present the ending of that fight as a reconciliation of love and hope.

 Obviously I don't have any ill will to anyone who likes this fight. It would hurt a bit for me to see, and it would probably cause me some annoyances with people thinking that Sailor Moon and Madoka are somehow fundamentally different genres, but you are obviously free to do what you want and if Death Battle makes it, it will be basically just a sad event for me and nothing more. However these are the reasons this is my least wanted fight. 

Jake and Amir Review and Top 10 Episodes

 

Ten years ago the original Jake and Amir series ended. A staple of internet comedy in that era, Jake and Amir if you aren't aware has a very basic concept. Jake is a relatively normal guy who sits at work across from his co-worker Amir, who is a weird guy, usually Amir agitates or unsettling Jake with his antics or eccentricities. Despite this it became an absolutely beloved series that lasted basically for 8 years and 800 two to five minute episodes. 

Because of how long the series lasted it definitely morphed a lot in style though a popular way of dividing it is into three eras based on the two times that Jake and Amir moved offices, the first time in March in 2010 and the second time in in January of 2014. I think a good way to do this is to briefly talk about my thoughts on each of these three eras, before giving my thoughts on the series as a whole and my top 10 episodes.

2007 to 2010 or Early Jake and Amir I know has probably the most vocal fanbase but personally I definitely find it the weakest era. Very early on it wasn't even meant to be a web series. For the most part it's just that for 2007 and sometimes in 2008 the episodes would be too simple, basically containing one joke each per episode rather then layering on the absurdity as later episodes are wont to do. There are things I do like about this era though. Starting in 2008 and really by 2009 the episodes would start resembling what they would be later. Hebrew and Thai Menu are both episodes I really like and they're both from 2009. This was the era of multi part episodes. Outside of Girlfriend and the Finale, Jake and Amir didn't tend to do longer arcs after the early part, but as early as 2007 with Lyrics Jake and Amir was doing multiparters and by 2008 they were doing four part arcs with the Florida arc. 

My favorite thing about this period of Jake and Amir though is the heart. Jake and Amir occasionally do wholesome moments however they work by far the best here. This is because Jake and Amir were still relatively grounded here. By late in the series Jake has commented on wishing Amir would die enough times Amir even comments on it, so when Jake decides to move across the country for Amir it feels inconsistent. Plus in later Jake and Amir they'd have a tender moment only to immediately follow with a joke mocking it. This kind of whiplash humor I get the idea for but it really takes it out of the moment. This was broadly Jake and Amir at their most grounded when Amir wasn't a chaotic reality-warping psychopath but was a weird co-worker and Jake the confused annoyed straight man. That leads to the moments like in Sick Day 3, Decision, and Brother 4 to come off as so much more genuine. 

2010 through 2013 or Middle Jake and Amir seems to be the most popular time for Jake and I would definitely concur. It's the longest period and has the most memes to come from it. Jake and Amir's voices both as characters and as writers came more into focus, with longer episodes that contained a faster pace and more jokes. Jake was given more dimensionality shifting from just a very average everyman straight man to Amir's antics, to someone desperate for popularity and praise, a representation not of just the status quo but of people chasing the status quo. This was good I think as it allowed him more versatility as a character. Amir became more exaggerated going from just a wacky and dim-witted co-worker to a chaotic mixture of sociopathy, lunacy, and obsession. This was a mixed blessing as it allowed jokes around him to go to further extremes but also meant it was harder to have any kind of human moment with him that was believable. 

Outside of the duo, the world of Jake and Amir definitely opened up. There were less arcs, but far more callbacks and episodes that referenced or sequeled-past episodes. This was when the girlfriend arc and Fired, the Jake and Amir 30 minute movie came out. This was also when a ton of characters were added into Jake an Amir's world. While some of these characters had rather basic jokes like Mike Fink who's entire joke is that Amir for some reason thinks he's Shia LeBeouf, the addition of more recurring cast allowed for more versatility. 

I broadly agree this is the best period of Jake and Amir where everything felt both iconic and free, where Jake and Amir could have an ep about anything, expand the world in any direction, and still have it feel recognizably Jake and Amir due to the chemistry between the main duo. 

2014 to 2015 marks Late Jake and Amir. While this stretch has a lot in common with Mid Jake and Amir there was a more notable sense that it was getting tired, something lampshaded in their videos ("POSTER Ideas don't you think we're scraping the bottom of the barrel.") The shortest period, this part still has great eps. The Finale are broadly all good eps, and Stock Market is a fantastic episode. However the series was sorta faced with two options neither of which were great, that being continue on the same as they were and letting it feel stale, or to keep exaggerating making it more and more of a cartoon, and episodes from this period broadly do one or the other I think tending towards the latter. The most wacky ideas in the series like them living in a muffin or Amir castrating himself without any pain whatsoever or randomly having two hot girls dance in his laundry room because "I'm a promoter." 

What I will say about this era is when it's on, it is really on. The timing and back and forth between Jake and Amir is never sharper then in the good episodes of this period. Tinder, Stock Market, Multiple Parts of the Finale, and DJ Business are all eps I at least considered for the Top 10. There are more individual episodes in this much shorter Late Jake and Amir that I rewatch regularly then Early Jake and Amir, however it comes with the fact that there are episodes of Late Jake and Amir like Copier that I don't have any desire to ever watch again. 

In terms of my general thoughts on the series as a whole, I like Jake and Amir a lot obviously. It's difficult for me to describe why something is funny very well outside of just saying that the series has great writing and chemistry between the titular duo. However if I was to try and describe what's funny about it, Jake and Amir's writing has a particular way of laying multiple absurdities in a short space to create something of a rhythm of absurdity. Whereas a stereotypical joke relies on one level of unexpected subversion Jake and Amir jokes often have multiple levels of absurdity within the same space either from unexplained details or Amir missing the point. Take for example a fairly normal exchange from "Fur" :

"You know there's a dead iguana in your pocket."

"Or am I just happy to see you?"

"It's a dead iguana."

"I'm also happy to see you!"

Here you can see how the series layers numerous layers and even types of absurdity into seven seconds such as Amir comically missing the point, using an expression wrong, and having a dead iguana in his pocket while protesting animal cruelty. This multiple layers of absurdity is really common in Jake and Amir and creates more unpredictability which engages the brain more then is typical. Jake and Amir filters this through a lot of different styles including Amir style, with a little bit of salt. The universal application of this style of comedy allows for the series to have a cohesive feel regardless of the topic it's being applied to. There is a reason that you can speak in Jake and Amir "style" quotes even if they are not directly jokes from the series, because the style of Jake and Amir writing is very iconic. I like how they can use it to apply to many different types of comedy from their usual straight man and weirdo routine, to ones where Jake is also a strange character of a different sort, to physical comedy, to videos where only one of them speaks (common when they are relaying a story of what insane thing Amir did recently) or not at all on rare occasions, to videos that include more characters such as the table reads and meetings episodes. Best of all there are some episodes that are Amir Style, a LOT of salt. 

However not all of the styles works. There are a few different types of Jake and Amirs that don't work for me albeit exceptionally rare. The most difficult for me by far are the gross out eps. I'm fairly disgust sensitive and Jake and Amir can definitely get gross with vomit or blood. It's not at common but about 1% of the episodes are hard for me to watch because of it. Second some of the side  characters are more of a hinderance to the series then a help. Will's character starts and ends with "eats his own feces", which is quite probably the worst joke in the series. Murph's bullying of Jake is often not very funny to me as it's mostly too in-line with real bullying and only makes me feel bad for Jake. Rarer then both of these of these Jake and Amir will occasionally soapbox about a social issue. It's maybe a half dozen eps in the series at most and earlier on they had a bit more self-awareness about it (How do you know so much? / Easy it's not hard to stay informed, you read an hour a day / How do you ACTUALLY know? / ...Daily Show, watch the Colbert Report.)  I even usually agree with them. I still don't find them very funny. These three styles of episodes are all very rare, each like 1% of the series or less so they're not that big a deal, but I'm not really a fan. Also some episodes are made "Amir Style" AKA No salt at all and those aren't very Taupe. 

The vast majority of the episodes are good. Like I said the amount of episodes I don't like are maybe a 1-4% percent, and even if some of the earlier episodes are boring or some of the latter episodes are too exaggerated, I would estimate that I at least enjoy 90-95% of their videos, and I would say that a substantial fraction are great.  My favorite style is definitely the standard Jake and Amir at their desks doing a back and forth but most alternate styles like relaying events prior, scrolls eps, Doobs eps, Ben Schwartz Eps, all make for their own fun breaks to the style. I think Jake and Amir is almost perfectly designed to appeal to a internet era audience with episodes that are short and which encourage replay view due to the density of absurdity per minute.

I'd like to humbly present my personal top 10 Jake and Amir episodes, might be a bit of a weird list for anyone else but I hope you enjoy:

One Almond: 

What is it that makes Jake and Amir: One Almond...heh... perfect? This is one of the most iconic episodes of Jake and Amir with some of the most well known jokes in the series. (It not only has the prior line but it has the response (Nothing, it's bad/Don't just say *perfect imitation* it's bad) Amir's confusion over what an almond is, 0 billion or 0 dollars question as well as subtler absurdities like "how much would you pay for courtside seats to the Yankees." It also has the joke I think anyone's who has been in the fandom any amount of times where they actually bought the one almond domain name and have kept it up for how long which honestly by itself makes me wanna put it on the list for how much they're putting into this joke. 

9: Breakfast

This episode has Jake come into find Amir with a ton of leftover breakfast. This ep has my single favorite joke in the series in it where Amir talking about grabbing a waitress arm and demanding in a serious voice that he wants one of everything leading to him saying "She takes me at face value because, duality of man or whatever..." A lot of Jake and Amir jokes have layers, but this joke has like 10 layers and genuinely keeps me up at night thinking about it. This episode also has Amir's very inconsistent style which is another joke I really like. The rest of the episode is fine, my only real complaint is that this episode is way too salty, I mean it's practically Amir style. 

8: Ace and Jocelyn 9

Ace and Jocelyn is a subseries in Jake and Amir where Amir pretends they are astronaut accounts from Outer Space and misinterprets everything happening to fit that narrative. In this one Amir catches Jake masturbating in an embarrassing fashion and blackmails him to go along with it. The humor of this mostly comes from Jake trying to spin Amir's deranged fantasy into one that is more reasonable by spinning it into the fantasy. I do wish it was a bit more of a playful back and forth as Amir just shuts down everything Jake says immediately but it's still really funny seeing Jake attempt to maneuver this deranged fantasy world of Amir's.

7: Brother Part 4

This episode is the conclusion to the Brother Arc where Jake's brother comes in and basically manipulates him out of all his money while Amir tries to warn Jake, disbelieving Amir for all the things he's done. This ep in particular takes place after Jake had his money stolen by his brother. Jake tries to save face while Amir comforts him without acknowledge it in some of the best writing in the entire series, both clearly knowing each other knows but not talking about it so that Jake can save face. A list like this you wanna put the emotional eps but I limited it to one cause it felt wrong to fill the list with them. When moments like this happen in latter eps, they tend to subvert it with a joke at the end which I don't really like, feeling like it saps both of their potency. Sick Day has a few great moments like that, Jake consoling Amir before leaving or hugging him when he returns, but they're emotionally simple. This scene is complex, it has the two characters in a place they usually aren't, Jake vulnerable and Amir consoling in a way that feels still in character for both and is honestly really touching. It even has a funny bit at the end without taking from it as we see Jake's brother get his just desserts when the foreign girl he was trying to bring over for himself steals the money from him and leaves him with nothing. 

6: Finale Part 5

Like with the emotional eps, I also wanted to put a part from the Finale in this one. It was a hard one but for pure nostalgia I went with Part 5. This has the final Mickey and Doobs sections, both of which were good enough that I considered episodes about them for this list and while neither is the BEST section of that type, they're both pretty good. It has the return of old CH stars Sarah and Streeter as well as the Eater Piefell Joke. It had a bunch of references to things from across the series, I mean each part of the Finale can be seen as a conclusion to one part of Jake and Amir, I think Part 5 is definitely the goodbye to the cast of characters built up over 8 years.

5: Celebrity Date

Some eps are Douchebag Jake eps where Jake and his obsessive insecure need to seem cool is the weird one. I am less a fan of the full reversal where Amir is relatively normal but the eps they are both kind of off, especially the ones where Jake is normal at first then transitions during the ep are always good ones for me. I considered both Rap Teacher and Screenplay for that exact reason but Celebrity Date I think is my favorite example. This ep has Amir get the phone number of Jaime Lee Curtis and talk about his need to start dating her to get an in with Hollywood with Jake switching to a needy desire to make her his wife himself. This has a pretty funny exchange even before the switch though it's after Jake goes Douchebag Jake that this ep is filled with some great back and forth. This ep has one of the best lines in the series with Jake pantsing Amir over for the phone number while proclaiming "All's BARE in SHOVE and floor." 

4: Stock Market

In this ep Amir is a stock market advisor at his desk. This ep is another great one for wordplay as well as the best Mickey ep as Amir advises Mickey on stocks. A line I will always remember from it "It doesn't matter to me which one of my clients is making that cheese Mickey, cause I'm still eating crackers like we're putting on the Ritz, Mickey!" just numerous lines like that with several layers. This ep is a great combination of that plus non-sequiters like "What Happened" *sarcastically* "Ba-na-na!" "Bad job mocking me you think I said 'banana'?" or Minnie (No Way! Mickey's married to Minne) actually knowing who did sys-ops for Maersk. I honestly don't know what else to say about this ep cause it's just really memorably funny. 

3: Bus

In this ep Jake and Amir are taking the bus back after got them kicked off the subway with his usual antics. This ep has my favorite description of Amir "A mix between Che Guevara, Bam Margera, and Dom Irrera" a line I think about constantly as being witty, surprisingly accurate, and also captivating. There is a ton of good gags this ep including maybe the single most influential exchange on my way of speaking in any Jake and Amir (It was a goof/You're a goof/EXCUSE ME, I have very thick skin but that was a low blow! / ... you're a goof?/ENOUGH!) I am constantly calling bad things goofs as a way of comedically unselling them, pretending it's a hard hitting insult. This ep has a ton of memorable parts, "there's anthrax on this train take off all your clothes" "I'm part of the 69%", "How can you start chants this easily" I really wanted to put it higher, it's just that everything this high is great, and Bus is just a touch unfocused to be higher.

2: Explanation:

In Explanation Amir is trying to explain to Jake what happened to his new X-Box. I said Bus is maybe the most influential to my humor and the reason I said maybe is cause explanation also exists. The ep has the Byron Murphy bit, the random "I'm GAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY" and a line that is in the same league as "duality of man or whatever" with Amir getting to the end of the story and saying "So then I walk in, like a hero or whatever, and..." showing him smashing with a bat. It's a hilarious anticlimax to whole story set up with a fantastic line that adds numerous more layers of absurdity in such a simple line. This episode is great from start to finish and my only problem with is that it's a short episode being 75 seconds when most eps are 2-4 minutes long. 

1: Blowing Up

This episode doesn't get talked about nearly enough, to me this is exactly what I want from the series. So in this ep Jake and Amir are working on a script but Amir keeps getting called into the other rooms and having increasing dramatic breakdowns on the phone. I can't sing this episode's praises enough. The thing I love about Jake and Amir's writing style is the way layers of absurdity causes your brain to try and fill in the blanks for how this works and Amir's insane yelling on the phone does that three times, giving you just enough information that your mind races to try and figure out what happens. When he yells "YOU ARE NOT GETTING A DIME OF THIS MONEY, NOT ONE DIME! UNDERSTOOD I HAVE KILLED BEFORE, I WILL KILL AGAIN, THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE." it's not that my brain is trying to figure out what actually happens, it's that it's given just information that I feel like I'm getting a glimpse into the insane world of Amir. This ep incorporates a surprisingly high amount of types of humor in such a specific concept and the ending is actually one that manages to be both funny and kinda sweet. Jake has been trying to ask if Amir is alright and saying he can do this himself with Amir brushing it off but after the third Amir is like "Uhhh, hey I'm gonna have to cut out a little bit early..." and Jake immediately being like "yeah that's fine." Like it's both funny in how obvious Jake was going to allow it and yet nice in how he does actually want better for Amir. This episode is just everything I like in Jake and Amir in 150 seconds. It's got layers of absurdity, multiple types of comedy, sudden shifts between casualness and intensity, the exact type of dynamic I imagine between the two, and it's lowkey one of Amir's best performances in the entire series. 

Jake and Amir-verse Strategy Guide

 

How to be OP in the Jake and Amir-verse

Human Tier:

This is the tier for almost all the characters in the series save one. Characters in this tier range from Human Level to Wall Level in Power, scaling from Jake being able to inconsistently physically engage with Amir as well as having several kilojoule feats himself more notably throwing a pencil through Amir's neck and making breaking Amir's ribs with a clean break in one shot. He also claimed to be able to hit by a bus with no visible damage though it's very possible given his character that this was a lie to seem cool. Jake works out but he's clearly not superhuman in strength, with stronger characters able to bully him easily. In terms of speed the characters are human speed. 

The most important character on this tier by far is Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz or "Jake." Jake is the straight man to Amir's antics and usually doesn't have abilities. However that's only usually. Jake has also shown fourth wall awareness on several instances and high endurance to the point that when his tongue was kicked off he was able to crawl around in agony. He has shown extreme malleability as well able to live inside of a muffin in one of the most blatantly cartoonish things happening in the late series and in the very first episode in a bit of early installment weirdness he seemed to have the ability to slow Amir down in time. 

Jake and Amir has had a large cast of semi-recurring over the years, many of whom have gimmicks although these are rarely anything combat relevant such as Sam Reich Amir's old buddy obsessed with him who ended up their boss, Sarah Schneider Jake's crush, Emily Wayne Dolphin Murph's insane girlfriend, and their long suffering co-worker Pat Cassels. Somewhat more relevant are there are several characters with some manipulation ability including Pat who was able to fool the entire office save for Amir. Jake's brother Kumal was another manipulatoe who scammed Jake. Probably the most notable is the antagonist of Fired, their movie, Alan Avery who is a criminal that embezzled thousands from Collegehumor and took brief control of the company. 

There are also some characters with actual abilities. Physically Murph is one of their co-workers who is easily enraged especially when his girlfriend Emily is involved and is the physically strongest cast member, able to easily overpower and bully Jake regularly. Murph has also shown teleportation as when Jake fell backwards in a trust fall Murph just appeared behind him proclaiming that "I will ALWAYS catch you."

There's a dozen identical characters played by Ben Schwartz often mistaken for each other, a few of which have demonstrated powers. Cherry Dude is the real estate agent who sold Jake and Amir the muffin house and likely can fit into a muffin himself, having the same malleability as Jake and Amir. Both Charles Crushtooth the Milkman and the Doctor have shown the ability to teleport to the point that Jake when looking right at Charles thought he was the same as the Doctor who teleported into his exact spot. Sulu Candles is a movie usher who has shown hammerspace able to make objects appear. Ben Schwartz shows up in the finale and demonstrated the ability to somehow play a song with audio from Jake and Amir's life that he wasn't there. Finally while not an ability per se, Jope the Private Eye regularly uses Chloroform to knock people out. 

Probably the biggest conventional threat in this tier however is Amir's rival who often changes his name, with his final name as of the finale being "Cock Smoke Dingleberry Tiny Penis All Male Orgy Fudge Out of a Hole into My Own Mouth Anthony Smith!" or Amir calls him "Smitty" and he's more commonly referred to... Doobs. Doobs is clearly meant to be a parallel to Amir and while he's only in 6 episodes it's likely he would have many of the same abilities. If you think he has the same as Amir he'd be in the higher tier, but going just off the abilities he's shown in his episodes, he's demonstrated hammerspace able to change clothing in a cut like Amir, social influencing able to successfully propose to Jake's date who was in love with Amir just to spite them, minor spacetime hax able to make a 3.5 hour movie take 4 hours and teleport a small distance from the stage to the audience, and most impressively his precog which allowed him to RSVP to an intervention once year in advance before it was planned. 

There is one more character who MIGHT change the tactic needed entirely, that being Lerona. Lerona was a girl who was Amir's girlfriend for a few days and Jake's for a few minutes before dying. She actually returned as a ghost. She can turn invisible though she oddly might not be intangible. Amir punched her and Lerona said "We're not transparent you know, it really hurt." I don't know if she just misspoke but it obviously really changes the tactics needed if one of the characters is incorporeal. 

So what possible counters can you use? So this verse's power is fairly low for its tier, and even for its tier lacks in offensive hax basically only having Jope's chloroform and Doobs' supernatural charisma meaning a character who is high in the power level would be very difficult for them to put down. Defensively their only known abilities are superhuman endurance, extreme malleability on the parts of Jake and Cherry Dude, and the possible intangibility of Lerona. The last may or may not exist and the former two can be gotten around via using a non-bludging weapon and hitting a vital area from something piercing like a sword/gun or something exotic like fire. 

What the verse has is a lot of forms of spacetime hax from Jake and Doobs able to slow events down, numerous characters able to teleport themselves or objects, and most impressively Doobs' precog. The former while fairly rare for this power level, are relatively lowkey spacetime manipulation. Likewise all of these are activated abilities including Doob's precog as Doobs very regularly gets surprised even by people outside Amir. This leads me to think stealth would do well, much as Amir sometimes does. Having a minor spacetime hax can sort of be equivocated to having a small speed advantage which is something that can be countered by having a high degree of skill or intelligence, with this verse being relatively tame in intelligence feats and having almost no combat skill feat. 

This is good because another really basic strategy that would likely work well is the manipulator strategy. There are roughly two kinds of Jake and Amir characters, relatively serious and not prone to being manipulated but without powers, the straight men, and the wacky characters that actually do strange power type things like the above. This means a fighter of this tier who is also a potent manipulator can either overpower or trick anyone in the tier. Doobs is the most potent threat of the tier having the only sensory ability (activated precog), one of the only two offensive haxes (supernatural charisma), and the most versatile arsenal. That said Amir regularly mentally beats and enrages Doobs just by calling him a lame silly name. 

So who could use as a counter? One idea would be

Askeladd from Vinland Saga. 

Askeladd like a lot of Vinland Saga characters has strength and durability feats evoking the Viking Eddas with Askeladd being able to cleave a man in two including his metal helmet which is a more impressive feat of a strength by a good margin then the feats of the tier who mostly can just break bones. He is also at the same level as Thorfinn who was able to at least harm Thorkell with weapons even if Thorkell is clearly much stronger then both of them and Thorkell is one of the strongest characters in the verse able to bulldoze houses and throw boulders to sink ships. Askeladd would use his own viking armor and sword and could maybe withstand a serious hit from Thorkell or injure him which would be well above anything the Jake and Amir verse could do in raw power, aided by his endurance which is high enough that even strikes to his heart region don't stop him. While still human in speed he is able to fight Thorfinn who can blitz most viking warriors, showing superiority to most warriors in speed and putting him faster then the tier as well. Murph is maybe the physically strongest of the tier, and Askeladd lowballed is on his level in strength and durability, let alone Askeladd's advantages of speed, skill, and equipment. 

However Askeladd in particular is known for his mental stats for which he is compared to a snake. He has over 40 years of political manipulation learning to read people and turn them to his side, even pirates and raiders as well as enemies. He would find it very easy to manipulate all the very exaggerated personalities of the Jake and Amir verse to his side. He also is a highly skilled swordsman, able to fight multiple swordsman at once which is a master tier skill feat and could likely avoid Jope trying to use chloroform on him which is one of the few ways that they would be able to do anything to him. While there are characters here with powers unlike he'd ever seen, mostly minor space and time manipulation, I think Askeladd could very well adapt given his speed and much higher mental stats advantages, along with the fact that the sword is just a very good weapon for fighting a teleporting enemy since it can make broad swings and the entire length of the weapon is lethal even for the characters with malleability like Jake or Cherry Dude. 

Obviously the biggest threat in the tier is Doobs due to his precog and his own supernatural charisma which is maybe the only weapon the tier would have to get through Askeladd's defenses however in a direct fight Askeladd is faster and far more likely to try to manipulate Doobs at first then the other way around with Doobs as well as just being able to stab Doobs with his sword. Doobs only really wins if his precog warns him of the fight and he acts uncharacteristically rationally. But for another counter you could use

Verminous Skumm from Captain Planet

Skumm is a Chemical Mutated Rat who is considered a major physical threat to the Planeteers. The Planeteers have numerous upper end wall level feats such as Wheeler kicking down a metal door and Linka being caught in an explosion, along with upper end human speed feats, giving Skumm a broad stat advantage. He naturally wields his tail, claws, and teeth as weapons the latter of which are piercing weapons that could bypass Jake and Cherry's malleability, without even getting into his powers. Chloroform is highly unlikely to work given Skumm's extreme chemical resistance and the hood he wears over his head and he can likely resist Doob's charisma as he is considered the second most evil character in the series after Zarm, enough to resist Ma-Ti's power of Heart which can control emotions. 

Skumm is a mutated rat who seeks to spread sickness and does so from the shadows, naturally using stealth and manipulation to spread urban decay. He can telepathically command rats, a swarm of toxic rats being one of the most dangerous animals in the real world to humans like comprises this verse and which at human speed nobody in the tier has a good counter to. His plans usually involve spreading illness via disease ridden biologically engineered objects like food, something that Amir has done to the office before in episodes like Bagels to devastating effect. Outside of physical disease, he also attempts to spread emotional disease and decay in the form of bigotry, his psychological manipulation being incredibly potent in a verse as emotionally unstable as this. 

All of this is without talking about his ring. Skumm eventually becomes one of the five ring bearers to summon Captain Pollution. Skumm's is the Toxics Ring that is able to summon toxins. Against a verse of humans with normal biology this would be a devastating biological attack meaning it really doesn't matter if he's attacked by everyone in the tier at once. Even Jope's basic chloroform works on Jake, Amir and Jope himself, let alone whatever super toxins Skumm uses. The only downside is that Skumm does not seem to have any particular way of effecting Ghosts so if Lerona really is intangible, she might pose a problem to him. For the best counter, I would suggest

Jessamy from Changeling: The Dreaming

Jessamy's stats aren't given but she would have stats at least on par with the weakest other Changelings. This means she should scale to Wall Level, higher into it then anyone in the verse, from a few feats like Hopscotch, a basic 1 Dot Cantrip that doesn't improve durability allowing Changelings to jump on top of buildings. This would likely require between 20 to 50 Kilojoules whereas this tier at best downscales from Amir being 10 to 30 Kilojoules, and falling from a building gave Amir a bloodied mouth while any random Changeling can tank using Hopscotch. Jessamy as a Changeling fights using Chimerical Combat, basically combat on the imaginary plane the way children do but with the ability to cause real effects. This would easily allow her to hit Lerona and can mitigate the malleability of Jake and Cherry as she can simply say a stick she is holding is actually s sharp sword.

Jessamy is a Sidhe, the royals of the Changeling world who's birthright ability is her passive supernatural charisma that gets people to do what she wants. This is similar to what Doobs and Amir can do, except Jessamy does it passively before someone like Doobs would even think to try her. It wouldn't even work if he tried as the Sidhe can regularly resist each others' manipulations. Chloroform might work except Jessamy is a Sidhe of House Ailil, the Unseelie House of Spies and Deception. Jessamy despite her innocent princess facade is a potent manipulator spy who can evade the best mundane detectives notice let alone Jope, who's a comically inept private eye. The only one who could resist Jessamy's supernatural charisma is Jake who can resist Amir's, but not only is Jessamy likely as strong as Murph who regularly bullies Jake from strength alone, but Jake is also highly psychologically vulnerable to trying to impress pretty girls like Jessamy like a much saner version of Amir's friend Cheryl. House Ailil is known for its stealth and manipulation which would be the strategy most likely to work here. 

All of this is without even going into her Noble Arts. While hers aren't known, it's likely this would give her a level of versatility and hax similar to Doobs. A single dot of Soothsay would give her a precog that is nearly on Doob's level. A single dot of Chicanery allows one to disappear into darkness. And if she has noble Arts, something like a single Dot in Chronos is roughly comparable to the time manipulation of Jake or Doobs. She doesn't need these abilities but her likely abilities would be the ones that are strong in the verse. Fae do have some particularly strong weakness to cold iron but no one in this tier even uses weapons let alone cold iron weapons. They are also weak to Banality, especially Sidhe who's fraility is a higher weakness to banality. However no one in Jake and Amir except Jake ever reacts to Amir's abilities as strange, only as annoying, meaning that the verse outside Jake would have very low banality, allowing Jessamy to function normally. And with Jake Jessamy can defeat him just by acting sweet and then beating him. 

Wall Tier:

The Top Tier of the verse is Amir Valerie Blumenfeld, easily the character who's shown the most feats and abilities by a wide margin and probably the top tier of the verse. Amir not only scales to the above wall level feats but in Hotel Room fell out of a hotel window for multiple seconds in nothing but a towel and only got a bloodied mouth, a feat of likely between around 13 to 30 Kilojoules, in the wall level range. That level of power isn't different from where the prior tier was, but what IS different is speed. One of Amir's two most used powers are his freakishly fast speeds, able to regularly change what he's wearing or do other acts in the matter of a jump cut before anyone can react. Amir regularly travels distances that would that would take many minutes to do in seconds including traveling from Jake's home to the office in 6 seconds, gone from McDonalds to the office in seconds, and went from his desk to Forever 21 and back before Jake could react. This would suggest speeds hundreds of times faster then normal humans if not higher, which would give him supersonic or hypersonic speed, speeds that are actually rather hard to match in this tier. 

Amir has a lot of abilities, somewhat inconsistently. Defensively, Amir has the same malleability that Jake and Cherry Dude does, has numerous superhuman endurance feats including castrating himself without pain, a regen factor strong enough to regenerate his tongue being kicked off in one day and use of his legs in one day, as well as the best stealth of any named character in the verse he uses to mess with other characters such as pulling Jake's genitals out of his pants without him noticing. 

Offensively Amir has an extremely broken supernatural charisma that lets him basically brainwash entire crowds and even seemingly affect the metafictional editor of Jake and Amir which is possibly the source of his inconsistent powers. Amir has also had numerous weapons including multiple guns and knives capable of cutting him alongside others he can pull out at any time with his hammerspace, the  other of his most commonly used abilities. Outside of that he was able to physically hurt Lerona suggesting he may be able to hit astral plane entities and in the finale he was able to telekinetically choke Doobs to Death through a pre-recorded message showing the ability to affect someone through technology into the past as well as telekinetically.

Amir also has numerous other potent abilities. He can teleport, possibly as far as to California from New York, and he regularly shows precog that can show things that will happen a day in advance. He also has shown fourth wall awareness on many occasions. He also has a lot of more minor abilities such as minor heat emanation and voice mimicry. 

From a vs standpoint Amir has high speed for his tier and access to pretty strong abilities for a wall level of character however countering him isn't impossible in part due to his many weaknesses. Amir's abilities are very inconsistent potentially because they might come from influencing the editor. While hammerspace and enhanced speed are pretty consistent, many of his abilities are seemingly contradicted such as him getting hurt by comically weak things and while he has precog, he also regularly gets surprised. Similarly while he can control people with his charisma, he is usually hated as an annoyance and menace by his coworkers showing this is an ability Amir has to actively being using and is not passive. This seems to me the best strategy would be an ambush type strategy which conveniently gets around Amir's very high speed, someone that can win stealthily and quickly. 

Amir also has two more prominent weakness vs-wise. One is his lack of intelligence. Amir varies in intelligence from literally animal tier to actually pretty devious, but most of the time he is very unintelligent not just in lack of knowledge about the world but lacking in critical thinking skills and judgement. The other is that he's very easily afraid. While blunt trauma doesn't seem to scare him, he fled and hid from a thunderstorm, he yelled in terror when he saw himself in a very basic ghost Halloween costume, and once gave a homeless man thousands of dollars because the man told Amir he was the boogeyman and to give him all his cash or the man would boogey him. 

All this leads me to believe that a good strategy would be something like a ghost. While Amir can still effect them physically, it's not cheating, the combination of stealth, being spooky, and often physical body ignoring hax make them extremely well suited for beating someone like Amir, especially if they are relatively clever about it. That said pretty much any kind of scary monster of similar stats that uses an ambush strategy would do well, especially if they have some way of bypassing Amir's physical defenses. 

Stray from Champions Online

Stray is a Level 9 Minion and while he would have nebulous scaling, he should be above Tutorial (About Levels 1 to 5) Champions. These Champions can bullet-time as well as scale above normal peak humans in the verse who can themselves bullet-time meaning should be pretty solidly supersonic, around Amir in speed. They can also pulverize large piece of rubble trapping people and use lampposts as weapons, suggesting wall level power on par or surpassing Amir. 

Stray is a Ghost Dog from the Old Western Turn of Burnside raised by Talisman to guard it. As a viciously angry Ghost Dog, Stray would basically combine Amir's fears of ghosts with his fear of Rotem, terrifying him and keeping from acting strategically. Champions Online ghosts can teleport and levitate meaning he should be able to pretty easily follow a fleeing Amir unless you think Amir's teleport range is much farther, though given he is likely to use a normal animal ambush tactic this is unlikely to work. Even if you gave Amir time to work he has basically nothing that works on a ghost other then hitting it which is unlikely to help much and social influencing which is unlikely to work on a dog that can't actually understand his language. 

The only real weakness to this strategy is that Stray doesn't have any kind of offensive hax and would just have to kill Amir by tearing at him a bunch. While this is likely to work on a panicked Amir, given Amir's regen and endurance it may actually take a sec that could allow Amir to flee if you think he has Country Scale Teleportation. For a character that can kill Amir a lot quicker you could use

DemiMeramon from Digimon

DemiMeramon is a Baby Digimon and scales to the other feats of other Baby Digimon including destroying trees and blocks of ice, wall level feats broadly comparable to Amir. Speedwise Baby Digimon's speed is unclear, but they should downscale to a fraction of the speed of Rookie Digimon, who are able to lightning-time. This would make them high end Hypersonic which is at the top of the speed category that Amir is near the low end of, giving DemiMeramon a pretty substantial speed advantage over Amir. 

DemiMeramon is a Fiery Ghost Digimon. Just its presence would terrify Amir and instantly break his resolve. Attempting to strike it would also be a bad idea for obvious reasons. Attacking with fire also bypasses Amir's defenses. Amir might be highly malleable and able to regen the use of his legs over a night, but fire just giving him severe burns isn't the kind of thing he's ever shown the ability to regenerate. Even if he teleports away, if he's on fire, he will still be on fire wherever he teleports, and Amir is very likely not knowledgeable enough to know how to put himself out. DemiMeramon doesn't need to ambush given he actually has the speed advantage though he does do that as well for added bonus, and DemiMeramon's weakness to cold and water is unlikely to come up as Amir has no obvious way to take advantage of that weakness. 

The only thing that might be a problem is that Digimon are all data, and Amir does have technopathy. I don't think this would be a problem for DemiMeramon given Digimon regularly get into data absorbing battles and can't one-shot either, along with DemiMeramon's overwhelming offenses of being ghostly, speed, etc. but if you want the best counter to Amir I would recommended

The Ghost Fisherman from I know what you did Last Summer

in terms of stats the Ghost Fisherman not only scales above the original Fisherman who withstood a car crash without injury as well as scales above Barry who was hit through a wall by a car crash, as well as smashed through a solid wooden trap door. Ghost Fisherman can also basically tank shotgun rounds. All this easily puts him in the wall level range, likely above Amir. In terms of speed Ghost Fisherman has a feat of sending fifty text messages of "I know what you did last summer" at the same time. That's 350 words in total sent in a second or two. At an average human typing speed of 40 words per MINUTE this could very likely put Ghost Fisherman in the same speed tier as Amir from being several hundred times faster then a normal human when sound is roughly 100x faster. 

The Ghost Fisherman has traits of both zombie and ghost, actually being closer to the Celtic Revenant then anything. However Amir can hit ghosts fine, that wasn't why a ghost would be helpful, it's the terror caused by seeing a "ghost" and needless to say the Ghost Fisherman would absolutely terrify Amir. The Ghost Fisherman is known for stalking victims who got away with murder and slowly causing terror in them through inducing nightmares and other supernatural atmospheric effects before attacking them. Amir and Sam in the Florida multi-parter offhandedly mention murdering someone meaning he is the type of target the Ghost Fisherman would go after. 

In actual combat, the Ghost Fisherman has better stats by far then Amir in pretty much all regards, fighting numerous opponents at once, smart enough to hack into machinery prior to getting powers, and his undead body having functionally infinite stamina. Amir might have better range but with both able to teleport this is not very important. The Fisherman uses for offense his famous hook. Not only does he target the vital organs which would bypass Amir's malleability and regen, but if Amir tried to teleport away, something a terrified Amir is unlikely to do, the Fisherman would be teleported with him so long as his hook is in him. Even if he's not connected to him at that moment the Fisherman is adapt at just continually stalking his target Revenant style. The only thing Amir could try to do is use his charisma to try and win the Ghost Fisherman over but not only is that something he's extremely unlikely to do against a ghost but Ghost Fisherman is a supernatural force of vengance unlike anything in the Jake and Amir-verse that it's unlikely to work on. Even if it did, Amir can't maintain his control very long and he has no way of doing permanent damage to the Ghost Fisherman who has functionally infinite stamina and a regen factor to return from being thrown into a wood chipper.


And that's how to be OP in the Jake and Amir Verse. Happy April First

Toei Sailor Moon Review

Recently I completed re-watching the Toei Sailor Moon, this making it I believe the fifth time I watched the series completely. To mark this event I wanted to review the series. Toei Sailor Moon is a series that draws more polarizing feelings from me then any series: The only series who's best matches the Sailor Moon Manga, my favorite series of all series, yet who's worst is painful to me in a way few other series can match. As such I thought I'd make three blogs to express my feelings about this series: one to go over what I don't like about the series, one to go over what I like about this series, and then finally one to express my feelings towards the series as a whole.

I'll start by saying that no other series gets as polarizing feelings from me as Toei Sailor Moon. Toei Sailor Moon at its best is genuinely on par with the best of any other series I've ever seen. On the other hand while its worst is not on par with the worst I've ever seen, it is on par with the worst I've ever seen from series I actually LIKE. Part of this is just that it's a fairly lengthy series at 200 episodes long, however that's not all of it. Pretty Cure is several times larger but I definitely don't think has this level of variance. I definitely think my favorite episode of Sailor Moon is better then my favorite episode of Pretty Cure, though I also think at the same time that Pretty Cure's worst episode is better then Sailor Moon's worst episode. 

Overall though I would say that Sailor Moon is a great series. To try to give a decent idea of how much, I would say I have seen around 100 Magical Girl series, counting franchises like PreCure or Puella Magi as 1 each. Not counting other Sailor Moon series, if I were to rank all of them, Sailor Moon would easily be in my Top 10 and probably in my Top 5. My guess is it would be somewhere in the range of #6 to #3, with maybe a little wiggle room on either end. You could say this is nostalgia, and it is obviously true Toei Sailor Moon has had a huge influence on me. That said it certainly isn't entirely nostalgia, as I also rank very highly Magical Girl series that I saw as a late to adult and don't rate very highly some series that I have nostalgia for. I am obviously not claiming to be unbiased here, only that there is a reason Sailor Moon captured my interest and has remained an interest when other series failed to do so. 

If I was to describe what makes Toei Sailor Moon in one world it would probably be versatility. The Toei Sailor Moon series is a very broad series with a lot of tones and styles. It can vary a lot from comedic to serious, wholesome to edgy, slice of life to eldritch horror, sometimes within the same episode. More then that however it actually succeeds at least a good amount at all of these. Sailor Moon can be really funny or heartbreakingly sad, elegantly beautiful or a silly cartoon. Combined with the fact that it combines so many different interests and subject matters and it's not a surprise it got such a large fandom. There's a good chance regardless of what interests you, you'll find something to enjoy in Sailor Moon, and just anecdotally I've found there's a large variance in the kind of person who is a fan of Toei Sailor Moon, because why someone likes it can be radically different from person to person. My least favorite episode is one that a lot of people really love. Meanwhile one of my closest friends couldn't stand my second favorite episode in the series. There's a large swath of the fandom that watches the series as a slice of life anime, yet I who doesn't really like slice of life still finds plenty to enjoy in the series. There are plenty of other great Magical Girls but when you compare any of them to Toei Sailor Moon, they're more... specifically good, they're more good at doing a specific thing, and even if they do it better then Toei Sailor Moon, no series does as many things as Toei Sailor Moon. 

The flipside of this is the  series' inconsistency. Sailor Moon is as you might guess from the above description, not a very consistent series. I mean this both in a general quality sort of way as well as a more specific type of series type of way. To get to the stuff you want to see in this series, you're probably going to have get through at least some stuff that you find boring or distasteful. I for instance find the jokes poking at Usagi to be pretty unpleasant and I find a decent amount of the filler, monster/victim of the week type stuff to be rather dull. I am willing to get through that stuff to get to the material I like but it's certainly not my wish. I've said before that if you could somehow make the Top 120-150 episodes, somewhere in that range, of Toei Sailor Moon its own series, it would not only easily be my favorite Magical Girl Anime, but it would be my favorite anime of all time and one of Top 5 series. 

To get into more specific thoughts I am going to go over each arc of the series briefly and my thoughts on them. The Sailor Moon Manga has 5 arcs, on average 12 chapters each. The Toei Anime in comparison has at least 17 arcs on average ~9-12 episodes each. The count isn't quite exact because you could count the finale of each series as their own arc, or you could count them as part of the last arc, or something else entirely. I don't usually count them as arcs, but I will go over them as well.

The Jadeite Arc (1-13) is a pretty good example of the series consistency problem. Of its 13 episodes I would say I enjoy 8 (1, 3, 6, 8-12), but on the other hand it has Episode 4, quite possibly the worst episode in the series, and the other 5 episodes (2, 5, 7, 13) I feel more neutral or mixed on. That's a a pretty good record and I really like the string of characters once Ami and Rei get introduced between Episodes 8 and 12, though the better episodes clustered later can make the start feel slow. The early eps with just Usagi and Luna are rather hit and miss, even if Episode 6 is a banger episode. Jadeite is a very generic Shojo villain, a misogynistic cold pretty boy, though as a starter villain works well enough. 

The Nephrite Arc (14-26) has a really good finale, though I don't know if I consider it an improvement over the Jadeite Arc. Nephrite is a more unique villain, especially near the end where he basically starts the Toei Anime's redemption theme. A lot of the eps prior to the finale I feel more neutral on then the high points of the prior arc. There are some better episodes here, but for comparison my second favorite ep this arc is the Masquerade Ball Ep, an adaption of one of my bottom two chapters of the manga, whereas my second favorite Jadeite Ep is probably the first episode which is an adaption of a chapter around the middle of my manga chapters ranking. 

The Zoisite Arc (27-34) has a similar level of consistency to the Nephrite Arc but a higher overall average and I think is a notable step up from the prior two arcs. Zoisite is a much more fun villain to me, the including of three sides trying ot get the Rainbow Crystals, allows for more momentum in the story even if marginal, and the episodes in general I think are of a higher average quality. I really like the first two episodes of the arc, which introduce Makoto and are about resolving Naru's grief at Nephrite's death respectively.  This Arc adds Makoto at the front end and Minako at the back end, and while I do love all the Senshi, I do have a preference for Makoto and Minako more then Ami and Rei, if not by a huge margin. The ending of the arc is also pretty iconic so that's nice. I'm not that big a fan of 29 (The episode of Usagi and Makoto chasing Motoki) or 32 (The Tuxedo Umino episode) but things like 27 (The first Urawa episode), and 32 (The Luna kitty chaos episode) make up for it pretty well in my mind.

The Kunzite Arc (35-44) is one of my top 3 arcs in the series, even if its consistency is not as high as the Nephrite or Zoisite Arc. This arc I think is really underappreciated. Having two competing villains in Kunzite and Dark Endymion is a fun dynamic, especially as Kunzite is my favorite of the Heavenly Kings, being somehow both super theatrical and over the top yet also kinda snarky and genre savy. This arc has Episode 44, one of my top 5 episodes in the entire series, as well as bunch of other episodes I really like. Of the ten episodes, I really enjoy about 7 of them (35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44) including one of my top 5 episodes, another honorable mention, the Lake Youma Episode, the episode the Senshi pretend to fight, the second Urawa ep, etc. Even 2 of the other 3 eps are pretty good. The only one I don't like is the Minako backstory ep that has both Usagi and Minako out of character and has a contrived plot, though even it is far from Classic's worst. 

The Season 1 Finale (45-46) are my favorite episodes of the series and some of my favorite episodes of any series, with 46 being outright my favorite episode of any show. They're also the heart and soul of not just the series but the entire genre in my opinion. So needless to say I am a fan. 

The Makaiju Arc (49-59) is a pretty massive step down. Granted almost anything would be after the amazing stretch of 12 episodes prior, but I think the Makaiju Arc is worse then any arc in Classic. There are some good parts of it usually having to do with the Inner Senshi. You've got Rei and Makoto fighting a Cardian before getting their powers back, Makoto beating up Falion despite being weak from blood loss, Rei's really good character exploration episode, the argument about who should be Snow White, etc. That said the overarching elements of the plot I think are just poor. I don't like the Alien Pair, I think they are vastly less sympathetic then the arc presents them as and they're not fun to see interact with others as their entire shtick is pining for Usagi and Mamoru and getting jealous about the other other doing so hypocritically. The Moonlight Knight thing just feels dumb and like an attempt to try and recapture the dynamic of Season 1, as well as outright lies to the viewer about him not being Mamoru, and Usagi losing her powers with her confidence before getting them back feels half-backed taking place over only 3 episodes and having a major unexplained deus ex machina with her going inside the Silver Crystal to get new powers from the ghost of Queen Serenity? 

The Rubeus/Ayakashi Arc (60-74) is my most disliked arc in the series, and a major reason R is my most disliked season. The primary reason is the breakup arc which is my least favorite thing in the entire franchise for a LOT of reasons I go into my worst episodes ranking. Even outside that though I don't like this arc very much. Rubeus and the Ayakashi Sisters aren't very interesting to me seeing a group of four sisters being catty to me each other while fighting over a guy who is emotionally manipulating them. It's unpleasant and doesn't have much depth. Of the good eps this arc there's like four of fifteen, the two parter finale is pretty good, the Koan redemption ep (70) and the big Guardians vs Ayakashi fight (68). That said while some of the other eps are more in the middle this episode has 5 of the 20 episodes I don't like including the infamous dinosaur episode, the first Makoto/Minako fight episode both of which I really don't like, the grandpa wrestling ep where Grandpa Hino is a creep, the really boring curry shopping episode, and of course the breakup episode. Chibiusa being much more bratty then her Manga counterpart also doesn't help.

The Demande Arc (75-87) is pretty easily my favorite Arc in R. I still have problems with it usually in the form of missed potential as I think the Black Lady plotine where she turns evil due to a dumb misunderstanding and Usagi being kidnapped and rescued from being kissed by Demande are more missed potential then things I disliked, being substantially less interesting then their manga counterparts where Chibiusa turned to Black Lady as part of a frustration for not aging for 900 years and Demande forcing himself on Usagi, but her refusing to let that mean anything to her before rescuing herself. On the other hand this is the only R Arc I'd put on the same level as Classic's. The breakup arc ends right near the beginning and the villains are overall more engaging to me. Esmeraude is a fun villain from 75-81 with several really good eps like the ep they go into Chibiusa's mind, the Nurse Mina ep, and the Ami insecurity ep. Most of the eps after that this arc are pretty good but not amazing except 86, the Saphir ep which is one of the best episodes in R. 

The R Finale (88-89) is mixed. 88 is good. Of its three sections the Black Lady section is okay, and the other two are great including the final fight with Wiseman and the emotional Chibiusa returning to the future section. 89 however is a clipshow ep, and even for clipshow eps, it's pretty lazy. So you know. 

The Kaorinite Arc (90-102) is a massive step up. Immediately you can feel the difference with 90's tone and atmosphere with Rei's dark visions of the world ending in 90. This arc is primarily about introducing Haruka and Michiru, contrasting the Outer Senshi and their philosophy with the Inner Senshi and its absolutely excellent. Episodes 92 and 93 are devoted to introducing each individually and both are great. 96 and 97 are about a personal conflict Makoto and Ami are having, conflicting them with Haruka and Michiru respectively. All four are great, especially 92 and 97. Minako has her own really cool exploration ep in 100 that is also an allusion to one of Naoko's ol favorite series. 90 and 91 are a really good introduction to the season's themes an atmosphere an 102 is a fantastic climax that was on my best episodes list. Kaorinite is the most underrated villain in the series for me, I really like her design and her relationship with Professor Tomoe. The only ep this arc I don't really like that much is 101 which is the first part of the two-part finale as it feels like Usagi is out of character this ep. 

The Eudial Arc (103-111) is one of my top 3 arcs in the series. It has everything good about the Kaorinite Arc including one of the best villains in the series is Eudial, but also adds a much stronger sense forward momentum and plot as well as an even higher quality string of episodes. of the 9 episodes, 4 of them were in my top 30 episodes, of which 2 were top 10 including one in the top 5. The only ep that's even kinda meh 107 which is the Chibiusa art class episode. The first ep this arc brings back Chibiusa and has a ton of hilarious antics. The next two eps are both pretty fun too, 108 being the tea ceremony ep and 109 being the Makoto training episode, both of which have some pretty cool parts. 108 is another famously fun and funny ep with the party in English which has all the memes associated with it and is just a really fun time. This arc has 106, the Haruka/Michiru backstory, and then the super strong string of eps 109-111 which is one of the best strings of episodes in any magical girl series I've ever seen. Dramatic, Funny, Beautiful, Fast-Paced, Introspective, Shocking, it's got it all. 

The Mimete Arc (112-120) is a bit of a come down, more comparable to the Kaorinite Arc. Mimete is a more annoying villain then the either of the prior ones, things get a lot more episodic and slow paced, and the Outers' shtick starts getting a bit more repetitive. On the other hand this arc introduces Hotaru and her friendship with Chibiusa, both of which are fantastic developments for the series. Hotaru has been one of my favorite characters since childhood, and her friendship with Chibiusa is both adorable and gives Chibiusa a really good role in the series. The best episodes this arc are the ones that focus on Hotaru, 112, 113, 115, and 119. The Ikasaman ep, 118 is also pretty fun in a wacky what the hell kinda way. 

The Mistress 9 Arc (121-125) involves a few more episode Witch episodes. I like Tellu's a good amount actually mostly we get to see more Pluto and I want more Pluto. Viluy's is not that great tbh and Cyprine's is kinda in the middle. The actual climax of the season 124-125 is broadly good, though I have my problems with it. In particular I think a lot of the things they added that were from the manga were done substantially worse then the manga including the Pluto sacrifice, Hotaru giving Chibiusa's Soul back, and the fight with Pharaoh 90. On the other hand the things that were actually unique to the anime are really great. Everything between Moon and Haruka/Michiru and them angry at her for her idealism seemingly dooming the world before finally beginning to believe in her after seeing the strength of her conviction letting her create a miracle, that's all great. And the Tomoe/Hotaru stuff is also really sweet, even if it unfortunately causes a plot problem later. 

S also has two episodes at the end both of which are kinda mixed. With 126 I do appreciate the idea of the Moon vs Uranus/Neptune fight defeating them by not fighting though I think it could have been made stronger and the part where Pluto's ghost returns two episodes after she sacrificed herself to tell Chibiusa she'd see Hotaru again immediately before she sees Hotaru again... kinda dumb and time-wastey. 127 is them saying goodbye to Chibiusa again but they already played this card in Episode 88 plus they spend the entire ep focused on Chibiusa leaving and then she doesn't actually leave so it feels kinda pointless. 

The Amazon Trio Arc (128-149) is the longest arc in the anime and it really doesn't need to be. It's the least popular arc and I am inclined to agree it's broadly not very good. This is primarily a combination of the writing being made much more childish and meaner, making the Senshi especially Usagi look worse to try and make Chibiusa the protagonist of the season seem smarter by comparison. It also has the Helios romance which is substantially more troublesome then the manga, and a LOT of filler. Like this arc has 5 plot episodes in 22 total episodes. On the other hand this arc and season in general does definitely have a contingent of fans and I can kinda see it. This arc can be funny and if you're not as bothered by its weaknesses some pretty good emotional moments. 140 and 141, the Fashion Designer Ep and the Minako Two-Timing ep are both pretty funny, 132 is a pretty good about Usagi and Mamoru's relationship, 144 which is about Shingo's crush on Ami is pretty sweet, 147 has the famous Ami dancing with Makoto bit, and the two part finale is pretty good. On the other hand this arc has five of my Bottom 20 episodes (133, 139, 142, 143, and 145), 143 and 145 in particular  (The Shotacon Fish-Eye and the Ballet Ep) are both bottom 10 eps for me. Even a lot of the other eps have the overall problems of the arc such as 138 which would otherwise be a very normal Sailor Moon ep about Ami helping a car mechanic that randomly decides to add in jokes about Usagi being "fat."

The Amazoness Quartet Arc (150-160) is a pretty substantial step up from the prior arc. It does have another two bottom 10 eps for me in 154 (the second Makoto/Minako fight ep) and 157 (the ep that teaches children to try to fly on their bikes and to trust strangers who don't want people to tell on them), the latter of which is a bottom 3 for me which extra hurts as it's half the length of the prior arc. With that said, the average quality of the ep is substantially higher. 152, 156, 159, and 160 are all eps I like pretty clearly including a really good Rei ep, the Senshi/Quartet ep that is really important for the Quartet's characters and themes, a really interesting ep about a starving artist and appreciating authenticity and gratitude, and a funny ep of the Senshi trying to figure out Chibi-usa's crush. A lot of others are mostly good with one of SuperS problems like 153, the dentist ep which outside of Usagi being written as particularly childish is fun, or 151 which is a pretty good Ami exploration ep. The Quartet are pretty well deserved for being fan favorite villains.

For some reason SuperS and Stars have really long endings compared to the first 3 seasons and could well be counted as arcs themselves. The SuperS Finale (161-166) is actually really good with 166 being probably my favorite SuperS being thematically really rich and reflecting Ikuhara's style well in his final ep. There's also in general a lot of fun in the SuperS finale from the mirrors part meant to reflect the Senshi's insecurities or the Quartet's redemption. On the other hand the writing can be quite childish much like a lot of SuperS with things like characters just stating the moral or Nehelenia betraying the Quartet and loudly declaring it to them so that they know it wasn't just Zirconia. 

The Nehelenia Arc at the start of Stars (167-172) is my favorite arc in the Toei anime. Despite being one of the two "filler" arcs, it's actually the one I feel is closest to the manga as there are no monsters of the week, it's fast paced without any ep being "filler", it's got a darker more atmosphere feel and so on. Every ep is at least good and the last three episodes are all top 30 eps for me, with the penultimate being top 10 and the final being top 3. I love the overarching themes about love and isolation which are my favorite themes in fiction, I love that they played around with the Senshi putting them in different pairs then usual and seeing what happened. And the last ep means so much to me as it expresses the Anime's theme in a way that clicked with me better then anything else in the entire series. This arc really pushes back on the faults of the prior season, immediately showing that this is going to be avoid the childishness and random meanness of the last season, and while Stars has its own problems, it does stick to that. Also while again Stars does have its own problems... it's not really in this arc. This arc is the pinnacle of Toei Sailor Moon, and it's what I would want from this series.

The Iron Mouse Arc (173-181) really shows why Stars in particular is so polarizing for me. Stars to me has three parts. I do love the writing on the Inner Senshi this season a lot, it's maybe my favorite season for their characterization, and for the most part I also really love the writing on the Outer Senshi. This arc really shows both those. The Inner Senshi are a lot of fun this arc and yet also really supportive of each other. I love the gag in 181 where Minako tries and fails to invite one of the Starlights to an adult movie making Usagi all shocked and Makoto innocently say she'd go with Minako instead. I also really love the villains this season. Iron Mouse is a lot of fun and Galaxia makes for a really cool final villain for the series. With that said, I don't like the Starlights. I felt pretty neutral on them as a child and my opinion has only really soured with time. They're also at their absolute worst this arc, or at least Seiya and Taiki are. Seiya repeatedly ignores Usagi's boundaries in a way that's supposed to be funny, and I find super distasteful. Meanwhile Taiki is a cartoon caricature of cold "logic" that A: doesn't belong in this series and B: only ever causes problems. The rest of the arc is great, I love the Inners this season, Mamoru basically proposes to Usagi 173 in a scene that always makes me tear up, Iron Mouse is really funny like in 178 where she is super impatient during Usagi's pre-battle speech and is mad she's not listening to her before just leaving. It's just that the Starlights are such a large part of this arc and season and I don't like them.

The Aluminum Seiren Arc (182-188) I think is a step up from the Iron Mouse Arc. Seiren and Lead Crow are both good villains, probably on par with Iron Mouse and they have a fun dynamic where Lead Crow thinks they're rivals but Aluminem Seiren is too spacy to notice, with Crow doing all her work for her. Chibi-Chibi is also a nice addition, being sweet and fun. 182, 184, and 186 (The Moon and Pluto vs Seiren and Lead Crow ep, the ep where everyone crashes at Usagi's house, and the ep they follow Chibi-Chibi around) are all fun episodes with the middle being on my top 10 list. The other 4 are mostly kinda middle of the road eps. The Starlights temper down a lot and I dislike them a lot less, however they also get even more screentime relatively speaking meaning we get less fun stuff from the Sol Senshi. Things like the ep with the Monster Movie or the Sports Ep are things I found entertaining enough as a child but now as an adult who's seen a million things like that I just feel kinda numb to them. 

The Tin Nyanko Arc (189-194) I feel pretty similarly about. I don't like Tin Nyanko as much as Alumium Seiren and she doesn't have nearly as a fun as dynamic with her as Seiren didn't but for the most part the eps are kinda middle of the road, mostly cause of how much they focus on the Starlights. I will say once again I love the Guardian Senshi this arc and how much faith they constantly show in Usagi and her ideals. Episode 194 is definitely my favorite episode of this arc and has a lot of great stuff from the Inners like Minako accidentally suspecting Tin Nyanko in disguise exactly right several times, or Rei running across the city in a cartoon dust cloud to get to Usagi when Usagi blows the danger whistle. That episode is also good thematically, as it starts showing how Usagi has tried to take all the burden on herself which obviously mirrors Toei Galaxia. 

The Stars Finale (195-200) is interesting to talk about. Because I think it has really great plot and themes but is let down by the pacing. This is 3 amazing episodes stretched into like 6 episodes. I can tell how there's a lot of great scenes in the Stars finale and there are from the contrast of the Inners and Outers pre-battle talk before going to face Galaxia, Uranus and Neptune's death mirror their hands scene from 110 an a ton of stuff from 200 which is great thematic stuff and very emotionally resonating. On the hand the Uranus and Neptune false betrayal goes on for an entire episode and almost nothing happens in 199. Episode 200 is still wonderful and top 10 episodes for me, but still.

Going into a more general overarching analysis Toei Sailor Moon is a series that I think has a lot of highs an a lot of lows. If you're someone like me you'll probably find the repetitive slice of life angle to be a bit tedious though the emotional and atmospheric richness of the good episodes to more then make up for it. You'll also probably find at least a few things that bother you about it, as it is a long series and by this point 30-35 years old, but if you don't find at least a few things in it emotionally stirring I have to imagine you have a heart of stone. 

From the way I describe it, you may be wondering if there is any consistent across the entire series outside a few specific characters. If we're talking about literally all 200 episodes then probably not, including things like the clipshow episode, the only thing consistent thing is Usagi Tsukino herself. That said if we're talking about in terms of vast majority of the episodes then there are some things I think are very distinctively the 90s anime.

Sailor Moon is an adolescent fantasy, a fantasy for the younger girls about what being older would be like, for teen girls to imagine actually being the girl they would want to be. It is a fantasy of being able to transform into an idealized feminine figure who is beautiful and strong, who has intense and world changing romances, a community of friends and companions all distinctly awesome in their own way, of one's responsibilities mattering to the cosmic extent and being able to achieve them. How one relates to this series can sometimes be a picture of how one relates to that time in their life. In my own life, my teenage years brought me a series of physical and emotional challenges that were relatively harder then any other period and I had to rise to meet them. It was a bitter pleasure and in some ways I think that is what I see reflected in Toei Sailor Moon most. I see all the challenges and emotions I had growing up, I remember both the pains and unfairness and I see the ways and emotional catharsis of having overcome them.

Toei Sailor Moon is by far the most popular Magical Girl series to ever be made and I don't think it's even really close. I see a lot of similarities in the success of Toei Sailor Moon and the success of something like Spider-Man. Spider-Man took the superhero fantasy of being a nigh-perfect masculine ideal of the superhero and asked "what if the superhero was just a normal teen?" Sailor Moon took the Magical Girl fantasy of being something like what society wants girls to be and asked "What if the Magical Girl was just a normal teen?" Both series emphasize to a large part a civilian cast, are criticized for being hard on their protagonist (Spider-Man much more so admittingly), and one of the most centers of appeal it seems to me is just the idea of "what if you were the hero?"

I hope it's clear that I really do care about this series and this franchise. I both love and hate Toei Sailor Moon depending on when in the series it is, but more then anything I care about it. It is a series that pulls a lot of emotions from me. If I have to explain why and why it does to so many people, it is the first series I was able to see myself in, see both who I was and wanted to be. The things about it that hurt, hurt because it feels like it's targeting me, and the things that are beautiful feel like it's reflecting part of my personal story. 

Similarly on a meta level Toei Sailor Moon was the first series to show me what I wanted out of fiction as I felt both the things I liked and didn't like in its vast expansive. It is a series of paradoxes that form a single complex expanse that is like the Moon that has many faces, some of which will feel warm and touching, some of which will feel cold and distant. Because ultimately even for its genre or the other versions of the same story, Toei Sailor Moon is a series about the Human Heart in all its complexities which can be joyful, painful, or peaceful, but I will always find it beautiful.