Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 5 Review

 

Act 5 begins with a dream sequence of Usagi in an elegant dress wandering through an obscuring fog hearing a voice calling out to her. Mamoru's silhoutte is seen in the distance in the fog, a visual representation of wispy memories at the edge of her mind calling out to her. What I find interesting about this sequence won't be revealed for a bit, so I'll come back to it in a future blog. 

Usagi awakens and takes Luna with her to school, the two chatting providing an excuse for some catch-up info for the audience, most notably that Luna doesn't trust Tuxedo Kamen but Usagi feels strange warm feelings whenever he's around. 

Usagi's so distracted she doesn't notice a fast car about to run her over. She is saved at the last moment by a new character who casually picks her up and brings her to safety

This is Makoto from the end of the last chapter, and Usagi's first comment on her is that her rose earrings smell beautiful. Both with the concept of flower earrings and a beautiful smell this is an emphasis on femininity. While others from afar think Makoto is one way from her super strength, Usagi from up close sees she's a sweet and feminine girl. 

Later Usagi and her civilian girl friends are talking about Naru's cousin's wedding. While everyone's excited at first, Naru says that her cousin's fiance has gone missing. After expressing their sympathy, the girls all return to their excitement expressing their mutual desire to be a bride

pretty clearly setting up the supernatural mystery of the act.

Makoto re-enters the story, passing Usagi's friends in the hall, commenting on her being really tall and super strong. A rather mean teacher tries to complain to Makoto (who towers over him comically) about Makoto's uniform and hair but Makoto innocently responds that her uniform didn't fit her, and that her hair is naturally like that. Umino pops up again and proclaims that there's a rumor Makoto was kicked out of her old school for fighting. Once again we see the common motif; people presume things about Makoto due to her abilities and the way she's different, when that's not her true character.

Lunchtime comes and Usagi spies in the distance Makoto sitting alone under a tree, eating her lunch and slowly approaches, declaring that Makoto's lunch looks delicious and that both it and her lunchbag look adorable, once again both alluded to and being symbolic of Makoto's feminine talents and personality. A baseball almost hits Usagi but Makoto notices it in time and catches, angrily throwing it into the horizon, saving her once again.

Makoto notices Usagi starily like a hungry dog at her lunch and offers her some, causing Usagi to cutely say "she's a light eater." She lied as naturally as she breathed.

As they eat Makoto says she doesn't know why everyone is scared of her and won't talk to her, and also mentions that, being new in town and living alone, she doesn't know where the stores or arcades are. Usagi, hearing the Siren call of the arcade brings Makoto to the arcade. 

At the arcade Ami and Motoki meet Makoto, and both Usagi and more impressively Ami comment on how good Makoto is at the Sailor V game, which is pretty impressive when you remember going all supergenius on the game earlier. There's also a pretty cute line where Motoki comments on how it seems like all of Usagi's friends are all sexy girls

Usagi gives Makoto a cutesy nickname as she is wont to do, causing Ami to exasperatedly comment that Usagi is socially unintimidated and Luna commenting she even made friends with that Tuxedo Kamen guy. I think this part's really cute.

The girls start talking about the bridal shop they were talking about with a strange looking mannequin on the balcony...totally not the enemy. Makoto comments to herself that she wishes she was a bride, before blushing at the thought. 

In a rather odd connecting bit two passerbys mention that the Bridal Shop is haunted, that the mannequion is actually a ghost, cursing women who shop there with misfortune and seducing men that happen to be around. You'd think that would come up in reviews, though being the 1990s I guess nobody noticed.

Usagi, Ami, and Makoto go over to Rei's where her grandfather appears, tells them they're hot and offers them a job here, though only Usagi falls for this blatant buttering up. Ami shows her supergenius intellect by saying that Naru's cousin's fiance who went to the cursed wedding shop where the ghost bride takes men...might have been taken by the ghost bride. Absolute genius at work. Rei then expresses that if a man lets himself gets seduced it's his fault, and that she doesn't trust men

It both amuses and annoys me how people take Rei's early misandry as a progressive statement. As you can tell by Usagi's embarrased expression Rei's misandry is meant to be seen in a negative light, as an early character flaw she will improve on. It's got a realistic basis that will be revealed in a side story, and it's part of her general arc.

Makoto gets going home, when Rei gets a far gaze and suggests that the day is coming fast when the Sailor Senshi assemble, suggesting she intuits Makoto's nature as a Sailor Senshi with her sixth sense. What follows is a cool but mildly confusing sequence.

We see the ghost bride brainwash Motoki, demanding his "energy." Motoki brainwashed goes to Makoto at a vending machine and declare his love for her, trying to brainwash her. So far, so good. It's a dreamlike yet dreamlike sequence with clear immediate stakes while remaining atmospheric. Mamoru sees this in a position of stealth and leaves. It cuts to Usagi's house where Tuxedo Kamen appears at her window. Once again, pretty cool, it's a dramatic image, and with Usagi wondering if she's dreaming, you can draw parallels to the first act. But then Usagi follows Mamoru on foot to where Makoto is in danger without transforming, to reach Motoki and Makoto STILL in the same position.

Are we to believe that Makoto and Motoki have just been standing there for minutes on end? I could understand if it was the characters' super speed, but Usagi explictly has not transformed yet. The timing of this scene confuses me.

So then Usagi goes to stop the Ghost Bride, and of course who would she transform to face a ghost bride, but turning into a male groom. And I gotta admit, Usagi as a guy...is pretty cute

I get why Crystal adapted this part out because it's so random and brief, doesn't contribute to anything, and Crystal generally cuts down on the more humorous parts of the manga. With that said this part is great. Also just as a side note Usagi's line here is aggressive and a little edgy for Usagi....I wonder if changing into a male she's trying to act stereotypically masculine. 

Sailor Moon transforms as Sailor Mercury and Sailor Mars show up, the three of them giving their pre-battle speeches. Makoto realizing she's been tricked, gets angry and just picks up and throws the ghost bride away destroying it. Luna gives her the Jupiter pen and she transforms to Sailor Jupiter. Even for this manga, this is an extremely quick sequence.

Nephrite shows up, declaring the Ghost Bride was only his shadow, which I guess regenerated after it was destroyed last act? Sailor Jupiter shows that she has TWO magic techniques, first creating a storm of flowers, blinding Nephrite. She then, and I think this is really interesting, begins invoking Jupiter itself, the planet, to call down a storm before using her second magic lightning technique to summon a lightbolt down and destroy Nephrite with one strike. Once again, this happens in less then 2 pages. 

Zoisite is distraught over the death of Nephrite, and Kunzite warns him that if he doesn't want to end up like Nephrite, he's gonna have to use his head. Once again, the villains do care about each other even though they are villainous. 

Meanwhile Luna sees Tuxedo Kamen and wonders at his motives, as he led Usagi here to save Makoto, even as he admitted last act that he may be their enemy. It goes unappreciated now, but I really like how Naoko creates mystery around Tuxedo Kamen and his motives. 

Makoto gives the real reason she changed schools, admitting that there was a senpai she was in love with but who broke her heart who looked like Motoki, which is why she wanted to believe he loved her. It was too painful to see him everyday at school so she left her school, but even more then that she says she felt the wind itself calling to her, bringing her there. 

Makoto's backstory is fairly simple but it does the job correctly of making her seem sweet, romantic, kind of woobie-ish, as well as showing she has signifigant agency as well as tying into the events. 

The Senshi greet Sailor Jupiter as one of their own when Luna suddenly brings out some kind of magical item saying to Sailor Moon that now that the four Senshi are assembled, that she is now their leader and they must find the princess and the Silver Crystal. Once again I really don't understand what makes Sailor Moon the leader in this situation.

And that's the end of the act! I don't like this act quite as much as Mercury or Mars' introduction acts, but it's a notable improvement over the last act. The biggest trouble with it is that the climax is, even for this manga, really quick. I think part of that was that the Act was trying to do 2 things primarily, and then tried to do 2 more things on top of that; introduce Makoto, the Ghost Bride plot, the defeat of Nephrite, and Usagi being made the leader. I get Naoko was probably running out of page space, but I think it would have made more sense to have the Makoto/Ghost Bride stuff be one chapter, then have another chaptere where Luna makes Usagi the leader, and she has to lead them in the fight against Nephrite. That way you have several more pages to play with explaining Makoto's backstory and elaborating on the Ghost Bride fight, and then you could show why Usagi should be the letter and give a fitting end to Nephrite. Plus it would give Nephrite the same 3-act structure as Jadeite. As it stands, it feels rushed.

With that said, taking it for what it is I do quite like this act, mostly for Makoto's introduction. Makoto is my favorite of the guardian senshi. Ami, Rei, and Minako are all comparatively complex characters with internal struggle and difficulty reconciling their emotions and their actions. Makoto by contrast is delightfully simple. She is a sweet loving person misunderstood by others, and loves her silly little princess who saw the best in her. Plus regardless of the canon, Makoto is just always doing cool stuff. Even in her act she saves Usagi twice before even transforming. My one grievance, and it's worse in other canons, but sometimes Makoto is beaten specifically by an enemy to show just how strong they are, the infamous "worf effect."

Outside the ghost bride plot was...it felt a little lacking in scope. Next act brings back the sense of scope dramatically but compared to Jadeite's plots, Nephrite's feels less ambitious. This is perhaps more fitting to his more short-sighted temperment, but it does lead to his plans having less of that Sailor Moon-type feeling of grandiosity.