Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 17 Review

 

Act 17 begins with Usagi crying into her bed about Rei and Ami's capture. Luna-P suddenly enters to try and console her over her crying but, on-edge, Usagi yells and prepares to throw a pillow at the talking robot that entered her bedroom.

Because a pillow is definitely going to hurt an advanced robot. 

Chibiusa comes to Luna-P's defense and offers Usagi Tuxedo Puppet. Usagi asks where she got it and Chibiusa confirms it was from Mamoru making go into a somewhat jealous anger of her getting close to Mamoru. I'm a bit mixed on this scene overall. Usagi's despair over her friends is very sympathetic. You can easily tell how much it's hurting her inside that she wasn't able to save them. The humanization of Chibiusa and Luna-P here is also good. Chibiusa comes across her as incredibly sweet, trying to help Usagi even when Usagi has been suspicious of her from the beginning.

What I don't like as much is the start of the jealousy sub-plot. During this arc, Usagi is going to be jealous of the attention Mamoru gives Chibiusa which will tie significantly into the themes. There are ways for this to make sense and be presented well but this is the first time it's presented and...it's over nothing. It's over Mamoru giving Chibiusa a puppet. I get it's supposed to be a joke but it's pretty weird to introduce a serious thematic point with a joke in the middle of a serious scene. Usagi at this point is supposed to be bawling her eyes out at her two dear friends have been abducted and she takes the time to get comically jealous because Mamoru gave Chibiusa a puppet? They're going to have comedic antics in literally 2 pages, this feels unnecessary. 

Chibiusa confirms to Usagi she thought Tuxedo Puppet might cheer her up, surprising Usagi. We don't see Usagi's reply but later Usagi goes and meets Mamoru at the arcade.

Chibiusa is so sweet. She really is her mother's daughter.

Usagi finds out Chibiusa followed her to the game arcade which leads to antics. Usagi tries to get a Sailor V doll from the crane game only for Chibiusa to comically comment that Usagi sucks at this game. Chibiusa then starts cartoonishly winning all the games in the arcade including gets tons of candy from the crane game and, much more notably, getting the new high score on the Sailor V game.

If you recall your Sailor V lore, the Sailor V game was made to train the Senshi in how to be Sailor Senshi. Getting that high speaks to Chibiusa's insane potential. It's also the secret entrance to their base.  Minako also once again is alerted to someone playing the Sailor V game, similar to the first arc. 

Mamoru tells Chibiusa it's time to return home and picks her up to do so, saying she's cute in her new uniform. Chibiusa blushes at the compliment and as she returns home she watches Ikuko and Kenji in their mundane domestic married life. This is foreshadowing the Electra Complex theme that's going to be happening in this arc. Just to be clear: Chibiusa is not actually attracted to her father. However it's a common confusion among children to not know the difference between different types of "love." Chibiusa is idolizing the romantic love relationship but as a young child mentally doesn't know yet how it works. 

Meanwhile at the base Luna and Artemis are concerned at how close Chibiusa got to finding the secret base. Usagi apologizes for accidentally bringing Chibiusa there but Luna reminds Usagi that Chibiusa tried to cheer her up and she should be happy for that.

Which is sweet, but also kind of a non-sequitur thing to say. 

They've gotten no responses on Mars or Mercurys' communication devices and are understandably worried. Jupiter and Venus goes over what they know, suggesting it's likely that the "rabbit" Berther mentioned the Black Moon chasing must be Chibiusa, and that while they don't know anything about Chibiusa she seems to be allied to them given...everything about her.

The meeting is cut short by foreshadowing as Makoto demonstrates some signs of sickness, though no one thinks much of it. The news reports that along with a sudden sickness sweeping around, that crop circles have been discovered. Mainstream news talking about crop circles might seem implausible but given the public very clearly knows about the Senshi and dowsing was on television yesterday, it seems fine to me.

We cut to Chibiusa traveling along who, upon feeling the rain, turns Luna-P into an umbrella causing a small gag where a young child tries to convince her mom that she saw that girl (Chibiusa) do magic.

As the storm begins, a memory flashes in Chibiusa's mind of a dark-skinned and dark-suited Sailor Senshi telling Chibiusa about the spell to transform Luna-P. Chibusa looks all dramatically at the key around her neck...or as dramatically as a young child CAN look...when Mamoru shows up and moves to bring her out of the storm. 

However upon touching her hand, Mamoru gets another memory flash of a city being enveloped in an explosion and Chibiusa crying out for her mother. Chibiusa teary grabs onto Mamoru who protectively holds her...he asks if it's from the lightning, though I think it's really from the memory they both saw and Mamoru doesn't want to make Chibiusa explain it or confront her about it right now.

This act does a really good job making you feel for Chibiusa; how scared and alone she must be, and how she's being brave and sweet despite that. 

Far off on Nemesis, Demande looks at the bodies of Mercury and Mars in stasis suggesting to Wiseman that they are unaging like "the queen", due to power of the Silver Crystal. Demande speaks of the Silver Crystal that "promises eternity" and how he can't wait to smash it to pieces in front of "her" so as to see the look on her face. I think this is a really good line, as it shows both Demande's sadistic immature nature, and also how he speaks sinisterly about the Silver Crystal, anthromorphizing it as "promising eternity" as though it manipulates people. 

Wiseman cautions Demande to bide his time and Saphir adds that Demande's haste is causing their side causalities referring to Koan and Berthier, that they should be moving more cautiously, less impulsively. Demande takes advice of the two smartest people under his command, probably the two smartest beings in the universe, and very carefully considers the implications before rationally and wisely agreeing to invade more tactically cautiously. And by that I mean he threatens to kill Saphir again, slightly wounding him to show he means business.

How sad is it that Demande did nothing to Wiseman but he didn't hesitate before threatening to kill his own brother?

Rubeus and the third Ayakashi Sister Petz both appear and tell Demande exactly what he wants to here. Rubeus says he's the prince, he should do what he wants and Petz says there's no need to be cautious, that she will soon avenge Koan and Bethier. And for some reason Petz keeps up the chess material. Demande tells them to leave as he wishes to be alone and brings up a hologram of the queen, revealing she's actually Usagi but older! Insert dramatic music.

This is a pretty obvious "twist" if you're a thinking adult, though Demande does add to it by creepily saying soon he'll have everything he wants in his grasp indicating to the queen.

Meanwhile Chibiusa asked Mamoru to fix Luna-P for her which....I guess he can just do? He comedically questions how he's supposed to just fix it. Usagi gets jealous again about how everyone is constantly going "Chibiusa this" and "Chibiusa that" and how Usagi's still not even sure she's not an enemy. Her tone is more playful here, and I think this would have been a much better place to start the subplot of Usagi's jealousy, as it's a more reasonable thing to feel jealous of and it's clearly not that serious for her at this point. Mamoru tells Usagi of the visions he gets when he touches Chibiusa, how he can feel she depends on him and isn't an enemy. 

Asanuma overhears his senpai on a date with his girlfriend but realizes something weird is going on with them as they talk about enemies and people being taken. Meanwhile Luna touches the crescent on Luna-P which causes it emit some kind of gas and also somehow spring to life again.

Back with Makoto, she's suffering from the mass sickness, which gets so intense she starts passing out. Motoki and Unazuki take her to the pharmacist who confirms it's a particularly virulent strain. When Makoto doesn't react at all to the attractive male pharmacist Unazuki knows something si wrong given Makoto's boy-craziness, which is an amusing gag.

Asanuma offers to take her Makoto home, but when he touches her he gets a static shock. Makoto, delirious from sickness casually comments "oh yeah I can control lightning and thunder with my magic." Back at Makoto's place, Asanuma is amazed at all her beautiful plants and the tea she makes him as Makoto tries to flirt with him which is pretty cute. The news starts talking about the strange storm that hit, and about the crop circles everywhere and Asanuma confronts Makoto about all the strange stuff he's been seeing going on. 

Makoto ends up telling him everything, how he reminds her of the friend she had before she moved to Azabu-Juuban, how she and Mamoru are a part of a group protecting humanity with supernatural powers, how they are striving to retrieve Ami and Rei who are part of their group. She says her friends are the most important thing in her life and she knows someday Asanuma will find friends or a lover he cares about that much.

Asanuma tells Makoto she is so strong and commends her for her strength of character, saying he wish that he could help her. This is especially sweet because it's Makoto's strength and size that led to people saying nasty rumors about her. But it's that very strength Asanuma praises. Makoto gives him a gentle kiss.

It's honestly a really touching scene, and I really like what it potentially set-up. Unfortunately Asanuma will only make brief appearances, but I like to think he's the one that Makoto eventually ended up with.

After Asanuma leaves, Makoto passes out from her sickness and the storm kicks into fall gear, knocking out the power. People all across the city start passing out from illness when a UFO shows up leaving behind Petz and her droid minions. Petz confirms that the virus is from the UFO and the storm seems to be from her.

Petz sounds out her droids to "replace" all the ill humans infiltrating society which you know, gets pretty dark if you think about it considering most of them probably weren't stopped... one of them changes into Makoto and grabs her by the throat. This Makoto has been fainting and delirious from sickness....

 

BUT SHE JUST THROWS IT OFF ANYWAY BEFORE, TRANSFORMING, PICKING THE ROBOT OVER HER HEAD AND DESTROYING IT WITH A TOSS

Makoto is my favorite of the guardian senshi. In every single canon she constantly does stuff like this, it's great!

Petz describes Makoto as the girl who no one would miss if she died, which sounds very cruel but she does remind the reader immediately "these people killed my sisters" so fair enough. Unfortunately the chapter ends pretty anti-climactically, with Jupiter and Petz both creating winds and then charging each other in giant lightning balls where Jupiter gets overwhelmed. Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus manage to escape the Droids and Sailor Moon kills Petz, but once again Rubeus shows up and abducts Makoto. Just like Rei. Just like Ami. It's gone from an exciting surprise to a disappointing surprise to just disappointing.

And that ends the act. I don't know if this came through in reading this review but this act flits around from scene to scene very quickly. This act is difficult to place relative to other acts as a result of that because it has some parts that I think are really good. 

I really like the scene with Makoto and Asanuma, that was very sweet. I really liked Chibiusa trying to cheer up Usagi. I thought the gags like Chibiusa winning all the arcade games were funny outside the one poorly placed one, I thought Demande's scene was another scene that demonstrated his character very clearly, and most of all a sick to the point of passing out Makoto overpowered the sci-fi robot infiltrates sent to assassinate her! I thought that was really cool. If I can say good things about this chapter it's that I feel the heroic characters are depicted very well as heroic. Mamoru is depicted as a very fatherly type character to Chibiusa, Chibiusa acts like an immature but sweet young girl. Makoto is just the coolest. And Asanuma is a supportive loving boy that is good husbando material for Makoto. Likewise the villains are depicted as suitably villainous. Koan is the most evil of the Ayakashi, but Petz and her plan is underratedly second using biological weaponry across the populace and having droids kill and replace them. Likewise Demande's impulsive creepy-obsessive type evil is I think done pretty well.

On the other hand, there were also snippets of it that felt like unnecessary repetition. We didn't need the earlier gag of Usagi being jealous of Chibiusa when the arcade scene was a few pages later. We didn't really need another scene establishing that Demande is an impulsive leader and abusive brother. More than that, the main plot with Petz while more comprehensible than Berthier's plan last act was also not very excited or tied into Makoto. Storms are but the story was barely an element this act compared to the sickness and the crop circles, though the subtle Makoto plant theme  connecting with the crop circles was good. Petz is also the most boring Ayakashi in the manga. Both she and Calaveras next chapter will give a similar motivation but Calaveras at least has a little more personality. Petz is supposed to be kind of haughty I think by her words but she doesn't really show it in her actions. Beyond that it's pacing is pretty jarring just snapping from scene to scene at speeds fast even for SM, which I don't know why it's a common trait in Jupiter chapters. The build-up of Usagi's despair is also done way better in Stars where it's unexpected, constantly keeps you on guard and her despair feels more evocative of the themes of the arc. 

This is an act where I think there's plenty of good characterization bits even if the central plot of the act is both completely expected and not very cohesive. If Naoko wanted to keep the slow build up of the sickness idea so that the audience realizes with the characters the sickness is unnatural, it probably would have been better in my view to have some of the events of the first three acts reshuffled around, especially with this act so the scenes could last longer and the sickness could be foreshadowed as Act 15 as part of a separate Black Moon Clan plot. I do like this act regardless due to the characterization bits. I like it more than Act 16, I'm not sure atm if I like it more than Act 15 but the two are relative.