Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 40 Review

 

After a couple of splash pages reminding the reader of the dreams of the Guardian Senshi, the arc resumes. Mamoru's narration comes up as he comments he can't breathe, as though something is blocking his chest, with the visual of a black flower being shown. I think it's a pretty spooky and evocative visual.

Mamoru wakes up and in confusion sees Usagi looking like a child, while Chibiusa looks like a young woman, both happy for him to be awake and alive. In one of my favorite gags in the entire series, the Guardian Senshi burst in having heard what happened, and see Chibiusa in her older state, in fear proclaiming it's Black Lady. 

I love continuity gags like that and Chibiusa's reaction is also really funny. Even Usagi pulls away as though she's completely forgotten what's going on and thinks Chibiusa is Black Lady.

Usagi and Chibiusa explain the situation to the others, how when they returned to their civilian forms, they ended up like this, and Luna suggests that it was the work of the enemy. This prompts Usagi and Chibiusa to mention the part with the tiger, which I guess they just didn't mention before?  Ami analyzes them, and Usagi comments that it doesn't seem like they are any different on the inside, just their outside appearances have changed. If you wanted to really stretch you could argue this has to deal with the themes of maturity; that we feel like the same person as we age, despite thinking we would feel different, but I feel like that's a stretch.

Ami asks her mother to look at them, as it was previously established in the first arc and Ami's side story that her mom a doctor, and for the first time in the series Mrs. Mizuno appears, causing all the other characters to get shocked at how beautiful she is. I don't know what Ami told her mom was wrong but she says that Usagi and Chibiusa seem fine

We cut to Mamoru where a doctor is telling him he has a shadow over his lungs, unlike anything he's ever seen. Mamoru completely lies to Usagi and Chibiusa telling them it was nothing serious. I feel like this was maybe the wrong step. Not morally speaking, that much is clear, but narratively speaking. I get Mamoru is trying to be brave and not burden them when they have bigger concerns, but if they try to rely on him and he suddenly collapses again, it could cause serious problems. This doesn't make Mamoru look like the stubborn but noble man Naoko was probably intending, but short-sighted. 

Mamoru in a paternal sort of way off-handedly compliments Chibiusa's appearance, who blushes as a result. Chibiusa says she's going to go home and use a magic trick on Ikuko and Kenji since they obviously can't go home without causing questions. The others comment on how self-reliant Chibiusa has become. I get both of these scenes are meant to show the maturation of Chibiusa, but it feels pretty soon in the arc for it and more so comes across as the magic turning of Chibiusa mature "makes" her mature.

Ikuko gets a comical confused look on her face at grown-up Chibiusa but she throws Luna-P at her and she's brainwashed into just accepting Chibiusa as Usagi. Ah, comical casual brainwashing, that's our Chibiusa. Chibiusa mentions feeling guilty for what she's done, but then thinks back to Mamoru complimenting her, and blushes.

The Crystal Carillion chimes again and Helios appears. Helios exclaims she's grown up, she really is the young maiden he's been searching for! This is both comical and thematic, as Helios just assumes she is how she appears. It's comical because of how he just assumes she just aged numerous years in a day, and thematic from how Chibiusa protests that this isn't the real her, reflecting her inner insecurity at not being the young maiden he wants. 

Helios says at the moment he doesn't have his sensory powers, but this transformation's dark magic could only be the work of their enemy. I don't know if it's intentional but I find it's an unintentional parallel with the first chapter, where Usagi has to uncover the bandage on Luna's forehead which freed her locator abilities. Chibiusa asks Helios who he really is. He begins to tell her, before saying it's too soon and just pleading with her to believe in him and give him her power.

A cage appears around Helios' form as he begins to fade back into dreams. Helios tells Chibiusa that she is the one holding the key to free him, a young maiden with beautiful dreams, protected by the light of the Moon. A princess soldier, one who can break the seal on the Golden Crystal. Chibiusa wonders if it could really be her that can save him, before running back off to Usagi and Mamoru.

Chibiusa's struggle here I believe is very evocative and relatable. Chibiusa is here the young girl in her mother's oversized clothing and poorly applied make-up. She is a little girl thrust into a duty and an adult world she is not prepared for, unsure of whether she can really fulfill the role equivalent to her exceptional mother. All of us must struggle to live up to the virtues of our parents, in our own ways. But what Helios looks for are terms that could be applied to both herself and her mother, making Chibiusa wonder if the one he really wants is her mother. This is where the pseudo-Electra complex comes from. It's because she is being described with words that are usually only given to Usagi. It's that she admired Usagi's beauty last chapter, and now these terms are applied to her.

Back with Usagi and Mamoru, Usagi is trying to be a supportive girlfriend, asking Mamoru if there's anything he needs as he is resting, despite her child-like appearance. Usagi notes that for the first time in a while, the two of them are alone and attempts to flirtatiously come on to Mamoru, though given her looking like a child, Mamoru obviously can't get into the atmosphere, telling her she looks like Chibiusa. Usagi settles for cuddling up to him.

Usagi emotionally vents to Mamoru about Chibiusa, but Mamoru defends her, talking about her bravery in the face of the loneliness she must be facing. Usagi promises to protect Chibiusa, looking rather comical as she does so due to her tiny stature. Mamoru comments to Usagi that he feels like he's only holding her back as he only has a fraction of her power, most likely referencing her Super upgrade. Isn't this just a repetition of the theme in the second arc?

Mamoru falls asleep in front of Usagi, showing his vulnerability physically now alongside emotionally. Little Usagi comments that she feels like she's causing Mamoru pain, dragging him into things. She feels drawn towards him but wonders if it's wrong for her to bring him along. It's a classic superhero's romance dilemma...except Mamoru also has powers. Usagi tells Mamoru's sleeping form her dream though is to always be with him and plants a gentle kiss upon his face, before snuggling up to him. 

Meanwhile, big Chibiusa is swinging on a swing, feeling sorry for herself that Mamoru and Usagi have each other, and she doesn't have a love. Diana and Luna-P come up to her, trying to console her. Diana says with tears in her eyes that she's become so beautiful, that if the king and the queen were here, they'd be bursting with pride. Chibiusa looks up at the moon and says her dream is to become an amazing lady someday, and then she'll find a prince of her own.

This part I think is really well done here, contrasting Usagi's maturity and Chibiusa's immaturity. Usagi wonders at whether she should be with her love or if she will cause him pain, a mature painful adult feeling to have, putting someone ahead of oneself. Chibiusa in contrast here represents the perhaps slightly selfish but also important developmental desire of a child to grow up and get what an adult has; to become big and capable and to develop a relationship of her own. With Chibiusa abandoning the false childish pursuit of her father, towards an actual love interest, this part represents the blossoming desire in the child not to remain the beloved doted-on child, but to start a family of her own and take on the responsibilities of adult life. I also think the other elements are funny and cute. The way Chibiusa self-assuredly corrects Diana that she is just "Lady" now, or Diana's proud emotional reaction, or how atmospheric the adult-bodied Chibiusa on a swing set looking up at the moon is. Naoko loves putting striking imagery in her artwork, and sometimes that's not over the top, dark, or sexual images. Sometimes it's just images that reflect a particular atmosphere.

There's a brief interlude between the two halves of the act where Helios comes out from the mirror in Mamoru's bedroom asking the sleeping prince to forgive him for being unable to protect Mamoru or Elysian and asking the prince to please help him find the Golden Crystal, causing Mamoru to jolt from his sleep.

We cut to Ami, hard at work on her computer late at night. She's analyzing the aura around the Juuban shopping center, deducing it's a barrier set up by the Dead Moon Circus. Ami has a memory of Setsuna speaking to her, telling her to be confident in herself and to have calm judgment, as she is the "brain" they all rely on. Ami comments to herself that Setsuna always seemed to have all the answers, but she's not here, so they can't rely on her.

This is going to be a recurring motif for the first half of the Dream Arc, the Guardians comparing themselves to the Outers, the Outers being viewed as these idolized figures, to set up for the Guardians' development. However, as will be seen it's not so much that the Outers were right and they just needed to be like them. It's that the Guardians have false impressions born of their own insecurities about what their duties as Sailor Senshi are. Ami is attempting to become like Setsuna by taking on all the responsibility, of isolating herself in a sense. But one of the major themes of Sailor Moon as a whole is the pain of isolation, something Setsuna had to bear at the spacetime door.

Ami feels within herself a new flow of water, a new power being born, but can't tell what it is. This contemplation is cut short by Ami's mother getting home, surprised Ami is still up at 1:00. She apologizes for being home late, asking if Ami already ate but Ami, being the dutiful daughter she is, just smiles and says that she threw something together. Mrs. Mizuno comments that Ami is such a responsible, independent girl, and guiltily says she's a bad mother, devoting her life to helping strangers instead of her own daughter and that she "made so many mistakes." Ami knows what that means and internally thinks of her father, a Japanese watercolor artist who just abandoned them one day to go live in his studio in the forest, only sending back postcards on Ami's birthday. He says Ami works too hard.

This is one of the most real moments in Sailor Moon. The pained look on Ami's face as she looks at a card she got from her father, as though that could ever possibly be enough to fill the hole in her heart. And of course, diligent studious Ami doesn't say a single bad word about him, because of course she wouldn't. Ami says that her parents didn't match at all, and it's painfully evident. Ami's mother is a hard-working woman in the STEM field, representing the rational diligent side of the mind. Her father represents the flighty artistic side of the brain and the sort of irresponsible type of person that would tell people not to work too hard and just abandon his family. With the abandonment of her father, Ami has clung to her mother, becoming like her and making it her dream to follow in her footsteps. It shows so painfully where a girl like Ami comes from. It's a lesson I feel like people would do well to learn, which is not to judge purely on material conditions. Ami's probably the richest girl in her town, and she would definitely give it all up to have her father back. 

Back with the villains, Zirconia is speaking to the mirror again. Nehelenia in the mirror tells Zirconia that now that they know the members of the White Moon Kingdom have been reincarnated, that they cannot be ignored which Zirconia agrees with. Zirconia goes over to start ranting at the Quartet that it was the power of the White Moon that destroyed the Lemure, and how in ancient times they drew from the power of the Silver Crystal to destroy their family, the Dead Moon, basically being a supernaturally expanded version of the "old person yelling at young people about how hard things were back in her day" trope. Zirconia demands they feed them to the nightmares and the first of the Amazon Trio, Fish Eye, submerged in water and floating on a ball tells her to leave it to him.

Fisheye uses his mirror to spy on the Sailor Senshi, asking it to show him one of the Moon Kingdom. Naturally it shows him Ami, which excites him given they are both hydrokinetics. I do like how the design on Zirconia's cloak forms to look like the evil face of a wicked queen, aka Nehelenia, alluding to their connection. 

Meanwhile Usagi and Chibiusa call up Ami proclaiming in tears they didn't turn back when they went to sleep last night. Ami questions why they thought that would work, mentioning that thinking like this is thinking like a dream.

This is funny but also connects to the central theme of the act, and really the arc as a whole. Usagi and Chibiusa think in a childish dreamlike manner which usually works this arc, but it happens to not work here. Meanwhile Ami is a rationalist. She was forced by the abandonment of her father and stressful work life of her mother to grow up fast, be responsible and abandon fanciful thinking, which is what the conflict of the act is. Her rationalist thinking, while correct in this instance, is actually going to cause her trouble trying to conflict with the Dead Moon Circus, whose powers and themes run on dreamlike logic.

Ami goes to investigate the Dead Moon Circus on her own, to see what information she can find, trying to be all responsible, and possibly feeling inspired by the solo mission she did last arc. She comes across a fish shop where she finds a cool aquarium inside. Palla Palla, who Ami has not met before comes up to her telling her that when people long for the water, it's because they are under a lot of stress. She recommends a particular tropical fish to Ami, which Ami agrees to take, with Palla Palla giving a devilish grin as Ami leaves.

Later that night, Ami is looking at her fish, hoping her mom gets home since she hoped to show her the fish before falling asleep, which both literally and symbolically is really sad. The fish is supposed to represent an escape for Ami, yet she's distracted from her escape by the responsibility of her position. Ami awakens to find her mom engaged in a passionate kiss with a stranger, and then bad-mouth Ami, saying that her daughter is no concern, all she does is study. Things start to distort around Ami as she looks around, looking into a mirror to see she has become a young child again. She sees her papa who tells her he can't be weighed down someone who only studies all the time and leaves despite little Ami pleading with him to stay. Ami tries to be rational and tell herself this isn't right, she's never thought this way about her mama and papa.

This part is absolutely fantastic. It perfectly treads the balance of dreamlike and painful reality, symbolic yet potently directly emotional. It's the basic fear of a girl with separated girls; that her parents will give their love to someone else abandoning her or that she made her parent leave. Symbolically with the departure of Ami's father, the artist, the emotional side, Ami was left feeling all she had, all she was, was what her mother represented; the logical, the responsible, the hard-working. She constantly stresses studying to the others because as she showed with her memories of Pluto...she thinks she's just valued for her mind, for her responsible logical abilities, her intelligence, rather than her heart. Though she tries to be an adult, here in her dream that exposes the truth, she is reverted to a child representing her inner sensitivity, her feelings of helplessness. 

Ami sees in another mirror Usagi, Mamoru, and Chibiusa, all together and happy without her. The small Usagi says they don't need anyone else to be happy. Fisheye emerges from the fish Ami got, the thing she got to help her stress revealing that stress' origin. Fisheye clings to Ami, telling her to be honest, that she's jealous of them, right? 

Fisheye lulls Ami into a hypnotic sense, who says that she's always been lonely, wishing for someone to love her...anyone....before Ami snaps out of it declaring angrily it's a lie, it's not true, leaving it ambiguous how much of it was actually true. Ami's mother and the man she saw earlier distort into monstrous visages as the entire building's space distorts and she realizes she's lost in a maze of Lemure, in one of their demented nightmares.

Ami desperately calls on her communicator for help but before she can explain what's happening outside of the enemy is there, she starts getting sucked into a mirror. In a watery mind-space, Fish Eye speaks to Ami telling her it's the dead of night and no one will hear her scream, and that her Lemure have turned this place into a manor of nightmares. Ami feels sleepy and collapses with the wish that no one wake her up, referring to her desire to be free of her responsibility.

This is an area Naoko's particular writing style and the atmosphere of the Dream Arc come into alignment. The strange and surreal atmosphere she's been cultivating allows her to create a strange space like this where the characters' feelings can be made literal, where the space, like water or a funhouse mirror, reflects an imperfect version of reality useful for directing the gaze elsewhere. 

In Ami's mind, however, someone calls for her, and she sees a small part of herself as a Sailor Senshi, who tells Ami that she is a part of her. To me, this immediately connects back to last arc when Hotaru wondered why she kept going on when she felt she had nothing left, but she felt a "greater her" deep within her pushing her on. The small Ami tells her to remember her real dream and Ami thinks of the people she loves realizing that her dream of studying and getting smart was ancillary, it was a secondary dream to her real dream to give them love and protect them, she wanted to grow smarter to protect the ones she loved for. 

This is the major theme of the Dream Arc expressed. We all have a deeper dream rooted in love, a dream that unites us and makes us better. We also have dreams that are more shallow, and that are meant to be tools to draw us closer to our deeper dreams. But if we mistake the lesser for our true dreams, if we forget the purpose of our dreams, it will break our souls and our connections to others. People have material dreams for things like fame and fortune and power. But they want these things for example to feel validated or to feel secure or to feel admired. To forget the reasons why we had our dreams and to mistake the material dream for the emotional dream will end tragically, with us losing the reason we had our lesser dream in the first place. It reminds me of an interesting idea I learned of while studying Dante which stated that the reason idolatry is the most warned against sin in the Abrahamic Faiths is that it is the root of all sin to mistake the created for the creator, lust is to make sex one's god, greed is to make money one's god, pride is to make oneself one's god and so forth. Similarly here the notion is that the development of a proper understanding of the self and proper motives is to recognize that our material dreams are secondary consequences to bring us closer to our true dreams, dreams which unite us. Ami has fixated the whole arc on studying and get smarter, thinking it was all she was good for, but forgot that the reason she wanted to get smarter was to help her show her love to the ones she cares for and protect them and focus on herself as the Senshis' mind alone is detrimental to that goal. 

With her burst of understanding and her true motivation revealed to herself again, Ami's transformation brooch shines blue and she transforms into Super Sailor Mercury. She summons a harp which similar to the Moon Kaleidoscope before is shown to be aware, and attacks with "Mercury Aqua Rhapsody" destroying the nightmare she was trapped in.

Mercury's super attack is a musical attack which is... so perfect. Music is long understood to be closely related to mathematics and through that the classical Greeks thought could be logically understood. But it's an emotional artistic tricky beast, possibly most subjective of the arts, blurring the boundary of the left and right brain. Ami thought she was only one but is now unified again, able to be logical and emotional; a rationalist acting on the principle of love. Incidentally in Greek Mythology, the lyre was made by the trickster god Hermes which the god made as an infant to play songs in honor of his father and mother, similar to an intellectual girl who feels like a helpless child on the inside, honoring her parents nonetheless. Hermes was known to the Romans by the name Mercury. 

Usagi and Chibiusa arrive and decide to try transforming which...returns them to their original ages, kinda robbing that subplot of any real conclusion. They attack and destroy Fish Eye, with Palla-Palla commenting through her mirror first anger, and then in an odd mood whiplash thinking it's interesting, how they were able to transform.

This part is admittingly kinda weird. I would have liked it if Mercury could have defeated Fish Eye by herself, but Naoko seems to have had some kind of necessity, either by her own inclinations or by her editors that Sailor Moon HAS to be constantly the focus, with even last arc there being an added bit by Sailor Saturn on how it was "really" Super Sailor Moon that saved the day by trusting in her. This isn't totally speculation, there is some evidence suggesting that Toei and Naoko had some agreement to really push Sailor Moon as the central focus especially strongly due to brand recognition or something. Though the part immediately after at least tries to narratively justify it. It does also have elements of deus ex machina, with the Lunar Senshi transforming somehow restoring their ages making that plotline feel kinda... arbitrary. It's also not super well explained how unlocking one's crystal unlocks one's super form. The Stars Arc will retroactively kind of explain it with the understanding that the crystals are their Star Seeds, but it still feels kind arbitrary. At best I would say, if the true dream is a force of unity, then coming to self-realization of it might create the unity of hearts that was required for the Super Form. I think that's what was intended, though it's not that clear. 

Mercury greets Moon and Chibi-Moon, happy they've returned to their normal ages but Chibi-Moon gets all insecure again at how strong Super Sailor Moon was, how Chibi-Moon could never compare to the beautiful strong Sailor Moon. This kind of narratively justifies Moon killing Fish Eye since otherwise this would make less sense, though still doesn't feel great. Chibi-Moon starts thinking that her by herself she's useless, going so far as to summon Helios and tell him that Sailor Moon is the one he's looking for, not her. 

It's a show of on some level humility, but mostly of Chibiusa's dramatic nature as a young child and the scope of her sheer insecurity. It doesn't help that Helios' prophesized chosen one is, as he admits, ambiguous such that it could apply to either of them. But Chibi-Moon doesn't view that as a possibility, of it might be her this time, because in her mind she can't possibly compare.

Helios explains the one he needs criteria to Moon and Mercury: a maiden with beautiful dreams, protected by the moon, a princess and a soldier whose crystal can unlock the Silver Crystal. Helios confirms that Sailor Moon is the Princess Serenity, surprisingly seeming to know who that is (which will be explained with his backstory) and Chibi-Moon hearing that and essentially deciding that his asking is proof Usagi was the one he wanted, not her, dramatically runs off ending the act.

Act 40 is a great act, and one of the best acts in the Dream Arc. Sailor Moon has 15-16 of these acts focusing on one of the Guardian Senshi and Act 40 is, next to Act 29 (The Minako Mugen act) is the best of them. Though with Act 29, the stuff with the Lunar family was the best part of the act, with the actual Minako part being not quite as good. Act 40 is the opposite. The lesser part of the act is the part with the Lunar Family though not without merit. However the best part is actually the exploration of Ami, which is the best exploration of any of the Guardian Senshi in the entire manga, and arguably some of the best in the entire Sailor Moon franchise, next to parts of PGSM and Codename: Sailor V. 

Going over Ami's section, it's truly fantastic on a multitude of levels. Just on a basic level while I have seen more evocative expressions of the turmoil left behind in a broken home, and the plight of children in said situation, I have never seen anything that gets the feeling across so efficiently and quickly. It what amounts to a few pages, Naoko shows you everything about where a girl like Ami comes from, the complexity within her character, and what you can learn from her. Ami is a girl dutiful and studious to the extreme because she feels it's all she has representing the mother she clings to while the artsy, irresponsible, and childish seems to have left her with her father, the tragedy of that which is fanciful being that of course it always leaves and never when it should. Ami is introduced in Act 2 as a girl isolated for her intelligence and seeming fortune, yet the people assuming her life is great for those things make the same mistake she makes and develops past in this act; mistaking the secondary goods for the primary good they are used as tools to get. Part of the reason I love this act is one of the reasons I loved Ouran High School Host Club. Without going too much into my personal details, when I was growing I saw numerous kids who were rich, and some were smart and seemingly elite. They still had family problems, some of them were far more troubled than I was regardless of status because no amount of money can buy the value of a loving home, no amount of rationalism can convince yourself you don't need it. 

Similarly I believe the development shown here was really good. Obviously this is one of those broad-scale problems of humanity that there aren't any universal answers for, but for Ami specifically I think the resolution to her internal conflict felt fitting. This is because it is connected to the broad theme for the arc, which in turn is connected to the overarching theme of the series that bleeds into every character's progression. One of the most central themes of the Dream Arc is the division between the primary dreams and the secondary dreams used as tools to achieve the former. The former are unifying between people and ennoble us. The second are useful, but are often material in nature and putting them above primary dreams is forgetting their purpose and will only serve to isolate someone. This in turn connects to the two major themes of the series; the ennobling power of love and the pain of isolation. Ami was lost in the haze of her material dream, her need to be smarter to feel validation, her insecurity that she was only useful to the Guardians as their brain, and her insufficiency as a Sailor Senshi compared to someone like Sailor Pluto, ironically giving her the same pain of isolation that Sailor Pluto herself suffered. It was only in realizing that her material dream was actually a branch of her true deeper dream, her desire to show love to others and to help them, this love being the same force that empowered her by making her realize she was most than just a rationalist mind, that she was her loving heart, that she still had both halves of her within her the same way the spirit of both her parents would always be in her even if they weren't physically there.

The stuff with the Lunar family isn't quite as good, as it suffers from some repetitive beats already seen in the story such as Mamoru worried he's holding Usagi back, Chibiusa feeling like she's not as good as Usagi, and both Usagi and Chibiusa defeating the bad guy yet again. With that said it still has some fairly strong parts. It uses evocative imagery and actions such as Chibiusa in her young adult form lightly swinging on a swing while looking up at the moon, contrasting her outer maturity and inner immaturity, or Chibiusa summoning Helios to tell him that Usagi was the one he was looking forward before running away. It also has the hilarious part where the other Senshi think older Chibiusa is Black Lady temporarily, one of my favorite gags in the entire series as well as some cute parts with Helios and Chibiusa.

Overall Act 40 is great, a real step up to me from Act 39, where the surrealist elements were used to much stronger effect, being a lot more focused on giving an impression and contrasting with the painfully realistic subject matter. I thought the Ami section was an absolutely fantastic and remarkably efficient character study of one of the story's secondary characters and the Lunar Family was mixed, mostly suffering from some repetitiveness, but had some definite highlights making it at least a suitable complement. I almost wish the entire act was about Ami, but as it stands her section is the defacto section of the manga I think of when people try to tell me that "the manga Guardians are boring" or "Naoko is bad at character writing."