Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 44 Review

 

The act begins with little Hotaru reciting a poem by Yeats called "The Second Coming."

The Second Coming was written by Yeats in the seemingly apocalyptic aftermath of the first world war, and the political chaos going on in Ireland at the time. It describes the aftermath of a world-ending apocalypse, and that with the nearing 2,000 years of the first coming of Christ, soon shall he return. It also mentions a Sphinx emerging from the Spiritus Mundi, the world soul. The usage of this poem here is absolutely brilliant on Naoko's part. Obviously, a world-ending threat is there, but Sailor Saturn is the one reciting it, Saturn being the one that ends the world in the cycle of life and death corresponding to the cyclical theme of the poem and Yeats' personal mystical views of history being cyclical. The part she speaks of here is specifically that the sphinx, pitiless emerged from the world-soul... you may recall that last arc the alien world-soul Pharaoh 90 emerged into the dimension and born from it was Sailor Saturn known for her eerie otherworldly gaze. It speaks of the second coming which not so subtly foreshadows the fate of Hotaru in this act.

We cut to Haruka either imagining or recalling Usagi talking about her dream. Usagi expresses her dream is to live with the one she loves and child in a small house surrounded by flowers, the picture of domesticity.

To my shock, there are some that believe Usagi's domestic dream corresponding to her stated dream of being a housewife is sexist. I have...a lot of problems with this position. Chief among them is that there is nothing dishonorable about being a housewife; it is my solemn belief that the greatest honor given to woman is to be a good mother just as the greatest honor given to man is to be a good father, and wanting to focus on this, if possible, is wholly understandable. Secondly, this is meant to reflect Usagi's personality; she doesn't like to be alone and her dream emphasizes the togetherness of living with her loved one and child, it's not intended to be any kind of position on the place of women or anything. It is explicitly Haruka, the least traditional of any of the Senshi thinking about Usagi's particular personality. In conjunction with that, the Sailor Senshi have a wide variety of goals and dreams which are meant to show the young female reader the wide variety of paths available to them from the traditionally feminine (Usagi's dream of being a housewife, Makoto's of running a bakery or flower shop, Michiru's position as a musician) to the traditionally masculine (Haruka's job as a racecar driver, Ami and Setsuna working in the STEM fields.)

Finally, there's another narrative reason that Usagi is presented with this dream and it's an overarching theme of the arc that I feel those who have a negative response to this dream might benefit from learning. It's the same reason Superman is usually depicted as wanting to humbly live with his family as a farmer. It's meant to show the humility of our hero. We know Usagi shall one day reign over the world as Queen, but she is not someone who strives for power for its own sake. That is a major theme of the arc, that grand material ambitions are fine in service for noble goals like love but for their own sake are corrupting. Nehelenia seeks the entire universe for herself and is struck down. Usagi wishes only to be with her loved ones and is exalted.

We cut back to Haruka, where in a slightly odd sequence of events, a driver next to her notices how cool her car is and then wonders whether Haruka is a man or woman, before seeing her earring and, figuring that means she's a woman, immediately hitting on her. Haruka hilariously gives a cool comment and leaves him in the dust.

I don't think there's any page that better exemplifies Haruka's personality. I especially love how she refers to herself as "Haruka-sama." 

Paralleling that we cut to Michiru who is browsing for CDs when a man approaches her, telling her he's a big fan of her, having all her CDs and trying to ask her out. That said Haruka comes out of nowhere and literally goes between them, giving a fake cordial handshake. I like to imagine Haruka was nowhere around them but her "someone approaching my Michiru" sense went off and she used her superspeed to just flash step over there. Michiru seems annoyed, possibly at Haruka overprotectively breaking her fan's hand or possibly for making her wait, it's not entirely clear. 

Haruka asks if a fan got her the white flowers but Michiru replies that she bought them as a commemoration for six months of their new life. Haruka and Michiru are drawn looking all pretty together as onlookers gawk at the power couple, wondering if the rings on their hands mean they are married.

As they drive home, Haruka notes that there's a sale on diapers and milk but Michiru comments that she guesses Haruka isn't used to it yet, but their little princess has "long" outgrown milk and diapers, an unusual occurrence given it has only been six months. 

We cut to the Outer Senshi residence where Setsuna is trying to work on the computer when Hotaru breaks something and starts to cry. Setsuna gets an exasperated look suggesting this is a common occurrence, commenting that she was reading quietly just a moment ago. Haruka and Michiru get home and Hotaru runs up to them wanting to play more of "that game yesterday" but Haruka tells her it's time for her violin lesson and tries to get her to get dressed. Meanwhile Michiru gets angry at Setsuna for allowing Hotaru to break her Royal Copenhagen Dishes with Setsuna apologetically explaining she was reading quietly just a moment ago. This leads them into discussing Hotaru's supernatural development, that she's already reciting Vergil from memory, with Hotaru growing to the size of a child several years of age in just six months. Haruka comments that everyday is.... "like a dream." Right. 

There actually is some precedence for this earlier in the manga, interestingly enough. In the Black Moon Arc, the Silver Crystal kept Chibiusa from developing in age until she was ready, so it's not out of the question the Saturn Crystal might age Hotaru up quickly if it needed too. 

As Haruka playfully scolds Hotaru that she was once such a calm child and now is an energetic brat as a joke, Michiru and Setsuna both agree it's felt like they're living in a dream. Setsuna thinks back to a few weeks after their new life began, how she was at the observatory observing the eclipse when she felt something immense no one on her team did, that space itself warped. She tried to transform but found she couldn't due to the same darkness barrier that was blocking the Guardian Senshi.

Setsuna comments to herself that the fact that she couldn't transform she took as an indication that their duties were no longer to fight as Senshi, that their path had changed yet Hotaru's quick growth makes it seem as though she's awakening, questioning that idea. She wonders if Hotaru without meaning too is trying to them something. It's a strange thing children do where sometimes they will tell you what is needed without realizing just by a change in their behavior, possibly because they don't know or can verbalize what is happening around them.

Hotaru and a bunch of other children take Michiru's class where Hotaru plays the violin. This causes the ghost image of a Pegasus to appear before everyone.

This frightens the other children continuing the trend from Hotaru's past life of her powers freaking the other children out. I do have to say they say that this happens every time she plays...you have to wonder did the children not say anything to their parents? Also, why does Michiru keep letting her do this with the others if it keeps scaring them?

Hotaru sees the ghost of a young girl, Chibiusa, chasing the Pegasus and chases the two ghosts around the corner. When Michiru goes to find her she finds Hotaru watching the ghostly Chibiusa crying over the ghostly pegasus dead, with her eyes glazed and far-seeing like Sailor Saturn's, a connection Neptune also makes.

One of Naoko's great strengths as a writer is creating atmosphere, and this chapter without question has some of the best atmosphere in the entire manga. Part of this has to do with Hotaru's influence. Sailor Saturn is a threat the reader knows very well how threatening she can be from last arc and Hotaru's immediate shift from cutesy to scary is somehow both jarring yet inevitable feeling. If you've ever had the displeasure of seeing a truly troubled child, you'll recognize the eerie silence and focus Hotaru demonstrates her.

Michiru hugs Hotaru and she returns to normal, the other children leaving quite cheerfully as though nothing happened. The Outer Senshi go on living their blissful mundane lives, yet in their hearts know something is wrong, and feeling unsettled comparing it to knowing you're in a dream that's going to end sometime soon. Hotaru and Haruka decide to play "that game" Hotaru mentioned earlier. Hotaru releases her stellar energy which they use to create a simulation of the Solar System at fast forward speed, Haruka controlling the energy and restraining it.

You know just a normal fun household game. There's a lot of little details about this section like how Hotaru mentions she sees the asteroids which aren't part of her plan, they appeared on their own and she's not sure yet whether she's gonna let them live or die like the tiny goth she is.

Haruka comments on the white light of the moon saying it always surrounded her, Usagi, and that she misses her with Michiru giving Haruka a supportive hug. However as they get to the moment of the eclipse, the present day something goes wrong...

the moment of the eclipse happens and then refuses to end, shrouding Earth and Moon in darkness. Haruka sends Hotaru to bath and then bed so the grown-ups can talk.

Setsuna confirms that the vision Hotaru saw was true, that the Earth and Moon are covered in a darkness barrier, raising temperatures, spiking plant life and more. The three wish they could help but they can't transform with Haruka commenting that the fact that they can't transform means they're no longer needed as Senshi, and that the Guardians can protect the princess now by themselves. She wonders if maybe the Princess has abandoned them. 

This parallel with the Guardian Senshi is so good. The Guardian Senshi for the last four acts have felt inferior to the Outers and that they need their help but had to learn to internalize the messages the Outers had given them and thus be able to be self-sufficient. Conversely, the Outers worried the opposite, that the Guardians had no need of them, that their duties have changed such that they can no longer help them, but have to learn that the Guardians even if self-sufficient can still have need of their aim and that it's not that their duties have changed, it's not that the princess has abandoned them, but that and spoilers for the rest of the act but that the princess freed them such that they can not help for their duties but for their love and friendship with the Guardians. This arc is a contrast between the true dreams motivated in love we have, and the material dreams we have that are used as a tool to achieve our deeper dreams, and the emotional turmoil of putting the latter above the former. For the Outer Senshi because of their eons-long servitude in duty, their material dream is only to achieve their duties. Narratively they're already all massively successful as people so they couldn't really have dreams based on jobs, but their material dreams, in this case, are just to fulfill their responsibilities, yet the reason why they want to fulfill these duties, their true dream is in love and service to the Lunar Royalty, not seeing that the Princess has freed them from the heavyweights they bore in the last arc.

In the bathroom little Hotaru sees Sailor Saturn in the mirror putting her hand up against the mirror as Saturn reaches back and presses her hand on the other side, looking into her eyes with a cold elegance. It is a common idea in folklore that mirrors reveal the true nature of things, something seen before in SM. Here we see that Hotaru in the mirror is seeing her true deeper self, the self that she felt within her in the third arc giving her a strength she didn't know she had, the self that bears her true dream. Hotaru asks Sailor Saturn who she is, and Saturn replies "I am the you that sleeps within you." As an aside, I love how the Saturn Spirit introduces herself with "Don't be afraid" like an angel. After all, she's easy to mistake for the angel of death.

When we dream, whether be is in physical sleep or whether we wander through life in a daze, the dream the Outer Senshi talk about being in now, a state of dormancy where images come before us we find that we are not the unified beings that we pretend we are. We find more parts of ourselves we never through we had through our idle fantasies and our sleeping dreams. This was the pattern that the first sub-arc of the Dream arc is meant to show. That our material dreams, the material ambitions we gather when not unified with our deeper dream divide us, make us into multiple selves within us. This is why the tiny selves of the Senshi appeared before them, to show the idea that we are not one within ourselves, but that in living out material dreams in contradiction to the true desire of our heart, even if only because we'd forgotten that desire with the passing of the years, that we divide ourselves internally into many. Likewise, little Hotaru has forgotten her true self, born into this new life without memories, existing in the dream of an idyllic domestic life away from the war of the Senshi, and so she too is divided internally. What this arc will go on to show is that not only can the one be many, but the many one. The spirits of others can live within us, and the deeper desire of our hearts, dreams of love, will unify us so that just as the one may be many, so too can the many be one again!

The Saturn Spirit speaks unto little Hotaru telling her the time has come to awaken again, to begin a new mission, calling on her sleeping soul to awaken. It's an immensely evocative call to action that works on a physical, emotional, conceptual, narrative, metanarrative level all at once. The Outer Senshi had been lulled into this false dormancy, and their very souls must be ignited again in passion, connecting with Hotaru literally awakening as Sailor Senshi, a soldier.

Hotaru sees visions of the other Senshi while bathing, and says to herself she must hurry. She climbs out of the bath and approaches her reflection pressing her hand against it, older now, and the reflection now resembles her again

If the mirror is showing the true her, then she become her true self, the internal has been made external, she has awoken to her true identity. Also coming from a bath can be seen as purification or as rebirth both of which, especially fit nicely here. 

Hotaru goes to the other Outer Senshi continues the poem she began at the start of the act. "The darkness drops again; but now I know that 20 centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle." 20 centuries, 2,000 years, it seems like a long time to us between the first and second coming of the messiah, but the poem compares it to the single sleeping night of an infant, just as the Outer Senshi marveled at how quickly time seemed to pass in this dream of theirs, just as time itself in this arc is warped like a dream. The cradle is imagery associated with something just born, referencing the newly reawoken Sailor Saturn, vexed to nightmares in her sleep by the rocking of the cradle referring to the visions. Naoko uses the poem masterfully as a generalized representation of the shaking of the collective dream we inhabit together.

Hotaru looks at the Outer Senshi and gives another quote to them, this one by Einstein. "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself" before telling them that time has come for a new awakening for them.

In our material dreams, in the general wanderings, we have as we go through the universe, guided by material ambitions we are not truly alive, our souls are asleep. It is only in living for those outside of us, only in living in love and empathy and understanding that our souls can truly come alive. This once again coincides with the arc's expression of the two dreams. 

Hotaru tells that no matter times they reincarnate, it's clear who'll they be fighting for. The others are shocked she has regained her memories, looking at her in worry of the fearsome Sailor Saturn. Yet Hotaru tells them that she is not the same person she was before... that none of them have to fight alone anymore because they had been reborn along with their princess.

This is the climax of the Outer Senshis' development over the past two arcs. Repeatedly they have had to bear the extremely painful weight of their duties even when they wish nothing more than to follow their hearts. Repeatedly their isolation from the others has been emphasized. But Sailor Moon has an overarching Messianic themes, and the Messiah is known for relieving people from what they thought the law was to follow the spirit. The Outer Senshis' material dream was their duties, was their isolation, was everything they had to do, suffering alone and performing unthinkable acts. Yet in the love and trust of the princess they have been showing their new duty as Sailor Senshi, which is not the material dream that isolates them but the dream of the heart that unites them.

Hotaru thanks Haruka-papa, Michiru-mama and Setsuna-mama for raising her but telling them it's time for her to lead them, a beautiful moment expressing that beautiful reversal in life as the parent takes care of the child until the day the child takes care of the parent. She shows them her Saturn Crystal, gained from her awakening earlier and unity with the hearts of the distant Guardians and shining to meet it, the other Outer Senshis' crystals shine in unison which Hotaru proclaims is the sign that they are new Senshi. 

The Saturn Crystal manifests the Holy Grail...somehow.... and the Outer are shown visions of the others in danger. Hotaru shows them an image of a rose wilting, representing the Earth and the Prince and tells them that their prince and princess are facing a terrible crisis. I really love the subtle show of their new duty in that they now think of Mamoru as their prince. He was the prince of the Earth, not of the Silver Millennium, but with the changing of the eras, Serenity and Endymion are joined together and in their mission to protect Serenity and the royal family of the Moon, so too are they to protect Endymion. He is now their prince just as Usagi is their princess.

The insignia of the Outers shine on their foreheads and they discard their promise rings, as their duty of raising Hotaru representing their old life is complete and the Outers race off to that place, that place that holds their "true dreams." To be by the side of the Princess.

Permit me to just fangirl a little here but the Outer Senshi are SO COOL! Unfortunately, the act's not quite over yet, and the rest of it, while fine can't live up to the Outer Senshis' section. 

We cut back to Artemis holding Minako from falling as Palla-Palla summons rubble to crush him. Minako thinks back to her times with Artemis their fights and fun together all the way back to Sailor V, and is hit with a massive way of anguish realizing that the pain he feels, she's feeling too, that he's and she are two sides of the same coin. 

However a humanoid hang grabs Minako's and Artemis' voice comes through telling he understands now why she hadn't been able to transform. It's because he wasn't good enough as a partner, revealing humanoid Artemis.

I'm all for the first part of this section for Minako and Artemis's sweet connection and on some level the idea of Artemis being Minako's other self the way the small Mercury and Jupiter or the Saturn spirit were for Ami, Makoto, and Hotaru respectively I can appreciate. Sometimes we find the other half of ourselves in other people. What I don't like about this sequence is the Guardian Senshis' dream chapters and their transformation into Super Senshi all showed something about them. It was an exploration of their characters. While this is a sweet moment between Artemis and Minako, as Artemis says its about Artemis not being "strong enough" which is something that has had no build-up, nor does it say anything about Minako. If Naoko wanted to focus on a bit more of a minor character like Artemis, that'd be fine, though this feels like the wrong way to go about it, since it doesn't really say anything about Artemis.

With Artemis' help, Minako transforms into Super Sailor Venus and goes to stop the villains, declaring herself "Venus-sama, Goddess of Love and Beauty." She then quite easily dispatches Xenotime and Zeolite.

Good Night, sweet monsters of the week, we hardly knew ye. And I mean that literally. I will say Venus is pretty cool in this sequence regardless from how acrobatic her combat style to her declaration of herself as the literal Goddess of love, to using her chain weapon so masterfully.

Anyway Minako reunites with the others who are relieved to see she can transform and she gives them her signate "V for Victory" sign while Artemis looks on in approval. However their victory celebration is cut short when the quartet arrive and ensnare them with vines. The Quartet finally introduce themselves to the Sailor Senshi as the descendants of the legendary Amazons, hailing from the Amazon Rainforest (despite the fact the Amazons lived in the Mediterranean) 

This part is a little confusing to me. If the Quartet could just..do that the question arises why they never have and why they always seemed so scared of the Senshi, even like earlier this act. Likewise why did Zirconia not to try and face off with the Senshi as they'd get blown away. I could maybe accept the answers are "the Quartet were just playing around earlier, as is their nature as brats" and "Zirconia was talking about Sailor Moon doing so with the Silver Crystal and she's not here right now" but it still feels kinda...off.

Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, and Sailor Jupiter all start falling under the sway of the lemures brainwashing while Sailor Venus wonders if even this level of power isn't enough. Meanwhile Chibiusa is watching the night sky while waiting for Usagi, thinking that things don't feel right and wondering about the condition of Helios and Elysion. Usagi gets back but seems more tired then usual with the last page showing that just as Mamoru feared, Usagi has caught the curse.

Act 44 is probably the best act in the Dream Arc, but that doesn't really do it credit. If there was a chapter or episode of this quality in almost any other series including most of my favorites, it would be my favorite moment from that series, it's an act better than most series in their entirety. 

The first two third of the act, the part with the Outer Senshi has writing that is so elevated and beautiful. I knew when I was going into the Dream Arc that this would be one of the most emotionally impacting parts to write about. This sequence is extremely well liked in the SM Fandom and it's not hard to see why. Of course a lot of people like it just for the fact that it's showing a home where a little girl is being raised by essentially three moms, two of which are in a lesbian relationship. The Outers in general are extremely popular characters because they're very cool and mature type characters who give everything they do an extra layer of style and class. 

The part with Hotaru however is why I love it. This part is so rich with meaning, and on themes that mean a lot to me, yet also not just connects to the arc's main theme, but is the centerpiece explaining it. Hotaru's encounter with her "other self" is the Dream Arc taken to its absolute pinnacle, happening at the exact center of the arc, explaining everything that's happened before and foreshadowing everything that will happen from that point. It feels like the Dream Arc is a mountain building to that point, as you climb towards it and as you descend away from it, it expresses the logical consequences of that point.

As we journey through this material world, we acquire material ambitions, material dreams of what we want. But in trying to acquire that, we can put them above what we truly want, and even in attaining those dreams if they didn't bring us that which our soul yearned for, then we will be restless in even within that paradise. Even if we acquire our material dreams, we will become divided within ourselves, the one becoming many. But even just pursue-ing our deeper dreams we will be united within ourselves and with others, holding them in our heart, the many becoming as one. The Senshis' dreams were manipulated by the enemy, until they were able to discover their other selves with the spirit of their friends in their hearts and unite with them, reach the Super Form, symbol of their unity. 

This is shown and finally expressed directly in Hotaru's section where Hotaru meets the Saturn Spirit, her other self, who tells her that her soul must awaken, showing her visions of the other Senshi. That imagery, of the soul awakening is immensely evocative to me, I can relate to it, the feeling of the emotional state being sent into a state of dormancy before being brought to life, excited into a state of passion with the awakening to a realization. 

There's also just a whole bunch of other great stuff in this act. The usage of quotations from Yeats and Einstein are very well integrated and so directly contribute to the subject matter. The domestic situation of the Outers is funny and wholesome and just alien enough to be cool such as the scene where Haruka plays controller and lets Hotaru simulate the solar system with her energy. The sensation of time being warped both literally by the Dead Moon Circus but also in the symbolic sense that in any dream, whether literal or a waking dream that one inhabits, time can seek to move differently subjectively is a really evocative analogy. As always Naoko does an amazing job building atmosphere.

The last third is....fine. You could probably tell by how much less I talked about it compared to the first two-thirds that I don't find it nearly as stimulating. I appreciate the Sailor V reference, and I think Minako and Artemis relationship is sweet and all but as I said I feel like it doesn't really say anything about Minako's character, instead focusing on Artemis who, as much as I love him, is a pretty minor character in Sailor Moon. Minako fighting Xenotime and Zeolite was as cool as Minako could make it given she was fighting guys who just throws knives at people. And as mentioned the Quartet suddenly beating the Super Guardian Senshi feels thematically out of place given they just unlocked their super forms the Quartet were super afraid off. The ending cliffhanger is a pretty strong one though as the Senshi have always relied on Usagi using Silver Crystal ex machina to beat most of the big bads and the threat of her being taken out of comission is a great way to build tension at the end.

Overall Act 44 is fantastic, a real stand out of the Dream Arc, and something that is meaningful to me on a lot of levels.