Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 47 Review

 

Venus runs over to Sailor Moon who was just shot through by Zirconia only for Sailor Moon to literally melt in her arms. The Senshi begin yelling in fear and realizing this is a nightmare as we cut to Sailor Moon's perspective where everyone else is melting as well as her own flesh and blood melting off her. 

Flipping Heck Naoko, were you trying to mentally scar the children reading at home?! I kid, I think that the faith Naoko has in her audience and willingness to include whatever elements she wants to in a Shojo series regardless of whether people think it's appropriate is a really cool trait. 

Zirconia boasts about how they will all wander in the darkness of nightmares for eternity. We cut to the mooncats, with Artemis saying the Earth's surface is being swallowed by the darkness of the New Moon. Diana thinks she should never have left Small Lady's side and starts to rush off to her side, but Artemis stops her, telling not to lose hope, their Senshi will never give up.

We cut back to our Heroes where...and I'm not kidding or exaggerating....Tuxedo Kamen slaps them aware. 

I'm surprised this doesn't come up more often. Like obviously with context it makes sense, it's like if someone is unconscious and you try whatever you can to wake them up, but out of context this could look very different. 

Tuxedo Kamen, representing his newfound confidence and development after unlocking the Golden Crystal, gives a rallying speech to the Sailor Senshi. This leads to a tender moment between him and Sailor Moon about their shared dream, while the Outers are impressed the Prince broke out of the nightmare by sheer willpower alone.

Sailor Moon says to herself that it's not just a dream, that protecting this planet together will always be their reality, they won't give in to their nightmares or dreams because the Sailor Senshi can never lose.

Sailor Uranus, seeing Sailor Moon's determination gets all inspired describing their shining princess as everything to them and for the sake of their prince and princess the Senshi attack together; Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, actually wounding Zirconia

This section is one of the things I remember as a highlight of the arc. The other Senshi are at their most relevant in this act outside of the acts that literally focus on them specifically.

Zirconia tries to teleport away but the Senshi teleport after her, Venus and Mars clearing the way through the defensive foliage growth with their attacks. Mercury uses her visor, which hasn't been seen since the first arc to spot Zirconia escaping into a mirror. 

Zirconia enters the mirror to Nehelenia's throne room. Super Sailor Moon steps into the mirror, entering the throne room however when Super Sailor Venus tries to do so as well, she can't. I would have thought this was some magical doing of Nehelenia, however Nehelenia instead expresses it's a function of Sailor Moon's great power, that it even allowed her "here."

Nehelenia proclaims now is the time for her to gain the shining stellar power. Moon herself can feel the stellar energies in the room but can't pinpoint its location. She notices the four stones and two broken shards of glass that the Quartet, Chibi-Moon, and Saturn were sealed into. She calls out to them and they call out to her in turn.

Nehelenia telekinetically causes lots of glass shards to spiral around in the air to disorient Moon as to the location of herself and her allies however to her annoyance Moon just uses Moon Gorgeous Meditation and frees them...somehow....regardless.

This section does feel a LITTLE fast in my opinion, like Naoko was trying to create a more complex fight with more elements, but Moon just does the right course of action immediately regardless, immediately finding where Chibi-Moon and Saturn are and immediately unsealing them with the Moon Gorgeous Meditation. 

Moon and Chibi-Moon use Moon Gorgeous Meditation together on Nehelenia, but it just causes a mirror containing Nehelenia to break and Nehelenia laughs at their inability to hurt her.. Meanwhile the other Senshi are on the other side of the mirror before trying to figure out a way to help. Mercury tries to attack the mirror itself and while it causes a small crack on the mirror, it doesn't do anything in particular.

Then Jupiter....well she does what she does best.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

This part is hilarious and swesome and unexpected and just overall great. At worst you could maybe say it's a little dramatically anti-climactic but it's such a cool moment for Jupiter I don't really care. Jupiter's my favorite of the Guardian Senshi, because she does nonsense like this sometimes and it's both really cool and funny. She literally just punched from another dimension and broke Nehelenia's face. And this isn't a small wound either, the next page is Nehelenia freaking out like "AHHHHHHHHH, I'm gonna dieeeeeee!!!" Characters in Sailor Moon rarely punch each other, and for obvious reasons; mostly they're mages, not martial artists. Still, whenever it happens it's hilarious.

Nehelenia freaks out and Zirconia calls for the Dead Moon Circus to regroup in outer space so their queen won't outright die here. Saturn grabs the stones the Quartet are sealed in and then Moon...does....something...to send them out of Nehelenia's dimension, I actually can't really tell what she does here.

She points and destroys the mirror and then they're...pushed out....I think?

The Dead Moon Circus retreat after Nehelenia's injury and the Senshi reunite, however, Pluto notes there is no change in the surroundings. Usagi and Mamoru realize at the same time that Nehelenia has probably gone to attack Elysion.

Moon tries to tell Chibi-Moon to stay there but Chibi-Moon that if something happened to Helios, she has to go anyway, in a sweet display of her affection and the same will to protect her loved ones that her mother has.

The Senshi and Tuxedo Kamen get into a hand-holding circle before group teleporting to Elysion. There they find the Maenads from earlier who say they are the Maenads, priestesses who serve the shrine, and direct them to Helios. Once again the Maenads kinda baffle me as Naoko is nothing if not efficient in her writing. I don't know if this was a scrapped idea or they serve a narrative purpose I simply don't recognize. 

The Senshi find Helios unconscious in his cage. Chibi-Moon tries to go to him, but Moon remembers her shock from earlier and stops her. Tuxedo Kamen says Helios gave all his power to protect them from the enemy earlier. There's two pages of drama from Chibi-Moon that Helios can't be dead until she says what I've been saying for a couple of acts.

Exactly! Helios literally can't be dead because Mamoru's alive. The drama here doesn't work if the reader remembers that's the case or if the characters do. 

Mars and Neptune, the two psychics sense an evil spirit coming, Queen Nehelenia and Uranus says the battle's not over yet. The Dead Moon Circus ship arrives in Elysian, and on-board is a mirror containing the recovered Nehelenia.

I guess Jupiter's gonna have to lay the smackdown again!

Act 47 isn't as deep as Act 46, and especially not something like Act 44 but it's a really fun act that I enjoy it a lot. It feels more than any other act like the other Senshi outside Moon, Chibi-Moon, and Saturn impact the plot this act, especially Jupiter punching Nehelenia which I adore. It also kinda shows why Naoko doesn't do it very often because this series isn't really set up for long complex fights with intricate fight choreography due to the ways characters powers work and how hard it is to give every character a role when there's 10+ heroes running around on the same team without dividing them up. 

I think you might be able to make the argument that Jupiter punching Nehelenia and making her run away might detract from Nehelenia's overall threat level and that at the end of the act it doesn't seem nearly as intimidating as it hypothetically should be. I can't really well argue it, and yeah if Jupiter had done it to Zirconia instead that probably would have made more narrative sense, but I can't deny that if I could change it, I wouldn't just because the way it is now is so funny and such a cool moment for my favorite Guardian Senshi. 

Outside that, as I mentioned the drama around "Helios is dead!!" doesn't work for the very reason that Chibi-Moon explains in the story itself, and it basically relies on the reader...I don't know forgetting that Helios can't be dead here? Feeling sad the characters are sad here even though they should know that Helios isn't dead here? It's kind of a small point but in an act that's only ~45 pages, each small bits like that which don't work are kind of notable, especially given how efficient Naoko is with her writing and how 2 pages used on drama that doesn't work could really have been used elsewhere. However, the act also has some other good points. 

There's the nightmare sequence where Naoko really goes full macabre and the subsequent moment for Tuxedo Kamen that's the benefit of unlocking the Golden Crystal. That's a pretty good moment for Mamoru and it speaks to how impressive his willpower is. I liked Chibiusa's determination to save Helios which really mirrored the way her mother acts when her loved ones are in danger, and I thought it was cool that Usagi blocked Chibiusa from running up to the electrified cage, flows really naturally from that part in the last act where Usagi did the same thing and got zapped.

Overall even though it's "just" an extended fight sequence, this act's pretty fun. It's not as deep perse as some of the others in Dream Arc, but it's got some really funny moments to show people, especially out of context, the Guardian Senshi are more relevant than they've been in a while and even it's worse element shows Chibiusa's love for Helios, along with her determination earlier.