Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 52 Review

 

Far away, Hotaru and Setsuna sense the death of their comrades. We cut back to the school rooftop where there is complete pandemonium. Uranus and Neptune are in shock the Starlights are also Sailor Senshi, Venus is freaking out and wildly accusing them of taking Mercury and Jupiter and Moon has gone dead-eyed and catatonic from seeing her loved ones explode and fade away in front of her again. 

Neptune and Uranus demand that they get a hold of themselves with Neptune shaking Moon and Uranus slapping Venus. Sailor Star Healer explains that it was just as they saw, Mercury and Jupiters' bodies have been destroyed, the core of their being was stolen, their Sailor Crystals.

Star Seeds and Sailor Crystals are going to be the big thematic focus of the arc, representing one's identity and the core of one's being. Here we see the beginning of the framing that the bodies can and will be destroyed but something more eternal remains.

Sailor Star Fighter moves closer to try and explain herself but Uranus summons the Space Sword and demands they don't take a step closer, prepared to slice any of them down if they get close to the princess. Sailor Star Maker tells her that she understands how they must be feeling, but if they lack composure they'll never be able to defeat the Shadow Galactica or its ruler...Sailor Galaxia

You could probably guess it beforehand but this is the first time it's been explicitly said. Their enemy is a Sailor Senshi leading her own group of Sailor Senshi. This is something that's subtly alluded to across the series that the Sailor Senshi are more than just the persons. They're cosmic roles and ideals that reincarnate overtime. They describe coming to realize their nature as Sailor Senshi as "awakening" to their true identity. This arc will deliberately express the conflict of being both a person express in the lifetime of a human, a temporary moment in the scope of the universe, and being something eternal. This is a conflict we all must face in some way, the struggle between that part of which remains the same across time and the part of us which changes across time. The Sailor Senshi are ideals in this regard, being an eternal self manifesting and growing yet always being also being her identity as a Sailor Senshi. Usagi Tsukino grows as a person even as she always also is the immortal eternal guardian of love and justice, Sailor Moon for instance. 

The story has been very focused on Usagi for the first four arcs. Her growth and her ideals. Even more than most stories, it's heavily focused on its protagonist. Takeuchi-sensei when describing Galaxia says she wanted to create a character to rival Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon is one of the most popular and well known characters ever created and her ideals have clearly guided the story. But Takeuchi-sensei in this arc wants to really change and them and push them to their conceptual limit by introducing a character designed to be an equal opposite to her, to see how far her ideals can go. This is either intentionally or not mirrored in the fact that this is the arc where the enemy are evil Sailor Senshi. The Heroines ideals are not the only ones, there are other ideals, ones that conflict and oppose ours even. In this seemingly infinite universe, we find ourselves in, where things we thought were stable can fade in an instant, where other people have awoken to ideals as strong in their hearts as our ideals are in our hearts, how can we have faith we are on the right path? How do we know what ideals can reach the absolute?

Star Fighter tells the Sol Senshi they don't have time to be worrying about the Starlights, and that Galaxia's attacks will be relentless before they make their dramatic escape. The Sol Senshi gather and begin to reiterate what they've learned, that they were attacked by other Sailor Senshi after their own Sailor Crystals, the Shadow Galactica ruled by Sailor Galaxia. Haruka notes as I was talking about earlier, that this time the enemies are Sailor Senshi like themselves. Usagi says the Starlights aren't enemies, they protected her on the rooftop but Minako is more concerned on the matter of Mercury and Jupiter, believing they're alive and taken by Shadow Galactica. This causes their dramatic death to flash again before Usagi's eyes. In a cool bit of lore. Pluto says she has not felt any disturbances from foreign space (other dimensions) or spacetime disturbances meaning it's not an enemy from another dimension or time period like the last three arcs. Instead, the invaders came in riding on the Shooting Stars from the beginning of the Arc to mask their presence.

I just think that's cool. It's a mythic sounding feat that's also really cosmic and fitting the sci-fi elements of the series. 

Haruka poetically says that this means their enemies have come "through the stars" referring both to the shooting stars and the space beyond the solar system that the enemies have come from. The Outer Senshi make a plan together with Michiru taking Usagi home, Haruka watching over the Three Lights and Setsuna going with Luna to monitor possible invasion routes. While this is going on Rei yanks Minako aside.

To Minako's shock, Rei tells her that tomorrow they're gonna go and confront the Three Lights directly. Minako is shocked at the suggestion, pointing out that this might mean the two of them might have to fight the three Lights, but Rei tells her that if it comes to it they'll fight the Three Lights and the Shadow Galactica and anyone else. This feels very in-character for the self-assured Rei but also I think subtly shows her confidence in Minako, which is quite sweet. The two agree that they will rescue Mercury and Jupiter. This might seem like a blatant denial of reality but given Moon's resurrection powers, if they retrieve Mercury and Jupiter's crystal it's not inconceivable Moon may be able to resurrect them. 

I love Rei and Minako together. They make such a cool pairing of opposites and both compliment each other's weaknesses so well. 

We cut to Usagi and Michiru walking to Usagi's home. Usagi comments her body feels heavy, that there's a fog around her, that continuing forward...is scary. Usagi doesn't want to progress forward. It's an extremely relatable sentiment, wishing time would just stop knowing that something bad is on the horizon, that you'll soon have to face something you can't. She tells Michiru that she just remembered a commitment she made and walks off in a daze saying she's "meeting a friend of Mamoru's." Michiru both wanting to protect Usagi's emotional state but also her safety lets her go but secretly tails her. 

Usagi contacts Asanuma and the two both confirm they've received no messages from Mamoru. No phone calls, no letters, agreeing it's not like him. Usagi has only gotten postcards she assumes are from him with no messages on them. Michiru watches her from a distance sadly, probably recognizing the truth already but being unwilling to hurt her princess by telling her. Usagi tries calling him again but gets no answer and then, in one of the most evocative things I've ever read, says "I'm scared. It's like everything disappears when I take a step forward."

Talking about this part will be kind of personal. I don't know how universal this experience is but when something bad happens, particularly something you didn't expect, there is immediately a sense of re-assessment of everything you thought you knew. The entire world that you thought you inhabited is gone left by one you don't...quite....understand. There is something so transient and untrustworthy about the world of temporalities, the world of things in motion. And if it were at all possible, you might wish you would be able to just stop moving forward so the world seemed stable because you know that every moment that passes is a moment that everything you thought you knew threatens to fade away. 

Because of who I am and my life experiences, I am more likely than most to feel these feelings. I am relatively similar to Usagi in personality and...I recognize what she's feeling here, and it's something I've never seen anything express so perfectly. It's a moment I always think of when I think of why Usagi is my favorite character in fiction. It makes me feel like someone else gets it, that feeling of fear and sorrow that the world around you is full of transient things, that any moment everything you trusted in and thought would always be there can just disappear. This is the unique pain of being human; having a temporary physical body living in a temporary physical world, a time-enduring soul and a mind that can experience that distinction. This arc can be understood as how to reconcile these elements of ourselves, of how to face that future and walk forward even into the disappearance of everything you knew. 

Usagi is brought back to her senses by Chibi-Chibi tugging on her skirt. Chibi-Chibi hugs Usagi and Usagi wonders if Chibi-Chibi is trying to comfort her. There's a time cut and Usagi imagines herself talking to Mamoru, reassuring her and helping believe everything's okay.

There's so many scenes like this in the Stars Arc where the mood is something you can read in multiple lights. You can see this as another expression of Usagi's denial of reality, read it as a continuation of the prior scene, that Usagi staring off into the distance is refusing to confront reality is unable to face that world where your loved ones can just disappear in a moment. Or you can read it as Usagi using the memory of her love to rebuild up her determination, that it's meant to rebut the last scene continuing from Chibi-Chibi comforting her. Maybe there are ways you can read it other than what I see but Stars as an arc has a lot of scenes that the mood can be read in numerous ways yet never breaks tone, a difficult feat of having the same lines mean different things to different characters or different types of readers.

Usagi tells herself she needs to stay strong, and that it's because of her loved ones she's come this far. But she feels so uneasy like she did when Mamoru...and before she can finish that though Seiya appears. Meanwhile Haruka and Michiru confront Taiki and Yaten. Taiki holds up a card which paralzes Haruka and Michiru somehow and they see what's on the card. At the same time Seiya is showing her a card, a card that shows her what happened to Mamoru. Seiya tells her she can't lose this fight, that she needs to remember what happened. Usagi screams in terror and pain, finally having to face what happened and letting out a delayed reaction of horror and despair. Seiya embraces her and apologizes, not having wanted to hurt her but doing this for her own good. Meanwhile the image Taiki showed Haruka and Michiru is revealed to have been the same, that it was the image of Galaxia that paralyzed them, once emphasizing her power and unstoppability.

This scene is a little quick and out of nowhere but I still enjoy it because it serves two really good narrative purposes juxtaposed with each other. This is finally the moment Usagi is finally forced face to face with what's happening and it means a lot coming from Seiya who is the Sailor Senshi, in the manga at least, closest to Mamoru in personality, and an alien to their system doing what her own Senshi couldn't bear to do, break Usagi's heart to save her the way Mamoru would have done. Mamoru was always the one that grounded Usagi, who symbolically and literally brought her down to Earth from her head up above the clouds but now reality is cold and harsh and being brought back to it hurts and it takes someone like Mamoru to do so again. Similarly, it's a scene that highlights possibly the embodiment of that all-destroying reality, the infinite and absolute herself, Sailor Galaxia, the all-destroyer. There is a common motif in religions and mythology that one can't look into the divine. We as humans are shielded from reality by the veil of perception because reality "as it is" is infinite information that humans can't possibly process. There are infinite ways to perceive the world and infinite connections and structures and substructures in the universe from the scope of all eternity to the quantum foam bubbling up and to behold the majesty at its apex is to paralyze one. I believe the series is alluding to that with Haruka and Michiru being unable to move upon seeing Galaxia, for what they're seeing is the Apex of a Sailor Senshi, the full unbounded potency of one, beyond mortal identities and perceptions. The two scenes are juxtaposed, both Usagi and Haruka here have to face a painful reality even though they can't; the reality of eternity embodied by Galaxia and the reality of finality embodied in a secret character with their dichotomy forming the thematic center of the arc. 

Usagi runs away, crossing paths with Haruka, Michiru, and the other Starlights as she symbolically tries to run away from reality, runs away from the pain and despair that Mamoru is dead. Usagi is a cowardly person who rises into heroism from her love but if her loved ones die who will she be brave for? Usagi tries to force her to stop remembering, tries to force herself to stop her own thinking, a conflict I feel we've all felt at times when there's something we desperately don't want to remember. Usagi comments on the scariest part, the reason she can't get Seiya's voice out of her head, that she was being drawn in Seiya's eyes the same way that she did with...Mamoru. Meanwhile Taiki asks Seiya why she's so concerned with Usagi's feelings and Seiya comments that Usagi reminds Seiya of "her" clearly alluding to the girl she was singing for earlier.

Usagi recieves more airmail and comments to her that there's no return address on any of these. With shock she notes that this one is a picture of just the galaxy and as she drops the card, it causes a shadow on the ground, while she comments "The Shadow Galactica...the Galaxy's shadow." It's atmospheric.

For the first real time in the arc we cut to our villains. One of Galaxia's underlings, Sailor Phi apologizes to Galaxia for the failures of Iron Mouse and Aluminum Seiren, saying she will take responsibility. However Galaxia doesn't care for their deaths instead praising them for retrieving two of the Sailor Crystals. Sailor Phi swears by the power Galaxia grants unto her servants, the Animamates, that she will get the other Sailor Crystals. 

Galaxia laughs and comments that the Animamates seem to be no matches for the Starlights or the Sailor Senshi of the Sol System. Phi states she will provide a fun viewing experience for Galaxia. Instead, Galaxia looks at the human Star Seeds of Mercury and Jupiter as opposed to their Sailor Crystals. Galaxia in both a taunting arrogant way but also a curious way questions why those who have Eternal Sailor Crystals would still cling to human Star Seeds, saying they're as fragile as specks of dust, destroying them.

It's...It's so good. The thematic framing here is incredible. A Star Seed is a representation of what makes someone what they are. The Sol Senshi have two, human Star Seeds representing their human lives and Sailor Crystals representing their lives as Sailor Senshi. Galaxia wonders why they care about their lives as normal people, why they live lifetimes in the world of mortals where they experience the pain of temporalities and transiency, where things come and go seemingly without meaning. What I can only describe the realm of Chaos. Galaxia is one of the most compelling villains I've ever seen and I have to be honest, I've had similar thoughts in different topics. I don't understand intuitively narratively or metanarratively why superheroes have civilian lives. I don't understand why they'd want to live a "normal" life or why people would want to watch them live normal lives. Similarly, I don't understand the tendency of people to focus on what seems to me to be the superficial mundane details of the world. I care about the deep, the meaningful and my instinct is to seek out as much meaning as possible, to live every moment in as deep and meaningful a world as I can find and reject the superficial. Galaxia represents the gnostic tendency in the philosopher's mind to seek only eternity and deny the entire cosmos in search of it. Galaxia represents the eternal, the infinite, the absolute and in being is the all-destroyer as all finite things are rendered as naught in comparison, all worlds and moments and material ideals disappearing into the expanse. 

Yet even in this regard there's something eminently relatable about the Soldier of Destruction. Like I said, I also search for meaning and the eternal aimlessly, I wonder why others are so accepting of the transient and superficial. But the series has already answered Galaxia's question though she didn't see it. Back in the first arc Queen Serenity told her daughter to never forget that she was a normal girl and the arc concludes with Usagi affirming her normal life on Earth as important to her and not just living as Queen of the Moon. Even in the first act when Usagi transforms into Sailor Moon she's still the scared girl until she hears Naru in danger and transforms internally to save her. Similarly, even in this act Usagi reaffirms it was her loved ones like Mamoru, Ami, and Makoto that gave her strength. It is in these little mundane things that we gain our strength and ability to interact with the deeper world of meaning and...I don't know what to make of that. This arc is a space in which our feelings on the topic are explored. Usagi is my favorite protagonist and Galaxia is my favorite antagonist because their conflict is the conflict of supreme importance and complexity in my soul. 

Another Animamate, Sailor Lead Crow announces herself from the shadows and proclaims to Galaxia will return with Sailor Moon. Back on Earth, Hotaru notices the flight of the crows and in her typical fashion says something ominous about them possibly passing the point of no return, surprising Setsuna. We cut to Rei and Minako, Rei wearing Minako's School Outfit to sneak into their school and Minako wearing her gym uniform. Minako comments that their outfit looks great on Rei (making me wonder if Naoko just wanted to draw Rei in the outfit) and comments awesomely that this reminds her of the time she snuck into Rei's school in the Exam Battle Side Stories. 

A really good callback imo. Rei asks where Usagi is and Minako comments that she's having lunch with the Outers and Naru, acting happier moreso for their sake. I don't think this translation quite captures it, but Minako's words suggest Usagi is pretending to be happy in general, referencing her inability to face the circumstances. Minako reveals she has a secret Three Lights notebook, top secret data she assures, as she leads Rei into hijinks.They get up to the roof where they assume the Three Lights will be, but no one's there. Rei comments lunch just started they can wait though Minako gets angry that they're missing lunch time and demands they hurry up. 

Rei comments it would have been nice if she had gotten to go Juuban High School and share this kind of school life with the others, a sort of subtle admittance of being amused by Minako's antics. Minako asks why she says so suddenly and Rei reveals that at her morning Tarot Reading she pulled the "Death" card. Rei says she feels that there's no going back after this, that this battle will be unlike any before. In an intimate gesture, Minako stops her by putting a finger to her lips telling her they made a pact to save their friends, that they've beaten many enemies before and this will be the same as ever. Notice the subtle repeating of the idea of conflict between the eternal and the temporal.

Minako remains confident they will save Mercury and Jupiter and comments that once they bring them back they can live a normal High School Girl's life and she can get a boyfriend. Minako goes all starry-eyed at the thought and Rei gets annoyed at Minako seeming to always have the one thing on the mind. Minako continues on her boy-crazy rant commenting that she didn't have time for a boyfriend in Junior High but now that she's a High School Girl she's gonna date and make out all she wants, get a hot boyfriend, get a backup boyfriend 

It's a hilarious bit and I just love Minako as a character in general. She's super funny as well as being cool and it's especially hilarious that she's saying this boy-crazy rant to REI of all people. The person it would annoy more than any else. More seriously it shows the difference in their mindset. Rei is the type to focus on a task, who believes that hard work and dedication are the real factors in success, while Minako is trying to keep a happy atmosphere and keep up hope because she's a positive-thinking type person. To someone like Rei, Minako's actions seem irreverent and insulting to the serious task they have while to Minako, Rei's mindset seems fatalistic and like she's close to giving up. Broadly speaking it's important to be both realistic and hopeful which is why they take for a good dichotomy. 

The Three Lights show up with Yaten commenting that Minako's just fooling herself, that they already have someone in their heart worth fighting for. Minako turns serious quickly and comments that's true, and to Rei's surprise either because of Minako's seriousness or the content of her words says that there is someone they have sworn their lives too. In response we come to one of the most famous pages in the manga where Rei says that the two of them "don't need boys to get along," asking facetiously "if that's bad" the two Senshi leaning against each other suggestively. 

Ah Takeuchi-sensei, I love you. I can't wait for reactions for Sailor Moon Cosmos and people wondering "wait did...did they make Mars and Venus a couple because it's current year and they wanted more lesbian relationships" nah, nah it was the original manga. And the reason I think she did is pretty cure. Mars and Venus in Mythology, God of War and Goddess of Love are opposites yet had affairs together numerous times as a reference to the strange way War and Love are opposites not meant to meet yet somehow always seem to. Similarly Minako and Rei are opposites yet seem drawn to each other. And the way it was included was so cheeky too, it's somehow subtle to the point that there's still debate if the Guardian Senshi are all straight yet also insanely in your face. I said one of the things I love about the Stars Arc is its ability to write scenes that mean different things to different people, be they characters or readers and this is an example of where it does that but with shipping.

Venus, Mars, and the Starlights transform in front of each other which if you know about the history of someone seeing the Magical Girl Transformation as something forbidden, taboo, or intimate does not abate the sapphic undertones of the scene

Venus and Mars ask if they're Sailor Senshi then where do they come from and like overdramatic dorks the Starlights throw them a card with a picture of the galaxy on it before flying away instead of just saying. Artists.

Back to the seriousness Mars comments she feels an ominous flow of chi in the direction of the Horse, which means South in the Chinese Zodiac Directional System. Sailor Lead Crow has showed up to the Hikawa Shrine but in a twist she's not after Mars and Venus but someone else. Phobos and Deimos take on their two human forms and Lead Crow reveals she knows them implying that they are from the same planet, ending the act.

Act 52 is fantastic. It's one of the upper tier Sailor Moon acts, which of course means it's....like top 5 material for Stars. 

It's a relatively short act at 41 pages moreso in line with acts near the start of the series than an act near the end, though it does not feel with how many things happen this act. It's also one of the only acts in Sailor Moon without a random short fight at the end, though it sets up one which I think is good evidence the series doesn't need an episodic fight every single time. If I was to say what I love about this act, it would primarily be three points:

Firstly, this is the act with Usagi being forced to come to grips with the situation expressed so painfully poetically with the expression of how it feels if she walks another step forward the world may disappear. That's painfully relatable and compelling to me and expresses an idea I've never expressed so clearly, the fear at the temporal nature of things, the way things can suddenly feel so uncertain after shock, that's immensely meaningful and tie into the themes really well. It's so evocative and is one of the biggest points I think about when I think of Usagi's character arc and her relatability.

Secondly in a semi-similar vein is the first scene of Galaxia actually talking. Galaxia is such an amazing character, full of both presence and dignity, so over-the-top yet subtle. I love her confusion at why the Sailor Senshi cling to their human identities given their temporary because it's so immensely relatable yet the grounds for why the Senshi will conflict with her are already laid so well. It tells you so clearly what this arc is going to be about; the conflict between the part of ourselves that is eternal and the part that changes which I'm ALL for, and does it in a cool evocative way.

Finally, there's the implied Yuri of Rei and Minako called "Heartburn" by the fandom. While the other points are really heavy and full of gravitas, this is definitely the most fun point. Not that it has nothing deep about it with the mythological allusion and the development of yuri with the increase in female independence in the 90s and so on but that's not really why I love it. I love it just because I love Rei and Minako as characters and truthfully have shipped Heartburn since I was a teenager. They are an opposite pair that complements each other so well and their dynamic here is both really cool and really funny. Plus Takeuchi-sensei slips it in so trollishly such that it's really clear what's she implying without actually saying anything. 

Even without all that, this act has a whole bunch of cool little details everywhere. It's got the surprise reveal at the end that Phobos and Deimos are aliens meant to pay off their human forms in the Dream Arc, it's got the enemy coming in by riding on shooting stars which is just a cool concept, you've got a shake-up to the formula that was already shaking up the prior formula, you've got a reference to a side story of all things, allusions to things that will happen but without being too clear, cute moments like Chibi-Chibi hugging Usagi when she's in despair that will get more context later or Rei believing she and Minako can beat the Starlights and Shadow Galactica by herself, the juxtaposition of the two scenes of Usagi and Haruka being paralyzed by seeing the cards of the Starlights.

If I had to give any complaints about this act it would be that some of the transitions between scenes are a little stiff and unnatural, Naoko really has to blitz through to get everything she wants to put in it somewhere, though even there it has time for cool little bit of atmospheric bits like Hotaru telling Setsuna that they passed the point of no return and that's such a minor complaint. Act 52 in general is what I think Sailor Moon SHOULD be. It's efficient, it's stylish, it's dramatic and deep enough that I felt myself tearing up writing some parts of this review but it's also got a really goofy comedy that is still somehow telling of the characters. It calls back to the past and alludes to the future. It's full of great symbolism work and allusions to classical motifs. It's a dramatic love story mixed with a science-fiction mythology about the Golden Queen of the Galaxy and her animal-themed alien minions that is somehow the most relatable thing I've ever read. It's absolutely wonderful.