Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 55 Review

 

The act resumes where the last act ended, Galaxia's power blowing away the city while Usagi tries to withstand the force, thinking she's not to face Galaxia, an enemy beyond all others she's faced. She tries to telepathically contact the Outer Senshi, telling them to respond as she needs their help.

Galaxia however reads Usagi's intent and telepathically shows Usagi images of the Outer Senshi dying. Usagi remains resolute and thinks to herself as she reaches for the Holy Grail that she summoned in front of her that she'll get everyones' crystals back, and that united they will will be able to save everyone. Galaxia just floats through Usagi's barrier though telepathically asking if she really believes that.

Galaxia is my favorite villain and this is one of the reasons. When creating Galaxia, Takeuchi-Sensei was thinking about Usagi, one of the most iconic manga characters to ever be created and someone who has by far dominated the story so far with her narrative and ideals, and wanted to create a rival, an anti-Usagi who could break that sense of certainty that Usagi, the readers, and the narrative had built around Usagi's story and this is almost literally represented in Galaxia's words and actions here. She simply ignores the barrier Usagi built up around herself, she destroys the city around Usagi, the locality that represents Usagi's mundane life suddenly and out of nowhere, she questions whether Usagi even really believes that this will be just like every other time.

Usagi tries to protest that this is always what happens, that they always unite and protect the future but Galaxia scoffs at the notion, asking her if she's sure that future will happen. Galaxia destroys the Holy Grail, symbol of the unity between the Senshi. A surge of energy happens as Galaxia says that now Usagi's planet will be no more and Usagi collapses from the strain. However before Galaxia blows up the planet, Chibi-Chibi grows her angel wings again and creates a shine that actually recreates the Holy Grail and the city.

This is the first time in the narrative Galaxia's plan has actually not come to fruition, even if the basic thrust of what she was aiming at was achieved by tormenting Usagi more. I love how Galaxia, just as she started this arc by killing the leading male and second most important character without any hassle asks Usagi if her stereotypical idea of how things will go will happen. Galaxia, the Soldier of Destruction, just as she wipes away the city destroys the narrative certainty. Of course, on some level, the reader thinks that there will be some kind of happy ending, but the degree is left uncertain by how much Galaxia destroys the standard narrative established in the last four arcs, represented by her messing with the future. Maybe there will be a happy ending, but the sacrifices and losses could really be anything. 

The Starlights show up trying to figure out what happened but Chibi-Chibi just calmly says things are alright, without any worry at all, building to her secret identity. The Starlights are shocked that Usagi survived an assault against Galaxia, despite not even transforming and restoring the city in the process, commenting that this is the legendary power of the Silver Crystal.

We cut to Galaxia in a flashback, drinking alone at a bar on an alien planet, listening in on a conversation, or rather a man ranting. He proclaims  that there is a birthplace of the stars, strong stars and weak stars, light and power, that if someone had it they would own the universe and be like a god, not live "like that." Having gotten the information she was looking for Galaxia proclaims to him that "trash is still trash until its death" and leaves both the bar and the planet. Looking down upon it she speaks to herself saying "whenever I go, all I see is trash" and well...

Galaxia is a soldier of destruction indeed.

Galaxia suggests that this is the fate of both this planet and her home planet, implying she destroyed it as well, the ultimate example of Galaxia's disdain for temporalities, declaring she is the one chosen by God, the one given such power. Insane as this might sound and though I don't have the godlike ego or genocidal tendencies...I can relate to Galaxia here. More than that I relate to her more than almost any other villain in fiction, maybe more than any other villain period. On the Gnostic to Nihilistic Spectrum, my tendency is dramatically towards the Gnostic. Sure I don't destroy entire worlds but I know immediately what Galaxia means when it seems like the world is empty. When I watch fictional series, I don't feel very much for most of them. You go through chapter after chapter, episode after episode, for scant bits of meaning, but so much just seems...arbitrary. This character or that event happens because the writer felt like it I guess and there's no deeper reason. I don't....feel it. And this isn't something I feel only towards others. I don't talk about it much but when I write anything, I feel...almost a contempt for most of my sentences. Every sentence I feel needs to justify its existence, so many of them I just think to myself "That doesn't go very deep, that doesn't give enough meaning." Even in real life, so many moments of our lives pass by without conveying any deeper meaning and people just seem okay with that in a way I don't understand. I can find meaning in them, just as I can read meaning into stories or deliberately try to extract what's meaningful in them, but I have to work for it most of the time. I always want most things to be more efficient in meaning, to take less time and effort, and give more meaning. Indeed what I love about Sailor Moon IS that it's so meaning-dense. It communicates so much in so little time, and even there you'll see if you go back on these reviews I give praise to the acts that communicate meaning and criticize when the times when things feel empty, even if I rationally know that no human author could possibly make a long-form story so meaning-dense as I'd like. I don't exalt in the chaotic destruction many seem too, I feel no drive to mess up orderly and working systems...yet I do enjoy a form of destruction of my own, I enjoy mentally burning away all the fat and excess, cutting down on the excess and arbitrary and the... meaningless. I wanna see how meaning-efficient a series can be, yet even as I mentally do that, part of me knows for some reason that's the part of series others connect too. Things that feel shallow to me are the interest of others. This impulse within me taken to its logical extreme is Galaxia who destroys whole worlds...because they're not meaningful to her, because they're trash without value for her. This is part of Galaxia's character arc that makes her one of the most compelling villains, heck one of the most compelling CHARACTERS I've ever read. I know the emptiness that drives her, the quest to find the meaningful and eternal that will fill the emptiness. And the conclusion of her character arc moves me just thinking of it now.

Galaxia in the flashback goes searching for an even greater power, a shining star worthy of her, looking for that mythical place in the universe where who does she run into, but Wiseman from the Black Moon Clan Arc. Knowing how to manipulate power-mad tyrants, Wiseman tells her of the place where stars are born, rushing forth like water from a fountain, Sagittarius Zero Star. Wiseman guide Galaxia to the center of the Milky Way where she meets a strange amorphous entity known as Chaos, who proclaims itself her mother.

Wiseman being here was a pretty cool reveal I think, and it probably makes sense time-wise. Technically Phantom appear until Crystal Tokyo so Wiseman shouldn't have been born yet, but he's also a time traveler and there's a reveal near the end of the arc which adds an extra way this could make sense. Galaxia's traveling around the universe is pretty cool especially since we see some really non-humanoid looking aliens with fish heads and Chaos itself is introduced. Little is seen about Chaos here but it's clearly going to be a bit plot point for the arc. 

Galaxia awakens from her dreaming of her past in her civilian form calling it a "tedious dream of when she looked for where she belonged." She mentions Sailor Moon shall come here soon, just as Chaos called her here to see the true, deliberately paralleling the two which will become relevant later as well as expressing that she became enlightened of something here. Galaxia beckons Sailor Moon to hurry here, saying the Earth is not even worthy of Sailor Moon alone, let alone a battle between the two, once again showing both her extreme larger-than-life personality and her disdain for temporalities-like worlds.

This is really cool although in ways that will make more sense after you learn the truth of what Galaxia is trying to do. Broadly though Galaxia after meeting Chaos had a mission, a goal, and her words mean more in their light.

Tin Nyanko returns, begging for forgiveness and one more change. However, Galaxia says that trash can never become stars, a reference to her dream flashback and to her believe that the only thing that matters about something is the eternal part of that thing, that the temporal part that changes is meaningless. She causes Tin Nyanko's bracelet to release and Tin Nyanko turns to dust, as Galaxia changed her body. The symbolism here is a bit more direct. Galaxia considers her minions temporal and like sand shifting in the wind, and so they become. 

We cut to a dream sequence of Usagi where she is beside a great shining star, hearing the sound of rushing water. Yet even hear she is not safe, for Galaxia attacks her, telling her that this is Sagittarius Zero Star, the Galaxy Cauldron, and dragging her down into it.

It's not really clear how Galaxia is doing this, even though she clearly is doing this as Usagi is being given plot information here. However, the reason why she's doing this is clear. She's tormenting Usagi even in her dreams, making it so she can't feel safe even in her dreams and trying to draw her to come to Sagittarius Zero Star. 

Usagi awakens again at Chibi-Chibi's prompting with the Starlights and Kakyuu nearby. Usagi thinks she thought she was being dragged down into that Dark Abyss, which is possibly a poetic reference to Hell or the Underworld. Usagi feels Chibi-Chibi's warm hands, commenting that Chibi-Chibi saved her, gave her strength through her warm hands, contrasted against the cold Abyss. Usagi wonders at the mysterious little angel sent from the future sent to save her, and at her allies protecting her while she's awake. Following up her feelings last act of losing herself to her eternal identity of Sailor Moon, bearer of the Silver Crystal, that her presence is what's causing her loved ones to be killed, Usagi thinks to herself that her friends are dying for her because she is the Guardian with the Silver Crystal...and then Usagi says something that is a massive moment in her own character arc and the themes of this arc in particular. 

Depending on the translation she says "no matter what, I'm still me" or "I just have to accept it. Every me is me." following by saying that because of that fact there are some things only she can do. Addressing the Starlights she says that they are more than their Sailor Crystals, but their bodies too. It is by seeing each other, by talking to each other, by joining their hands together, that their power grows. That it's only with their bodies can they combine their strength, that's what a Sailor Senshi is.

This is such a fantastic moment, I don't even know how to start talking about it. This is the character development for Usagi that foreshadows the climax of her battle with Galaxia and even here it shows the truly antithetical position for Galaxia. Usagi believes that these temporalities we live in are important because they are how we come to know each other, that the eternal component of our being come to understand each other through the temporary and transient parts of ourselves, and that's so...true. While I will get more into this in Act 59, the eternal manifests itself through the temporal so it can. Great metaphysical universal truths from gravity to fairness are experienced by the mind in the transient and humble sensations of mundane life from dropping a plate accidentally to seeing continually unlucky and feeling sorrow for them. These seemingly small meaningless and arbitrary sufferings of the universe and even its arbitrary joys are a communication between the inner eternal universes of our souls to with the eternal realities of the outer universe. What Usagi is saying here that their power as Sailor Senshi, as shown through their higher forms which are literally their hearts coming together as one, is formed of the bond their selves, their hearts, their Sailor Crystals form but THROUGH their bodies, their physical selves, that these silly mundane lives they lead are what connect them to each other and let them become stronger, that this transient world of temporalities, painful though it may be, allows the change that the Eternal Sailor Crystal alone would not. When most people, myself included, talk about great works of fiction we might say it makes other works look bad in comparison. But the Stars Arc of Sailor Moon is the only great work I know to do the reverse. It makes me love every single other work of fiction more because it helps me see them for what they really are: an attempt from one heart to express and communicate with mine, a physical manifestation through which I might see the eternal reality of another heart or the truths of the universe we share.

Usagi gets a chill thinking about Galaxia's words, though refuses to believe that her friends are lost forever, speaking to Galaxia in her heart saying she will return things to normal but in classic empathetic Usagi fashion trying to understand Galaxia's motive and why she is doing what she is doing. After that is a cute scene where Usagi gets up early the next day and Ikuko questions why, with Usagi asking if she can keep Artemis and Diana as pets, knowing they need a home temporarily without the others. Usagi explains that Artemis and Diana are Luna's husband and daughter, and says, with a sad expression that Minako can't look over Artemis at the moment. 

All the while Usagi thinks back to Kakyuu telling her that the damage to their foreheads aren't healing, and they may never talk again. The cats meow pitifully. The scene I believe is meant to show the growth in Usagi's composure and be emotionally evocative in how Usagi has to say these calm words knowing the reality.

Ikuko agrees to take care of Artemis and Diana as well as Luna, relieving Usagi. Usagi, having to hold back all her emotions tells her mother that she's leaving with Ikuko tearing up telling Kenji that it feels like Usagi's not coming back, the cats in similar despair.

That's some...ominous foreshadowing. Usagi goes off to war.

Usagi along with Kakyuu, the Starlights and Chibi-Chibi have a few exchanges, with Yaten surprised on Chibi-Chibi speaking normally now, the four planning to go to the ouskirts of the Solar System to meet up with the Outer Senshi. In a cute little exchange Seiya asks Usagi to give Seiya her hand, to let Seiya guide her. Usagi refuses, saying she doesn't want to be a burden and will keep up with them, but Seiya responds that she's a princess and a princess grows stronger when she gets protected. It's a cute little exchange. 

The Senshi grow Angel Wings to fly through the Heavens, as they take off for the Outer System. However when they arrive at the Outer Senshis' castles, they find them abandoned, only static playing on their screens. Usagi panics and rushes between them. When they get to Charon Castle orbiting Pluto however...

Sailor Moon learns from the visual recorder that Galaxia has already killed them. I know it would have super broken up the flow of the plot and probably wouldn't have been good for the overall symbolism and what they represent...but some part of me really wishes that Saturn and Galaxia had actually fought instead of Hotaru having her Star Seed taken in civilian form. Saturn vs Galaxia would have been the most hype thing ever.

Sailor Moon holds her face in her hands in anguish, saying if Galaxia wants Sailor Moon's crystal, she should just come after her, asking in despair why she is doing this to everyone. Sailor Moon declares that she will never forgive Galaxia, and addresses Kakyuu demanding to be brought to Sagittarius Zero Star. Kakyuu asks in shock how Sailor Moon knows of Zero Star. Sailor Moon says Galaxia told her of it, before addressing Galaxia directly saying to her that she's coming to get her. Meanwhile, transposed over this image in a really cool visual display, Galaxia senses Sailor Moon's intent across the Galaxy, telling Sailor Moon to hurry to her so she can destroy everything she loves one by one, till Sailor Moon is all alone. The two greatest lights of the universe are fixed against each other, their battlefield is set and the time of their battle approaches, concluding the first sub-arc of Stars.

The act concludes with a brief mysterious twin pair of girls, Lethe and Mnemosnye seeing an immense light approach them, the distant light of the Silver Crystal. Mnemosnye tells her twin she's scared and Lethe reassures her that she will protect her and their future, and won't let anyone step past them, obviously foreshadowing the next act.

Act 55 is fairly similar to Act 54 in its strengths. As such, I can hypothetically understand how someone might not be especially fond of it, given how much of it thematic self-reflection and dialogue and not actually much plot advancement, but on the other hand COME ON it's SUCH good thematic development. I think it's absolutely fantastic for my own part and it even advances the plot more than the last act. Parts of this act leave me truly at a loss for words because it's so...its strengths are so immediately evident to me yet also so deep in its themes and developments.

Act 55 concludes the first half of the Stars Arc. It culminates in the dichotomy of two subplots; Usagi's development and learning about Galaxia, comparing and contrasting them, forming the recurrent dichotomy of the first half that reaches its apex within this act, preparing for their clash. 

Galaxia is introduced as this mysterious character characterized by her larger-than-life nature, beginning the arc by declaring herself queen over the galaxy and proving herself so inevitable and alien to Usagi's world that she kills Mamoru, the leading male, during a romantic moment, halfway through the first Stars act. Over the course of this arc, Galaxia has seemed an unstoppable inevitable force, more than a person. Every time Usagi thinks she's won or is safe, NOPE Galaxia is here to take everything she thought was real from her. We see Galaxia only cares for the Eternal and the Universal, wondering why the Sailor Senshi cling to their mundane lives coming to the culmination this act as we see Galaxia's thoughts for the first time, her dismissal for the temporal nature of things with her declaration that trash will always be trash, her care only for the eternal, as well as the scope of her character. She is paradoxically the ultimate, the eternity, the top of the Senshi hierarchy that shapes the Galaxy's politics with her will, yet it's this various fixation that makes her compelling. 

Galaxia's destruction of the internal world of Usagi's security and expectations is continued into this act, to the point of being expressed vocalized as Galaxia asks Usagi if she is really certain that her future will come to being. Similarly, narratively, most of these arcs have a second half where the various villain group invade the planet directly. The Dark Kingdom freed Metaria who attacked the planet openly. The Black Moon Clan with Black Lady at their side attacked the future Crystal Tokyo directly. With the arrival of Pharaoh 90 and the awakening of Mistress 9, the Daimon attacked Earth to turn it into their homeworld, Zirconia eventually engaging the Sailor Senshi in open conflict when Usagi and Mamoru were weakened. However, these were the culmination of their arcs. Attacking the planet directly isn't Galaxia's plan or the point of this arc, so casual that Galaxia does so suddenly to start an act without even transforming and mocks the idea of the Earth being a worthy battlefield. Now the battle for Earth, for Usagi's inner world is only the prelude, the arc beginning where most arcs end. Now Usagi will have to invade Galaxia's world, come to understand this strange new enemy of hers, a seeming final equal and opposite to her, if she wants to win foreshadowed in her twice this act wondering about Galaxia's true nature, what kind of person she is. Now instead of having to protect her own planet, for the first time in the series, the second half of an arc will be Usagi entering into the world of an enemy, the great and most absolute inner world of the setting, Galaxia's world. the world of Sagittarius Zero Star. It's an immediately engaging subversion of the established structure that works on on many levels, mostly to show Galaxia's unique nature in the series history, how she focus only on the great and supreme things in the universe, how she is truly an equal to Usagi, whose inner world is equal in importance to the arc to Usagi's, how Usagi will have to come to understand Galaxia to prevail, foreshadowed with Usagi wondering multiple times who Galaxia is, and the way Galaxia parallels herself to Usagi with both being summoned to Sagittarius Zero Star, and is trying to make Usagi alone the way Galaxia herself is.

If Galaxia is the ultimate subversion of the series, breaking its narrative conventions, Usagi's arc over this first half, culminating within this act, is entrenched in the series' history. Literally this first half of the arc has been about Usagi coming to terms with Galaxia and preparing her will to battle against the greatest threat in the universe. But metaphorically it's about Usagi coming to terms with the transient nature of the things she trusts in and believes in. Usagi is introduced to us as an immature, irresponsible girl who nonetheless becomes stronger for the ones she loves. Over the course of the series, she has developed into a mature and responsible young woman, and a champion of love and justice, through the exact same principle. It showed Usagi's transformation in Act 1, and then showed that act on a far grander scope across the arcs, becoming a better, nobler, and more capable woman through her love for others. However, the first act of this arc where Galaxia killed Mamoru in front of her at the same time killed her sense of security and trust in the world she knew, the expectations she had that she and her friends would always triumph and defend everyone. 

For the first several acts she's unable to face this reality at all, completely disassociating from it. However, over the course of the arc, she has to grow to face this reality, embodied in Galaxia. Last act, Usagi wishes that their bodies would go on for eternity, her love embodied as angel wings which though they should let her fly through the Heavens, instead weigh her down, her greatest weapon, her love that ennobled her made into her curse by Galaxia. Yet this act she makes the emotional breakthrough with her proclamation "every me is me" neither prioritizing her material life as Usagi or her heavenly life as Sailor Moon, and asserting the diametric opposite of Galaxia's philosophy, that these fragile temporal material lives we lead to give them strength, and that itself is what a Sailor Senshi is. In doing so, she as Eternal Sailor Moon regains the use of her angel wings to fly through the Heavens, which is what allows her to fly to Galaxia's world. It is in recognizing her power to grow stronger as a Senshi that she literally, emotionally, and metaphorically regains the ability to confront Galaxia directly. 

I adore how each of the themes of the first four arcs can all be seen in this act as this act shows Usagi's development as a person and a Senshi to the point of being able to fact the ultimate reality embodied in Galaxia. In the first arc Usagi came to realize that her identities could co-exist within her at the same time, shown when she declares herself Princess Serenity and Sailor Moon against Metaria and when she chooses to live as Usagi Tsukino on Earth instead of as new Lunar Queen. That's seen with Usagi's declaration that she is still herself, that their bodies are an important part of them giving her conviction in her ideals. In the second arc, Usagi had to learn proper responsibility, taking on the ultimate maternal responsibility, a willingness to sacrifice herself for her daughter, and the responsibility of ruling over the entire world in the future but not taking the responsibility for Demande's actions unto herself. Similarly this act, Usagi thinks of how Galaxia is killing everyone she loves to get to her, a part that's clearly in her mind since last act showed her flashing back to Saphir making that same assertion. Yet instead of falling to despair again, Usagi refuses to take responsibility for Galaxia's actions and instead uses this to motivate it, to take the responsibility on her shoulders to stop it saying "There's always a friend risking their life to protect me. Even if it's because I'm the Soldier with Silver Moon Crystal...My being this way is exactly why there are things only I can do." The third arc taught Usagi the importance of looking beyond the surface layer of a person to their soul allowing her to see that the mysterious "boy" Haruka so alien to her was another Sailor Senshi with the same heart as her. Usagi ends this act looking at Galaxia no longer as some inevitable force, but as a person, a person whom Usagi wonders at the intent off. This makes her someone Usagi can fight, and will be important for her later in the arc. The fourth arc taught Usagi the difference between the surface level and deeper dreams, shown when she breaks free of an indulgent dream where Mamoru serves her every whim to share the same dream with him, a dream of the two in true partnership, working together to protect the world as symbol of their love. While Usagi's material dream is for the safety and security of her friends, that they might never die symbolized in her statement last act that "I wish these bodies would last forever," while Galaxia might have shattered the waking dream Usagi inhabited where they were all fine and wouldn't die, Usagi had a deeper dream, a dream of protecting this world surrounded by the ones she loves, a deeper dream that maintains her and empowers her in the time of toil, and as loving true dreams unites her with her friends regardless. Usagi has gone from a scared crybaby, half as good as any of the other Senshi to the light of the universe, a soldier who this very act faces down the strongest Senshi temporarily whose very visage paralyzes other Senshi and it feels so incredibly EARNED. This act subtly showcases Usagi's growth as though the entire series has built up to this moment of Usagi going off to battle her ultimate opponent with all the development she had.

This act is fantastic because it juxtaposes the series' two best characters in my opinion: Usagi and Galaxia, developing both, connecting to both past and future in its showcase of the development of Usagi and foreshadowing what she will need to beat Galaxia, highlighting the difference of their hearts, one who rejects the flawed temporal worlds we inhabit, and one who loves them, a conflict which if I'm honest, is one I experience regularly. 

That's not even getting into all the cool little details about this arc! The part where Chibi-Chibi fends off Galaxia, the first time the whole arc Galaxia has been stopped from doing something foreshadowing Chibi-Chibi's importance, Seiya and Usagi's cute little exchange about princesses being stronger when protected, Ikuko's comment about Usagi seeming like she will never come back building the tension and the finale where Usagi declares she is coming for Galaxia while Galaxia like a true supervillain grinning and inviting her to come for battle building the hype. I love this act and I could talk about it even more, it is the perfect thing to reflect on the greatness of the series so far and prepare the reader for the final sub-arc in Sailor Moon.