Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 56 Review

Sailor Moon and company fly at the edge of the Solar System. Kakyuu gestures to the center of the galaxy, a giant light where many stars are densely packed saying that it is Sagittarius Alpha Star, with Sagittarius Zero Star being at its center. This is a reference to Sagittarius A, a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way that all stars in the galaxy orbit around. The contrast between Alpha Star, the greatest and most supreme of stars, and Zero Star, a star of nothingness is also another reference to the two villains of Galaxia and Chaos.

Princess Kakyuu states all star seeds come from the center of the galaxy, it is the place where stars are born.

Sailor Star Fighter asks that if that's where the Shadow Galactica has made their base, then is Galaxia planning on controlling the growth and decay of the galaxy's stars. Kakyuu agrees that is most likely Galaxia's intent, and while they're not wrong technically, neither of them are thinking big enough. The Senshi grasp hands to fly to the center of the galaxy, with Kakyuu saying there's no guanrentee they'll get there safely. Sailor Star Healer says they're prepared regardless, knowing they were going into the middle of enemy territory. 

In literally one panel Sailor Moon and companies fly to the center of the galaxy...making their concerns of being intercepted seem oddly unfounded. However Galaxia is not trying to truly stop them from getting to her, she is planning on Eternal Sailor Moon reaching her. They reach the gate to Zero Star, finding themselves in a strange magical desert. A ferryman rows a boat across the desert, who identifies herself as Lethe, the ferryman of the "river of sand."

Seems Legit.

This is one of those cases where I think Takeuchi-sensei was a lot more focused on the symbolic side than the literal events. Deserts are one of the most commonly recurring visual motifs to represent barriers, challenge, or barrenness. Rivers and water in general are the opposite, representing life and potential. A mystical desert like this represents the barrenness of Galaxia's inner world, the way nothing persists in it, the same as Kakyuu's earlier statement that nothing lives under the domain of the Shadow Galactica. It being a river of sand is actually a really intriguing visual motif, representing the paradoxical union, a life made of barrenness and challenge, and reflects Galaxia's home world. That said if you're trying to follow the literal events this just comes out of nowhere and seems bizarre that they're flying through space and are just suddenly in a desert. There is also the more obvious reference that Lethe is the River of the Underworld in Greek Mythology and so the Senshi are here entering the "underworld", Galaxia's world of death opposite Usagi's world of life.

The Senshi board the ship because...I guess what else are they gonna do.....but as they go along the sand turns to water which swallows up the boat, sending Usagi into unconsciousness. Usagi awakens again in her civilian form, with a glazed look in her eyes. She asks where she is and how she got here. Lethe appears before and somehow manifests the Mooncats before her. But with the glazed eye in their eyes, Usagi doesn't recognize her.

Lethe says that if you take care of cats, you'll just be lonely when they die, you're better off by yourself. Usagi even in her dazed state disagrees, saying she gets lonely when she's alone and she thinks she wants to make a lot of friends. Lethe asks "Then what are your friends like?" However, Usagi can't remember. Lethe points to the ring on her finger, asking if she has a lover but Usagi can't remember, can't even remember who she is. 

 

Lethe tells Usagi that memories aren't worth much, even their bodies are just containers for the only thing of any real value, power. In demonstration of this cruel fact of reality, Lethe cruelly attacks the mooncats, getting at their Star Seeds. A painful scene but the symbolism is clear and strong here. Usagi has entered into Galaxia's world where this is the baseline assumption, this is the philosophy of Galaxia put plain and simple that Usagi is going to have to fight against. The body and mundane life is irrelevant, all that is important of someone is their eternal component.

In the far future, Small Lady feels a pain in her chest at Diana's pain in the past. She finds Luna and Artemis in pain, their bodies shimmering as if in and out of existence. Small Lady runs to her mother asking where Diana is. Neo-Queen Serenity responds that Diana felt a disturbance in the past and returned to help. 

Small Lady says that something has happened to Diana's body, she can feel it. Neo-Queen Serenity relents and shows her daughter what's going on. The bodies of the Senshi lay side by side, their bodies slowly fading away but their Crystals shining. The abnormalities in the past are threatening the future.

Small Lady, quite justified by this point, demands to go back to the past to help Sailor Moon. Neo-Queen Serenity tries to tell her it's too dangerous but Small Lady responds that it is her mission, that she can feel the pain of the others surging to her across time, that they call out to her. While Neo-Queen Serenity must stay here to guard the 30th Century, she will return in time to fulfill her mission. Small Lady transforms into Eternal Sailor Chibi-Moon, joined by the Four Eternal Amazon Senshi, Sailor Ceres, Sailor Pallas, Sailor Juno, and Sailor Vesta.

Neo-Queen Serenity relents, giving her daughter the Time Key and telling her that she will need to cross time, and the galaxy, making the latter sound more significant than the former. Strange as that may sound, time's dangers are circumvented by having a Time Key, while the dangers of the Shadow Galactica exist throughout the galaxy. 

Back in the present Usagi takes the dust in her hands in shock, asking Lethe how she can kill so easily and then in a super archetypal little exchange, Usagi says "Everyone is born to live" and Lethe responds "Living things are born to die."

In the temporal physical world we inhabit, both these facts are not only true but basically the flip-side of each other. It's a classic case of "is the glass half full or half empty." I don't think these statements can get more archetypal or universal, the meaning they hold is being expressed at the maximal amount precise.  Usagi is the heroine of the story, often associated with messianic and life-restoring themes, having brought everyone back to life on numerous occasions. Here she faces the ferryman to the underworld Senshi associated with death. As such there's a cool life and death symbolism reflected in their perspectives here. This also ties with the arc's greater themes. Transient things like individual lives are born in a sense to end someday, this is the fixation of Galaxia and those in her inner world, and it's true but it's not the full story, because as Usagi stated they are are also born to live, the very reason that they are born at all is to experience and go through life. 

Sailor Lethe attacks Usagi with her attack, who lays on the ground painfully asking why Lethe wants to kill her. Meanwhile, Mnemosyne watches but recoils at the sight, gripping the ground, clearly not wanting this to happen. Lethe tells Usagi she came here only to lose everything, as in the very point of Usagi coming here was to lose everything. Usagi knows that's not right, that she has loved ones to protect, but she can't recall anything about who they were to give her strength. Lethe says no one can beat her at the bottom of the river of oblivion and prepares to kill Usagi.  However Sailor Mnemosyne stops her sister, telling her that she's hurt Sailor Moon, just leave her to Galaxia. Hearing the words "Sailor Moon" restores Usagi's memories and she reawakens in the River of Oblivion.

Lethe gets angry that Sailor Moon somehow regained her memories in the River of Oblivion, while Sailor Moon rescues Chibi-Chibi. Mnemosyne telekinetically brings Sailor Moon and friends outside the water.

While Sailor Moon asks Chibi-Chibi if she's alright, Lethe asks Mnemosyne if Mnemosyne is betraying her. Mnemosyne, though less willful than her sister, replies that she doesn't want to hurt their fellow Sailor Senshi anymore. She gives Kakyuu water from the River of Memories, restoring Kakyuu's memories. 

Sailor Moon and Kakyuu address Lethe and Mnemosyne who introduce themselves. Lethe says that this it the outer moat of the Galactica Palace, with Lethe being the Guardian of the River of Oblivion and Mnemosyne being the Guardian of the River of Memory. Lethe tells Sailor Moon she can't let her take a step forward. Mnesmosyne tries to ask her to stop but Lethe just tells her to close her eyes, and asks her if she's forgotten their pact with Galaxia

This leads into a brief backstory for the sisters, that they were Senshi of a dual-planetary system, the two planets being small, dismal, and chaotic. War was constant. Galaxia arrived on the planets and her arrival wiped out all life save for them, Galaxia brought death and everlasting silence to the chaos. Galaxia told them that if she was victorious, they would find a peaceful place to live. However Kakyuu protests that they will never find peace or happiness under the Soldier of Destruction, that ruin and slaughter are all they'll ever find with her.

This backstory is great! You ever wonder why people follow these extreme fanatical movements, gnostic cults or the orders of a dictator. It's simplified, but this is why. Because chaos is fundamentally unlivable, and people will attach themselves to anything or anyone that can conquer the chaos, that gives their loved ones a world they can live in. Yes, Galaxia is a soldier of destruction who kills everyone, but even peacefully orderly death surrounding you is better than chaotic meaningless death surrounding you, because the former at least is comprehensible, it gives one a chance to rise from the circumstances. It is my opinion that the extreme gnostic impulse, and I speak from experience, comes from trying to bring order to the most chaotic of all things; the human heart. Likewise, externally people will align themselves to a dictator as a result of trying to bring order to chaos. Kakyuu's rebuttal is also well-founded. A peaceful happy world won't be made through destruction and warfare, the tools of a dictator like Galaxia. Galaxia this arc has been a physical threat, endangering Usagi's life, a mental threat as she breaks Usagi's mind and her plans seem almost unstoppable, a conceptual threat as she embodies the ideals and the ultimate enemy that Usagi must utilize her growth to face, and a narrative threat as she breaks the conventions that the genre and prior arcs have established. Yet here Galaxia is a spiritual threat, a corrupting force on the galaxy, turning Senshi against Senshi. Lethe and Mnemosyne are great character despite their briefness. Lethe is immediately compelling as a villain despite her dark actions because it's easy to understand and sympathize with her desire to protect her soft-hearted sister. If it was just Lethe wanting a peaceful world for herself, she'd seem understandable but indulgent and irresponsible. However, to do vile actions in the protection of one's family is a pretty classic motif for a villain to make it hard to hate them. I mean, what should Lethe have done, resist Galaxia to the end and let her sweet sister die? For what, her pride? 

Lethe responds to Kakyuu's statement by speaking to Sailor Moon in an accusatory fashion, asking if SHE will bring peace to them. Can she promise them a happy future, the way Galaxia at least says she will. Lethe angrily declares that Sailor Moon's power attracts conflict, that as long as she's there, the war will never end, and so in her eyes Sailor Moon is their enemy. She does this while standing protectively in front of Mnemosyne who in some of my favorite art of the series looks as Sailor Moon with a mixture of sadness and pity and anger, knowing Sailor Moon is supposed to be their enemy, and clearly on some level she is responsible for the conflict they bear, but also being soft-hearted and not wanting to hurt anyone. 

This is a favorite art of the series for me, the way their stances and faces say so much about them. Lethe says that no matter who wins, the future will be the same, she just wants to secure happiness for herself and her sister.

Sailor Moon responds that if Lethe truly believes it will end the war, that she will allow Lethe to kill her, much to the shock of everyone here. Sailor Moon says she came here to end the war herself, that she has the same mission and wish as them, that there is no more battle, that peace returns, no matter what future that entails for them personally. 

Personally, I don't think Sailor Moon was really telling Lethe to kill her there, but was saying the words she knew would best reach Lethe's heart because of their self-evident truth, but I know there's some contention there.

Lethe, unable to tell herself that someone willing to allow herself to be killed for their sake is their enemy and seeming to know already deep in her heart that killing Sailor Moon wouldn't end the war anyway, allows her to pass. However, Sailor Chi and Phi show up, denouncing Lethe and Mnesmonye for their weakness before taking their star seeds. The last act of the sisters is to hold each others hands as they disappear.

For basically only appearing in one act, Lethe and Mnemosnye are such good characters, I think. Their story is tragic, evocative, self-contained yet ties into the greater story and thoroughly engaging. 

Sailor Phi attacks them but Chibi-Chibi creates a barrier to protect them. However Phi does manage to take the star seeds of the Sailor Starlights, ending the act.

Act 56 is a much more active act than the past two, starting the second half of the Stars Arc. It's pretty notable that compared to the other Star Acts, it's pretty clearly the most self-contained of the acts in Stars. It's not filler, every SM act advances the plot at least some. This act has Sailor Moon and company traveling to Sagittarius Zero Star and the death of the Starlights which is fairly important to the Stars Arc plot. That said it's definitely the act that feels more disconnected to the rest of the arc. Like as someone whose reread this manga a lot, I see all the thematic connections this act has to rest of the arc, and it's place in the overarching narrative, though for a first time reader I can imagine the events of the act might seem less unified with the rest of the arc.

Talking about the internal story of the act first I think Lethe and Mnemosyne make for a good pair of antagonists, some of the most compelling in the series history and decently threatening. Their story is interesting and tragic and makes for a good test both physically and emotionally for Usagi. I do think that Sailor Moon regaining her memories from hearing the words "Sailor Moon" could be seen as a little deus ex machina-y. I would perhaps have preferred something that referred back to the first half of the act, such as the thought emerging in Usagi's mind that "I can't keep avoiding the pain" referencing she's already "lost" her memories and regained them in the arc. With that said I think the story is pretty good on its own. I like that Lethe and Mnemosyne's rivers form the "moat" around Galaxia's palace, as well as conceptually the ideas of the "river of sand" or the interaction between the embodiment of life, Usagi, and the ferryman of death, Lethe, exemplified by their brief exchange that things are born to live, and things are born to die. The exchange is an archetypal exchange as directly meaningful as asking if the cup is half full or half empty.

Where this act excels, as is the general case for Stars Acts, is in the symbolism which is what actually connects this act to the rest of the arc. While the act may seem kinda disconnected on a first read, if you've read the story many times, it actually serves a narrative purpose connecting the two halves of the arc. The first half of this arc is broadly Galaxia imposing herself on Usagi's world, the eternal pressing itself upon the temporal and breaking it, the affairs of the greater galaxy seeming inevitable and destructive to the relatively tiny local world of the Solar System. The second half of this arc in contrast is Usagi entering into Galaxia's world, reversing the usual structure of an SM climax, learning about this larger than life Soldier of Destruction who seems to control everything. The narrative purpose of this arc then is for Usagi to cross the threshold and see the effects of Galaxia's dominion over the Galaxy. 

In series where the hero has to infiltrate or bust a dangerous cult, there's always a scene where they first enter and the viewer is quickly exposed to several displays of atrocious acts meant to express to the viewer what's at stake, what the antagonist's effects on others really is. This act serves the same purpose, showing what Galaxia's effect on the galaxy is as a spiritually corrupting force that causes sympathetic Senshi to have to do horrible things to survive. To this point Usagi has encountered the effects of Galaxia's philosophy, but this the first act she has to encounter the worldview itself as she enters into Galaxia's world, exemplified by Lethe's statement that living things are born only to die. There idea of the eternal war and trying to bring peace to it is also an idea introduced which will become the driving idea for much of the second half of the arc. Finding peace is Lethe's goal, a time and space that would be safe for her soft-hearted sister. Kakyuu tells her that you won't find peace following a Soldier of Destruction, foreshadowing the revelations Galaxia herself will eventually realize, and Eternal Sailor Moon offers her life if it would stop the war, foreshadowing the question she will have to face at the end of the story; the choice between painful chaotic life and quiet peaceful death.

There are a few other points about the act of note. Chibi-Moon and her Amazon Senshi are going back to the past to help Sailor Moon which is a pretty good continuation of her arc in the Dream Arc. As mentioned the start's a bit weird with how they voice a concern only for it to be immediately disproved without any comment. Also Lethe killed the Mautians? I get that it was needed to show Lethe's expression of Galaxia's philosophy and representing the world Sailor Moon had entered but that seems really weird given the cats were on Earth at the time so...what?