Recently I completed re-watching the Toei Sailor Moon, this making it I believe the fifth time I watched the series completely. To mark this event I wanted to review the series. Toei Sailor Moon is a series that draws more polarizing feelings from me then any series: The only series who's best matches the Sailor Moon Manga, my favorite series of all series, yet who's worst is painful to me in a way few other series can match. As such I thought I'd make three blogs to express my feelings about this series: one to go over what I don't like about the series, one to go over what I like about this series, and then finally one to express my feelings towards the series as a whole.
After watching the series I attempted to rank the 200 episodes. It was a difficult experience, and many episodes were interchangeable, but a general picture began to develop. Of those 200 episodes, there were around 20 episodes or 10% of the series I had negative feelings towards. There were around 30 episodes I felt mixed or neutral on. There was around 120 episodes, the meat of the show, that I liked divided roughly evenly between episodes I liked moderately and episodes I liked a lot. Finally there was around 30 episodes I fully loved.
There's about 50 episodes that I feel mixed or outright negative on. That is one quarter of the show, one in every four episode, though they tend to be clustered in R and SuperS, the second and fourth seasons respectively. The flaws of these episodes tended to be one or more of three specific problems:
1: The Episode was just kinda dull. I'm not really a fan of slice of life as a genre, and Toei Sailor Moon adds a substantial slice of life element. Beyond that it's a 200 episode weekly slice of life monster of the week type series where about half the episodes have no particular plot relevance and was made by Toei Animation 30 years ago. It was always going to be the case some of the episodes were going to miss on a base entertainment level. I'm honestly impressed it wasn't more.
2: The episode was mean-spirited. Toei Sailor Moon is a strange beast to compare to other versions of Sailor Moon as it has a reputation as the fluffiest, most comedic, light-hearted and optimistic series. However while it is the most comedic, its comedy is very 90s which sometimes means being mean to characters for comedy. Most often this happens to Usagi, which is to me a very strange quirk of Toei Sailor Moon, the amount it pokes fun at its protagonist.
3: The episode has a bad moral. The only quality of fiction I consider objectively bad, some episodes express morals that are at best, quite dated, which is particularly troublesome given that this is a series aimed at children.
All 20 of these episodes are ranked at the bottom from some combination of these traits. I am first going to give the Dishonorable Mentions unranked with a very brief explanation, before giving the bottom 10.
Dishonorable Mentions:
Episode 16: This is the episode where they make Wedding Dresses. I saw a podcast that was confused why anyone would put this in bottom 10. For me it's a combination of it's a kind of mean-spirited ep (the girls make fun of the fiancé of the victim of the week cause he's not conventionally attractive), I don't like the characterization of the girls here, and it's a spider monster and spiders really ick me.
Episode 29: The ep where Usagi and Makoto go after Motoki that introduces Reika. I don't like how Usagi is treated as inept and Makoto eventually hits her for being inept at cooking. Also while she doesn't go through with it I don't like the characterization of Makoto trying to convince Reika to go so she can get Motoki.
Episode 42: The ep with the Sailor V backstory. The backstory doesn't make a lot of sense and involves Minako not telling her British friends she's alive because she was Alan and Katarina were already together. It set the vibe for Minako for another half season that I don't think works well with her and also for how much the fandom like to caricature Manga Usagi as a cold hearted murderer and Toei Usagi as a constantly crying wuss, Toei Usagi is the one who was like "you took my friend's love interest so I will kill you" which doesn't fit with anything we know about Usagi.
Episode 63: The Grandpa Hino Wrestling Ep. Grandpa Hino in Toei is a problem, he is very often hitting on schoolgirls to the point its become a problem, but the ep wants us to feel sympathetic towards him as he gets beat up. Also it's just kind of dull.
Episode 66: The Curry Ep. I have seen this series I think five times all the way through and I truly honestly can't tell you what happens in this ep. It's very unmemorable.
Episode 101: The Usagi's Birthday Part 1 Ep. This ep paints Usagi in the WORST light, having her slap Mamoru and run away crying for forgetting her birthday only to reveal she forgot she never actually told him her birthday making her out as stupid and petty. The ending was good though.
Episode 122: The Viluy Episode. So this is weird because it's actually kinda similar to the Manga. However in the Manga this happens earlier in the arc when you don't know very much about the villains. Here it's near the end of the Season so Ami investigating Mugen is like... well we know all this already. Plus the dialogue is so painfully on the nose. "there's no place for emotions in science" "please you have to believe in love."
Episode 133: The First Ep with Diana. So I LOVE Diana to pieces, but Toei Luna is maybe my most disliked character in this entire series and this ep really shows why. Toei Luna is basically Usagi in the Usagi's Birthday ep but for the entire series. She's jealous of Artemis looking at a human nun, and then when she finds a talking grey cat with a moon symbol she think he got with some other cat. Like it's so dumb, obviously Diana is their daughter and Luna is so unlikeable this ep especially after the S movie where she fell in love with a human herself and her having feeling for Rhett Butler back in Season 1.
Episode 139: The Ep with Miharu, the little Samurai Girl. So Miharu herself is great and I like how this ep parodies Samurai Tropes. That's what keeps it out of bottom 10 because Miharu's mom and this moral it teaches deserves to be near the bottom of the Bottom 10. No Usagi, not all parents love their children and I hope that children in a bad home state didn't internalize this ep's message.
Episode 142: So this is the ep Diana runs across this mean older woman Mayako who is acting out cause of a sad backstory. This ep kinda shows one of the problems of Toei Sailor Moon's philosophy and the shows that took inspiration from it. It wants to redeem everyone but having a sympathetic backstory is not the same thing as being sympathetic. Being mean to people for 20 years cause you love left you is not a reasonable reaction and you'd usually have to make amends in some way. Also Usagi in almost every ep of SuperS either gets insulted as "fat" or is unreasonably jealous or both. In this one she gets jealous that Mamoru shared his umbrella with an old woman. K. At least Diana is cute in it
Episode 178: The Luna x Yaten Ep. Because seriously, Luna is the worst, falling in love with yet another human just to prove that she is hypocritical and petty. Also kind of a dull ep.
Bottom 10:
10: Episode 67: The infamous Chibiusa finds a dinosaur episode. If you polled a bunch of casual Sailor Moon fans I think that this episode would be the most highly ranked for worst episode in the series. It's such a meme it's almost fun to get to just because of how famously bad it is, except it's not fun to watch the way some bad media. It's just boring and slow. A Volcano erupts and the Senshi have to fight it with their powers and that sounds cool except all they do is make holes in the ground with their attacks so a small portion of lava flows into it. There's such a forced connection between Chibiusa and the baby plesiosaur with Chibiusa being like "oh you miss your mommy too?" Outside of the fact that random dinosaur shows up, this is exactly the kinda of plot often given to young children in media especially at the time this came out, that bores everyone. Granted I obviously don't think this is the worst ep in the series and honestly it might be Bottom 10 solely for reputation because it doesn't really displease me but I do kinda feel it should be on here.
9: Episode 89: The Clipshow Ep. I think if you polled a bunch of HARDCORE Sailor Moon fans, this ep would be the most rated for worst and once again I think I might be putting it here for reputation. Because what am I supposed to say? It's a clipshow ep. It's like talking about a soup spoon that comes with a meal that doesn't even have soup. Even compared to other Clipshow episodes there's basically no new footage, like a couple of shots from the literal next ep. The idea of the Senshi arguing who should be the Main Character is funny for like 10 seconds but all they do is go one by one and be like "I'm Sailor X, and my good qualities are that I am Y and Z" with really basic examples of the Senshi's good qualities. It also inadvertently expresses a problem I have with the Toei Anime where the Guardians are made out to be pseudo main characters but don't have a broader story arc going through it like Usagi does cause they weren't designed for that.
8: Episode 154: Hey remember when R didn't give Makoto and Minako their own ep but instead gave them one ep? Let's do that again. SuperS is infamous for how much filler it has, how boring it can get, and yet while Ami and Rei both get an ep to get their new attack, Makoto and Minako do so in the same ep. And not in a fun clever way talking about their friendship or contrasting their personalities. The two have an unpleasant fight for an ep over petty nonsense that paints Minako especially out really badly, and then has Artemis just randomly say "BTW you should have new attacks." This ep is baffling creatively speaking and is just not fun. The joke is that all the children like Makoto's attempts to take care of them and don't like Minako's. That's MAYBE funny once and the ep keeps doing it.
7: Episode 143: The Fisheye is a Shotacon ep. So this ep has... several things that happen in it. I will say Fish Eye's comical inability to throw knives was funny as was Moon and Chibi-Moon's double kick failing. With that said this ep is incompetent in a way that is unique for the season. Depending on how much this effects you, how bad it will varies but I've never seen anyone see this ep and not be unaffected. First of all we find out that Fish Eye is a Shotacon, attracted to a boy in Chibiusa's class. See the Trio are supposed to not know what morality is because they are shapeshifted animals which is what gives the leeway for their redemption later despite their thinly veiled sexual assault metaphor. That said even the other two members of the Trio are like "Wha? That's a kid" "You can't do that." This makes it harder to accept Fish Eye's redemption and also supports particular nasty stereotypes about people like Fish Eye being shota I don't want to get into. Beyond that, the Guardian Senshi have to believe in Pegasus to get their power and I'm not as Anti-Pegasus as some, but this is not a good look mixed with the idiocy of giving all the girls their super transformation in the same ep where once again SuperS was infamous for having way too much filler. It would have made all the sense in the world to give each girl an ep of getting their Super Power and maybe getting it from something inside of them like a different SM series... just saying.
6: Episode 177: Remember that Viluy ep back in S, let's do that again but worse. Ami and Taiki are at a science presentation with the scientist Professor Amanogawa when a kid asks if the stars are our deceased ancestors watching over us. The Professor says so and Taiki gets really mad and is like "there's no room for emotion in science." This is very similar to the Viluy ep down to some of the scenes being shot the same, the same very dumb conflict that misrepresents science and scientific thinking to a childish caricature of cold and mean, except this ep actually wants you to act like Taiki is being reasonable. Like at least Viluy was like the villain of that ep, in this ep we're supposed to think Taiki is super smart and reasonable, smarter then Ami even, and yet doesn't understand the basic emotional motivations for science.
I will say, the last 5 eps while bad I don't consider that bad. These are eps I genuinely could have and did exchange with the dishonorable mentions while ranking. However this bottom 5 was pretty clear to me immediately and the only question was ordering them.
5: Episode 65: The original ep of Minako and Makoto fighting back in R. While this ep isn't as bad as I remember it on rewatch, the start of this ep is really unpleasant to me. It just involves Makoto and Minako being mean to each other and fighting about boys as well as more unfunny Usagi/Chibiusa antics. I get that it's realistic for teenage girls, but also this is so antithetical to what being a Sailor Senshi means.
The rest of the ep is mostly fine outside of the usual characters making fun of Usagi, but it mostly involves a very obvious parallel between Petz/Calaveras with Makoto/Minako and the two Senshi resolving their difference while the Ayakashi don't. Mainly I don't like this ep cause of the start which is one of the few times we see the Inner Senshi in really any version have a conflict that's presented as more then just comedic, and it's unpleasant.
4: Episode 145: The Ballet ep although that has very little to do with the problem with it. SuperS every couple of episodes would have the joke "haha Usagi fat." However this ep uses that joke repeatedly. I would say more often then one should make about a 14 year old girl who is drawn with the same proportions as everyone else, except one time would be too much. This is the kind of media that can be actually damaging for children watching. This is the kind of thing that gets prepubescent girls to start worrying about their weight. It's rare for me to say it but I will go so far as to say this should not exist, I believe it is objectively bad. Like I said it happens in an unfortunate lot of SuperS, but this ep easily has the most in the season.
In case you're going to tell me that people today are just too sensitive and back then this was fine, I'm just gonna say it: not only do I think that's a really bad argument but no I'm actually old enough to barely remember the 90s and know how this was received in the early days of online Sailor Moon communications. People weren't as angry about it but even back then people thought these jokes were hacky and unfunny. Even if this WAS a good joke, it's still beating a dead horse.
3: Episode 157: So this ep has probably more going for it then either of the two eps prior, the Quartet are funny in it and Chibiusa has an amusing interaction with VesVes where she gets tired charging up a hill at her at Ves Ves's confusion. That said this ep is kinda infamous for this messages that it "accidentally" teaches. I say accidentally because they're so obviously what a child would take from this I'm not sure what the writers were thinking.
So this ep has a broad theme about having belief in things, yet its idea of belief is the kinda bad word you'd get from the more irreverent skeptics. The main plot is Chibiusa asks Pegasus what's going on and because that would involve moving the plot forward Pegasus says he can't say, and when Chibiusa wants to know, he just leaves. The Senshi rely on Pegasus to fight the villains this season which leads to the obvious unfortunate implications that tell children "hey if someone mysterious wants to speak to you and ONLY you in secret and doesn't let you ask questions... you should just go along with it." Not a great idea, especially considering the other themes already in this season.
They try to tie it in with the other part of the ep which is about a kid making a flying bike and having childlike imagination and belief which is not quite as serious though again probably not the best idea teaching children that putting a flimsy looking wings on your bike will let you fly if you believe hard enough. SuperS in general is a rather childish season, and while being childish is not inherently wrong, this episode on a meta level shows what a really childish understanding of belief is.
2: Episode 4: This episode probably SHOULD be the worst. It has all three elements that makes a bad Toei Sailor Moon episode, all to a large degree, it represents to me what everyone thinks is wrong with the Toei Anime. This is the episode that focuses around becoming fat. In terms of bad messages, this is the kinda episode that can give children eating disorders, genuinely, expressing constantly how the very normally animated Usagi is worthy of ridicule for getting "fat." In terms of meanness characters are constantly mean to Usagi about her weight including Luna and to a lesser extent Mamoru. There's a general meanness as well where like Usagi at this point has numerous civilian friends and one of them is drawn kinda fat and the others are kinda snide about it when she says she's tried dieting and it didn't work or the way Usagi is afraid to fight and Luna literally threatens her to get her to fight.
Even beyond all that though if you somehow get past all that this episode is boring. Sailor Moon is, depending on the medium, a villain of the month or monster of the week type series. That might seem superfluous but this episode is before any other Senshi has entered the story and has no Monster of the Week, it's just Jadeite without any confrontation with Sailor Moon, and at the end a few regular brainwashed humans. Because of that the ep is slow and boring, involving the cast by accident of their teacher going to the evil brainwashing gym, ending up there and running across Jadeite's plan.
This episode I feel probably should be number 1 because it has everything you'd expect of a bad Toei SM ep. When people think of what they don't like about Toei SM it's usually that its got boring filler that you have to get through, its the characters being whiny or mean, its dumb 90s anime plots, and this ep is all that and it has a really terrible message on top of it. There's nothing I can think of I actually like about this ep, and plenty to dislike. So why is it number 2? The episode of Toei SM I dislike most is one that hurt me much more personally then Episode 4.
1: Episode 61: I wanna start by saying, I've seen this ep in people's Top 10 eps lists before and... I get it, I really do. This episode is beautifully shot and intensely emotionally evocative. The Phonebooth scene where Usagi breaks down crying in the phone booth after Mamoru leaves her is emotionally devastating and never fails to make me cry. The ep even has some good comedy and social satire with the makeup droid that tries to get women to think if they use more makeup they can get the man they want. This ep is a very polarizing ep, and if you're on the love it side for this one I truly do get it. But where Episode 4 represents I think the common critiques of Toei Sailor Moon, Episode 61 episode represents my problems with it as someone for whom this franchise means a hell of a lot.
This is the episode Mamoru declares a breakup with Usagi, secretly because he's been getting bad dreams that being with him will destroy her. As a young girl, I had my favorites but I liked almost any show you put in front of me. Even as a child though I HATED this. I was like "No, Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen have to be together!" As an adult I still hate this decision because it's antithetical to what I want from Sailor Moon. We had Mamoru famously be turned evil in Season 1 and Usagi forced to fight her true love and finally do it. Then immediately after we have Makaiju where he doesn't have his memories and Usagi has to restore them. Frustrating to delay this further, but okay whatever. But of course they can't just have them finally be together, no we have to delay this even further with petty BS like this. Mamoru not telling Usagi is so frustrating, the series delaying the romance we know will happen is so frustrating, and the series focusing on this stuff instead of the magical girl superhero series with elements of cosmic horror shows a complete misfocus from what I come to Sailor Moon for. I enjoy romance stories but I will drop a romance I'm enjoying if they even start to do this delay the inevitable type stuff. I have a disdain for stories actively wasting my type like this, especially with such a lazy way to do it. That by itself could put this ep in my bottom 10. But the reason it's at the bottom is because of Mamoru's excuse for breaking up with Usagi. Mamoru says that the reason he doesn't love her anymore is because "I don't like weak girls." This is a lie, but it's something we are supposed to find believable with the other characters acting like Usagi should be better for Mamoru.
This is the kinda thing that can cripple a young girl's self-esteem and unlike Episode 157 and Episode 4, I'm not talking in hypotheticals. I'm talking from firsthand experience. I compared myself to Usagi a lot at her age. I saw her go through the emotional journey of the First Arc Finale, I saw her development into into a Superheroine and save the world. What this episode taught me honestly was that is still not enough, that if I didn't do it perfectly, if I still cried sometimes, if I was still scared sometimes, that I was not good enough to warrant true love. This episode to me reflects the element more then anything I can say is the problem with Toei SM for me, the thing I despise. There's a lot of jokes at Usagi's expense in the Toei anime. I don't like these but at the end of the day they're not supposed to be taken seriously. This is the one time that dismissing Usagi's capabilities is played seriously and it exposed how messed up that whole thing is. People will sometimes say the manga makes Usagi out to be the Messiah. She literally is in both versions but besides that sometimes I wanna say to those people "I'm sorry that I prefer the version that told me I could be the savior of the world rather then the version that told me I could save the world and still not be good enough."
What I don't like about Toei Sailor Moon is essentially reflected in those bottom two eps on a much more minor but broad scale across the series. It delays things the developments I want and find interesting for content that I find boring at best and insulting at worst, pettiness and civilian drama that I could find in any series as opposed to the Magical Girl Superhero content that is unique to Sailor Moon. It is a series that feels so bound by its time, a time where teenage girls were pushed to be straight and unnaturally thin and told our emotions were something to find funny. It has weird unexplained plot and thematic hiccups caused by its weird relationship to the Manga where it will include elements from it but not the context or the results from it. It's a series that's longer then is optimal with numerous episodes that are made purely to kill time like the clipshow episode or are just repeating the same things that are not going to push the status quo. I associate it so strongly with my adolescence when I first sat down and purposefully watched the entire thing front to back. Those were hard days when the world stopped seeming to make sense, when I noticed people constantly diminishing the importance of my feelings, when petty school drama became common, where day after day would go by in a seemingly never ending status quo of tedium and perhaps on some level I can't help but connect those two things.
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