Moonlight Shines Eternal (The Sailor Moon Post: Part 4)

Previously- Part One: The Crybaby Who Saved The World | Part Two: The Crybaby Heals The Future | Part Three: The Crybaby's Idealism Vs. The Pair's Practicality

Part Four: The Crybaby's Dreams And The Dark Queen's Nightmares

“I am, and always will be, the optimist. The hoper of far-flung hopes, and the dreamer of improbable dreams.”

Well then. Let's push through and continue this wild odyssey. It could be said that Sailor Moon peaked with Sailor Moon S, and everything afterwards was a bit of a decline in quality before leading to the ultimate betrayal. It would be really easy to build to that narrative, but I don't want to. I don't want to because that really isn't how I saw the show, but it does put us in an interesting position. The fourth season, Sailor Moon SuperS (I guess you say it like the plural of the word "super", just for mental pronunciation. Wait, is it like a "super" version of Sailor Moon S? Holy shit.), is a wild deviation from what happens in the equivalent arc of the manga. Now, the 90's anime itself is a wild deviation from the manga in a lot of ways. So many so that my pal Alina, when reading through the previous essay on S, reacted in confusion and surprise and stated something along the lines of "I don't remember ANY of this happening in the manga!". The recommended viewing guide I'd been using to cut out a lot of the monster of the week episodes and shotgun the plot-relevant stuff was a bit more disdainful about SuperS as well, calling it basically a filler season. To say I find this line of thinking incorrect would be putting it mildly. What SuperS lacks in "plot-essentialism", it more than makes up for with strong thematic resonance and personal growth for the characters. If you're already down with the whole utopian idealism thing, what's a bit of so-called filler to get in the way of the characters growing and learning? 

Hell... what IS filler, anyway? For my purposes of watching this show, I defined it as episodes that didn't advance the central plot. Still, the monster of the week episodes ARE, in a sense, core Sailor Moon. I've actually tinkered with some of the earlier episodes I skipped way back in Season 1. They're both fun because they're Sailor Moon, and interesting to compare with Usagi's character development in this half of the series. I can't give you a more direct comparison until Part Five, I'm afraid, but that brings me to my next point. Bizarrely, the recommended viewing guide walks back its claim that SuperS is a filler season when it gets to the final season... so this is actually essential viewing if you want to understand what the hell Sailor Stars is doing in its opening six episodes! Filler, my ass! It moves the characters along and gives them more hopes, dreams, and obstacles to overcome. It has elements which are essential to the overall plot, and the proof is right there in the opening of Sailor Stars. It ain't filler. Additionally, and this is all behind the scenes stuff that I don't usually mention, this is the last season to have involvement from famous anime guy Kunihiko Ikuhara. Yes, that guy who made Revolutionary Girl Utena. He's been working on the show since Sailor Moon R, but there were creative differences about tone or whatever and he left after this. His absence will be felt, no doubt, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to the final season. For now, we're looking at Sailor Moon SuperS.

MIRRORS!!!

It's funny that I spent that preamble talking more about the things around SuperS than I did SuperS itself. I won't say SuperS is the worst season of the show, but it's one that is relatively simple to think about. I don't know if we'll manage quite the word count we did in previous parts of this odyssey, but I'm doing my best to try. I am, of course, still delaying because of a memory I had the day I watched the first episode of SuperS. It was early May, to give you an idea of how much I've been dragging my feet on this (and how September is dragging me kicking and screaming, Douglas Adams style, to a deadline of getting these fucking posts out to the public eye) and I was visiting a pal of mine in Gander, Newfoundland. During the few days I spent at his place, we went out shopping to various places. I saw so much goddamned Sailor Moon merchandise. Drink glasses, purses, plushes, Funko Pops... hell, I even saw the first half of SuperS on DVD, hours before I started watching it! It really put into perspective that I wasn't alone in this strange transformation of loving Sailor Moon. She was still a cultural touchstone, a nerdy interest icon, and someone who could be slapped onto a drink glass along with her pals to make someone a couple of bucks. Unbridled capitalism aside, it did make me feel like less of a weirdo. So it was that I watched the first episode with my pal, there in Gander, to share this show I loved with him and start off on the next step of the journey.


Well, it wastes no time in setting up its status quo. There's an evil space circus that comes out of a solar eclipse and wants to capture a magic pegasus who can literally hide within someone's dreams. To that end, the evil Dead Moon Circus sends out its ringmasters to hunt for people with "beautiful dreams" and literally pull a magical mirror out of the body of their chosen target, in the hopes of finding the special mirror which contains the Pegasus so they can capture it and do a thing. Yeah, I told you that S would set the standard for villain plots. That really is just S's whole Pure Heart thing but with pure... mirrors and pure... dreams. Well, the monsters that come out of the dreams are all circus based now. And they're called the Remless, referring to rapid eye movement and dreams and implying that they're dreamless monsters! That's kind of clever and ties in to a thing I'll be talking about in a moment about these villains. For now, let's unpack this. This is a really fun season gimmick for me personally. If you've ever poked around at the archives of the blog, specifically my writings on the Peter Capaldi era of Doctor Who, extra specifically when they had Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald? You'd know I made a big goddamned deal about the theme of mirroring, and reflection, and dark mirrors, et cetera. I do it to the point that it's a running joke now with my pal Rainiac whenever I talk about the show on his podcast thing that we do. To have overt mirror imagery as SuperS's theme should be a playground! I'll do some swinging around with it, of course. Kind of like right now, which will lead to a brilliant segue about mirrors and dreams and whatnot.


Alright then. Pegasus. The execution of SuperS overall might have led to a season that's just okay, but oh my god are there some really crunchy magical themes going on here. Namely, all that mirrors and dreams stuff. Pegasus, as I mentioned, literally can hide within dreams and has some power over them. The reasons for this will be elaborated on in a moment or two, The dreams he chooses to hide from the Dead Moon Circus in are Chibiusa's dreams, and in many ways this season is about her. A more cynical person could connect the fact that SuperS is derided as filler nonsense with the fact that Chibiusa is a central player to the season arc, but let's not play with that bread crumb trail. Chibiusa is... well, an interesting character to be sure. She's generally a second emotional core for the show along with Usagi, and she's been key to the resolutions of both R and S. Even if, you know, she spent the finale of S bedridden because Mistress Nine stole her Pure Heart... but she was there in spirit to help save the day, you know? Things are a little different here in SuperS. She doesn't save the day with crystal power, or friendship, or anything like that. We will get to how the climax of this season plays out (God, I'm such a tease for the parts I have yet to write, aren't I?) and how I feel about it, but the arc of the season has more to do with Chibiusa and her feelings. She's got a bedroom to herself up in the attic of Usagi's house now, and there's many a scene with her, late at night, talking with Pegasus about her feelings and insecurities and whatnot.


Like it or not, this is a season about Chibiusa and how she feels about things. There's a little bit of romance there as well, since she's got a bit of a crush on Pegasus. Before you all go wild and throw up your hands at the thought of a little girl being romantically interested in a fucking magic horse, that's just a form he's stuck in. No, it turns out that Pegasus is actually Helios, the priest of Elysion, the world of dreams. Wow. Not only do we go full cosmic and invoke the sun in our continual expanded myth of giving a face and name to each planet in our solar system, but Sailor Moon makes the fact that there's a seperate realm where dreams are real 100% canon. This is almost as genius as Doctor Who's revelation that fictional characters all had their own world where they were real in the late 60's. Sailor Moon doesn't play that much with it, sadly, but just the idea gives you an infinite wellspring of inspiration. It all directly contrasts with the Dead Moon Circus, which are all about nightmares and the lack of dreams (REMLESS REMLESS REMLESS), and it will definitely tie in with the mirror theme once we get to talking about dark mirrors and the true leader of the Dead Moon Circus. For now, we have to talk about a lower-ranking foe from the Circus. Buckle up. This one could get a bit rough...

Fabulous.

Oh, God. We got here, huh? Okay. It's time to talk about Fish-Eye. Right, so the ringmaster (HEH) of the Dead Moon Circus at first appears to be a creepy old witch who demands her subordinates go out and find the Golden Mirror to get the Pegasus for the circus. These three, who are more like actual circus performers, are all animal-themed. Tigers-Eye and Hawks-Eye are, simply put, awful womanizers who only care about wooing pretty girls and getting the mirror out of them. They're kind of gross, so it's good to see them routinely getting dunked on by the Sailor Senshi every time they try and make a mirror monster. There's also an episode where Minako is actually dating both of them at the same time, on the same day, and this leads to an episode of her running back and forth between the dates. At this point of the show, Minako both mirrors Sailor Moon in her simple desires and has also become a goddamned sitcom protagonist. A genderswapped Jack Tripper who also transforms into a Warrior Of Love and shoots rapid-fire laser beams at her spurned suitors. It's FUNNY, but as David Byrne said, how did I get here? No, we're here to talk about Fish-Eye, the third member of this little trio. Fish-Eye, much like the other two bozos, is a romantic at heart and interested in getting closer to the mirror with Pegasus and all that. The wild difference here comes down to gender. Alright, so if I've done this right, you should be looking at Fish-Eye to the side of this paragraph. Obviously very feminine-presenting. Unlike Tigers and Hawks, Fish-Eye is much more into men and that's where their interest of targets lies. Note my use of pronoun there. While I'm no doubt sure the anime used masculine pronouns, implying that Fish-Eye is more of a drag queen than anything... I felt a different connection to this character. I felt an aura of gender fluidity coming from Fish-Eye, and I've even got some textual evidence for it. Here's a bit from an episode where Fish-Eye's target is a fashion designer who makes fabulous outfits for women, asking Fish-Eye to model for him:

Like, holy fuck. A miraculous person who transcends gender that has "true, pure, girlishness"? That's really cool and inspiring! Sure, Fish-Eye is a bit of a shitheel to this guy in the end because all of these circus people are just TERRIBLE with relationships, but there's a little more going on with this character than just... well, let's look at a Tigers-Eye example, huh? It gets even more interesting when Fish-Eye sets their sights on Mamoru, of all people. Mamoru rejects them because he loves Usagi, and Usagi gets a little pissy about it... but we get a bunch of interesting reveals. The trio of terrible circus villains don't have mirrors or dreams inside of them, because their names are literal. The nasty witch, Zirconia, literally gave sentience to a tiger, hawk, and fish before telling them to go out and get the Pegasus. We'll get to why she needed these stopgap buffoons, but for now? A series of events has led Fish-Eye to sit in the rain, depressed and without real purpose. Mamoru didn't have the Golden Mirror. Sitting in the rain, feeling down and out... Fish-Eye is approached by Usagi. Remember that moment way back in the first season that sold me on this show? Minako coming over to cheer up her new friend, who she barely knew, because she was sad and needed a friend? Usagi's learned so much about healing now, and she does her best to do the same for Fish-Eye. Crucially, she's not quite the best at it. She's still a little combative towards Fish-Eye considering all of the Mamoru flirting. Still, she does what she can. She lets Fish-Eye into her home, to dry off and get out of the pouring rain. Even here in SuperS, the theme of healing and idealism rings true. Fish-Eye is touched by it, and this much resonates forward to a sort of redemption. I don't want to go full plot summary here, so I'll fast forward. Fish-Eye finds out that Usagi is Sailor Moon and that Chibiusa is the person whom the Pegasus is hiding within. A whole bunch of stuff goes down and a clown tries to eliminate the trio of Tigers, Hawks, and Fish but Sailor Moon's mirror gets shattered in the process. With their last acts, Fish-Eye and the others use their power to fix Sailor Moon's mirror, and this bit of redemption gives them their very own dream life along with the Pegasus. So, wow! An interesting villain who's genderfluid and has feminine energy, who gets healed by Usagi's idealism and pays it forward to end up getting their own redemptive ending and living happily ever after in the world of dreams? What a neat concept and kind of an inspiring character! What's not to like?

SuperS also has a handful of moments of self-aware humor
like this.

Well, in my Googling to see if anyone else was pleased by these themes, I found this critical Tumblr post. This person, as it turns out, was betrayed and let down by the concept of Fish-Eye and the more problematic implications that the character's depiction and actions led to overall. I can sympathize, of course, and it's not a perspective that one should dismiss outright or anything. I have a completely different outlook on life than this person, and that will obviously lead us to take this character differently. Where I saw an inspiring genderfluid character with a compelling redemption arc, this writer saw a character who was either playing into the harmful stereotypes of tricking men into having sex with someone who's ""not a woman"", or a character whose desire to transcend gender and have "true pure girlishness" as someone to be pitied. I didn't see either, as I've said... but I recognize my perspective is off. I'm not, like the writer of this post, an out trans woman and I obviously lack that essential way of looking at the character of Fish-Eye. More than that obvious point, I didn't watch every episode with Fish-Eye. In fact, the only two villain schemes involving Fish-Eye that I saw had the fashion designer guy and Mamoru. Neither of them, when Fish-Eye turned into a villain and presented more on the masculine side, reacted in shock and horror at the fact that it was a man who had been flirting with them. Mamoru's objection to Fish-Eye's advances is based entirely on him loving Usagi, and not any "you're a BOY EW EW EW THAT'S GAY" hyperbole.


Crucially, however, I must state again that I've been watching the episodes in my weird non-filler order! There very well could be an episode where one of Fish-Eye's targets does react in an indefensible way to Fish-Eye's villainous turn. If it exists, that of course changes things and I'd be right alongside this Tumblr poster(and others) decrying this turn of writing as extremely harmful and a betrayal. Even if that were the case, though... it wouldn't change how inspired and interested I was in this character. It would make me question the intent and scorn the writers, but the underlying thematic resonance of it still crackles within me. Fish-Eye reached me on a fundamental level, and otherwise clumsy handling about their gender expression and the reactions of those around them can't change that. It's the very definition of problematic. The show's handing of gender expression/gender fluidity was not handled with the grace it should have been, but that doesn't alter how it made me feel. I really do feel bad that the show betrayed this poster (and countless unseen others) with its message. Lord knows I yelled about how the show wounded me before, and I'll be doing it again in Part Five. It really is the worst feeling. Regardless, Fish-Eye is done and dusted. That took a good chunk of the post, I know, but it's the biggest thing about SuperS that I wanted to talk about. Now we can yell about Amazons. And mirrors! Hooray!


Ah, the Amazoness Quartet. They're... interesting, to say the least. The entire runaround with the trio of animals given human form was all just killing time until the Dead Moon Circus got enough power to wake them up, as Zirconia actually really wanted these four little girls heading out to find dreams and catch magic flying horses instead of those other three. The clown that eventually almost killed Usagi and led to the end of the old trio was sent by them, so that's classic power escalation there. None of their other Remless are actually that notable and strong, but the Quartet are a neat set of villains. They're kids, for one. More prone to goofing off than working for the Dead Moon Circus, and really just incredibly sassy towards Zirconia. They can, like quite a lot of villains before them, be seen as dark reflections of the Sailor Senshi when you really think about it. There's a good reason for that, and it's because they WERE. Not here, though. In the manga arc equivalent to this (which I'm told was called Dream, a fitting name), the Amazoness Quartet are actually Chibiusa's squad of Sailor Senshi in Crystal Tokyo? And the Dead Moon Circus has corrupted them before their time? It's Black Lady all over again, but wow. Thinking of them as actual corrupted Sailor Senshi makes so much more sense (and we'll be seeing more of that in Part Five, for better or worse...) and really gives them a neat sort of depth. They even get a redemption arc and just sort of ride off into the sunset at the end. Good work, girls. That just leaves the one behind all of this Circus business, the head honcho who really wants that magic horse. Trapped within a mirror deep within the circus's labyrinth tent lives Queen Nehelenia, ruler of the Dark Moon. Good lord. You couldn't ask for a better set of thematic metaphors and concepts for the show to plop into your lap. For all the promises of utopian idealism we've been given from S, we now have the flip side of that. The enemy who wants to stop all of that and reign supreme is an actual, literal dark mirror of not only the former utopia of the Moon Kingdom... but is all but a twisted reflection of Queen Serenity herself. Hell, you can even kind of see it.Nehelenia's no pushover, either, and in the climax she rockets her circus up into the heavens to ascend back to the moon. Something must be done to stop her. Chibiusa is up there as well. We know how this goes by now, yes? A certain inspiring girl who's a klutz and a crybaby will step up to the plate and save the day.


Things don't exactly go like that. Oh, sure, Sailor Moon bravely goes up there to save Chibiusa and confront Queen Nehelenia. There's some weird stuff about Nehelenia just wanting to stay beautiful forever and thus locking herself into a mirror world and corrupting her subjects into circus performers. It's almost underwhelming; after all this thematic crunchiness with her being an equal force to Queen Serenity, she's basically just the evil Queen from Snow White in the end. I suppose a fairy tale ending can be a fitting end to a season all about dreams, but Nehelenia is just resigned to going back into her lonely exile after all her schemes and plans are ruined by Sailors Moon and Chibi Moon. Lest you think she's no longer dangerous, she gets her final revenge by tossing Chibiusa off of her rising circus base, thousands of miles in the air, to plummet to her death. Nehelenia taunts Sailor Moon about this, but what does our Usagi do? FLINGS HERSELF OFF INTO OBLIVION TO SAVE CHIBIUSA. Holy shit! Now that's the Usagi I've grown to know. Would the klutzy crybaby of early Season 1 have done this? I can't say for sure. She may have, but she'd probably have cried about it. Here, though, she just goes for it. That hope and idealism fully at work, knowing that she has to save Chibiusa. This is the real climax of the season, as Nehelenia just heads back off into her mirror exile. We'll see how well that goes next time, but for now. Falling. It's a really tense sequence, as they catch up and Sailor Moon tries to wake her up so that she can summon Pegasus to save them. Yeah, that's the plan. She didn't just fling herself to certain death entirely on faith alone, see. Everything turns out fine, the day is saved, and Chibiusa has grown just a little bit more. Imagine that. A girl from a literal utopia's found new meaning, new lessons to be learned, in our simple little past. Cute.


That puts a bow on Sailor Moon SuperS. Its concepts and themes are strong. Stronger than the actual story itself, almost. It's not my favorite season or anything, but it's primo Sailor Moon and it advances things along. It's far from filler, and the ideas it has are really great ones thematically. It's all about dreams, and the nature of growing up, and reflecting those desires in your day to day life. When you really think about it, it's quite inspiring stuff! That's not even getting into the stuff that I liked personally, like all the mirror symbolism or a character that transcended gender in a lot of interesting ways. This was, in a lot of ways, Chibiusa's story. You can really see how both she and Usagi have grown, since they work together all of the time in this season. The utopian idealism of the future and the present, working in tandem to show us our dreams. What dreams do you have? I've got my own, and they'll be apparent soon enough. We're at the endgame now. As much as I've praised the arc of Chibiusa, this was her last hurrah. She has six episodes left before she vanishes from the series. A lot of things are going to change here in the final season, and some of them will be for the worse. Hold tight. It's going to be one hell of a ride to the finish.


Next Time: The Crybaby's Uncorruptible Eternal True Self