「劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーンEternal」 (Gekijouban Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Eternal 2)
“Pretty Guardians Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie 2”

The theme of family and growing up is continued with Haruka (Minagawa Junko), Michiru (Ohara Sayaka), and third wheel Setsuna (Maeda Ai) raising Hotaru (Fujii Yukiyo). The family dynamic with Haruka worrying about diapers and milk and Michiru dressing Hotaru was adorable, though short-lived. Many parents and grandparents talk about kids growing up too quickly, but Hotaru took that to the extreme, growing rapidly within a short time of the eclipse. Hotaru is able to return the care she received from her outer senshi parents when she gives them their new power ups.

The full senshi (“Sailor Guardian”) team re-unites again and successfully wards off the Amazoness Quartet’s Tama Arare (“Orb Hail”), Tama Hagane (“Steel Orb”), Tama Gusuri (“Medicine orb”), and Tama Sudere (“Orb Blinds”) attacks. The senshi blocked the Quartet’s attacks so quickly we didn’t see all the attacks’ abilities. While that exemplifies the sailor team’s prowess, it would have been interesting to see more of the Quartet’s powers. However, the focus of this series is the character development and storyline more so than battles, so it’s not surprising the fights are short-lived.

The battle is not without some casualties, as Zirconia reverses Usagi and Mamo-chan’s ages. Little Usagi and Mamo-chan in Usagi’s dream were incredibly cute! The dream Mamo-chan who babies her is a manifestation of Usagi’s inner child that desires carefreeness. This is the childlike nature she has shown previously when trying to avoid responsibilities. The real Mamo-chan loves her while challenging her, holding her responsible for being the best version of herself. In her dream, her relationship with Mamo-chan is not that of genuine lovers because it consists only of serving Usagi. In their real lives, Mamo-chan and Usagi have that give and take needed for an authentic relationship. This is manifested in how Mamo-chan supports Usagi in becoming her best self, while Usagi takes that support in combination with her own skills to protect and strengthen him.

Helios rescues Usagi and Mamo-chan, taking them to Elysion. In Greek mythology, Helios is a flying-chariot riding sun god. Elysion may be based off of Elysium, which in certain Greek myths is a sort of Heaven. The Maenads they meet are named after often drunk companions of the Greek god of wine and orgies. I’m not sure why the Maenads were chosen as namesakes since it doesn’t fit with the purity of maidens tasked with caring for the shrine. Maybe they have an off-screen after work life that takes after their hard-partying namesakes.

The pairings of Helios with Chibi-Usa and Usagi with Mamo-chan have striking parallels. Like Mamo-chan, Helios is tasked with protecting the earth. While Mamo-chan does this through fighting on the planet’s surface, Helios accomplishes this through praying at the shrine. Similar to how Usagi appeared in princess form to Mamo-chan in a vision, Chibi-Usa appeared in princess form to Helios, telling him of his mission. These parallels combined with Chibi-Usa’s true love’s kiss sends strong hints that Helios and Chibi-Usa may end up together in the distant future.

Thanks to Nehellennia, Elysion is a thing of the past. As an interesting translation note- in the cast list, her name is written the way it is pronounced in Japanese- Nehellennia. In the subtitles, it is spelled Nehallennia, in reference to an ancient German or Celtic goddess of trading named Nehallennia. Sleeping Beauty-like vibes are channeled in the flashback showing Nehellennia, like the evil faery in the faery-tale, party-crashing a royal birthday celebration and bringing a curse as a “gift”. This curse is broken by Usagi and Mamo-chan’s love alongside help from the other senshi. I am impressed how the Mangaka, Takeuchi Naoko, gave a lot of thought to naming the senshis’ castles- naming them after moons, satellites, or spacecraft missions belonging to each sailor’s respective planet.

Upon breaking the curse, we discover that Nehellennia was Zirconia all along and Nehellennia was a projection of her younger self. Unlike the senshis’ pure hearted dreams of love and protecting dear ones, Nehellennia’s self-centered dream is focused on destroying dear ones in order to become the prettiest, strongest queen of them all. Her pride isolates her from others, with the end result being that she has no-one to rely upon for encouragement and strength. Consequently, when challenged by the sailor team, she crumbles.

The defeat of the evil queen is accompanied by a standard faery tail ending, with Chibi-Usa awakening Helios with a true love’s kiss. It was refreshing to see the princess being the one with the power to rescue the prince. This is one of the strong points of Sailor Moon that I love, in how the series shatters the damsel in distress stereotype-emphasizing that girls have the power to protect the ones they care about and don’t have to sit complacently waiting for the prince.

Throughout both movies, Chibi-Usa has been questioning how she can grow to become a strong leader like her mother. The revelation of the Amazonness Quartet (who are all named after asteroids, by the way!) as her own sailor team, just like what Usagi has, confirms that one day, Chibi-Usa will accomplish this dream. The ending piece of the movie, with talk of everyone’s hearts shining like stars leads nicely into the Sailor Stars arc, if they are planning on adapting that portion of the series.

My overall impression of this pair of movies is mixed. I liked that the movies placed more of a focus on Sailor Moon, Tuxedo Mask and the other Inner Senshi, instead of what the original series did in focusing mainly on Chibi-Usa, which for me personally became boring. However, by remaining entirely faithful to the manga, they fell into the manga’s pitfall of not developing the villains’ characters and motivations into something deeper than “they just exist as plot-drivers”. The backstory behind Nehellennia’s power hunger and the experience of the Eye-trio transitioning from animals to humans have potential for development that could tie back to the arc’s themes of dreams, insecurities, and the power of friendships. The original anime arc did better with this in writing additional storylines that added more character dimension (even if that filler did sometimes drag on).

If it’s a boring Friday night and I’m in a Sailor Moon mood but don’t want to spend the next few months re-watching the original series- then the Sailor Moon Eternal movies (and by extension, the Crystal series) would be my go-to. However, the original anime series will always hold first place in my heart (and on my tv, when I have the time to re-watch) for the more in-depth character developments and cute slice of life moments, which for me are Sailor Moon at its best.

5 Comments

  1. I’m baaack and I see nothing has changed unfortunately,..

    Let me start with the good: I love the fact that I finally get some lesbian representation although they do try to somewhat straightwash it by making Uranus also a him but I’ll chalk it down to a badly written non-binary or gender fluidity and let it go. BUT what I can’t let go is time and time again, this BS happening to female chars that is always condemned when male chars go through it. Everyone complains about the terrible “non-con” kiss trope unless Mamoru is stealing them (especially from a passed out drunken 14 year old) and it seems this movie is showing the minor chasing, kiss stealing, old scamp no differently. However, that is not my main concern, the real clencher is the thing that always shocked me about the original series, that an 8 year old chibi-usa has a “fairty tale” kiss from what appears to be a Helios in his mid to late teens (f*cking grosse) and I know people agree because if this was Sarazanmai or Super Lovers, people would through a fit. Keep in mind the child in Super Lovers is 16 and in Sarazanmai, the character does come clean and apologise about the unconscious stolen kiss unlike Mamoru who never told Usagi about how he stole her first kiss as she was passed out, underaged and they weren’t even dating. I just need to ask what is it about us girls where you think this problematic behaviour of coercive physical intimacy & sexualisation of minors is endearing. Why can’t we get the rightful condemnation that genres like BL get when their aggressive love interests “romantically” harrass their main chars; is it just because we are girls and not guys and that the world is desensitized considering how much more it actually happens in straight anime romance and in the real world, I’d say an astounding YES. So again, F*ck this hypocritical BS!!!

    JustWondering
    1. I also was disappointed in how they portrayed Uranus, like when Hotaru referred to her as “Haruka Papa”. There is absolutely no reason why she couldn’t have 2 mommies- “Haruka Mama” and “Michiru Mama”. I think they wrote it like that is because they were following the manga verbatim, where Hotaru also refers to Uranus as “Haruka Papa”. They also made Uranus more masculine in the anime. In the movie, if I remember correctly, Uranus uses “Boku” (the masculine version of “I”) to refer to herself, whereas in the manga, she often uses “Atashi” (the feminine version of “I”) to refer to herself. It’s unfortunate how they couldn’t write this in a better way. If they adapt the Sailor Stars Arc, I wonder how they will adapt that-hopefully they’ll do a better job of portraying the gender fluidity there.

      As for the “non-con” kiss tropes, I agree that it should not be romanticized in manga/anime, especially because this is a show originally intended for kids and you don’t want to give little kids the wrong idea about what a kiss is. In the original series, there were a lot of moments that made me uncomfortable with Helios showing up all the time in little Chibi-Usa’s bedroom at night. Since they cut out all the anime-original material from the original anime, a lot of that stuff also got cut out (except for the kisses between Helios and Chibi-Usa). As for the fairytale kiss between Chibi-Usa and Helios-the way it was portrayed, I didn’t get a sense that they were fetishizing it. It seemed more to serve the purpose as an allusion to Sleeping Beauty and overturning the gender-stereotyped roles by having the woman be the one to rescue. But, that is just from my point of view. I appreciated how you pointed out that the problematic parts of Helios and Chibi-Usa’s interaction-that helps me to understand it from a different perspective!

      Princess Usagi
  2. I’m gonna dissent and say I really enjoyed the second movie, especially the Helios and ChibiUsa parts. I think the two of them are very cute together and the last 15 minutes especially made 20+ years of waiting for the Dream arc to be faithfully animated worthwhile. While the first movie did go a bit too fast, with nary a pause between each senshi’s character arc, I think the decision to lump the climax portion of the Dream arc into a movie actually worked out quite well.

    Mangaka-chan
    1. I also really enjoyed the second movie. For me, the highlight was the greater emphasis on Usagi and Mamo-chan’s romance. Even though there are problematic parts to it, I still do find their romance adorable. Yes, Helios and ChibiUsa are also cute! I am glad the movie was worth the wait for you!

      Princess Usagi

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