Welcome back! We just saw Sailor Mercury & Sailor Mars get their new “Super Sailor” powers, so that leaves only two left! And SURELY they won’t screw them over by making them share, right?
So the Amazoness Quartet are still searching for what we now know is a GOLDEN Dream Mirror, and they’re showing pretty same-y personalities, minus one…
EPISODE #153:
We take a break from “New Powers!” episodes to get a Palla-Palla episode! Here, the Quartet are again scolded for not getting their work done, but even ZIRCON can’t bring up any potential targets! Palla-Palla, childish as usual, is playing dolls and getting mocked for it… until she cures a girl doll’s toothache by ripping off her head, disturbing everyone (“She may actually be dangerous…”). Zirconia, finding her easily moved, convinces her to try to find targets, so she recreates her Dentist Playset by growing via her “Evanescence Orb”, and animating the dolls to be dental workers. Then she throws out some magic sugar to give kids everywhere cavities. And of course Usagi gets some too, because she eats just as much sweet stuff as anybody and also skips brushing to “keep the flavor”.
Both Usagi AND Mamoru blush at the hottie dentists, which is a bit dumb- they’re sacrificing character arcs (Mamo isn’t even attracted to a gender-bent Fish’s Eye for God’s sake! And Fish got EVERYBODY!) for the sake of one-off jokes, and then Mamoru’s uncharacteristically planning his apology. However, he realizes something’s up when the hundreds who went into the office never come out, and actually uses his POWERS on the dentists, blasting them with a storm of rose petals! However, Palla-Palla one-shots him with the giant ball she balances on, and goes “Palla-Palla doesn’t like you. So die!” with an innocent smile on her face. Her Lemures attacks the invading Sailors, promising to drill down their teeth with her weird tail/drill, and their sheer terror lets out… the SONIC CRY ATTACK!!! Holy shit, I haven’t seen that in eons! And so the entire building crumbles before the area-attack onslaught, and the Lemures is easily killed. This cures all the children of their cavities… except Usagi, because she authentically eats like shit and is lazy about brushing.
Very goofy episode- though their dental anxiety being played for a gag is good, I’m not generally a fan of the “Non-stop wacky” stuff, especially as this is the most juvenile of the seasons of the show.
(First Appearance: Evanescence Orb)
EPISODE #154:
And now it’s FINALLY Venus and Jupiter’s turns to get their new pow— wait. You mean to tell me they have to SHARE A FOCUS EPISODE AGAIN?!?!? They’ve DONE THIS BEFORE! Like… they’re getting brand-new powers and we’re meant to see further aspects of their characters, and they have to SHARE? Keep in mind how much filler this show’s already had- they couldn’t have sacrificed one of these other episodes to give more to Makoto or Minako? JESUS, PRODUCERS!!
ANYWAYS… So Chibi-Usa’s old pre-school is holding a fundraising bazaar, and it turns out their old Principal is a hottie, so the girls are all “YES, LET’S HELP!”. Especially an excited Minako and a blushing, starry-eyed Mako- Artemis’s “Good grief…” reaction is perfect. Mako shows a lot of chemistry with him at first, causing Minako to delve right into absurdity, going all “you like kids? Well I was thinking of having three, but if a husband like you wanted to make a baseball team…” (!!), boasting about how much she loves kids, which is the perfect time for the old trope, Mina Hates Little Boys, to rear its ugly head, as she freaks out on a little snot for drawing on her.
However, Minako ruins the nice teddy bear Mako was making in a fit of rage, chasing after that kid again, and a furious Mako declares “We’re through!”, shocking everyone present. Minako blows it off and decides she’ll win the principal’s attention through SINGING (poor Artemis…), and Cere-Cere makes her presence felt via a literal red carpet. This all leads to Minako’s “concert” getting put down by the kids, sending her off crying- Artemis convinces Mako to be the one to talk her down, to which she kind of just sighs and goes along with it, to his joy. But that turns into a different kind of squabble, with Minako confessing that her Idol dreams are too far away, while Mako’s simple dreams of domestic bliss and being a florist are “easy” and within reach- Mako ends up being pissed at the concept that she doesn’t have to work as hard, given all she put into those dreams, and it turns into another fight… and of course Artemis is the one being yelled at when he tries to intervene.
Cere-Cere gets literally about two or three lines of dialogue before attacking, and her Lemures, a slot machine tulip monster (yes) throws the Sailors into a giant Venus fly trap. Mako & Minako are trapped by vines, but Artemis tosses them their transformation wands, and the power of their upcoming new abilities burns the vines off, allowing them to finally debut new powers- the Venus Love & Beauty Shock (a spinning heart) knocks around the entire Amazoness Quartet (who assembled to yell at Cere-Cere for using sleep powder on them earlier), while the Jupiter Oak Evolution (multiple petal/energy blasts while spinning like a ballerina) blows away the fly trap. We end things with Minako sweetly stitching together the ruined bear and trying to blow it off as nothing, which kind of makes amends (it helps that their bonds are strong enough that a fight like that isn’t really a permanent thing), and the bratty kid buys it… and it turns out that the principal is his father (a smug Chibi-Usa just goes “I never recall saying he was single”), drawing the expected reaction from the two heroines of the day.
I liked the nature of the fight in this one- the debate over achievable dreams was actually a good one, and Mako had good reason to be pissed at Minako dismissing her dreams as easier because they were simpler (“I had to work HARD to get this good!”). And I liked how the severity of their fight really didn’t mean much, and Mako was quick to agree to go and help Minako when she ran off crying. The General, Lemures and new powers all had to share the spotlight, though, meaning all of them meant little.
(First Appearance: Jupiter Oak Evolution, Venus Love & Beauty Shock)
EPISODE #155:
Now Chibi-Usa’s class is having a “Sports Day” (totally a thing in Japan- sort of like a meet for all the students to engage in sporting events), and she can’t vault, so the group decides to teach her how. Jun-Jun targets Kyusuke, that green-haired friend of Chibi-Usa’s… who is terrified of the vault ever since a failure in school. She teaches him at the same time, actually doing a solid job of it, despite shaming his cowardice- she creates the illusion of a BEAR to get him to finally leap over it, and when she sees his happiness, she sorta congratulates him… and then transforms and tries to kill him anyways. We get ALL the Sailors transforming at once, implying this episode ran short (it’s like when The Simpsons shows the full “Circus Opening”), and with a “SAILORRRRR… SOLDIERRRRRRRRRR!” song that I don’t recall hearing before. Was this the debut of it, or am I just now noticing?
The Lemures is so fast it avoids all their attacks easily (Mars Flame Sniper actually gets blown back into Rei!), but Chibi-Moon… vaults over him, thus knocking him down and letting Sailor Moon finish him off. Sure glad Sailor Venus & Jupiter had to share a focus episode for this one.
And that’s all for now! The four Inner Sailors now have every attack they’re going to have for the remainder of the show, in a big “we’re getting closer to the end” moment, but for now, the hunt for Pegasus goes on!
SWO Productions 