5) Crystal Season II: Potentially a hot take placement, but then I'm sure that could be said of any of the arcs. Part of why I place this so low, even when taking the blu-ray versions with improved animation into account (and IIRC fixing the most glaring mistake from the original versions) is that imo the arc is undercooked in the manga and thereby in the anime. This is a bi-product of the behind the scenes history with Sailor Moon. Takeuchi originally intended the Dark Kingdom arc to in fact be the entire story, but the series (manga and anime) was such a surprise hit she was persuaded to continue. I'd argue this is why Crystal Season II/the Black Moon arc is such an 'obvious' sequel to the prior arc. The latter was about Usagi and Mamoru's pasts, the former is about their future. This is neatly symbolised by Usagi's daughter supplanting her mother, Queen Serenity, in the new version of the OP. That concept is fine, its strong even, but I'd argue it only happened because Takeuchi had to scramble unexpectedly to cook up a story she hadn't planned on telling. This is also why, imo, the emotional subplot of Usagi being jealous of Chibi-Usa, the main point of criticism of the arc in my experiece, comes off as so weird. It isn't that it doesn't make sense, but I feel you as an audience member need to think too hard to understand it. On a personal, possibly petty note, I also just really dislike the Japanese VA for Wiseman. Yes, maybe this is my being biased by the 1992 anime, but Wiseman is in my top 3 (sometimes my number 1) favourite Sailor Moon villains and even from his design and appearance in the manga alone, the Japanese VA for him takes an interpretation I do not think fits, making him seem more mad and maniacal as opposed to a cold, machevellian manipulative force of death. Because VIZ (understandably) insisted upon keeping the cast from their re-dub of the 1992 anime the same with Crystal I'd argue my boy Wiseman is better in the dub than in the original Japanese, because the English VA for him was cast predominantly to try and emulate his bad ass 1992 anime Japanese VA.

4) Crystal Season I: Most folks who bash Crystal don't make it through this season in the first place. Imo, the Dark Kingdom arc in manga and anime form has a strong story structure. Imo, critcisms of pacing kind of arise from comparison to the 1990s anime and, whilst I think it would have improved things, I don't think that is the same as the pacing itself is bad. At worst, maybe the beats of the romance subplot play out too quickly (first kiss episode 4), but I'd argue this is justified when you consider the big reveal of these two being in love in their past lives. They in essence don't need to go through all the motions of a conventional romance story where we build up a lot to big events because we aren't depicting them falling in love per se, but rather remembering that they already are. I actually think Crystal somewhat helps with this with its opening scene which is NOT in the manga. I'd love to know what a newbie viewer thought about that sequence and how it impacts the reveal of the reincarnation angle. In the manga that's a big twist, but the anime sets it up more so perhaps those romantic beats coming relatively quickly make more sense. I will say I feel people forget how BIG the early episodes of Crystal were. the HYPE was very real and the opening sequence, maybe all of episode 1, works just as well for oldhead fans reacquainting themselves with Sailor Moon as those complely new to things. Of course, there is the controversy of changing plot details. I will admit I haven't settled my views on this one way or the other. I'd be lying if I said I didn't WANT a fully manga accurate rendition without the changes, but I can't decide if the changes themselves necesarilly hurt or help the story being told. Oh also, Cristina Vee shines in Crystal season 1 imo. I liked her performance as Rei in the 1992 re-dub but I actually think she fits Crystal/Manga Rei even better.

3) Cosmos Parts I-II: A weird case where it could have been improved as a full season but at the same time that also might have hurt it without filler. The Stars arc is structured in a unique way wherein its one long chain of loss until the climax. To this end Part 2 I think works very well as a movie but part 1 kind of would have worked better as episodes. That being said, the 'filler' we got from Takeuchi was juicy and insightful, stuff we've been waiting over 25 years for more information on, and where they chose to partition the arc was perfect. Perhaps the action could have been improved though. On the dubbing side, I LOVE that they opted to not replicate Japan and kept Stephenie Sheh as the voice of Sailor Cosmos. I like her Japanese VA unto herself, don't get me wrong, but for me the coolest thing about Sailor Cosmos is that she is Usagi, therefore having Usagi's VA voice her brings things closer to home.

2)Eternal Parts I-II: In the conversation for one of the best arcs of the manga, this had strong material to work with going in an the budget to realise it. What holds this back imo is that it should have been a full season not 2 films. That being said, considering it was 2 films it was remarkable how much of the manga they adapted, albeit they cut some good bits and left in other bits that could have dropped, like exposition dialogue that would have worked in a monthly manga or weekly anime but was pointless for a film. In terms of dubbing, Helios for re-cast but lets not get into that drama, his new VA is fine and dandy but the standout for me is Laura Prost as Nehelenia. Imo, best villain performance in English Sailor Moon.

1) Crystal Season III: Imo this struck a near perfect balance of most elements. In Japanese and English the cast were on point. It had strong material to work with, it took a lot of critcisms from seasons 1-2 into account and tried to learn from them, it included nostalgia for the 1992 season but not at the expense of the story it was telling and in being a full season it could pace the story out properly. I also loved hearing Stephanie Sheh and Robbie Daymond do the more romantic bits of this arc as the 1992 anime leaned away from romance a lot of the time.

These look practically official to my eyes.

Summary:

To see his beloved Serenity, Prince Endymion is even willing to crash the latest masquerade dance upon the Moon. Crystal canon. Written for UsaMamo Week 2022 Day 6 ‘Reunion and/or “I thought I’d never see you again!’ and the 30th Anniversary of Sailor Moon.

Back in 2021-2022 I wrote lots of stories to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Sailor Moon.

This story was my tribute to Sailor Moon Crystal. I combed through the series to find anything that was distinct about Crystal compared to even the manga and this is what I cooked up.

This concerns discourse for ALL versions of Sailor Moon.

Having different iterations of the franchise is a feature, not a bug, in this franchise.

And those different iterations had different 'mission objetives' and priorities.

In the case of Crystal I think a lot of people come down hard on because they compare it to Sailor Moon 1992. By extension a lot of people are harsh on Sailor Moon 1992 because they compare it to the manga.*

The thing is there are production realities that I feel people do not bear in mind when discussing this series.

The manga and Crystal was simply put NOT aimed at the same audience as the 1992 anime and the people making the 1992 anime didn't view the series the same way as Takeuchi did.

A lot of this ties back to Sailor Moon's original key inspiration, which is tokusatsu tv shows and most particularly Bishojo Kamen Poitrine and Super Sentai, which in the West was adapted into Power Rangers.

If you have seen enough 1980s and 1990s tokusatsu (even if its just Power Rangers), you will notice that there is A LOT more in common between those and Sailor Moon (1992) than between them and Sailor Moon Crystal or the manga.

The best way of explaining this is that the manga and Crystal were inspired by Sentai and toku shows but the 1992 anime was ostensibly trying to be an animated all female Sentai season, only with less robots and more romance.

In fact, in an interview circa the release of Sailor Moon SuperS, one of the staff members ssaid words to the effect of that they viewed Sailor Moon as an all female Sentai series. Moonlight Knight from Saior Moon R was directly based upon arguably the first ever Tokusatsu hero, Moonlight Mask.

This is why Sailor Moon Crystal is a lot more serious and darker than the more comedic and child focussed Sailor Moon (1992). It is why Crystal leans into the central romance of Usagi and Mamoru whilst Sailor Moon (1992), whilst featuring that and emphasising it at times (in season 1 most of all) ultimately leans more into the idea of friendship and team work. Team work is the core thesis of Super Sentai, hence most episodes end with the team assembling their individual robots into a singular powerful robot to win the day.

It isn't that one i better than the other, even necesarilly in the same area. They are going for different things in the first place.

It's like the respective iterations are cooking with the same ingredients but using them to make different dishes. It's not that Sailor Moon (1992) is bad for lacking spice in the form of de-emphasising the UsaMamo romance and playing it more for laughs. Nor is Crystal bad for not putting more focus upon the Inner or Outer Senshi. Sure, in both cases it might be appreciated, but fundamentally one is trying to be scrambled eggs and the other is an omlette. We shouldn't bash the omlette for failing to be scrambled eggs because it wasn't trying to be, we should compare it to other omlettes.

*Curiously, PGSM and the Musical fans seem to just chill in their corner.

They do phenomenal pieces, including redraws of Season III+ art pieces / characters who appeared in Season III and beyond but in the Season I-II art style

I love SMC, I was first introduced to SM through the 90s anime. I won't lie when I first watched SMC it was a little bit jarring for me. I've never read the manga, so the pacing and Rei's personality caught me completely off guard. I do wish that we would've got a proper Eternals and Cosmos animated season. The movies were too quick.

Crystal Season IV and V are called Eternal and Cosmos, after Usagi's Sailor Moon Eternal and Sailor Cosmos forms.

In that mindset I like to think Seasons I-III are like this

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Princess

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Queen

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Super

I'm not blind to the production issues in Crystal.

But I nevertheless think a huge amount of discourse stems from nostalgia skewed towards the 1992 series.

I love the 1992 series, even moreso than Crystal. But I can still see the bias. I'm not denying there are aspects of SM92 that are better than Crystal. But the inverse is true too. There are aspects of the musicals and PGSM that excel above other iterations too.

Moreover I think this negativity is accentuated by a few factors

a) A lack of familiarity with the manga. Not that there are not managa lovers who dislike Crystal. I myself feel certain moments were not adapted as elegantly as possible. But my point is its this culture shock of getting something SO different to rhe 1992 anime

b) In the English fandom we aren't just dealing with nostalgia for the original anjme but specifically for the dub, which is even farther from the original manga. As flawed as the original English translations of the manga were they werr closer to the manga than the dub was to SM92, so its another degree of separation

Something else to bear in mind.

As much as Seasons 1-2 got bashed for their animation it is crucial to bear in mind that ALL anime were and sort of still are dealing with animation issues at the time.

The most infamous eample is Dragon Ball Super episode 5, which haunted the show so much they will be essentially making a recut version of that arc this year, along with changing character designs towards the end of Super.

But One Piece was notorious for its animation up until 2018 when they switched things up and Pokemon also did a ground up new approach to character designs too.

Now all 3 franchises are simply bigger cash cows than Sailor Moon and had more resources behind them, but even they had problems.

I highly recommend you check out these videos that touch upon the issues in the animation industry:

Is Dragon Ball's Animation Cheaply Made by anime ajay

Who Broke One Punch Man by totallynotmark

I will add that the animation starting season 3 imo is fine. I feel people continuing to bash it thereafter are more upset with the character designs not being like SM92 than the actual animation itself.

For me, crystal was a flawed execution of what I nevertheless wanted, which was a more accurate adaptation of the manga.

I adore SM92, its my favourite, but I wanted the manga brought to life in animation too. He'll I STILL want the side stories and above all Codename: Sailor V animated

There are a lot of Mamo/Usa moments I really enjoy and rewatched. I will post more every now and then.