Episode 19: Time Warp - Sailor Pluto (a.k.a. Animated akwardness)

I'm not gonna lie and say this episode was good. It was terrible, but it wasn't good either. From my perspective, this episode felt like a jumbled mess, which is sad because the original content is quite lovely and moving.

So lets take a look.

Pick up where episode 18 left off, Chibi-Usa confesses her origins and begs Sailor Moon for help. However, even though she had revealed her origins, she is still overly useless when it comes to giving out an real information, as we see when Artemis asks some more pressing questions.

Venus requests that Chibi-Usa take them to the future since they'll find more answers there and maybe even the kidnapped senshi. But Chibi-Usa's fears outweigh their pleading as she tells them that there is no way she could go back to that "scary place."

To Sailor Moon's dismay, Tuxedo Mask steps in again with hugs and soothings words to cal our pink hair antagonist. In these moments, Chibi-Usa boldly proclaims that she wants to spend the night at Mamoru's place.

Here we see the first of these "comical" reaction boxes that seem so very out of place in this particular style

As Mamoru readies Chibi-Usa for bed Mamoru asks a few more questions and gives some advice about not running away from one's problems. Now this is all well and good and would have been innocent and harmless if not for some disturbing and somewhat suggestive imagery.

You see, Maoru hovers over Chibi-Usa while the child is in bed and twice we see him as just this lurking black silhouette whose face is unnaturally close. Really? is it just me? Am I the only one with the problem of seeing Chibi-Usa in full blush, in Mamoru's bed, wearing one of his shirts, and then with Mamoru himself hovering over her speaking softly?

If that sounds like the intro to a sex scene, you wouldn't be 100% wrong.

Luckily, we are not exposed to pedophilia, but Usagi watches from beyond the room and can see that Chibi-Usa is obviously in love. She tells as much to Mamoru, and we get another akward comedy blip.

Now the next scene is a pretty well known one as it is the somewhat subtle way Naoko shows that Usagi and Mamoru's relationship just went up a level with Usagi spending the night. Usagi is expressing her weird uncertainty of Mamoru's relationship with Chibi-Usa, confesses her jealousy, and asks to sstay whileadmitting to being silly. Mamoru, for a moment, feels that Usagi is physically drifting away, almost fading into the moonlight, when he embraces her and we see them fall together to a more "comfortable" angle.

However, in this version, we see a lot of over dramatic animations and unnecessary backgrounds. Usagi's "fading" is more like a buzzing, distorted image we often see when television reception is bad. There are more black silhouettes and strange angle jumps. It looks awkward and sloppy, which is sad because scenes like this in anime have been done before and it has been done right. (Kare Kano is a prime example of this.)

Moving on, we jump over to Minako's house where Artemis and Luna are spending the night. Luna has a dream about a forbidden door back from their previous lives and how the Queen had called it forbidden and briefly talked about the lone senshi who guarded that place.

The scene changes again and we see our heroes by the clock tower and ready to time travel. Mid warp, they are separated and their presence is detected by the Black Moon. Emeraude lets it slip that dear old prince wants something, or much rather, someone, inside the Crystal Palace. She sends two of her own goons to run interference on our heroes

SCENE CHANGE! Sailor Moon and friends are in the space between times and we finally get to meet Sailor Pluto, who looks amazing! Pluto is just doing her job, eliminating all who come to this time space, and pulls off an unimpressive Dead Scream. Chibi-Usa shows up, jumps ten feet to grab onto Pluto to stop her and we see another drama buildup fall flat.

Pluto lets the group through as we see Crystal Tokyo all jacked up. People are decomposing in streets, there's a giant evil crystal giving  off some major negavibes, and Chibi-Usa swoons at the memory of being unaffected when all the people around her started to collapse.

Mamoru hears a voice and suggests that they leave this place. One choppy scene change later, they are at the castle gates where they are ambushed by Emeraude, Chiral, and Archiral. They are encased in stone and Moon Healing is not working. They get free when Mamoru hears the v
oice again and "prays" to break the stone. They get free, Venus and Tuxedo Mask destroy Chiral and Archiral, and Emerude escapes.

Wow, that's a lot. Finally we get iside the palace where they see Chibi-Usa's mom lying in crystal, Diana, and King Endymion.

So as you can see, a lot happened in this episode and the plot is advancing very nicely. However, I cannot forgive the choppy scene changes. There is no semblance of space and area in this  episode and it's confusing. Add then the strange animations in an attempt to set the atmosphere only to get awkward scenes and sometimes creepy imagery. maybe it's just me.

There are somethings that just don't translate well into animation I guess.

The writers haven't taken any more liberties in changing the story much and it's following the manga to a tee. If that's the case, I think I can expect the next episode to be very, very full.