Catch up on the rest of the Sailor Moon newbie recaps if you’re behind!
This week is all about the cents, from century marks to centurions, as we hit the 100-episode milestone and run into the nastiest Gladaimonator yet. Mina’s losing her motivation, Usagi’s losing her heart, and Mamoru is just … just losing. All the time. Always.
Hang on to your top hats, gang. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
The Recaps
Episode 100 – To V or Not to V
Minako appears to live in an alternate dimension where junior high isn’t awkward and angsty, ‘cause everyone’s running around young and carefree and in love. Well, everyone except Mina, anyway. Feeling like her childhood’s passing her by, she laments to Artemis that she just wants a nice guy to come along with a bouquet of roses and ask her out on a date, just once!
Cue Asai, classmate and former teammate, who had a serious thing for Mina during her volleyball-playin’ days. She quit when she came back from England (without giving much of a reason, since “I joined the Vigilante Club instead” probably wouldn’t go over so well with the ol’ coach), but it’s obvious she misses the sport, and misses spending time with Asai, too. And Asai sure doesn’t help when he makes it SO OBVS that he’s into her. He even tells her he’d planned to CONFESS if he ever became a regular on the team.
Don’t mind me, just twisting the knife a little.
Mina tries to play it cheerful at the group study session, focusing on all her cool Sailor V merch, but no matter how long she looks at the stuff (isn’t it neat? wouldn’t you think her collection’s complete?), she can’t help feeling like she’s missing something. Eventually she mutters something about “quitting the scouts for a while,” then laughs it off and flees the scene.
This would be a great time for someone older and wiser to offer some sage advice, and given that there are, like, two adults in this show, that job falls on high scool student Haruka’s shoulders. Mina asks if Haru (being a rockin’ racer and all) ever longs for “ordinary happiness.” Haruka says she’s never felt “unordinary,” but now that she thinks about it, having something she loves and being true to herself is more important to her than “ordinary happiness” (whatever that is, anyway). Mina ponders.
Her pondering takes her to the gymnasium, where the sound of volleyballs echo. So hey, maybe Mina can have a slice of ordinary happiness after all, when her and Asai’s ‘ship sails merrily off into the—
—Bottom of the bay, apparently.
So, yeah. Asai has a girlfriend. Womp womp. But there’s no time to be sad, because the volleyball’s got a Daimon attached to it, and “Haikyun” is comin’ right for Asai’s heart! Mina springs into action and calls up the other scouts, but they can’t keep the Daimon from taking his heart.
Despite the lack of talisman, Kaolinite orders Haikyun to kill Venus AND Asai, so Haikyun decides to stuff Asai’s heart into a volleyball and serve it at the scouts at high-speeds. The girls can’t attack the volleyball directly, but the serves are too fast for them, too!
Or rather, for all of them EXCEPT Venus, who’s all:
She uses her flying dig-and-flip (this is exactly how volleyball is played!) to receive the heart-ball safely… and all under the watchful half-dead eyes of Asai, who would recognize that special move anywhere! The scouts make quick work of the Daimon, so there’s nothing left to do but return the heart and tag on an epilogue. Asai approaches Minako at school and tells her to thank Sailor Venus for him, if she ever sees her, that is, like, you know, whatever. WINK WINK. Mina sorta winks back at him and the two continue down their separate paths, “ordinary” or otherwise.
And fortunately for Mina, her path contains some pretty great friends and a magnificent cat, because ARTEMIIIIIIIS…!!
And my notes are just caps lock and CAN’T EVENs from there to the end credits.
Episode 101 – The Slappening
There’s a crisis brewing in Juuban, because Kaolinite has found the purest heart ever it’s Usagi’s birthday and none of the scouts give a crap. After they blow her off to go study, Usa wanders around till she spies a pair of glass slippers in a shop window. Instead of thinking about how uncomfortable and cost-ineffective those would be, she remembers Cinderella and decides she wants her prince to buy her a pair, too. That is not how the story goes, Usa, but okay.
She uses her Moondar to hunt down Mamoru (who makes a bunch of GROSS, COOTIES faces every time she touches him), and asks him The Most Dangerous Question: “You didn’t forget what today is, did you?”
Okay, dude. No worries. The answer is always either “birthday” or “anniversary.” Fifty percent chance. Coin toss.
You chose…poorly.
Which, I mean, isn’t cool. But you know what’s a whole hell of a lot LESS cool? Partner abuse, which is what happens when Usagi slaps Mamoru and runs off in tears. Wearing his best “da fuq?” face, Mamoru calls Rei to see what’s going on, and she gives him the skinny. So he sets off to make things right.
In the meantime, Usagi has retreated to the park, where HaMichi find her, comfort her, and listen to her gripe about how she and Mamoru are through, THROUGH, I SAY!, ‘cause he’s totes the worst.
Haru takes this as an invitation to flirt mercilessly, and an embarrassed Usagi flees, which in turn makes the Duo think SHE might be a Daimon target. Um, you do realize she just slapped her boyfriend for forgetting her birthday, right? Kinda feels like our definitions of “pure-hearted” don’t really gel, here.
For what it’s worth (very little), Usagi DOES feel bad about lashing out like that—so bad, in fact, that she can’t even enjoy the awesome surprise party the scouts have thrown for her at the shrine (because, c’mon, who DIDN’T see that one coming?). She tells the scouts why she’s so glum, whereupon Rei drops the final, awful twist: Mamoru COUDLN’T have forgotten Usagi’s birthday, because SHE NEVER TOLD HIM WHEN IT WAS.
AHAHAHAHAHAHA…aha…ha…hahhhh…
So Usagi runs off to fix her fuck-up. She meets Mamoru on his way to find her so he can present her with a, er… present. Yes, your boyfriend got you your stupid glass slippers. I never thought I’d say this, but it’s possible Mamoru is too good for you.
Granted, there is a super-buff Daimon embedded in those slippers, and it promptly tosses Mamoru aside and goes right for Usagi, knocking away her brooch (did ya HAVE to hold it out in front of you like that, Usa?) and sucking her heart straight out of her chest. Which, I mean, she may be on my shit list right now, but even I think karma’s being kind of a jerk here.
Worst. Birthday. Ever.
Shock and consternation, Usagi’s heart has one of the talismans! Sailor Duo lurk in the shadows and debate how to proceed: Do they save their friend, or take the talisman and condemn Usa to death? Mamoru saves them from having to make a decision when he suits up and flees with his girlfriend in tow. You owe him sooo many parfaits, Usa, like you don’t even KNOW.
The two try to escape but Kaolinite and her Gladiamonator find them and give chase—oh, and Kaoli’s kinda got Usagi’s brooch now, sooooo… yeah. This day is not getting any better. Eventually the quartet meet up again in a parking garage, where Usagi FINALLY thinks to use her communicator to contact her friends. She does manage to call Luna before Kaolinite breaks the watch, so the scouts will be here soon-ish, but until then… er…
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Operation Human Shield.”
Tux busts out his DUELING!cane and gives the Daimon what for, but Usagi’s basically helpless without her brooch, and everyone knows you can’t Guard and Attack at the same time. When The Tux tries, he gets a glass attack in the back for his troubles. Which, I mean, you’d ASSUME would mean he just got stabbed again, and NBD, dude basically doesn’t even feel those anymore—but no, turns out the monsters are getting more creative this season. Instead, the glass attaches to him and covers him head to toe, trapping him like a dapper Han Solo.
Usagi cries out his name, Sailor Duo looks on uncertainly, and THE EPISODE ENDS?! You mean I have to wait a WHOLE WEEK to find out what happens next?! But what if The Tux can’t hold his breath for that long?! Noooooo…
That, That, and the Other
- I like that Minako still collects all the Sailor V comics and merch they keep churning out. Because, honestly, why wouldn’t you?
- Our villains took a step towards charming sympathy this week thanks to a totally random and absurd conversation about playing sports and staying in shape, which culminated in Professor Petty announcing his favorite sport was “step board workouts,” followed by total silence. You can really feel Ikuhara’s weird sense of humor shining through this season.
- And while Usagi and Mamoru were running around angsting all over Juuban, the scouts were eating an entire cake. See, girls? Being single is WAY more fun.
- Tuxedo Mask learned a new attack this week! And I hereby dub it: Ring Around the Rosie! Because no one who fights with flowers is allowed to sound like a badass, even when they kinda are one.
- Hark! A plot point! I think “Usagi’s heart is a talisman” was plot point aplenty. The real question is how the Duo will handle this next week. C’mon ladies! Put on your hero hats and come to the sailor side! They have ca~ake…
Dee is a writer, a translator, a book worm, and a basketball fan. She has bachelor’s degrees in English and East Asian studies and a master’s degree in Creative Writing. To pay the bills, she works as a technical writer. To not pay the bills, she writes young adult novels, watches far too much anime, and cheers very loudly for the Kansas Jayhawks. You can hang out with her at The Josei Next Door, a friendly neighborhood anime blog for long-time fans and newbies alike, as well as on Tumblr and Twitter.
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