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bigmike_03
Reviews
Gekijô-ban - Bishôjo senshi Sêrâ Mûn R (1993)
Sailor Moon without commercial interruption!
Sailor Moon R the Movie is a handful of scenes away from being a great movie. I am a huge Sailor Moon fan so my criticism is not for lack of adoration, in fact, it's quite the opposite. The animation of this film is a step up from the series, but with a 60-minute run time, it seems as if minor, yet important details have been skipped.
I won't drag the film down with negative stuff right off the bat. The action scenes are very good from the first fight in the city, to the battle in space and finally the last stand on the comet.
The setup for the film is textbook and the end is very buff, but I feel as if something is missing from the middle. I was hoping for at least a 90-minute "movie" feel, but that wasn't the case. Everything seemed rushed after Fiore takes Tuxedo Mask back to the comet.
As always, the music is top notch. The scene where Usagi wants a kiss from Mamoru is comical and the Moon Revenge song will stay in your head for a few days. Hell, I thought the American song, Power of Love, was pretty good as well.
Chibi-USA, whether you like her or not, is essentially useless in this movie. I can only speak of Sailor Moon R the series in which Chibi-USA is a focal point in determining the fate of the future Usagi and Mamoru. No such danger exists in the film.
Fiore is a complete knockoff of Ali from the Doom Tree series. He looks just like Ali in both alien and human form. The animators should have at least added Ann and a Doom Tree while they were at it.
My suspension of disbelief kind of went out the window when the senshi were able to breathe in space.
Despite these drawbacks, I think R the Movie is solid and with some more meat in the middle of the film it could have been great. I guess I'm just spoiled by the first season of Sailor Moon and Naoko's manga.