Featured LaserDisc artwork by Ikuko Itoh.
Welcome back to Mooniversity, our column for all things “Sailor Moon.” Today we’re revisiting the fourth season of the ’90s anime, Sailor Moon SuperS, so named because it sees all of the Sailor Guardians unlock their Super forms. Adapting the ‘Dream’ arc of the manga across 39 episodes, first broadcast from March 4, 1995 to March 2, 1996, it is, hands down, easily the weakest season of the original anime.
Widely regarded as an attempt to dial back the darkness of Sailor Moon S, to the point Uranus and Neptune only appear in a special aired at the start of the season, SuperS‘s main problem is how bloated and repetitive it is: while a cours of an anime is typically 13 episodes, this season meanders with an 22-episode arc, and then another, regular-sized arc, before its concluding round of episodes. It takes 16 episodes for Ami, Rei et al. to gain their Super outfits, and it’s only after the first arc that they unlock the new attacks these forms provide.
The initial arc, which centers on the Amazon Trio’s hunt for Pegasus/Helios, suffers from the formula of the Trio targeting people for their Dream Mirrors, which will expose the mind the guardian of Elysium’s soul is hiding in. Tiger’s Eye targets young women; Hawk’s Eye goes after older women; and Fish Eye preys on males. That might’ve provided some variety, but instead there’s a whopping nine episodes about Tiger’s Eye and his type, while Hawk’s Eye and Fish Eye get five and six episodes respectively.
Fish Eye’s anime incarnation is certainly the most interesting, as he often presents as a woman, and winds up befriending Usagi, although we have to be careful about giving the show too much credit for pseudo-trans representation, because he targets a boy Chibiusa’s age in one episode (in the one where Mercury et al. gain their Super forms, no less.) The Trio are written out with a redemption arc, where their animal origins are revealed in an existentially horrifying twist. After sacrificing themselves, they’re revived by Helios and granted the ability to dream, before their souls are taken to Elysium – unfortunately, they’re never seen again, so so much for their arc.
Afterwards, the Amazoness Quartet take on the weekly monster wrangler role, and the heroes’ new attacks are finally introduced. It’s really curious that it took so long, as is the decision to have Jupiter and Venus unlock their powers in the same episode, while having the third episode in this four-parter be an adaptation of the third ‘Chibiusa’s Picture Diary’ comic. Similarly, while the Quartet are redeemed, they’re never revealed to be Chibiusa’s future Guardians, while Mamoru’s relationship with the Golden Crystal isn’t disclosed – of all the show’s seasons, this is the one that most reflects how the manga was being created at the same time.
Not all changes are bad, and the backstory SuperS gives final boss Queen Nehelenia is creepier than the nebulous one her comics counterpart had, tapping into the Snow White aspect of her character to reveal her evil nature was caused by an alarming vision of her older self. This led her to pluck out the dreams of her court to maintain her youth – to wit, she rules over a literal Dead Moon Circus. It adds an extra layer of creepiness to the season’s monsters, who are a bizarre collection of aristocratic weirdos, resembling the supporting cast of Spirited Away before Spirited Away even existed. Their base of operations looks much more garish than the ship in the manga, and there’s an evocative use of cobweb imagery to make them feel even more ghoulish.
One common criticism of SuperS is the decision to emphasize Chibiusa as co-lead of the series, with her and her mother always appearing together in transformation sequences, and the way she’s the subject of both of the season’s end credits songs (“Watashitachi ni Naritakute” and “Rashiku Ikimasho”). This culminates in a Peter Pan-esque sequence in the penultimate episode, where she rallies the children of Tokyo to use their dreams to strip Nehelenia of her power. It’s an understandable gripe given Chibiusa’s role was more limited in S than R, as well as the introduction of Luna and Artemis’s daughter, Diana (even though she had debuted much earlier in the manga’s second arc), all of which contributed to the air of pandering to younger kids.
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However, Chibiusa is the secondary protagonist of the saga, so perhaps the main issue here is how Usagi regresses as a character after S, acting like her envious older sister instead of a mother figure again. (Poor Mamoru.) Without the Outer Guardians, the show’s writers seemed to struggle with avoiding increasingly outlandish characterizations, or repeating themselves with the original five eg. Jupiter and Venus’s rivalry flaring up again, Jupiter suddenly being into older men, or Venus being a two timer. (Ami turning out to be a grease monkey in “Drive to the Heavens” was rather cool though.) As funny as it was, their tendency to mock their own formula here indicated they were getting bored, and it should’ve come as no surprise series director Kunihiko Ikuhara stepped down after this season.
What’s a shame is SuperS does have a really strong finale, in which a defeated Nehelenia flings Chibiusa from the top of her rising fortress, and Usagi leaps after her. The two fall countless feet from the sky, before Helios rescues them at the last second, in an exhilarating and almost cinematic moment that shows just how heroic Usagi has become. Even if Nehelenia hadn’t returned in the next season, this would’ve been a really satisfying ending to her story, as it shows ending the villain’s life isn’t as important for Usagi as protecting her loved ones. Usagi even upsets Nehelenia by telling her she pities her, reminding us her true superpower is her compassion, not her scepter.
But ultimately, if there’s a season of Sailor Moon you could skip entirely, it would be this one, especially for another reason we’ll go into when we look at the final one, Sailor Stars, next month.
