Sailor Moon Crystal sucked (and rambles about filler)

Continuing yesterday's magical girl ramblings. Crystal not being good isn't a terribly controversial opinion. The art is atrocious in the first couple seasons (I don't expect perfect scaling, but I think Usagi's hair varies by about 10 feet in some episodes), I think they had about three different models for Venus's sword that they swapped at random, and WTF is with everyone's face.

But the real issue is filler. I talked about this on the other blog a little, but the original Sailor Moon anime's first season had to try to stretch 14 chapters of manga into 46 episodes, and was running almost concurrently.

That lead to a lot of filler. Some of it is really good. The Doom Tree arc (technically part of season 2, but whatever) is better than the actual season 2 arc. Some of it is pretty bad. Beach episodes are usually bad, but the one that doesn't even have the main villains is especially pointless.

Crystal tries to go 1:1 with the original manga. Each episode is one chapter. I wrote before about how the manga feels pretty rushed. Usually, you have to pad out a manga chapter somewhat to make it fit a half hour of animation. Crystal sort of acknowledges this, and makes a half hearted attempt at bringing in some stuff from side stories and other adaptations, but it never really pays off. The shitennou are probably the best example here.

In the manga, they die. Quickly, even. I think Nephrite lasts about 50 pages. They're implied to be with the senshi in some art book filler.

In the 90s anime, they still die, but they run around for like 10 episodes each and get sublots and stuff. Great way to fill out that spare 100 minutes or so of air time they get.

They interact a lot more in the live action and, again, get a lot more personality and subplot.

In Crystal, they don't die, and there's a solid 5 minutes of them being in relationships with the senshi in the past. And it does literally nothing. Because how do you do 4 different pairings in like 5 minutes?

On the other hand, there's tons of characterization issues that could've used that 5 minutes.

Minako is often stuck kind of between Rei and Usagi characterization-wise. In her manga, she basically is Usagi. Kind of airheaded, lazy, boy crazy, etc. But, for Sailor Moon, she has to be promoted to competence as the "leader" and most experienced of the senshi. This means that she easily falls into being "the serious one", except Rei has already been doing that for like a quarter of the series.

The 90s anime plays down her serious notes and plays up her airheadedness. To an extent, you could argue that as Usagi progresses, Minako regresses, but at least she's totally distinct from Rei. 

The live action gives her a whole extra back story and a double secret identity, so there's plenty to do there.

Crystal not only inherits the manga's issue, but exacerbates it by making Rei less distinct. In the manga, she's got a creepy/goth thing going on as a shrine maiden that's downplayed in her Crystal version.

5 minutes isn't a lot, but it'd be enough to creep up Rei and take a shot at doing something with Minako.

Which brings me to my all around filler point.  

I didn't see a 20 episode season until I was a man!

90s anime (and TV in general) is full of filler. Like, 2/3rds or more of some seasons. Sometimes entire story arcs!

And, again, some of it is straight garbage that you should just skip over. After all, unless you create a whole new plot (which can't contradict the "real" plot that you're waiting to catch up to), what's the point?

My stepdaughter whines about filler in modern shows. According to her, the first season of Owl House is mostly filler.

I think some people think of filler as anything that doesn't advance the main plot. I'd argue that any scene, episode, chapter, whatever, can develop three things:

1. Characters

2. Setting
3. Plot

Anything that does at least two doesn't count as filler. Did that "extra" episode explain the magic system and tell us a little more about someone's past? Not filler.

You can probably even get away with one if you do enough of it.