Sailor Moon Crystal (new 2014 anime)

[usamimi]

Greg and I live in Japan so those sites are blocked

Ah, I meant that as general "here's where they are" in case anyone didn't know. But yeah, Nico Nico works for those in Japan! If you're in Canada, I've had Canadian friends tell me you can watch Hulu by using the "Hola" extention--here's a thing about it: http://mangastyle.net/2014/05/18/how-to ... sing-hola/

[Animusubi]

I watched it. The animation bothers me so much that I find it hard to enjoy it. I do like that it follows the manga character's personalities more (in that Mamoru is a lot nicer and not a doofy jerk like in the anime) and that Rei will most likely be different. As well as the Takeuchi changes; though I wanna see the changes where Ami is a cyborg and Makoto is a gang leader, imo, that'd be way more interesting. The voices didn't wow me, minus Usagi, though she felt a little subdued than her usual Usagi. And there's a charm that missing. Though I loved the "Utena" style images throughout. I am the kind of person where if the art or animation isn't my taste, I don't care how good to story is, because I want visual appeal a little bit more, so I wasn't expecting to like Sailor Moon Crystal. Plus I was never a big fan of the manga.

This is also the first time I am seeing firsthand a huge fandom reaction to something, and I don't like it. I never cared about being in any fandoms or took part in them really in the past, since I was mostly alone in watching anime, and I think I prefer it that way. Reading comments and such boils my blood too much.

I am enjoying watching the original subtitled a lot more, because I never got to see it in it's original format.

[usamimi]

The voices didn't wow me, minus Usagi, though she felt a little subdued than her usual Usagi.

Really? I've heard a lot of people say they they thought she was over-reacting too much in comparison to the animation...and I hate to say it, but I kind of agree--she was downright screechy in a few scenes to me, which threw me off guard. I LOVE Kotono Mitsuishi, but I think she's not entirely back into the swing of things yet playing the role. She's not as young as she used to be, I don't think she hits those high notes as easily ^^;

I really do wish that this had been a TV show and not a streaming-exclusive...the lack of "fluid" animation and the 3D animation makes it seem like Toei isn't putting a lot into the budget on this, which is disappointing. Of course, it's also like you said, ryoran--this is the first time the entire Sailor Moon fandom is actually reacting to everything instantaneously...and everyone's picking it apart at the EXACT same time, with very high standards since we've been waiting so long for it. It's kind of crazy and it has started a TON of arguments. (In fact, a friend I'd known online for several years and even met in person removed and blocked me from Facebook because I told her there were legal streaming options to watch SMC after she linked to some illegal streaming site when another friend of hers asked where to watch it... I wasn't expecting that!) It's kind of a shame, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised--people have been arguing for years which version of SM is "best". I honestly like all versions of SM (even the cheesy live-action musicals and TV show!), so while there's plenty of things I nit-picked about myself that I don't like about SMC, I'll still watch it to see what'll be different and what will be the same. I'm not gonna hate on people who decide not to watch it, I know plenty of people who didn't even like the first anime.

[greg]

Well, my daughter really wanted to watch it, so we watched it on that Nico Douga link I shared previously. We've caught many episodes of Sailor Moon R on Asahi's cable TV station, so she is fairly familiar with Sailor Moon. I mostly let her watch it while I did something else. The art style didn't sit well with me. The old TV show's character designs were fantastic, and that is what I loved about the show when I was a college boy goober watching the little girls' show as a guilty pleasure. These new character redesigns didn't really strike me as being any more faithful to the original manga than the original TV series, as far as I could remember. It's as if they were trying too hard to make it a girly show than they really needed to. It reminded me of some of the worse bishoujo titles, of which names I cannot recall. Am I being ignorant? I really can't recall properly. My sister-in-law is the real Sailor Moon expert. She grew up with the original, and had all the manga.

[ParaParaJMo]

Episode 2

I still don't dig Luna's new voice. Sailor Mercury just sounds too cute for me with her meekness. I felt with the original voice actress, her meekness felt more natural.

[Animusubi]

The art definitely took an even more noticeable dip in episode 2. I think I'm pretty much done watching Crystal though, I watched it more out of curiousity than enjoyment and the art style bothers me too much. If they were gonna do so many scenes in CGI, they might as well have done the whole thing, at least the characters would stay on model.

[greg]

the art style bothers me too much.

I'm glad I am not the only one. Storywise, I couldn't say much since I didn't really take the time to try to absorb it, even with subtitles available. The art just too much for me.

[usamimi]

The art definitely took an even more noticeable dip in episode 2. I think I'm pretty much done watching Crystal though, I watched it more out of curiousity than enjoyment and the art style bothers me too much. If they were gonna do so many scenes in CGI, they might as well have done the whole thing, at least the characters would stay on model.

I was pretty disappointed at the nosedive in quality as well--Someone on Twitter pointed out that this episode was outsourced almost entirely to China...so some people are wondering if the reason the animation took that dip is possibly because they had the core animation team working on the music video for Moon Pride (which came out a few days ago).

I'm still gonna watch the whole thing, there's still 24 episodes left, so I'm sure there's bound to be more episodes that look better than others. (Plus I'm still itching to see more of those scenes that Naoko Takeuchi gave them that are going to be based on scenes she wanted to include in the manga originally, but got cut out in editing.) And if that Moon Pride video is any indication, the Moon Kingdom episodes look like they're gonna be really interesting...

Oh, and speaking of SMC, the next ep of my podcast's gonna be about the current Sailor Moon revival we're experiencing right now, so if anyone has any questions/comments/stories for the podcast, send em my way! You can send em to animenostalgiapodcast@gmail.com or you can PM me here if you like

[llj]

I'm glad I am not the only one. Storywise, I couldn't say much since I didn't really take the time to try to absorb it, even with subtitles available. The art just too much for me.

I think one of the most underrated aspects of the original Sailor Moon anime was its crossover gender appeal, and I had to think that the less flowery character designs had a lot to do with that. There was a harder, shonen-esque style to the character designs that made the show ever so slightly more "masculine" in appeal.

[usamimi]

I'm glad I am not the only one. Storywise, I couldn't say much since I didn't really take the time to try to absorb it, even with subtitles available. The art just too much for me.

I think one of the most underrated aspects of the original Sailor Moon anime was its crossover gender appeal, and I had to think that the less flowery character designs had a lot to do with that. There was a harder, shonen-esque style to the character designs that made the show ever so slightly more "masculine" in appeal.

Sailor Moon is a shoujo series, made for girls, by a feminist woman...so if any of those things make you cringe, then I'd stay away from the manga and the new series in general. It's not supposed to have a lot of shounen elements, and Naoko Takeuchi famously didn't like a LOT of the changes that were made to her story for the 90s anime. You can prefer the original anime, there's nothing wrong with that, but there's also absolutely nothing wrong with a shoujo series being flowery or feminine. Those aren't bad things, and I don't see there being anything wrong with there being a "lack of masculinity" in a show that's being targeted specifically for women and girls.