Act XI: Reunion

Warning: Spoilers

Be sure to check out the Sailor Moon Crystal Page for reviews of Acts I through X in case you missed them!

The episodes are getting to the point where I feel like I blinked once, and the episode was already over. I’m so intent on what is going on that time ceases to exist. Am-I-right?

Act XI is less of a reunion and more of a painful, slow ripping off of a bandage as Usagi accepts that Tuxedo Mask/Endymion/Mamo-chan is thoroughly under Queen Beryl’s power. Pretty depressing stuff.

The story and plot moved forward quite a bit, but I did not love this episode as much as some of the others. A few things gripped me–such as the fact the sword was “poisoned”–and made me wonder about the past of the moon kingdom and reflect again on how terrible the destruction was.

But the best part, the part that gave me the warm fuzzies, was Luna and Usagi’s love and kindness towards one another. I wish the episode had spent some more time on that. In the beginning, when Luna tells Usagi that she is her partner, I had a tear in my eye when Usagi so gently picks Luna up to hug her.

And this scene….

Luna knew that Usagi would only face the truth when someone else she loved got hurt, but gosh did it punch me in the gut to see Luna sprawled on the ground, injured! Usagi’s love is the real force of the show, and they are doing a great job of showing us how love comes in many forms. It is not limited to the romance between Endymion and Serenity; it includes the love between friends. What makes this show so unique is that a girl’s emotion (so often downtrodden in traditional media) is what will save the world.

The love between Usagi and Luna spoke to me very strongly because my own black cat, Sammie, passed away at the impressive age of 16 this last summer. When I was in middle and high school I would not-so-secretly pretend I was Usagi and that Sammie was Luna (even though Sammie was a boy cat). I also wore my hair in pigtails, although admittedly that was more due to wanting to be Baby Spice (which predated my Sailor Moon obsession by a few years).

The second best part of the episode is the immense sadness of Usagi’s transformation scene. It is very weird to have her transform without some sort of catchy music. I have a feeling more of the same is in store in Act XII: Enemy.

For more discussion checkout the Sailor Moon thread on reddit dedicated to Act XI.

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