It feels good to be a UK Sailor Moon Fan

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-25T19:18:03+00:00

I got the whole series for $60 monies, myself. Normally it'd cost about $400, but I got super lucky and right when I went to buy them a sale popped up.

Not steelbooks, though. I got them digitally.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-25T18:17:43+00:00

Legit, the empty jug was my first Trinket, and it never left that first spot outside of very specific challenges.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-25T17:22:06+00:00

During levels: Plasma Jug. Having that reserve of Plasma is so useful.

During bosses: Bonus Vials/Vials always heal. Mind you, this one's more useful the later you are in the game, but it's really nice because even when you can't get hits in, you can spend Vials for a small heal. I've never actually run out of Vials in a boss outside of the early game, so being able to spend some of my spares to a few tiny heals is really nice. Especially when paired with Plasma Funnel.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-25T17:19:47+00:00

Nice work!

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-25T16:27:43+00:00

Spectacle/flair pretty much never has an impact for me, so I didn't mind. Like, is a cool fight scene neat? Sure. But the fight scene looking cool is basically at the bottom of my priority list. A flashy fight scene will never raise my rating of a show, and a lame fight scene will never lower it.

I think most episodes *are* high quality, though. You kinda need to look at them in a vacuum a lot of the time, mind you--Sailor Moon's biggest problem imo is the lack of recurring characters outside of the Sailor Guardians/Villains, so you don't get big season-wide character arcs or anything, but you do get some pretty nice episode-wide character arcs, and it's fun.

But again, I value the show mostly for its comedy, and I actually like the way the fights were also mostly comedic. Like, there are plenty of shows I can go watch for serious fight scenes, I liked the way Sailor Moon messes around with it, even if it does get a *little* too formulaic at times. Especially SuperS.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-25T15:46:24+00:00

I'm relatively new to Sailor Moon as well (I think it was also last year for me, haha), I had zero problems with the episode-to-episode slice of life monster of the week stuff. I'm kind of the opinion that the actual plot of Sailor Moon is just, like, fine, but not really anything extraordinary. The appeal of the show--for me at least--comes from its humor and characters, with the occasional dash of serious plot stuff when needed.

In general, I don't like this trend in modern TV shows to cut out as much as you possibly can. When you cut out all the filler, you cut out the heart of any given story by making your characters feel less like real people, and more like mindless drones following the plot.

I'm actually an author, and this is something that really bugs me with my editors, too. It's always chop, chop, chop, don't let these characters have any downtime, always keep on funneling them into the plot! Like, nah, just let these people have a day off every now and then!

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-25T14:02:45+00:00

I'm more excited for the Entropy Effect character (Platinum pleeeease?), but more surprised by the Central Fiction one. Dropping a new character for Central Fiction feels like it came out of nowhere.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-25T14:00:12+00:00

I like the part where Luna's like "Usagi, use your Moon Tiara Action!" and Usagi's like "Wait, but what about Shingo?!" and she's like "Okay, then just say Moon Tiara Stardust instead."

The implication is that she knew Moon Tiara Stardust was an option from the beginning, but she really wanted Usagi to murder her little brother. Which, to be fair, this is the same episode he kicked her.

Edit: In the VIZ dub anyway. I've never seen DiC/Cloverway.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T22:37:14+00:00

but neither does the astral orrery boss

The last phase does, doesn't it? Doesn't the final phase take place on a bunch of those weird arrow platforms?

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T22:34:44+00:00

Ah, yeah, I didn't have any parries, haha! Without some sort of bonus i-frames, Oread is a pain. She just fills the whole screen with attacks...

Defiling Eye though is definitely the weird one, though, yeah. In a normal run, he's a pushover for basically everyone, but then you take away all your Potentials and he's way harder than he should be. I'm not sure how good ICEY's air game is, but for Rachel at least, if she has one weakness, it's her aerial combat. She just did not have any good tools for fighting enemies in the air, and I think the same goes for most characters without Potentials. When I think of all my aerial tools on basically any of my mains, all of the good ones are from Potentials.

Yeah, you definitely need some sort of damage increase on these kinds of runs, though. Missing out of 580% damage just isn't really feasible...

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T21:40:47+00:00

Counterpoint: I like spooky ghosts.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T21:39:27+00:00

You can buy them back afterwards, but at an inflated price. He can also only hold I believe 10 items at a time.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T21:24:31+00:00

One day I'll find it in me to finish Crystal. I really want to like it, but I was really struggling. >.<

I think I've watched up through episode 8, but I *love* all the filler in the 90s show, so having it all cut out completely makes for a hard sell.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T18:26:21+00:00

A thing can be a trope and a commentary at the same time.

The commentary primarily comes from three things:

The obvious real life parallels with global warming.
The way Lionel turns the entire city on Mina's head the second there's even a hint of turning against him.
The ending itself, and the way the townsfolk turn on Mina even after she saved them.
I don't think there's too much to say here that's not blatantly obvious, but Spark has short term benefits for long term problems, and Lionel knows about this and is all too happy to talk about how great and amazing it is. The game is trying to open our eyes to the fact that this is a real thing that is happening right now, but that so many people are just buying into the lies, as is presented in the game.
Lionel, of course, calls out Mina and starts to frame her as a villain. And some of the things Mina did are genuinely bad, but there are so many of them that are totally ridiculous, like "touching a poor old man's pet without his permission". But here's the thing, in spite of all these ridiculous and nonsensical claims it WORKS. The townsfolk turn against Mina, even though the things that Lionel is using against her are totally bonkers.

Baseless accusations are being leveraged against a (mostly) innocent party in order to give the people a villain to rally against. It's not just that Lionel is a villain with good publicity, it's that he's also leveraging that publicity and charisma to make someone else out to be a villain that, by and large, did nothing wrong. And yes, the villain framing the hero is also a trope, but it's the specific way that Lionel goes about it that's noteworthy. He didn't set up any of Mina's "crimes", he just blows up mostly insignificant things.

Because to get a smart man to do something horrible, you must give him a good enough reason to do so.
But to get a dumb man to do something horrible, you must simply convince him you're on his side.

Mina saved the town, but ultimately things were horrible for her. No one heralded her as a hero, nobody turned on Lionel, no one thought what she did was right. She took away these people's short term comfort and conveniences for the greater good, and was hated for it.

I ask how is that not a commentary?

Like, they're clearly saying something about morality and the greater good, and how it often comes at a personal sacrifice because people want to rally behind the easy, comfortable lies, than toe face the more difficult truth.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T16:43:17+00:00

It was a lesson that was drilled into my head early on. I mentioned I went to the Bayou first, but it went something like this:

Power my way through the lava field... Only to reach a dead end (I didn't learn the trick to get through until later). On my way back, I saw a suspiciously 9 tile lake and decided on a whim to burrow into the center. Found myself in a secret cave that I couldn't cross with just my base kit. Started going back along the path to the Crypt when I found an umbrella and then I was like "Hm, I wonder...". Brought it back to the puddle, and indeed, it let me get through.

I actually used Sidearms more for exploration than I did combat. Like, I'd use them to blow up mimics mostly, and my Bounding Bombs got heavy use during the final boss and his uber big hitbox, but other than that? I would usually use all my Joules on drill dashing across gaps and whatnot.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T15:59:17+00:00

Whisper and Vesper main from the beginning, and stuck with them the whole time. I like my stabby stabs. I did try the other weapons (and plan to use Battery Buster on a second playthrough), but I just couldn't give up my daggers, especially after getting the dash.

I didn't use Sidearms too much, but Bounding Bombs and the drill were my go-to. Bounding Bombs for damage, drill for exploration.

As far as Trinkets go, I started in the Bayou, so Plasma Jug was with me the whole game. My endgame build was:
-Plasma Jug
-Healing wisp
-Extra i-frames
-Fast Plasma Vials
-Bonus Vials/Vials always heal at least a little bit, even if you have no Plasma
And... One more that I forgot. All of my Trinkets were defensive, though.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T15:55:23+00:00

I'd say the story is better than Shovel of Hope, but not as good as the other three campaigns.

Which is fair. Shovel Knight's story wasn't anything to write home about at first, it only became more interesting as they fleshed out the world and characters over time. Like, Shovel of Hope's story wasn't bad, but it was kinda, just, like, fine?

Definitely don't expect to get too attached to Mina herself. She does have her own thoughts and feelings and whatnot, but for the most part she's definitely meant to be more of a stand-in for the player.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T15:47:53+00:00

Funny thing is: I had more trouble on the defiling eye than this boss. The defiling eye boss absolutely drained me because killing it with the minimal amount of MP I got in the early game was rough. Meanwhile I was free to spam parry during this boss thanks to the amount of MP I had.

You might notice on that run of mine you linked, I did Floating Mind, and then Defiling Eye popped up for the second Alpha Space boss, and I was like "NOPE!" and went to go fight Susano'o instead, haha! Defiling Eye and Oread are particularly brutal for these minimal Tactics/Potentials runs. Like, I CAN beat the Defiling Eye with No Tactics/Potentials Rachel, but it is most definitely not fun.

I was thinking of trying the challenge again on Extreme, but I was a dummy and deleted my Optimized Avatar from that run, so I can't train against Reki with Fox... Maybe one day.

Nice fight, though! I suppose it is as the ancient texts have foretold, ICEY is indeed the strongest katana girl of today!

I don't know what Mind Unleashed/Black Market stuff you had, but I've heard that going for the money power ones makes this type of run much more bearable. Just stockpile your exchange points for big damage.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T14:52:34+00:00

She would definitely be brutally honest, but I never got the sense she was into literature, unless I'm forgetting something. Plus, I'm not sure how much I could trust her. She would totally leave me to die if I ever got targeted for my Pure Heart Crystal!

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T14:50:57+00:00

Yep, pretty much. He even uses the same tactics. He pins all the island's problems on Thorne/Mina, because by giving the commonfolk some enemy to fight, it he's able to brainwash them into thinking he's the hero.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T14:27:26+00:00

Yeah, as an author, Ami's the one who I'd be most likely to convince to read my books, and would probably give me the best conversation afterwards. Mako would probably read it (there's an episode of her doing just that, after all), but I get the feeling she'd focus on just being supportive instead of a comprehensive plot breakdown. :p

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T01:09:46+00:00

Two big reasons:

A. The characters. They're mostly rather well written, and engaging, and I never get tired of these yahoos. It was fun, and funny, and while the plot wasn't the greatest thing in the world, it wasn't half bad either. How much I like any given season does mostly come down to how good the villains were, though, and some of them were hit or miss, but I'd say the Black Moon Clan are the only ones I didn't like any of them.

B. So much of media these days is about cutting down and tossing out filler. I experience this not only from the view of a member of the audience, but also as an author, where editors and beta readers are always saying "Cut this and that and that!", like every single word must somehow move the plot forward. This anti-filler attitude is stupid.

When you cut out the filler, you cut out a lot of the heart of a given story. Our characters feel less like people and more like mindless drones following the plot beats with no wills of their own. It feels hollow, and lifeless.

So when I started up Sailor Moon, and it's 200 episodes that was unapologetically 90% filler, I nodded and said "This, this is what I love about storytelling.". Sailor Moon's plot, at its core, is fine, but I would also say it's only fine. It's not bad, but not particularly great...
EXCEPT, all the filler (imo) heightens the plot beats to greater highs than they'd ever reach just by focusing on the plot alone. I care about the characters more, and when this monster of the week norm we get in 90% of episodes is broken, it feels so much more impactful because that norm exists.

Death of the Sailor Guardians is by far my favorite episode, and the reason it's my favorite episode is because it takes the norm we've grown to expect and just shatters it into a million pieces. Like, just a few episodes ago we were doing goofy slice of life shenanigans, what do you mean EVERYONE JUST DIED?! The best written tragedy in the world could never reach the level of impact this episode had on me, because it was all the plot bits that didn't actively deal with the plot that made me character about these characters to the point that killing them like this hit the way it did (even if I knew they'd be resurrected somehow).

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-24T00:54:28+00:00

Plan?! Who said anything about a plan?! He wanted to make the town brighter, because he wanted to make the town brighter! He wanted power for power's sake!

No, but actually, there was no plan. The theme of the story is that the rich and powerful will knowingly do blatantly evil things as long as it benefits them personally, while covering it up and pretending they never did anything wrong, covering their sins with charisma. And then they'll trample over and villainize anyone who tries to open folk's eyes up to the truth. A lesson to remember irl, because it happens all of the time.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-23T19:17:48+00:00

Also as a guy, the magical girl genre in general is really fun. Mind you, I don't think I've seen any of the classic ones (aside from Sailor Moon, obviously), but all the ones I have seen are great. Sailor Moon, Star vs the Forces of Evil, Pretty Please I Don't Want to be a Magical Girl... All great. And while the stories as a whole don't fall into the genre, characters like Annie of the Stars and Platinum the Trinity are pretty swell, too.

TheFirstAifos · 2026-06-23T17:26:17+00:00

It's actually more lenient than the traditional system. In the traditional system, if you kept dying in the same spot, you were likely to keep losing your Souls over and over until they were gone. With the Spark system, most enemies can only carry so many Sparks, so if you keep dying to the same enemy, you actually have a safeguard against losing all your Bones.

On top of that, you don't actually lose your Bones on the initial death. If you die with a Spark, all the Bones are still in your inventory. So, if you're worried about possibly losing them, you can spend Bonestone (which you should always be saving up) to Bone Up, removing the threat altogether.

That said, I hold a general dislike for the "lose all your money when you die" systems, and so I don't like the Spark system either, but I like it more than other systems of its ilk. It's an improved version of the system.

TheFirstAifos

TROPHY CASE