14 months after it was released in Japan, Sailor Moon Cosmos, the two-part film concluding the second anime version of the manga — that began with the Crystal series, and continued with the Eternal movies — has now landed on Netflix with its English dub, bringing the more faithful take on Naoko Takeuchi’s story to an end after a whole decade (and giving us more than enough time to revisit all past Sailor Moon media.) Like its predecessors, it’s a mixed bag, being very faithful to its source material for better, and for worse.
For the uninitiated, Cosmos finds Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon, now in upper high school, encountering the Sailor Starlights, a group of Guardians from beyond the Solar system, who are searching for their own princess while posing as a boy band, and Chibi Chibi, a mysterious toddler, who may or may not be Chibiusa’s sister. Despite her doubts about them, they soon prove to be essential allies against the deadly Sailor Galaxia, ruler of the Shadow Galactica, who seeks to harvest Usagi and her fellow Sailor Guardians’ essence for her nefarious ends.
Now going in, I had assumed the fifth and final arc of the manga would lend itself better to a film than Eternal‘s source material, because it was less episodic. However, as good as director Tomoya Takahashi’s work is, he’s still bound by recreating the experience of reading the comic as much as possible, meaning the pacing still comes across both haphazardly, and too slowly, with huge amounts of exposition dumps in the middle of fight scenes, when someone helming an adaptation with more freedom could’ve reorganized the flow in a way more intuitive for a film version.
The cast suffer from this particular problem, having to deliver so much dialogue in the briefest moments, and the issue of having to maintain so much dialogue continues once all the establishing is out of the way too. Like a lot of anime, Sailor Moon Cosmos becomes an extended morality lesson for kids about war, explaining why violence and hatred is wrong, and it really feels like one for teens, as the climax becomes an extended conversation that’ll be incredibly profound for anyone who isn’t over the age of 18. For anyone else, it’ll just feel… exhausting.
The other major issue with the movie(s) is how the new characters simply aren’t as engaging as the previous ones, despite having much more screentime than Usagi’s longtime friends as a result of the destruction Galaxia unleashes. As flawed as the reboot has been, it’s still provided us with enough time to form attachments to these versions of Mercury, Mars et al., meaning Shadow Galactica’s attacks on them have an undeniable emotional impact, while the Starlights and Princess Kakyuu’s storyline falls flat. Watching this made me realize I don’t really care for these characters in the context of Takeuchi’s canon: their counterparts in the ’90s anime are far more interesting.
So with all that said, it was still an absolute joy to see the manga’s finale finally unfold in animation, and witness Galaxia’s campaign unfold with much more clarity than the comparatively barebones comic (there are shots of the villain’s backstory that’ll make you understand instantly why this was rated TV-14.) The colors are gorgeous, far more saturated than the overly washed out or bright Crystal and Eternal, and the lovingly detailed backgrounds are a beautiful throwback to the watercolor work on the original show. It’s no Makoto Shinkai film, but it’s still genuinely nice to look at — if anything, it might be too colorful, as the palette chosen for Galaxia’s lair doesn’t have as striking of a contrast as the black-and-white art in the manga.
The camerawork is surprisingly dynamic at times, and there’s a greater emphasis on chibi-style animation than Crystal and Eternal, which is great given how overly serious the reboot was initially. Composer Yasuharu Takanashi’s score has come of age, with richer textures and choices of instruments than the previous music for the reboot, and the decision to use the Starlights’ song, “To the Shooting Stars (Nagareboshi He),” as an instrumental throughout the film was also great. Speaking of songs, the decision to use the original opening themes “Moonlight Densetsu” and “Sailor Star Song” (aka “Makenai”) was a lovely way to bring the series full circle, although giving the films such TV-esque openings does come across as strangely spoilery for any newcomers.
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Ultimately, despite all its issues, Cosmos proves to be a dramatic and emotional end for Usagi and her loved ones, and one of the strongest entries in the rebooted series. There’s even an original scene that brings further closure for longtime fans, providing an answer to a 27-year old loose end from the manga. By the end of the final (post-credits) scene, I definitely felt overwhelmed, as it sank in that after ten long years, Crystal was finally over, and that my time spent looking back on the franchise had come to a close too, as well as the seven years I’ve spent at Multiversity as a whole.
Sailor Moon means more to me than any other manga and anime, and it feels incomprehensible that it’s all over again, perhaps for the last time. I imagine it’s an emotion many of the actors share, especially Kotono Mitsuishi, who’s been voicing Usagi in Japanese since 1992, and the English dub cast, who lent their voices to not only this series, but Viz’s dub of the ’90s anime for the past decade, even if their screentime gets greatly limited by the plot. Stephanie Sheh in particular has to be given her flowers for fully realizing Usagi’s growth across the entire series — it was perfectly appropriate that she got to voice Cosmos as well.
For anyone else suffering withdrawal issues, I thoroughly recommend the official AMV released for the end credits song after the films’ physical release in Japan — it certainly helped me process what I had just watched.
To Sailor Moon — may she remain our most beautiful star, shining brightly for all time, always.
