By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan as “Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Having defeated Death Phantom and the Black Moon Clan, and briefly saying hi to their 20th century selves, Usagi and friends have returned to the present, ready to prepare for their final year of middle school, with all the test-taking that involves for typical Japanese students. But this is Sailor Moon. More importantly, it’s the Sailor Moon manga, where filler is hard to find. There’s barely any time to breathe before a new enemy has made its presence known. But… who *is* the new enemy, anyway?

It has to be said, the senshi are getting better at finding and stopping threats. There is no flailing around the way we sometimes saw in previous volumes. The trouble is that while they can find beings of power, they aren’t quite sure if they’re bad guys or not. Sometimes it gets obvious right away. Possessed schoolgirl has huge lumpy monster leap off her back? That’s a bad guy. (Well, the lump anyway, try not to kill the girl.) But there’s also a couple at the newly formed Private School For The Awesome, Mugen Academy. He’s a cocky smart-aleck who seems taken with Usagi, but also gives off a different kind of aura. She’s a cool and self-possessed gorgeous teen who seems to like Mamoru. And together… well, they have their own agenda.

Of course, I am talking about Haruka and Michiru, who (along with Hotaru) make their debut here. It’s interesting in hindsight to see how much time Takeuchi-san devoted to making the main cast doubt the two new cast members, mostly as, of course, from our perspective, we know they’re good guys, if ones with ambiguous ethics. They’re helped out by a deliberate stylistic art choice. Haruka, when she’s being her normal Academy student self, is not only drawn in the male uniform but is drawn as a male. The judo practice in particular shows this. Whereas when she’s Sailor Uranus, there are far more curves. As I said, though, this is mostly stylistic (Naoko admitted as much in an interview), and Haruka does not appear to be a sex-changer like Ranma or anything. The anime didn’t even bother to deal with this at all, and just made Haruka obviously female for all but her very first episode.

There’s a lot of gender identity stuff here. When Makoto gets hurled to the ground in the judo match, the other senshi yell at Haruka, but she replies that gender shouldn’t matter if you have something you want to protect. Likewise, later on Usagi asks Haruka (who she suspects of being Sailor Uranus) point blank if she’s a woman or a man, and Haruka asks “Does it matter?”. Being a woman and the strength that it provides are a core theme of the series, of course, but Haruka’s dual identity adds a dual thrill to the whole thing. As for the agenda of Sailors Uranus and Neptune, it seems to be partly ‘this is our fight, not yours’ and partly ‘we are better at this and know better’. Though thankfully not quite as obnoxious about it as they would be in the anime.

And there’s also Hotaru, one of my favorite characters, who at this point seems to be shaping up to be a tool of the big bad more than anything else. As opposed to the other senshi (including Uranus and Neptune), Hotaru’s true identity actually *does* remain a surprise in the manga proper, though this is slightly spoiled by the start of the volume having a giant color picture of all ten senshi. Hotaru here mostly gets ill and bonds with Chibi-Usa (who is quite cute here, and also very much like her mother). There is an interesting scene where she is clearly unhappy with Kaolinite, her father’s new assistant, accusing her of breaking up their family. Unfortunately, I think she is going to be disappointed on that front. Despite her initial standoffishness, though (much like the other Outers), there is a core of empathy to Hotaru that makes us sympathize with her.

I do still have a few issues with the manga proper. The anime, particularly this arc, spoiled me for real villains. Yes, the Witches 5 are present and accounted for, but they’re one-offs who do their schtick and get killed off. We don’t even get Eudial driving her car! Likewise, I’m afraid that the main villain behind the scenes, Pharaoh 90, is another nebulous black miasma of evil. Not to be confused with the previous two nebulous black miasmas of evil. (I think Takeuchi eventually realized what she was doing and ‘fixed’ this, if I recall the Stars plotline correctly.)

Still, overall a fantastic volume of Sailor Moon. And hey, who’s that we see at the cliffhanger? Gosh, she looks very familiar…

By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan as “Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Sailor Moon is at Vol. 5, and the R arc is nearing its end. Things are getting bad. Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are still abducted, Moon’s been kidnapped, and now Wiseman seems to have spirited off Chibi-Usa. Will our heroes be able to stop the rising tide of pervasive evil? Well, there’s 7 more volumes of the main storyline, so the answer to that is obvious. The question is how dramatic and interesting can the author make it before Usagi fires her beam of super-concentrated pureness at the villain?

Quite a bit, as it happens. The villains below Wiseman seem to get a bit more depth to them than their first arc counterparts. In particular, Saphir seems like he might actually betray the villains for the sake of his family. Unfortunately, we’re not at the point yet where the manga starts redeeming minor villains, and the power of Death Phantom within him proves too much. Demande fighting his conditioning was also interesting, though I find Demande so loathsome that the impact was lessened for me. Unfortunately for the Black Moon Family, they find themselves replaced by a more useful villain, who has closer ties to our heroes.

That’s right, it’s time for Black Lady. Take all of the frustrations, desires and fears of a typical eight-year-old girl (again, ignore that she’s supposedly 902, that makes no sense). Then infuse her body with evil, and age her up so that she looks like an adult. This plotline can get a little creepy, be warned – Chibi-Usa’s jealousy of Usagi gets played out here with incestual subtext, and seeing Black Lady kissing her mind-controlled dad is meant to be as unpleasant as it sounds. Still, Black Lady does an excellent job of making the villain’s plan come to fruition – so much so that if they’re going to stop her, it’s going to require the big guns. They’re just going to have to – STOP TIME.

I have to admit, re-reading this volume, I hadn’t realized how emotional Sailor Pluto gets in it. I’d gotten used to the concept of her as the cool, stoic warrior of time – which she clearly isn’t here. Lamenting her fate (she can’t leave the time gate, she can’t let people through the time gate, and she can’t stop time, all rules she breaks in this arc), we realize that her true desire has simply been to be able to fight with the rest of the senshi. This is why she has such a close bond with Chibi-Usa, who has similar feelings of loneliness. Of course, you don’t break the only three rules of your position without consequences, and Pluto’s are particularly heartbreaking, even if you do know how things end up in the S arc and beyond. That said, her sacrifice was definitely worth it, as they were able to get Chibi-Usa back, as well as give Sailor Moon the final bit of determination she needs to beat the bad guys (even if the “name of the moon” speech seems a little jarring after such a serious scene.

The rest of the volume is basically getting Usagi in place to defeat Death Phantom, then getting her back. (Which reminds me, there’s a very amusing scene towards the start of the book where Tuxedo Mask runs off to rescue Chibi-Usa, and a stressed Sailor Moon collapses. They decide to take her back to the 20th Century to recuperate… for about 10 minutes, then the Black Moon Family messes things up so they have to return again. Pacing can sometimes be a problem with Takeuchi.) Luckily, everything works out, and Sailor Moon is even able to briefly meet her future self (hey, they’ve already broken all the other laws of time). We also see the three abducted senshi reuniting with the human side characters who their chapters focused on, which was nice and sweet. (I can’t remember if we ever see them again, but that’s par for the course with minor Sailor Moon characters.)

This volume really doesn’t let up at all, being a breathless race to the climax from beginning to end. And while that may disappoint some fans of the anime (certainly the other four senshi really have very little to do here), it helps to convey the tension needed to support such scenes. And Chibi-Usa goes home to the future! … no, wait, she’s back immediately, as Neo-Queen Seremity apparently regards her past self as free babysitting. Oh well, it’s always nice to end an arc on a cute note. On to the third, and some might say best, arc.

By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan as “Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

The fourth volume of Sailor Moon, and Jupiter gets the cover! Unfortunately, we’re also in the middle of a ‘have the senshi get abducted one by one’ arc, so she gets the first chapter and not much else. As with the Mercury and Mars chapters, we see Jupiter bonding with a friend of hers, this one male. It seems pretty platonic, though, at least on her end. We also get the revelation that her parents are both dead from a plane crash, so she lives on her own in a swank apartment. No idea where she gets the money… Rich relatives? Settlement from the crash? Honestly, most of the senshi are well-off. Even Usagi and Minako, the two most likely to be whining about not having any money, don’t seem to be hurting.

But in any case, soon Jupiter joins her friends in ‘captured off screen’ land. Venus is theoretically the next chapter, but honestly she’s not in it much. Presumably as Minako had an entire manga series devoted to her own personal life, she didn’t need a chapter that shows who her friends are and what she does on her days off. What we’re more concerned with is Chibi-Usa and the new enemies (who I will just start calling the Black Moon Clan, as that’s who they are). Chibi-Usa is settling in nicely in the past, and has even made a new friend (Momo will be Chibi-Usa’s designated friend till Hotaru basically replaces her in SuperS and Stars). But she’s still in denial about what’s going on, and actually seems to have some sort of PTSD (and with good reason, as we shall find). So Usagi is worrying about that, to the point where Naru and Umino are concerned. Remember them? Naru here even admits she knows Usagi is part of “another world that she can’t enter”. True enough, Naru, the author will forget you again soon.

Venus is abducted as we expected… but this time Usagi and Mamoru get there in time, and Mamoru gets a bit of powerup (albeit a ridiculous one: Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber is not in the anime, which tended to make Mamoru less powerful and more jerkassish). So Venus gets to stick around and help question Chibi-Usa, who has finally broken down and admits the truth: she’s from 1000 years in the future. And the future is in danger from the same folks abducting senshi. So, after a brief stop at Mamoru’s to get it on… oh, yeah, about that. Chapter 19 has Chibi-Usa basically terrified, so she wants to stay at Mamoru’s apartment. Usagi goes along, and after discussing things and various reassurances, they start to kiss and fall onto his bed. Then it’s the next morning, and Chibi-Usa is looking out the window. Usagi and Mamoru come in, Usagi wearing the same dress she had on last night and Mamoru’s dress shirt. So, nothing may have happened… or something may have happened. Most fans of Usagi and Mamoru’s romance think of this as their ‘first time’.

So we’re off to the 30th Century, something which is basically forbidden. So forbidden, in fact, that another senshi arrives to stop them! Yes, Sailor Pluto debuts here, though at this point in the story she’s still basically trapped in one place, at the Gates of Time. She’s devoted to stopping intruders, even if that means Sailor Moon and company (which makes no sense, but we’ll assume it’s some preventing paradox thing). Luckily, Chibi-Usa shows up, and it’s revealed that she and Pluto are close. In fact, the 30th Century, for all its crystal utopia, seems to be a very lonely place, as Chibi-Usa is mocked for being relatively powerless by the other children (she’s also 902 years old, something so gratuitously broken I don’t even want to get into it. Pretend that line doesn’t exist.), and Pluto’s stoic duty is only relieved by visits from Chibi-Usa (who she dotes on) and Endymion (who she seems to have a small crush on, as noted by her blushes here.)

Ah yes, Endymion. Arriving at the desolate wasteland of corpses that is the 30th Century, we meet King Endymion, aka Mamoru, who is a phantom but can at least interact with the others. We also meet, encased in crystal, Neo-Queen Serenity, aka Usagi, the future ruler of the planet. This is not really a surprise today, and honestly I don’t think it was meant to be back then either. Chibi-Usa is their daughter, and we also meet Luna and Artemis’s daughter Diana. Unfortunately, Usagi is still having difficulty with the whole ‘Mamoru loves his daughter more than me’ thing, and runs off to get captured.

I haven’t talked much about the Black Moon Clan here, but Prince Demande deserves a special mention here as being a loathsome creep. He’s not the true big bad in this arc… that would be Wiseman, who gets the cliffhanger for this volume… but he’s the equivalent of Beryl, and it seems appropriate that he has an obsession with Usagi the way that Beryl did with Mamoru. He even forces a kiss on her, much to her horror. (One note about the odd continuity here. After going to the future and getting told the plot, the senshi quickly go back to their home era… only to pretty much immediately have to return after Usagi storms off and gets captured. Why bother going back at all? No wonder Pluto gets annoyed when they arrive… the Time Gate must be a revolving door.)

We end this volume with Cibi-Usa being the one doing the running off, and running into a fortune-telling black cloud of evil called Wiseman. As with all black clouds of evil in Sailor Moon, this is not going to prove to be a good thing. Not for our heroes, not for Chibi-Usa, and especially not for Pluto. But that’s for Volume 5.