[DreamSword]

Act 9

We're back to plot with this episode, as Tuxedo Mask makes a major move.

And while a good majority of the episode is about him making a bigger attempt at the Phantom Silver Crystal, I wanna take some time to talk about the villains.

Because while their scenes are brief compared to everything else in the show so far, I also find the way they're presented to be rather interesting. Especially in the atmosphere department.

With the heroes, all of their scenes tend to incorporate big swings in terms of the storytelling, whereas with the Dark Kingdom, it's been a bit of a drip feed, with tiny steps taken each episode. And yet, atleast when comparing to the 90s anime, they make quite the impact.

The biggest example is probably that Beryl is alot more forgiving in this version, while in the 90s anime she'd kill off her generals despite how useful they'd been proven to be. And it makes me wonder what changes will come about with the rest of them. We've already seen Zoicite having a design that more resembles Malachite. Will the two still be lovers here?

It's just something I found myself thinking about during the Sailor's' mission to guard a crystal that might be the real deal this time(and it's obviously not). That's not to say I wasn't into the episode at all: I found it fun for what it was, and it does provide a step towards uniting Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon themselves, but given how the character work of the show has been so far, I just found myself more intrigued by the personal stakes that the Generals and Beryl seem to have in their mission, despite being the bad guys.

Nephlite was my favorite of the Generals in the 90s anime by the way. I wonder if his relationship with Molly is still gonna be a thing or not. His design is certainly way different this time around, that's for sure.