Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon

I recently purchased the box set part one and I must say WOW! It had me running around the house shouting, " MOON PRISIM POWER, MAKE UP!" I highly enjoyed the episodes...They were completely different from the Anime and seem to stick a little bit more to the manga in a few ways. One thing I seemed to dislike about the set was that the subtitles were not that great, most of the time they are filled with grammatical errors and well sometimes they make no sense. Friends and I noticed that we could understand the show without having to read the subtitles b/c everything seemed to flow and make sense. Sure its a Japanese show so it wont be perfect for us Americans, but for me, and and I'm sure most sailor moon fans, it was everything I wanted it to be. Truly a must have for any Sailor Moon fan!

I was a huge fan of sailor moon when I was little until I realized how disgustingly cheesy the US versions were when I was about 13. A few weeks ago I discovered PGSM and fell in love with it.

Yes, it does still have the cheese factors. The fighting is bad, the effects are bad. But this show has way more depth than the anime ever had. These girls seem REAL. They're dealing with broken hearts and jealousy and every day things while also battling the Dark Kingdom. I love the way this series seems focused half on the girls' lives as senshi and the other half on the girls just as (semi) normal teenagers trying to make it.

And I'd like to rebut the crappy music comment...it's true that not a lot of music is used in the series, but if you pick up the soundtrack or any of the character cd singles, the music is FANTASTIC for anyone who loves a little jpop/jrock I don't think you need to be a die-hard sailor moon fan to enjoy PGSM. In fact, I hated it for almost 9 years before I saw PGSM and now appreciate it in a new way... so just give it a try!

First let me say that I am a great fan of the anime; in fact, my wife and I have been re-watching it recently. But somehow depicting characters in three dimensions makes them more "real" to the viewers.

Everyone in the show is perfectly cast, even if the characters are not portrayed in ways that newcomers who have only seen the anime might expect!

Usagi Tsukino is much the same, actually, except that she doesn't cry at the drop of a hat. She whines and gripes, but she only really turns on the waterworks when there's a good reason to. Miyuu Sawai, who plays her, does an excellent job of portraying the many moods of Usagi/Sailor Moon, the sweetness and naiveté of Princess Serenity, and the coldness of the porcelain-faced Princess Sailor Moon, an uncomfortable and ultra-powerful amalgamation of Serenity and Sailor Moon.

Contrary to what you may have heard elsewhere, Chisaki Hama is the perfect Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury; quiet, shy, insecure, but full of love and compassion, and, once transformed into her Sailor self, bold and confident in battle. Miss Hama also is quite chilling in the story arc which shows Mercury being turned into an agent of evil. Her former sweet smile becomes a frightening leer, and it's quite a relief when she is brought back from the "dark side."

Keiko Kitagawa is the toughest, sternest, most pouty-lipped Rei Hino/Sailor Mars ever seen, and where the Reis of the manga and the anime had a burning ambition to be a pop idol, their live-action counterpart claims vehemently that she even hates karaoke. An amusing love-hate relationship grows up between her and Minako when Mina hoodwinks Rei into becoming-- a pop idol!

Mew Azama IS Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter. Of all the girls, she is undoubtedly the best cast. She's tall, built, brown-haired, and pretty. Her character underwent very few changes from the original version; she's strong, loyal, and brave, and also has a very soft, feminine side. It's hilarious when she's revealed to be just as ga-ga over getting to meet Minako as Usagi is-- mind you, she's a little cooler about it.

The person most different from her anime/manga depiction is Minako Aino/Sailor V/Sailor Venus, portrayed by Ayaka Komatsu, who, with her big round eyes, tiny mouth, and slim frame looks just like an anime character brought to life. In the manga and the anime, Minako can be serene and wise, but most often she's a happy, laughing, carefree klutz who can even surpass Usagi in ditziness. In the live-action series, she's a dead serious character who smiles very infrequently, and until very much later in the series, she stands apart from the other Sailors.

Of course, the fact that she has a fatal illness in this version of the story would make her a very different person. A little of the sillier Minako shows through, however, when she plays the occasional joke on her cat guardian Artemis and when she and the other girls take part in a wacky game show which finishes up with them hitting each other with padded clubs and finally falling into a laughing heap of arms, legs, and smiling faces.

The only shortcomings this show has are some of the sillier monster costumes and the seemingly limited availability of locations; certain areas of Tokyo, one office building in particular, crop up a lot as battle sites.

But overall, it's well-produced, brilliantly acted, and tugs very effectively at the heartstrings, the most heartbreaking episode being the one in which Minako finally succumbs to her illness and dies. But of course, in the Sailor Moon-iverse, no good person ever stays dead.

In summation, I believe that "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon" is one of the best examples of a live-action superhero show ever made.

I've watched the entire season from episode/Act 00 through the Special DVD aka Act 50...including the two short mini dramas. In the beginning I thought that it was more on the cheesy side but decided to check out the original Manga before I made anymore thoughts and or comments unlike some people here who've pretty much ragged on it after seeing only 30 episodes. Let alone that this is originally a kid's show.

First of all someone said that the acting was horrible and that the girls are untalented. This is very SO not true. They are acting entirely to the Manga series. Usagi being all jumpy and funny, Ami being all monotone and serious about herself, Rei being serious on all levels and "bossy", Makoto being all protective over Usagi and kicking guy's asses across the blacktop, and Venus being extremely stern. If you actually check out the Manga you will see that though the characters are different from today's standards of Sailor Moon to the yesterday's standard of Sailor Senshi, the characters and acting is all the same. They did a GREAT job.

It's true that in the beginning that the special effects were less than "really cool"...but as a pilot the production crew wasn't entirely too sure if it was going to fly well when they made the first 5 episodes before it originally aired. But you will notice that the effects got better and again...the effects followed the Manga effects of boom, pow, and whoosh. And what do you want the kids to see??? BATTLE ROYALE EFFECTS??? I know I wouldn't want that.

I think that the puppets and CGI used to make Luna and Artemis was actually good from a kid's point of view. From an adult's point of view I think it was corny on a professional level. My reason of thought is this. If you make the cat look too real, who in their right mind is going to take the cat seriously...if you can with all the j-pop faces it makes. And I might add that towards the end the cats got better.

All in all, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is a great show for kids and adults with open minds alike. For one thing there isn't any blood and believe me, my friends and I watch a lot of movies with someone getting their hands, head, arms, legs, and necks blown off. It's nice to see something that is refreshing as PGSM. And one more thing about the acting. It is clear to me that some people just don't get how hard it is to act like the Manga series. Kitagawa Keiko did an awesome performance when a particular incident happened in episode 47. Above all else before you watch PGSM, you need to have an open mind as well as an intelligent one.

In 1992 a very popular anime was released, "Sailor Moon". In 2003, as some sort of a 10 year anniversary, "PGSM", the live action version of the anime, was made. The story is probably known to everyone: Usagi, a normal teenage girl living in Tokyo, meets a talking cat named Luna ( in this version a stuffed puppet ) and gets a mission to transform into Sailor Moon and fight against evil forces of Queen Beryl...

Although the live action is weaker than the anime ( the flaws are plot holes, the lack of spectacle, the mild intensity and the range of the story ) it is much better than it seems. In some other director's hands this could have ended in an catastrophe, but in Ryuta Tazaki's hand "PGSM" turned out to be an excellent show. The wild enthusiasm of the authors and their weird special effects are incredible: Ami's transformation into evil Sailor Mercury is somehow cool. Actually, it's rather got „show-off" written all over it ( when she stomps her boot into the water, and then those dark purple „wings" on her dress ), but it's stylish. Or the Sailor Luna ( a 10 year old girl form of Luna )transformation: it was so hilarious and senseless! You see her shake her butt, then Luna shows up, then there are psychedelic colors in the background, the girl makes some moves as if she is licking her hands as a cat and … presto, she is a sailor senshi too. Rarely will you ever see more kitsch than you get to in that transformation scene. But the authors still did it without a blink of the eye, and you have to give them credit for such courage.

---------

Miyuu Sawai is absolutely fantastic as Usagi. It's almost impossible not to like her. She is wonderful in many of the comical situations ( when she has a huge fight with her mom a frightened Shingo is hiding under the table and eating his breakfast ) and later proves to be equally effective in drama ( her mourning all day long in bed after finding out Mamoru is already engaged ). The weird part of the story had Minako being a famous rock star, but even that worked. "PGSM" is a sight to behold. In their mix of camp and art, the authors bravely turned the impossible things of the anime into reality ( the costumes, demons, flashing rays )and got away with it. I counted all the grades of all the Act's and the show's average grade is 8.3/10, believe it or not. I don't know how they did it, but they did.

Grade: 8/10