Genvid & Dies Gaudii Forums

This may have been asked before, but I'm going to ask it again. What do people think of the Makaiju/Doom Tree arc?

On one hand, in the anime, it could be removed and worked around with a little work. Instead of Rini crashing into a kissing Serena and Darien, she could actually infiltrate herself into Serena's household with Serena herself being initially unaware of the deception and her role as Sailor Moon. The Negamoon Family would come after Rini and that would cause Sailor Moon to be reactivated in a predestination paradox. Instead of a breakup keeping Serena and Darien apart, it could be the memory loss.

On the other hand, not only did the Doom Tree arc provide memorable villains who had to work within nearly the same limitations as the Scouts (I wish more enemies had posed as school students), it also introduced the Moonlight Knight, new attacks, and a lot of developments that were unique to the arc (Could Alan's crush on Serena have been a precursor for Seiya's crush later on?).

So what did you think of this arc. Did it make the anime better, worse, or was it just...there?

I didn't like it. I thought it was a half-assed storyline. Especially since Sailor Moon was the only one who got a genuine power upgrade while everyone else was stuck with the same stock footage, but with slightly different attack names. I felt like I was watching the same thing over and over. Sure, Sailor Moon is no stranger to filler episodes. But at least they eventually showed progression. With the Makaiju story, it didn't go anywhere until the last 2 episodes.

I picked neutral. Simply because I enjoy seeing Usagi on screen as much as disturbingly possible

I thought it was fun. It set up the introduction of Chibiusa even better, in my opinion. After that it was, "Finally, they remember each other, Usagi and Mamoru are back in love, and...Wait, what is THIS!?"

And if you've seen the dub, who can forget the classic line...

"Oh, no, not the ducks!"

I'm pretty meh about this arc. It had one main purpose, namely to get the anime storyline back on the same track as the manga storyline. So it was doomed to be one big glorious filler, because the animators could never develop the plot too far on their own. The storyline becomes week, compared to the first season.

However, I like the aliens as villains. They have funny personalities, and their square relationship with Usagi and Mamoru fuels a lot of silly jokes. And when they get redeemed in the end, the plot development feels natural and not forced, unlike the sudden redemption of many other Sailor Moon villains.

The Moonlight Knight is just silly, IMO. Why is he dressed like a bedouin? ( I know the crescent moon is an Islamic symbol, but is that really the reason, or a good reason? ) And how come he manages to make his speeches even more corny than Tuxedo Mask? I go everytime he appears.

One of my favorite Sailor Moon anime story arcs. I grew up on (the dub of) this arc. From what I remember of watching the from the dub, it was this arc that I recall the most. And then when I got to see it in Japanese, I grew to like it even more. This arc is tied with the Crystal Tokyo arc as being my favorite arc of Sailor Moon R.

Here's some additional comments I wrote on this arc:

I can dig it.

The alien arc was one of my number one favorite arcs in the entire anime series, so if it were suddenly to be removed for whatever reason, I'd be heart broken. xD

The anime could have done without, as the Sailor Soldier's reawakening could have conceivably happened all on the same episode whilst jumping straight into the Black Moon arc. However, I really really like the alien arc, so I'm glad the anime did it the way they did.

I'm going to chime in. Despite the fact I could envision the anime happening without the arc as a pure academic exercise, I absolutely love it.

I loved the aliens, of course. They weren't overpowered like most other villain groups which required contrived stupidity for the heroes to beat. They were energy vampires in a sense, which made their need for energy more sad, in my opinion. I also loved their design as well (especially their eyes), since they really didn't look like aliens but more like my vision of Shakespearean fairies. Since the relationship square reminded me a tiny bit of a Midsummer Night's Dream (even if the dynamics were different), this was an added bonus.

I have to admit at times I admired Ann's pursuit of Darien more than Serena's, simply because Serena wanted him on the basis of remembering their love and recreating the past, while Ann fell for him out of pure attraction. Plus, Alan was more charming to Serena in those episodes than Darien ever was. Did I also mention I loved the Moonlight Knight? I also liked how Sailor Jupiter destroyed a Cardinan in one epsiode, while she and Sailor Venus eliminated another one with a combo attack.

Several episodes in this arc also address the tension between the everyday lives of the Scouts and their duty, while at the same time balancing that with the struggles the villains face as well in maintaining the balance. I also like how new attacks came forth, even if it was reused footage. Sailor Moon got a new transformation and new footage in response to her own insecurities and ambivalence, while the others got powerups based on their personal berserk buttons being pushed. Thus, they wouldn't need new attacks as much as they'd get an upgrade to their already working attacks. While it might have been the magic of heroic willpower, this method is still preferrable to getting a shiny new toy out of the blue. It's a shame the new attacks did not last, though, even if the new footage would have been insane to animate.

In 13 episodes there's a lot of growth for all the characters involved, and it was paced very well, with nearly each episode containing a development, even if it was minor. You can't say that for large stretches of any of the other seasons.

I will say that there are some things I don't like about the conclusion of this arc, namely that the Doom Tree revealed its true past at the last moment and that it attacked Ann only for her to be magically revived with a new attitude. While this of course allowed for the aliens to live by suggesting the real root of the problem was a lack of love and understanding (which means they wouldn't need to be space vampires, as that would provide the Scouts with a dilemma...how would you deal with creatures who aren't evil but have to commit evil acts to survive), it diminished the idea that they were driven to this behavior because of what they had to do. In other words, the lack of love corrupted them, not the lack of having something to eat. Plus, Ann's death and resurrection was a cheap way of making her pay the price for her jealousy without actually growing out of it. I really wish the aliens hadn't left Earth. What better way for them to thank Sailor Moon and have the Tree grow up again with love by surrounding it with the very soldiers of love and justice that freed it? Wouldn't them being alone together make them more susceptible to forget that lesson? Since the tree was now a sapling, the two could have been nerfed in power (limited to disguise capabilities), but still attend school and really become friends with the Scouts...and sometimes lend a helping hand against the new bad guys!

QFT!

And Toei clearly let everyone know that the arc was all filler when it was never mentioned during the recaps that took place during R & SuperS.

Another stupid move on their part was not letting the other girls reuse their upgraded attacks after that arc ended except for Mercury if i remember right.

Looks like there's more appreciation for this arc this time around. Kind of like SM's Eternal form. A lot of people seem to like it in 2009. Then in 2010 more people seem to dislike it.

I like this arc better than the Blackmoon arc specifically the part when they went to the future. It felt kind of rushed.



Venus used her Crescent Beam Shower in SuperS which was really cool seeing it have its own animation. SuperS seems to have the biggest budget out of all the seasons.

To bad they couldn't use the budget to hire better writers. SuperS ugh.


I am not a fan of the Makaiju arc. Pointless waste of time.

That arc was bad fanfiction that had the misfortune of being animated.

*Turned Usagi into a stalker
*Turned Mamoru into a Moon Knight clone
*Rehashed villains with rehashed motivations ("Usagi-chan!")
*Demoted the Senshi into cardboard cutouts
*Terrible animation (look at Mako's face!)
*Alien sex!

Usagi was never a stalker she was merely trying to get Mamoru to remember their past. Furthermore there is no other Moon Knight so Mamoru could not be a clone of anyone. Also the villains had a pretty original story being that they were taking energy to save themselves. the senshi were never cardboard cutouts either and the animation was pretty good. Plus alien sex is always a plus!

However me personally I loved the Makaiju arc. I thought it had a great story and was a perfect addition to the anime and made it much more interesting. I loved Al and En and thought they were cool characters with a serious and even funny bend to them. Plus I honestly wish that Mamoru kept that Moonlight Knight costume as an upgrade because it looked much cooler that his Tuxedo Kamen outfit much as I love that outfit as well.

o_O; When was there alien sex? I don't remember anything like that. xD Though then again I really liked Ail+An, so I guess if there was I just didn't care or something which would explain my lack of memory for it. xD

I believe Guest may have been referring to Moon Knight, the Marvel Comics character.

agreed 100% it's safe to say it's my least favorite arc well SS is but I watch SS more often than this one
ali-en weren't interesting to me either

but least doesn't mean I completely hate it still I'm less likely to re-watch it as often as the rest of sm

It was a nice bridge, and I think it did it's job very well for it only being created as a diversion for time so the manga caught up. The power upgrades were a plus, although it would have been better if they actually stuck around, and got a new animation sequence. The monsters were very mythological in my opinion as well, which was cool.

Atleast the threat contrasted pretty nicely to the first season. Namely, that the enemies aren't trying to take over anything (Something pretty much all the others in the series do) but just trying to stay alive. Making it seem all the more stupid that the dub kept referring to them as the Dark Ki... Negaverse. Even if it were a clever reference to chaos, the aliens weren't part of THAT either.

One good thing I'll say about it is that it was better than SuperS.

Lies.

It was a fine sub while they waited for the manga. Though they couldve used it as a chance to focus more on the Inners.

Usagi's selfishness was disgusting in this part of R. She was sad that she could no longer be an ordinary girl. She felt a little bad for that happening to her friends. Despite this, she never once thought of leaving Mamoru alone to let him live a normal life without her.

It boggles the mind she repeats this process when Mamoru breaks up with her later. WTF! He's not that into you. Jeez!

Uh what? Yeah he is. o_O; The break up arc was for her protection, not because he didn't want to be her boyfriend.

Usagi was not selfish of course anyone would like to be a regular person rather then having to battle constantly that is normal. Furthermore why would Usagi want to leave Mamoru all alone. The two are made for one another and deserve to be together. Furthermore Mamoru breaks up with her because he has dreams of her dying if he stays with her. However he loves her greatly as evidenced by his suffering so I don't know what show you were watcing but you have the facts wrong.

There's a large disparity in the votes and the comments. I'm glad I'm not alone in liking this arc, though. I will address some of the dissenting opinions about it.



It seemed the Inners got more relative screen time here than they did in any other arc (heck, Sailor Jupiter got two "focus" episodes), even Classic or the second half of R. Each of them got an episode focusing on her new attack, and they worked together in the finale as individuals, instead of them all coming together just to support Sailor Moon.



Well, they weren't part of it in the original version, but I see what the dub tried to do. It implied that the Negaforce caused the aliens' situation in the first place by influencing Alan and Ann's people to fight each other over the power. By the time Alan and Ann were grown, the tree had been itself corrupted to point where it really had little control over itself. So they had been inducted into the Negaverse. And if you think about how in the rest of R, there was a chaotic figure who manipulated and brainwashed people to do just the same thing that the mysterious "voice" did in the dub. Thematically, I thought it was a beneficial change, as this also served as a warning of what would happen if the Negaverse ever did "win" on Earth...as well as provide a nice bridge from the goals of energy collection to human conversion.



I see what you're getting at, but there are three big contributing factors you're overlooking.

1. Serena is 13-14, and an optimist who is full of hope. Darien is her first and only love. It's quite natural that she would want him to remember given her mindset.
2. She has not only memories of what she had been through from being Sailor Moon, but from her past life as the Moon Princess, so she has two lifetimes of feelings to sort through.
3. She may have thought that like her friends, he'd want to be his "old" self. I don't think she knew at this point, if ever, that Darien never chose to become Tuxedo Mask in the same way that she chose to become Sailor Moon. If she had been aware of this and then tried to force it on him anyway, it would be a slightly selfish act. She didn't know, though, and she thought it was genuinely for his benefit. Awakening his memories might have been in her self-interest, but it was also for the greater good.

Given that Serena got her friends back, I can understand why she would hold out hope for Darien. Also from a storytelling perspective, Serena has to chase after Darien. Imagine if she had stopped and started falling for Alan...it would have "rewarded" the villain and then brought a tragic element to the inevitable confrontation to a relatively light-hearted arc (since as mentioned, this was filler and the aliens had to leave ). It's better if she's in love with Darien so that when he did remember (another inevitability), those lovers could reunite easily.

Still, this is inspiring me to think what would have happened had things not been so "pat."



In my opinion, if he suddenly regained his memories only to break up with her a few weeks later, that should make her more suspicious and determined to go after him. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes a sunk cost means that it's something to walk away from, but in this case, there was a mountain of evidence in the past of more return on the romantic investment by pursuing it.