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 Grandpa Hino does not give a gently caress who answers the phone so long as he can go somewhere else. He straight up walks offscreen after handing this call to us.  Hello, Haruka? Ah, Odango.(note: Usagi's hair orbs are just called 'odango' at times because it's a reference to dumplings. Translating is hard. Pretend Haruka said 'meatballs' here.) Something terrible has happened- Hotaru has fallen ill. Huh? What's wrong? Is it terminal? (hesitant) Well, she's... it's... the doctors don't know either, but... If you don't come here, I can't really explain. Meet us at the Juuban Hospital.(The phone call ends.)  Look, I'm not going to pretend I perfectly proofread everything I write, but c'mon. C'mon. Something's happened to Hotaru. I need to visit the hospital for a minute.At this point we can talk to other characters, by which I mean Rei is nowhere to be located in the entire building, Ami is standing over her sleeping love interest muttering his name, and Makoto/Minako are going "Boy this is weird!". Nobody will come with me.  Not even Luna. The hospital is across town from the shrine (literally, we can just walk in the Shrine entrance to town and straight left to the hospital), but since we have to stop in, it should be noted that if you want, all the stores are now open and you can buy more accessories. We're not going to do that until random encounters show up and I can use them to shore up characters' weaknesses. This has nothing to do with the fact that this game is lovely and all the store descriptions say are "(stat) UP" with no explanation of which ones boost how much and it's a pain in the dick to buy and experiment with all of it now.  The hospital building looks nearly identical to the school building, and the scale makes me wonder how the hell anyone gets an ambulance in this place.  In another case of excellence in game design, they really did model 3 floors, and there are rooms on every one (some laid out in ways that make me go "how do people use this room"), but a total of two have anything in them. The 3rd floor leftmost room contains our next story beat. The second-to-rightmost one on the same floor contains a save orb. There are no random encounters here, and as you can see, the lobby already had a save orb. We will never return here in the story.  So let's do this, because if I don't explain these things, some of this next conversation is going to make NO SENSE... Meet most of the Outer Senshi! / Haruka Tenou/Sailor Uranus Haruka is the hardass of the already pretty hard Outer crew. These guys all woke up without the aid of weird cats and have been doing ??? offscreen before they show up, implied to be "we dealt with the poo poo that put y'all in danger before you woke up". They first appear in the Infinity/Sailor Moon S arc, disguised as students at Mugen Academy, where somehow for the first time in this series mad science showed up. They were all trying to figure out why the place seemed to be warping time and space and also occasionally vanishing humans and/or spawning monsters. Haruka is a thrillseeker and a somewhat popular race car driver, as well as a helicopter pilot! Something something lesbian couple something something may identify as non-binary, crossdresses at times, something something flirting with Usagi to keep her off guard but possibly just to gently caress with her. It's Haruka. She's hard to read but you know you'd wanna go out drinking with her. Her element is "I have a loving artifact sword" with a side of earth control via earthquakes.  / Michiru Kaiou/Sailor Neptune Michiru is the face of the Outer group, a famous violinist, and is basically the liberal arts wet dream in that she's also known to dabble in: painting, non-tethered swimming, music composition, and sometimes poetry. Haruka's partner, she's the cool counterpart and probably responsible for Haruka not smashing more things. Michiru can also pilot a helicopter because gently caress it, why not! As Sailor Neptune, are you going to be amazed if I say she has water control and that her magical artifact is the "Deep Aqua Mirror", sometimes used to reveal enemy weaknesses? Because don't be. Also, the main three Outer Senshi (read: these two and not our next profile... we'll meet the last later) have artifacts because it was an arc needing the triforce for something.  / Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn/Mistress 9 Okay so this is gonna be the weird one. Let me try and summarize this arc in brief before we go back to it in full later to murder the villains: Professor Souichi Tomoe was kind of a genius! Depending on if we go anime or manga here, he was either a caring scientist who was corrupted (anime) or a total dick who was kicked out of polite society and tried continuing his potentially-illegal research in secret (manga). Either way, the end result is the same: something went tits up in his lab, killing his wife and utterly loving up his baby daughter. In the anime, he made a devil's deal to save her, becoming possessed by a space alien, and putting a similar creature into her to save her. The manga went "the explosion actually made a wormhole to the Tau star system, and he ended up with alien eggs, one of which he implanted in Hotaru after he made her a goddamn cyborg abomination." Anyway, the end result was the same! The being inside her was killing her and would have done so ages sooner except she was, unbeknownst to everyone, Sailor Saturn, which gave her superhuman strength to survive a decade or so of this horseshit. While everyone else was investigating the school he ran, Chibi-Usa was becoming close friends with the nearly-her-age Hotaru, which put her onto everyone's radar in the end. Blah blah she turned into Mistress 9* and was either defeated by Usagi being full of love and pure thoughts (anime) or by leaping inside Mistress 9 and unleashing the Silver Crystal (take a guess). The end result was that Hotaru was still in a hosed up body but didn't have a terminal illness of "alien egg fodder" killing her, so she could now transform into Sailor Saturn. Sailor Saturn is bad news. She's basically a universal white blood cell, and her ultimate power is "poo poo is so hosed we're hitting the reset button on this planet", wiping it to dust. But then this is just the beginning of the weirdness surrounding her. One of her attacks is probably the most inconsistent, confusingly translated thing in the entire series, and keep in mind for a decade or two people couldn't really figure out some characters' genders. She ends up being reborn in a non-hosed up baby human body after Infinity ends, with Haruka and Michiru raising her, but when the planet is in danger she starts aging up rapidly to become a living weapon again, so her age is all over the drat place. In short: Hotaru has arguably the most hosed up life of anyone in this series save Usagi. Now, back to the game. We've been waiting for you, Usagi. Hotaru, Usagi's come to see you. (moving to the side of the bed) Huh? Why is Hotaru older? Are you okay? (coughs) It only stopped hurting a while ago. I'm feeling better since you arrived. What could've happened? She just began stumbling, and then... She transformed in front of our eyes. It seemed... extremely painful. a) gently caress you, just say "Mugen Academy" b) Oh none of you decided to give the party a call when the evil organization that nearly killed y'all showed up again without warning?! Everyone's so loving bad at their jobs in this game. Hotaru, have you ever felt pain like this before? It was like when I was under the influence of the Taioron Crystal.Okay, so, this is another one of those "canon is broken" things, because clearly all the game took from the manga were rocks. This is a manga reference and it's unnecessary. Now you know. Anyway, I think we all get this, and they keep recapping the plot beats for a minute, so let's skip ahead to...  Wait a minute! This room should be marked 'no entry'. Who or what are you? ...hee hee hee. I'll end you troublesome Sailor Senshi! (She whips off her disguise.) DIE!  So this is a poorly translated "Pharmakon". In yet another of those "Wait, this series did what?!" moments, the anime had a Black Moon Droid in disguise as a nurse after they released a bioweapon on Tokyo to grow Dark Henges, which begin small enough to be in danger of a dwarf crushing them, yes. Fun fact: this is not the only case of villains using bioweapons in this franchise. At this point, I want to point out that despite beginning with more base EP, you notice Neptune and Uranus both have pissant stats compared to a level 6 Usagi. As an extra kick in the dick, this boss fight will not even give us enough XP to level them up. But there's really nothing about this fight worth mentioning: she stabs us with needles that cause no status effects, we blow her up because one party member is punching way above everyone else in the room's weight class.  a) no, you certainly didn't, you weren't hanging around during that arc b) To add insult to injury they leave the Droid's corpse on the ground through this entire cutscene. This is the second time a revived enemy has struck today... (pouting) Grr... Why are enemies we've defeated being revived?! What could this be...? If its Destiny was changed the same as mine, it might be possible. The power to change Destiny? That's stupid! Who the hell are these enemies? Cut to: these stupid enemies. Please note the absence of Ashtar, because clearly NO BOYS ALLOWED IN THE CLUBHOUSE. I am also going to transcribe this scene directly because I hope once again someone will turn this garbage translation into something saner.  We have completed the first stage of our strategy. In a few places, previously beaten enemies have been revived and attacked some people. The Destiny of the Juuban District of the 20th Century has been changed. I have put you through much... Take this as a present.(The screen flashes.) With this, you should become more powerful than the Sailor Senshi. You may step down. Thank you very much, Apsu-sama.(They leave the throne room which lacks a throne but is clearly a throne room.) Let's just take a second: boy it's really good Rei is poo poo at her job and neither Luna or Artemis was near the computer that triangulates poo poo, or they'd have been in real trouble if someone traced Sin's prank back to their location before they got actual, usable powers!   Ah, our Destinies shall certainly be changed. That's what I thought too. (heart not-yet-an-emoji) Are you people satisfied already? I'm still anxious. I'm with Marduk. Anshar.(Anshar walks on-screen with a horrible devil-beast.)  That horrible whatever the gently caress next to Anshar is a winged dog? named Kishal. It doesn't talk. A couple of you wondered why it was I poo poo on these guys despite some of them being decent villains: it's because they're such a forced mirror to the cast, right down to a Chibi-Usa and a Luna. The Sailor Senshi are still not dead. To turn Destiny into what we truly desire, we must retrieve the Ginzuishou from those who possess it. We shall only have a chance if we get the Ginzuishou. That's true. The power of the Ginzuishou is too strong to ignore. So, we have crossed over the time protected by the Ginzuishou, and arrived in this time. This is our chance, our power has become strong too. At the moment, the Sailor Senshi are separated into two different groups.okay stop for a sec again YOU ARE USING TIME TRAVEL, AND NONE OF YOU ARE LOOKING AT ANYTHING RIGHT NOW HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE HEROES ARE DOING AT THE EXACT MOMENT WE'RE ALL AT WHEN YOU'RE AT THE rear end END OF TIME IN A HAUNTED CASTLE  WHY DID SOMEONE WRITE THAT OUT. UGH. Back to present day. We have a party now.  And what you might notice is that everyone currently loving sucks. The only thing I'll really point out here is: go nuts with attacks in battle. You regain EP after every fight unless you get hit with a certain status effect.    Here's their stat spread. At this point, the game become a pain, because now...  ...there are random encounters everywhere. I feel I should stress this because god, does our current party suck. I'm also going to point something out that I'll go into more next time:  Nobody gains new attacks with level. This means that yes, some people have only one or two attacks the entire game. * Seriously, you don't even want to go down the "this name is stupid" rabbithole on the Infinity arc. The main cosmic horror goes by "Pharaoh 90" and the villains called themselves the Death Busters. claw game handjob fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Jun 16, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 11:59
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I'm starting to suspect this might not be the brilliant groundbreaking magical girl game we've all always secretly dreamed of.
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Jun 15, 2016 12:38
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Hobby... Lamps? Cosmetics? They got Haruka's big thing right at least.
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Jun 15, 2016 12:46
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FractalSandwich posted:I'm starting to suspect this might not be the brilliant groundbreaking magical girl game we've all always secretly dreamed of. I haven't played it since I was in high school but I think Magic Knight Rayearth was decent?
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Jun 15, 2016 12:57
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Depends on which one of the RPGs.
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Jun 15, 2016 13:04
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Also you mixed up Haruka's portrait in the "suddenly she aged up" exchange.
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Jun 15, 2016 13:06
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Sailor Uranus is mainly associated with the sky. Uranus was the Greek god of the sky until his rear end in a top hat son Zeus usurped him, and Haruka herself refers to her planet as guarding the sky (like Neptune guards the seas and Pluto the underworld -> see Neptune/Poseidon and Pluto/Hades in Greek mythology). The kanji of World Shaking also apparently mean something like sky-world-shaking. It's a bit unfortunate that the attack's depiction makes somebody think that Uranus has earth as her element.
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Jun 15, 2016 13:36
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I can only assume that Saturn's leveling mechanic and stat growth is not her becoming more powerful, but getting better at holding back without completely nerfing herself. Because seriously, this is the magical girl equivalent of the Death Star we're talking about here.
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Jun 15, 2016 13:54
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Torrannor posted:The kanji of World Shaking also apparently mean something like sky-world-shaking. Not having actually seen it in action, if I had free rein to give "天界震" any English name I wanted instead of Takeuchi's "World Shaking", I'd say "Heavenquake", if that's not too cheesy. FractalSandwich fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Jun 15, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 14:06
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Edvarius posted:I can only assume that Saturn's leveling mechanic and stat growth is not her becoming more powerful, but getting better at holding back without completely nerfing herself. Because seriously, this is the magical girl equivalent of the Death Star we're talking about here. Saturn is probably the single best character in the game when geared up with her specific accessories. She has only one attack but it is stupidly good.
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Jun 15, 2016 14:19
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FractalSandwich posted:Really "天界" means "the heavens", but on their own that's what they mean, yeah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw4PA9HGBtM 13 second video of the attack in the 90's anime.
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Jun 15, 2016 14:21
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Torrannor posted:Uranus was the Greek god of the sky until his rear end in a top hat son Zeus usurped him. Uranus and Zeus are the same God, Uranus is the Roman version of the name and Zeus the Greek. Kronos was Zeus'/Uranus' father, and he was an rear end in a top hat that ate all of his children save Zeus/Uranus because there was a prophecy saying that his son would kill him. Zeus/Uranus ended up killing him to free his siblings. go figure. I will not argue against Zeus/Uranus being an rear end in a top hat, because holy poo poo yes he's an rear end in a top hat. The rest of your post was correct.
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Jun 15, 2016 14:21
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Nope. Gaea was here first. She birthed Uranus, the sky. Then married him because people were weird back then. Uranus did the dirty with Gaes and created Kronos/Cronus. Uranus became a dick because in mythology everyone does, so Gaea gave Kronos a sickle to kill him with (and his blood fell in the ocean and became Aphrodite). Kronos then fathered Zeus's siblings with Rhea and ate them because he was worried one of them would overthrow him. Rhea gave him a stone disguised as a baby and sent Zeus away so he could grow up and kill Kronos. Mythology is weird, y'all. Also, I think Saturn becomes stupid good later on.
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Jun 15, 2016 14:28
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I thought Zeus was Jupiter.
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Jun 15, 2016 14:30
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I think the SMC subs go with 'bun-head' for 'odango', which always makes me think of Princess Leia.
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Jun 15, 2016 14:32
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Torrannor posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw4PA9HGBtM
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Jun 15, 2016 14:33
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:Nope. kefkafloyd posted:I thought Zeus was Jupiter. gently caress, you're both right. This is why I shouldn't post still half-asleep first thing in the morning.
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Jun 15, 2016 14:34
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kefkafloyd posted:Saturn is probably the single best character in the game when geared up with her specific accessories. She has only one attack but it is stupidly good. Against bosses I think I'd rate Mars and Uranus a bit higher for their single-target damage capability, but she's amazing at clearing out random encounters. Character balance is one of the many things this game is sorta weird about.
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Jun 15, 2016 14:40
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FractalSandwich posted:You're joking! Sailor Saturn not being earth-themed is confusing enough without Uranus having an earthquake attack that shoots out a big orange ball with rings. It's not hard to see why so many people think she earth-affiliated. If it helps, in Sailor Moon Crystal, she uses World Shaking only once, and we don't really see her perform it, only the orange ball hitting an enemy. So it's not as clearly an earth attack there, and she mainly uses her space sword anyway. But the 90's anime version looks very much like an earth attack. Edit: Thanks for the mythology correction. I somehow got it wrong, confusing Uranus and Kronos. Torrannor fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jun 15, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 14:45
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It helps that "Haruka Tenou" is a very "heaven-ish" name, but that's not at all apparent in English.
FractalSandwich fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Jun 15, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 15:01
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FractalSandwich posted:Really "天界" means "the heavens", but on their own that's what they mean, yeah. I thought exactly the same in regards to "Heaven's Quake", the problem is that in English that word has very specific religious connotations without an "s" in front. Then again, Holy Grail. So eh.
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Jun 15, 2016 15:07
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ProfessorProf posted:I think the SMC subs go with 'bun-head' for 'odango', which always makes me think of Princess Leia. This is what the new dub goes with too.
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Jun 15, 2016 15:24
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FractalSandwich posted:It helps that "Haruka Tenou" is a very "heaven-ish" name, but that's not at all apparent in English. Tsukino Usagi: Moonfield Rabbit or Rabbit of the Moon, depending on if you want to go along with the crappy pun. Mizuno Ami: durr mizu means water Hino Rei: God she has like three puns going on. Hino is fire field, my favorite f-zero track, but if you take the no as a possessive particle and flip things a little you basically get Ray of Fire. Also Rei is probably going for the 'spirit' meaning of Rei, referencing her shrine maiden stuff. Kino Makoto: i bet you didn't notice until now that all the inners have 'no' in their last names. Anyway Kino is wood or tree field. the rest isn't really a pun. funfact, her name was originally mamoru but that's a guy's name so takeuchi changed it. Aino Minako: ai = love. maybe takeuchi spent all her creativity on Rei. Tsukino Chibiusa: chibi = small Tenou Haruka: Tenoh = Sky King. the japanese name for Uranus is Tennousei, so Haruka actually gets what her planet is. Haruka is just distant. Kaiou Michiru: Kaiousei is the japanese name for Neptune. Sea King. Michiru is rising. Rising to meet the sky? hohohoohhoho. Tomoe Hotaru: hotaru means firefly. fireflies are often associated with death in japan (see hit film, Grave of the Fireflies). to = earth moe = sprouting. fireflies bury their larvae underground, so you can say that when an adult firefly flies out of the ground, it's sprouting. welcome to the grossest name pun ever. Chiba Mamoru: chiba = local, but the japanese word for earth is chikyuu. mamoru means protect. his name means Protect the Earth. gently caress off
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Jun 15, 2016 17:34
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Very interesting. What about Pluto?
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Jun 15, 2016 18:21
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So... here's my attempt to make sense of the plot as presented so far: The Antagonists are attempting to crash time inorder to change their fate/destiny (no capital letters here!). They have chosen probably the single worst point in space and time to do so - Sailor Moon's drat near at the peak of her powers and has most of her gear to kick anyone's rear end. Except they seem to want/need some of that gear to complete their goal, and are using the growing confusion about past, present and future enemies to try and get it. No clue about why they're negative prints of the core five protagonists, but that may be part of their problem that they're trying to avoid.
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Jun 15, 2016 18:40
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Torrannor posted:Very interesting. What about Pluto? meiou setsuna: japanese name for pluto is Meiousei, or dark/nether king star. meiou = dark king. setsuna just means moment, because time.
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Jun 15, 2016 18:46
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I'm not at all into Sailor Moon but I sure do like weird old games, weird old anime, and terrible translations! So I do appreciate the anime and manga explanations.Endorph posted:Honestly, everyone's names are super, super on the nose. The Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter last names are also based on the Japanese names of the planets (with the "no" attached). Venus' just uses "love" instead of "metal," as far as I can tell. It goes water, metal, (Earth goes here), fire, wood, earth, sea, heaven, hell.
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Jun 15, 2016 18:51
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Anoia posted:Also you mixed up Haruka's portrait in the "suddenly she aged up" exchange. gently caress. I knew I was going to make an error like this after calling out their editing. kefkafloyd posted:Saturn is probably the single best character in the game when geared up with her specific accessories. She has only one attack but it is stupidly good. While it's true that she's a random encounter murder machine in endgame, currently she has the HP of a baby, can't kill a single foe with her attack, and goes last in a fight. Holy poo poo she is a liability.
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Jun 15, 2016 19:59
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Well she did leave a hospital 30 seconds ago
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Jun 15, 2016 20:15
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Caphi posted:I'm not at all into Sailor Moon but I sure do like weird old games, weird old anime, and terrible translations! So I do appreciate the anime and manga explanations.
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Jun 15, 2016 20:21
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Endorph posted:Naming scheme explanation. This naming scheme caused some fan theories to run wild due to 'Melvin' the glasses kid being named 'Umino' (of the sea) in Japanese, following the naming scheme of the Sailors. I'm not sure how widespread this is but some SM fans I knew growing up would jokingly call him 'Sailor Sea'.
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Jun 15, 2016 21:26
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Endorph posted:yeah idk what minako's deal is there. since she had the sailor v prequel that might be why she doesn't quite fit the theme? since she was created separately from the rest This is probably why. The other four characters (including Usagi) were created after Toei expressed interest in making a Sailor V anime, but they would only do it with more characters. Or something like that.
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Jun 15, 2016 22:06
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"We're interested in making a Sailor V anime, Naoko. We just need more characters." *Proceeds to make Minako a noncharacter and does not introduce her until after the 30th episode*
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Jun 15, 2016 22:10
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Waffleman_ posted:"We're interested in making a Sailor V anime, Naoko. We just need more characters." Yeah, why not keep Minako as the main character? Has Naoko ever mentioned why she decided to make the protagonist Usagi instead?
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Jun 15, 2016 22:21
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:Yeah, why not keep Minako as the main character? Has Naoko ever mentioned why she decided to make the protagonist Usagi instead? Randomly introducing a ton of characters into Sailor V or making a sailor V sequel series might make some people go 'oh, I never read sailor v, ill skip that' but if she makes Sailor Moon with a new protagonist who can go through the whole magic cat rigmarole again, new people might pick it up. This'd also explain why Usagi and Minako are fairly similar personality-wise, if Takeuchi was making a new main character for marketing reasons instead of because she was getting bored with Minako. Endorph fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jun 15, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 22:32
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Naoko Takeuchi actually started Sailor Moon while she was still writing Sailor V. The characters from Sailor Moon make appearances in Sailor V with indications that they'll someday be a big part of Minako's destiny, and I think she didn't migrate to Sailor Moon until her own story was finished as such, although I don't know the actual timeline. Sailor V, in particular, was at least a background presence in Sailor Moon from the start, and was revealed to be Sailor Venus as well when she made her debut in that series. Maybe it was meant to be a surprise to readers.
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Jun 16, 2016 00:37
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There was a Sailor V video game in the anime, and Sailor V was a real person. Did Minako actually license her likeness out or is there skullduggery afoot?
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Jun 16, 2016 00:40
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She kept working on Codename: Sailor V on and off during Sailor Moon's run. It didn't end until several months after Sailor Moon did.
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Jun 16, 2016 00:42
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Endorph posted:Honestly, everyone's names are super, super on the nose. I'd actually never seen them all written down next to each other until yesterday. It's almost painful to look at.
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Jun 16, 2016 00:50
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Waffleman_ posted:There was a Sailor V video game in the anime, and Sailor V was a real person. Did Minako actually license her likeness out or is there skullduggery afoot? I've wondered the same thing. If I'm Minako, I'm wondering where all my royalty checks from those Sailor V toys and games are.
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Jun 16, 2016 01:14
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