Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie Part 1 Review

The True Solar Eclipse Conspiracy

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie Part 1 (Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Eternal Movie 1 / 劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーンEternal) is the sequel to Sailor Moon Crystal. There are three seasons of Crystal, then two movies of Eternal, and then two more movies of Cosmos.

I’ll get through all the movies eventually. But, let’s focus on Eternal (Part 1) in this review. Eternal covers the fourth story arc, the Dead Moon Circus arc. And, as you might expect, Eternal Part 1 focuses on the first half. It sets everything up for Eternal Part 2, which I expect to be better.

Here’s the setup, a solar eclipse happens and some villains show up from another dimension. These villains are members of the Dead Moon Circus, who are trying to revive their evil queen. You know, standard Sailor Moon villainry.

Coincidentally, there are four main members of the Dead Moon Circus, whom I’ll get to later. Why is this a coincidence? Because there are four main Sailor Guardians aside from Sailor Moon. There’s Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. And, wouldn’t you know? The four main members of the Dead Moon Circus control the same “elements” as those Sailor Guardians.

Wow! It’s almost like we’re going to see each member of each group paired up against each other.

If you haven’t guessed by now, that’s exactly what happens in this movie. It’s weird to say, but this movie feels very episodic.

Sure, there’s still an overarching plot. Usagi and Chibiusa have stuff going on. But, a significant portion of this movie is dedicated to the Sailor Guardians vs. the members of Dead Moon Circus. And, each of these battles follows the same formula. We pretty much see the same thing happen four times.

Dead Moon Circus

Alright, let’s talk about Dead Moon Circus. Who are they and what are they all about? As I mentioned, their goal is to revive their queen, Nehellenia. If that sounds familiar, it’s basically the same plot as the Dark Kingdom arc from Crystal Season 1.

The main difference is that the Dark Kingdom had Queen Beryl trying to revive Queen Metalia. In this arc, we have Zirconia trying to revive Nehellenia.

Okay, so who’s Zirconia? We don’t know that much about her. But, she’s the interim leader of Dead Moon Circus while Nehellenia isn’t around. She’s an old woman who looks like an alien.

Aside from Nehellenia and Zirconia, there are four other, previously mentioned, members of the group. I don’t believe we got their names in this first movie. But, we know they call themselves the Amazoness Quartet. They’re the descendants of the legendary Amazoness warriors.

The Amazoness Quartet controls “Lemures” in battle. Lemures are like little shadow spirit things that remind me of the soot creatures from Ghibli films. These Lemures get inside the bodies of their victims and turn their dreams into nightmares. This somehow creates dark energy, which the Dead Moon Circus collects to revive their queen.

What does it mean to turn a dream into a nightmare, though? Let’s look at Ami Mizuno (Sailor Mercury) as an example. Her dream is to become a doctor, so she’s studied hard all her life.

The Lemures twisted her dedication into a bad thing. They tried to convince her that this is why she’s not very close to her parents. Rather than spending time with them, she spent all her time studying.

There are also three male(?) sub-members of Dead Moon Circus, who were transformed from animals into humans. They work under the Amazoness Quartet.

Mamoru Gets Lung Cancer

So, there are some other weird things that happen in this movie. For starters, none of the Sailor Guardians can transform after the solar eclipse. That should make things interesting, right? Well, it doesn’t because they all awaken new ways to transform.

Okay, but these new ways to transform are different and more powerful than the old ways, right? Again, no. At least, not that I could tell. They use different objects to transform now, but the transformations are the same. It doesn’t appear that they received any new abilities or got any stronger.

Next, Chibiusa gets into a romantic relationship with a horse. To be precise, it’s actually a pegasus. I’m not sure if that makes it any less strange. But, when the pegasus kisses her, it transforms into a boy. So, that’s good. At least he has a human form.

This pegasus boy is Helios and he’s one of Mamoru’s knights from the future. In case you forgot, Chibiusa is the future daughter of Usagi and Mamoru. I don’t believe Usagi and Mamoru know this, but Chibiusa does. So, Helios is Chibiusa’s future boyfriend, I guess.

Finally, Mamoru gets lung cancer. Okay, so not really. But, he kind of does. He’s coughing a lot and even coughing up blood. Then, when he goes to a doctor to get checked out, he’s told that he has a dark spot in his lungs. A spot on your lungs sounds a lot like cancer, to me. But, this doctor doesn’t seem all that concerned.

Of course, it’s not cancer. This dark spot is one of the Lemures that got inside Mamoru’s body. In this movie, this just means Mamoru is out of commission. But, I assume it will be more relevant in the second movie.

Final Thoughts

I really liked Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3. That was peak Sailor Moon, for me. Unfortunately, since that was the peak, it means Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 isn’t. In the end, I gave this movie a 6/10, which is the same I gave the first two seasons of Crystal.

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My review of Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 is available now.