Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon 4 (click for source)
by Gemma Williams
Introducing Sailor Jupiter as the model for this colourful cover! Shades of green and pink are used in the background to match her sailor outfit and her eyes, and the effect is beautiful. It’s subtle but stunning, eye-catching, and doesn’t set the mood for the story contained within at all!
Volume three ended with Sailor’s Mars and Mercury being kidnapped and we haven’t heard from them since. Chibi-Usa appeared and began causing trouble immediately. She was shifty despite being so young, brain washing Usagi’s family and cosying up to Mamoru. Just what is this girl up to? Volume four begins to answer these questions, and they’re somewhat satisfactory.
Introducing Sailor Jupiter as the model for this colourful cover! Shades of green and pink are used in the background to match her sailor outfit and her eyes, and the effect is beautiful. It’s subtle but stunning, eye-catching, and doesn’t set the mood for the story contained within at all!
Volume three ended with Sailor’s Mars and Mercury being kidnapped and we haven’t heard from them since. Chibi-Usa appeared and began causing trouble immediately. She was shifty despite being so young, brain washing Usagi’s family and cosying up to Mamoru. Just what is this girl up to? Volume four begins to answer these questions, and they’re somewhat satisfactory.
Click for source
Chibi-Usa has an important role in this story arch, which becomes clearer the further on you read. She shares some of the same annoying traits as Usagi, which could be why they clash so much, and Usagi is becoming jealous of the time Chibi-Usa and Mamoru spend together. This is such a ridiculous side story as Usagi is romantically jealous, despite Chibi-Usa being somewhere around five years old. Being jealous of her taking up all of his time would be understandable but this isn’t her issue. She even confronts him about it and has tantrums, feeling like she is worthless and all alone. She’s fourteen; why is she so naïve?
There are some new characters featured as the story takes a dramatic turn and starts to include time travel! One such character is a Sailor Scout we have never heard of before: Sailor Pluto. She is the Keeper of the Door that allows time travel and must guard it from use by any but the King or Queen. It’s nice to meet some new scouts, but the fact that we still haven’t had a lot of development from the main five is frustrating and needs to be addressed, especially since three of the main scouts barely made an appearance.
Chibi-Usa’s life is revealed but her mother doesn’t seem right. The reader is already acquainted with her mother to an extent and she sounds like the complete opposite of how we already know her. She’s described as being cold and distant from her daughter, and of never having embraced her little girl. Anyone who has been paying attention up to this point will know that this is not right. Whether this is just bad writing or the point of view through a child’s eyes has yet to be determined; if this is the case, then this would be worth studying and internalising to prevent us from doing the same to our children.
The artwork is more consistent and remains stunning throughout. The wardrobe designs are a welcome change and there are some truly beautiful outfits featured. It’s such a lovely change of pace to see the girls in their normal, everyday clothes outside of school and fighting evil. A person’s clothing can tell you a lot about a person and it’s a shame some of these pages aren’t in colour.
There are some new characters featured as the story takes a dramatic turn and starts to include time travel! One such character is a Sailor Scout we have never heard of before: Sailor Pluto. She is the Keeper of the Door that allows time travel and must guard it from use by any but the King or Queen. It’s nice to meet some new scouts, but the fact that we still haven’t had a lot of development from the main five is frustrating and needs to be addressed, especially since three of the main scouts barely made an appearance.
Chibi-Usa’s life is revealed but her mother doesn’t seem right. The reader is already acquainted with her mother to an extent and she sounds like the complete opposite of how we already know her. She’s described as being cold and distant from her daughter, and of never having embraced her little girl. Anyone who has been paying attention up to this point will know that this is not right. Whether this is just bad writing or the point of view through a child’s eyes has yet to be determined; if this is the case, then this would be worth studying and internalising to prevent us from doing the same to our children.
The artwork is more consistent and remains stunning throughout. The wardrobe designs are a welcome change and there are some truly beautiful outfits featured. It’s such a lovely change of pace to see the girls in their normal, everyday clothes outside of school and fighting evil. A person’s clothing can tell you a lot about a person and it’s a shame some of these pages aren’t in colour.
Chibi-Usa (click for source)
There are, however, the coloured pictures at the start of the book which usually portray some concept art and parts of the story. The use of colour is masterfully done and quite honestly, I think this type of story, a mixture of fantasy and sci-fi, would really benefit from colour throughout but that isn’t what manga does, sadly.
The story is becoming stronger, but some panels take up a large amount of space on the page when the extra paper would have been more useful had there have been a confusing, action scene, giving more room to help explain the situation. Instead, there are large panels of Usagi and Mamoru gazing longingly in to each other’s eyes. While this adds to the emotion and atmosphere between them and the reader, it doesn’t add anything to the story.
Book four has probably been the best so far but its biggest drawback would be the lack of sailor scouts throughout. It would be good if Usagi disappeared for a while, due to kidnapping or otherwise, to give the other girls a chance to grow and present themselves to the readers.
Loving Sailor Moon? Hating Usagi? Let us know what you think below?
The story is becoming stronger, but some panels take up a large amount of space on the page when the extra paper would have been more useful had there have been a confusing, action scene, giving more room to help explain the situation. Instead, there are large panels of Usagi and Mamoru gazing longingly in to each other’s eyes. While this adds to the emotion and atmosphere between them and the reader, it doesn’t add anything to the story.
Book four has probably been the best so far but its biggest drawback would be the lack of sailor scouts throughout. It would be good if Usagi disappeared for a while, due to kidnapping or otherwise, to give the other girls a chance to grow and present themselves to the readers.
Loving Sailor Moon? Hating Usagi? Let us know what you think below?
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