I'm sure we all know by now that unfortunately Sailor Moon Crystal Seasons 1-2 were horrible, and unfortunately season 3 would be worse. However, that is not the case, and I would highly recommend people who dropped Sailor Moon Crystal to check out season III (if not, that's fine). Why? Well these are the reasons why Sailor Moon Crystal Season III, despite some hiccups, is the best season of Sailor Moon Crystal. 1) The art and animation are far superior. The characters look more like their manga counterparts with a bit of the 90's anime version mixed in. The budget definitely is higher than the first two seasons. The proportions are better and they show more emotion. The animation is much more fluid for the most part, the CGI is gone completely from the transformations. They are so well done, if there were awards for "Best Magical Girl Transformations of the Year", these would win it. There are parts where the animation isn't so good and kinda choppy, but they are few and far in between, and mostly it's still fluid. The monster designs for the Daimon are lame and stupid, especially compared to S's, too, but the monster designs look far superior than in the first two seasons. 2) The story is extremely faithful to the Infinity arc, considered the best manga arc by fans, but in some ways, actually adds deviations that make it even better than the original manga version, like Moon having a reason to dive into Pharaoh 90 in the end. The only flaws are that it still has bit of the "1:1 adaptation" to it like the first two seasons, and the story does peter out at the end, but overall, it's not a bad story, but S has the advantage of being 38 episodes with character focus episodes in it whilst Crystal Season III has only 13 with little to no character focus episodes. 3) Better characterization. All of the characters, even the Inners, have hints of personalities to them, and can easily be recognized as their manga counterparts, even the Inners are done better and are slightly more useful, Usagi is far superior and actually cares about others, and the friendship with Chibi-Usa and Hotaru is executed perfectly, Chibi-Usa is far superior here in season 3 than in season 2. The only flaws with characterization of the Inners still don't develop and don't feel like they have much importance or any realistic personalities, their focus episodes don't really add anything to them and sometimes they're still useless, and Moon still feels too perfect like she can do no wrong, the friendship between those five still feels unbelievable, but they're still believable as characters, though once again, not as good as S. Unfortunately, two of the Outers are less impressive. Sailor Uranus/Haruka, is too overplayed as if all the focus on the Outers goes to her, and Sailor Neptune/Michiru is too underplayed, just feels like she's "there", and doesn't feel like she has that much of a personality compared to her 90's counterpart, other than being Uranus' accessory, sadly this is another flaw the manga had, and it doesn't make their relationship beloved by fans believable in this version, showing unfortunately the manga's characterizations of them haven't aged well also. Also, that whole thing with the kiss was just plain wrong, and the Outers' behavior when we first see them make them look way worse than their 90's counterparts, who were wonderful characters despite their controversial tactics and cold behavior. Pluto and Saturn are used excellently though. Sadly also, most of the villains aren't too impressive, still mostly bland and such, and some are just unlikable compared to other versions, like Professor Tomoe, who instead of being the crazy, goofy, hilarious, insane mad scientist guy in S, was just a standard, typical mad scientist who unfortunately was an abusive, cold hearted monster. The only villains I really liked were Pharaoh 90 himself, Mistress 9 (who was also slightly creepy with those googly eyes of hers, and her true form was freaky), Kaorinite, and Vilyui, the latter whom they made much more intelligent than in the other two versions, I'll give props for that. Most of the themes/music are pretty good, I love all three versions of the new theme song and the first and third endings, Eternal Eternity I'd even say is a modern music masterpiece. Unfortunately, Chibi-Usa's theme song, which would more fit the Dream arc, if we get it, or the Black Moon arc, is terrible. The voice acting is good as always, and props to Junko Minagawa for a practically perfect duplicate of Uranus' original voice (and adding a wonderful touch of masculinity to "Eternal Eternity"...), never before have I heard a perfect imitation of her voice, the only other close ones would be Hisako Kanemoto as Mercury and Ai Maeda as Sailor Pluto. Kotono does a better job as Usagi, Shizuka Itoh is good as Venus, Rina Sato decent as Mars, Ami Kochimizu OK as Jupiter (Neptune and Saturn, though I forgot who voiced them were good too), but I cannot stand Misato Fukuen's take on Chibi Moon, she sounds really miscast and whenever she shouts Chibi Moon's transformation and attack name, it sounds weird and odd, she sounds more like a middle aged woman trying to imitate a 7 year old. Despite the flaws that this series has, the good points far outweigh it and gives hope that we will get more seasons, it captures a lot of the original charms that made the original manga and anime so great and beloved, Toei put a great amount of effort into this. I'm excited for the Dead Moon arc, which was the best manga arc, better than the Infinity manga arc and the original SuperS, the worst arc of the original anime. Sailor Moon Crystal Season III, which was a beacon of hope like Usagi/Sailor Moon in there, isn't as great as the original Sailor Moon S, but it is still a decent, watchable modern day Sailor Moon anime/show, and I give it a 6.5/10, count it as the true first season of Crystal, but can recommend it to those who liked Super/the manga. I'm sure Naoko would have loved this one, and I think both Infinity arc anime series will stand the test of time. I still can't recommend Crystal as a whole though, with two horrible seasons being followed by only one excellent third season. I cannot wait for the fourth season of Crystal though, and I hope it's just as great, if not better.
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